Apple are assholes, not cowards. They probably didn't approve the movie because something is the wrong color, or because it competes with their own movie, or because it has product-placement ads but Sony hasn't yet agreed to give Apple 30% of the ad revenue.

I think the first quote is attributed to Jeremy Clarkson (of Top Gear) but otherwise is an acceptable opinion on the subject.

"Conservatives are hesitant to change things, so they don't screw things up."

I think that "conservatives" have a huge gap between what they say they want and what they actually achieve.

Were corporations historically people? Did conservatives change that. Yup.

Was america historically a torture state? Did conservatives change that? Yup.

Was america founded on religious principles, being one nation under god? Or did conservatives change that? Yup.

Was hemp and marijuana historically demonized? Did conservatives change that because they feared the blacks and mexicans? Yup.

I can obviously find hundreds of more examples of conservatives changing things for the worse. Saying that conservatives want things to stay the same does not equate with the rise of corporatism in the us in the last 40 years. Nor does it equate with the greed is good and inequality is great mentality which predominates conservative thought.

You might just have to realize that "conservatives" are far from the historical definition of conservatives "resistance to change" and other attributes. Oh how I wish it were so. America wouldn't have killed hundreds of thousands in iraq, corporations wouldn't be people, wealth inequality would go back to 1950s levels, and do nothing bankers would be vilified as the enemies of real working people.

In short, there is absolutely nothing conservative about today's so called american conservatives. It's a fiction, a more friendly name on the pro corporate anti public interest party. I would name it the fascist party, matching it up to a proper historical definition. If anyone was allowed to use that term anymore.

Jackie Chan is so many forms of awesome that it's not funny. (Well, no, actually.. he's funny too.) And you have provided Yet Another in the long list of ways he is awesome: as an example for why video fidelity is a good thing rather than a bad thing. (Which you'd think would be obvious, but some people don't get it. Until you mention Jackie Chan.)

Thunderbolt is more like USB to the user - it's a thing you use to connect untrusted devices to your system.

No. USB is not safe either. Don't plug untrusted devices into your system's I/O ports, period.

USB, Firewire, eSATA, SAS, and Thunderbolt do not have a security model.

Thunderbolt just happens to have more capabilities since there is direct access to the PCI bus, and this is also where the greater performance comes in.

With greater capabilities and access comes greater possibilities of abuse from untrusted components. Including the possibility of malicious option ROMs and malicious access to other hardware devices attached to the bus.

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it does....

It's actually a tragedy and missed opportunity, that Jackson has so little talent as a director, and so little discipline in telling a story.

I was appalled by how little he regarded the audience - and proportionally insulted his actors - in "Desolation". Huge musical cues 'instructing' the audience of the drama or character development that was supposed to be on screen, at all times. This seems to be because he cannot elicit real performances from his actors.

I might muse that this is because to Jackson, they are not actors - but merely the armatures on which he templates his green-screen composited glory... But to assume that this is the root of his deficiency, rather than another symptom of of his artlessness, would be to succumb to curmudgeonly urges.

The lesson to be taken away is that Jackson should be designing games, not ruining popular cinema.

It appears that - despite the contempt it provoked in my teenaged self - Rankin and Bass actually produced the best ever adaptation of Tolkien, with the greatest respect and truth towards the source text in feel and substance. Perhaps, when we have destroyed the concept of copyright as a tool of corporate greed, another - more thoughtful - filmmaker might use this as a point of departure for a loving and well-crafted "Hobbit".

There is a difference though, the 24fps frames makes up for the low frame rate with motion blur. If the new digital HFR doesn't have that it will always feel like you're watching a baseball game instead of a swordfight.

Wait, am I watching the sword fight live, or recorded on obsolete media? And does the same go for the baseball game?

You inadvertently put your finger on the truth: that a sword fight should look like a baseball game.

Incorrect. Threatening companies into doing immoral things is immoral, unjust, and undemocratic.

What's immoral about offering your users more choice?

If I can't access content without making a choice, then as far as I'm concerned, it's default on.

So that means any setup screen is censorship.

It's not about Hollywood! It's about freedom of speech.

It's a very important principle, especially in the US that speech is protected. Not just by the first amendment, but as one of the fundamental principles on which your country is based.

You do not silence yourself because the government tells you, or because a criminal tells you and certainly not because some foreign unelected dictatorship tells you. If that happens then you should not just speak, but shout!

Yes, torture is a problem. Would we know about it if people didn't tell us about it?

Do you actually care about the human rights violations in North Korea? You seem to. Raise awareness! Tell the world! You can, because your freedom of speech is protected. If North Korea threatens you people will fight and some will even die to protect your right to speak out against it.

Maybe not to companies looking to secure their bottom line, but it is a big deal when the government can just make threats as it pleases to subvert the democratic process and get companies to do whatever they want them to.

They were being threatened with the democratic process! The free press was promoting the idea. The Prime Minister suggested that the democratically elected government might legislate if they didn't roll over.

A default on filter is simply intolerable.

It's not default on! It's active choice! That's what the article is about. People are seeing the screen that asks if they want to enable the filters. They can literally do nothing else without making a choice.

It's easily worthwhile. You don't need to go after everyone. Even if something is indeed popular, that doesn't mean it isn't a social taboo.

If over 90% of the population do something it's not a social taboo!

If you don't see a point in having 7 children, don't have 7 children.

That is not authoritative on the subject. If you were an aircraft engineer designing cabin fuselage for Boeing, that would be different.

While in pilot training I'm sure you learned a lot of things about air pressure and air flow over the wings, I seriously doubt you are an expert on the exact changes involved for bullet holes in the fuselage. Flight school won't have you spending time memorizing the material properties of the compounds used in the fuselage, won't have you studying the formulas for airflow through tiny holes and the stresses it places on them. Flight school certainly won't have you analyzing assorted styles of bullet-hole punctures to see how it affects metal fatigue and stress.

And as for maintaining pressurization, as a pilot you should already know that ECS compressors are running all the time. Some of the air exits through an outflow valve, but quite a lot is constantly escaping through small leaks all over the fuselage. While the design attempts to build an air-tight fuselage, in practice there are many small holes and air escaping everywhere. Yet the aircraft doesn't explosively decompress from those small holes. "Miraculously" everything from a small Cesna to a jumbo jet remain intact despite the pressure differences and small leaks around the craft.

We're not talking about cleanfeed. We're talking about the ISP's parental filters.

You want to talk about cleanfeed? I agree with you. It's terrible.

You are presented with a screen asking you whether you want to enable filters or not. You have no choice but to see this screen. To opt out you click "no thanks". To opt-in, you click "yes please". If you can't work out what the two options do then I suspect that using a computer is beyond your abilities.