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Topics - Skar

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Everything Else / Fairness Doctrine
« on: February 19, 2009, 12:30:07 AM »
Fairness Doctrine

I was afraid that President Obama would cave to the other Dems on this issue, but apparently he's standing firm.  Good for him.  What really blows me away is that it gets debated at all.

What part of "Use the government to dictate what the people and the press can and cannot say." sounds like a good idea to these people?

Is there a reasonable argument for the fairness doctrine that I'm missing?

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Books / Rowling Sues over "Harry Potter Lexicon"
« on: April 29, 2008, 02:56:53 AM »
Orson Scott Card had this to say:
Quote
Rowling, Lexicon, and Oz

Can you believe that J.K. Rowling is suing a small publisher because she claims their 10,000-copy edition of Harry Potter Lexicon, a book about Rowling's hugely successful novel series, is just a "rearrangement" of her own material.

Rowling "feels like her words were stolen," said lawyer Dan Shallman.

Well, heck, I feel like the plot of my novel Ender's Game was stolen by J.K. Rowling.

A young kid growing up in an oppressive family situation suddenly learns that he is one of a special class of children with special abilities, who are to be educated in a remote training facility where student life is dominated by an intense game played by teams flying in midair, at which this kid turns out to be exceptionally talented and a natural leader. He trains other kids in unauthorized extra sessions, which enrages his enemies, who attack him with the intention of killing him; but he is protected by his loyal, brilliant friends and gains strength from the love of some of his family members. He is given special guidance by an older man of legendary accomplishments who previously kept the enemy at bay. He goes on to become the crucial figure in a struggle against an unseen enemy who threatens the whole world. ...

Thoughts?

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Books / Dragon Magazine, newbies beware?
« on: November 28, 2007, 04:55:23 PM »
Scalzi has on his blog today a screed against Dragon Magazine's new short fiction contract.

http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=159

Apparently they pay on the low end per word and buy ALL rights to a given work, not just First North American Serial.  Since I know there are many aspiring writers who frequent this forum, I figured it was worth pointing out, both that Dragon is accepting fiction submissions again and that there might be some things to beware of if you submit there.

Also, of course, I was hoping that Stacer would comment since she works over there and may have some insight on the matter.

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Books / So, apparently Dumbledore is gay.
« on: October 24, 2007, 11:18:09 PM »
Who knew?

Discuss...

I found out about this a few days ago and haven't figured out how to respond yet.  Why be an activist now?  Make him gay in the books if you really want to make a statement.  Doing it after the fact seems kind of lame and weak. 

Like, "I really wanted the money so I couldn't put him in the books, but now I really want the activist props, so I'm going to 'reveal' it."

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Books / College prep comic books
« on: September 21, 2007, 10:18:42 PM »
First off, how is it that we have SE as a root-level member here but there is no section devoted entirely to comic books?  No matter.

I ran across this and thought that people here would get a kick out of it, and since it does have something to do with comic books, and SE is a root-level member here, that I would post it.  Fun, no?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reed/reed130.html

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Movies and TV / Live Free or Die Hard
« on: June 28, 2007, 12:08:13 AM »

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Video Games / Age of Conan: Hyborean Adventures
« on: February 28, 2007, 07:40:46 PM »
http://www.ageofconan.com/conan/en/index.html

I was flabbergasted to see this.  It's so cool I'm speechless.  WoW made me want to play a MMORPG a great deal.  Given this Age of Conan game that desire has trebled well beyond my ability to resist it.

Anyone know anything more about this game?

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Books / Diamond Age Mini-Series
« on: January 17, 2007, 05:59:17 PM »
So, It looks like Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age: Or a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" will be produced and adapted for the small screen.  The Neal himself will be doing the writing for the TV apparently.  A good sign.

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=0&id=39447

Being a rabid Neal Stephenson fan I'm too excited for words.  I can only hope that since he will be adapting it himself it won't go the way of that horrific "Dune" Mini-series.    http://www.timewastersguide.com/view.php?id=40

I am worried that the blurb says "creativity" was being stifled in the story.  In the book it was "subversiveness" or "independent thought" that was being stifled.  Very different from creativity.

Hopefully it won't turn into a thinly veiled McCarthy diatribe. 

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Books / Graphic Novels for kids
« on: December 11, 2006, 04:54:26 PM »
So, here's my problem.  My 7 year old can read.  He just doesn't like to yet.  My collection of reading materials has a big gap in it I am now discovering.  That gap is the one between text only books and collections of comic strips.

I need suggestions for graphic novels that my 7 year old might enjoy (He loves and understands Lord of the Rings, just can't make it past the all text pages quite yet.)  and that won't offend his, or my, sensibilities.  As a marker, I think Frank Miller's "Batman the Dark Knight Returns" is just a tad on the dark side for his age.

After a shallow search it looks like "Bone" might be a good one, but I'm not sure.  Suggestions?

(Saint, I'm looking at you.)

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Movies and TV / The Prestige
« on: October 23, 2006, 02:56:06 PM »

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Books / Black Powder War
« on: October 19, 2006, 12:24:20 PM »

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Everything Else / NASA blows it again
« on: August 10, 2006, 07:28:02 PM »
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/one-giant-blunder-for-mankind-how-nasa-lost-moon-pictures/2006/08/04/1154198328978.html

This news article describes the latest foulup at NASA.  Apparently they've lost the original and only high-quality recordings of the moon landings.

Of course, this is probably because they were faked.  It's a cover up.  No one ever really set foot on the moon.  It all happened in a basement somewhere.  Right?  

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Rants and Stuff / German Marketing
« on: July 12, 2006, 12:20:30 PM »
So, I'm in marketing and my company is international, so we have to make changes to the campaign pieces every time we ship them overseas, usually just translation.  

Every time, and I mean every time, we send pieces with black people in them to Germany and Australia their marketing departments complain and insist on swapping them out for white people.  It never fails.

I'm the first guy to be FOR tolerance and AGAINST affirmative action and racial quotas, But they're really starting to piss me off!

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Movies and TV / United 93
« on: May 02, 2006, 02:28:29 PM »
Read it here: United 93

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