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| 2007/3/13-14 [Uncategorized] UID:45946 Activity:nil |
3/13 http://i12.tinypic.com/2pyz801.jpg Nice butt? ;-) |
| 2007/3/13-17 [Reference/History, Reference/History/WW2] UID:45947 Activity:kinda low |
3/13 A historical perspective on the '300':
http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/190493
\_ Update - The Mercury News also had a nice graphic re the
difference between the movie and reality:
\_ Update - The Mercury News had a nice graphic yesterday
re the difference between the movie and reality:
link:preview.tinyurl.com/24f6p4 (bayareanewsgroup.com) [PDF]
NOTE: I just think the differences are interesting; I
don't mean to imply that the movie/comic was bad b/c it
is not historical accurate.
Those interested in the history might want to netflix/buy
the PBS series "The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization":
http://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/htmlver/index.html
\_ Miller and fans on the comic:
http://community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/3160167.html
\- i thought it was kinda funny they bothered to get some details
like the lambda on the spartan sheilds [for Lakedaimon, which
is also what is used instad of Sparta in the famous couplet
by Symonides], as well some matters with the long spear and
the short sword, the storm that destroyed part of the fleet
[although there some chronology and location issues there],
but they put them in those creepy black briefs instead of armor.
Was that a decision to appeal to women and gaylords or what?
BTW, was the dood who loses an eye and then appears at the end
at the Battle of Plataea supposed to be Pausanias or just
some random? I also thought Leonidas' Scottish accent was
hilarious. I was hoping Sean Connery would have made a cameo...
maybe as Darius ... or as Xerxes ... they could have had a
Highlander-style Immortal showdown. The also basically turned
Ephialtes into Gollum ... he was a local, not a Spartan, and
I cannot recall any mention that he was a hunchback. I was
also disappointed with the famous well-scene.
\_ http://leonidasaddressescongress.ytmnd.com
http://thisisspartaaa.ytmnd.com
\- except in sparta, if you didnt have enough $$$,
you lost your "right" to "hold the line" in battle,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartiates#Decline_of_the_Spartiate_class
where as in the us today, hardly any reasonably welloff
people are on the battle line. well i guess exept for
their slaves they dragged into battle and used for
fodder ... oh maybe we do have something in common with
the Lakedaimonians.
\_ The movie is an adaptation of the comic book 300, not the
historical incident as recorded by Herodotus or Thucydides.
It is a very faithful adaptation of the comic, in much the
same way that Sin City was faithful. For the most part, it's
an excercise in style. Miller's a fascinating study in
both good and bad research, liberal and libertarian and
even conservative values, and the occasional good story.
Comparing 300 to the actual history is much like comparing
Hamlet to actual Danish history (with apologies to Mr.
Shakespeare re: comparing 300 to Hamlet). --erikred
\- you're making a rather obvious point. it's still an
interesting exercise to look at what is and what is
not accurate. just like it is reasonable to tell
somebody "there really is an elsinore (kronborg)
castle." also, in my opinion, there is a "yeah whatever"
type of hollywood license [like suggesting william
wallace slept with the queen of england ... something
nobody watching braveheart probably really believed],
and sort of "irresponsible revisionism" [like suggesting
the americans did the heavy lifting in breaking the
enigma cipher ... didnt u-571 suggest some such thing?].
this movie was so trivial, comments like "the spartans
championed freedom and reason against the despotic,
decadent persians, while the atheians didnt do anything
because they were busily engaged in juvenile gaylordism"
are more risble ["and we laughed and laughed"] than
offensive ... unless maybe you are an athenian or
iranian. how many people even realized that WAS
a lambda on the shield, and not just a chevron or
some other design.
\_ I'm pointing out that the lack of armor is due to there
not being armor on the characters in Miller's comic.
Ditto for elements of grotesquery. I enjoy the pointing
out of historical deviations as much as the next geek,
but I thought I'd point out that your quibbles are with
the comic the movie is based on, not some sort of
historical recreation on the part of the movie. |
| 2007/3/13 [Recreation/Dating, Academia/Berkeley/CSUA/Motd] UID:45948 Activity:nil |
3/13 MOTD poll, should I delete all my porn or not
I will abide by the opinion of the majority by the end of the day.
Yes: ...................................
\_ That was a lot of voters for so early in the morning.
\_ You throw yourself at the mercy of the motd, you take your
chances.
Here's what I am thinking of deleting
./tallgirl.rm
./Monsters of cock - Gianna the nympho.wmv
./Monsters of cock - hot russian chick and preston.wmv
./12741_giant_tits.wmv
./Best Blow Job In The World+Big Willys - Massive Cock Deepthroat Blowjob.mpg
./bignaturals.com bignaturals Big Naturals Jerri Monet Feb 2007.wmv
./Jerri Monet youtube clip #1 March 2007.flv
./Jerri Monet youtube clip #2 March 2007.flv
./Bea Flora - Ride me - full movie.mpeg
./Monsters Of Cock - Paloma.wmv
./Monsters Of Cock - Wendy.wmv
./Overdeveloped Amateurs March 2007 ODA update - tina32EE.mpg
./Overdeveloped Amateurs March 2007 ODA update - natasha34DDD.mpg
No: |
| 2007/3/13-14 [Computer/SW/OS/FreeBSD] UID:45949 Activity:nil |
3/13 OpenBSD 4.1 preorder is up:
http://www.openbsd.org/items.html#41 |
| 2007/3/13-14 [Computer/SW/Security] UID:45950 Activity:nil |
3/13 OpenSSH 4.6 is out:
http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20070308183425
Portable Version:
ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/OpenSSH/portable/openssh-4.6p1.tar.gz
OpenBSD Version:
ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/OpenSSH/openssh-4.6.tar.gz |
| 2007/3/13-14 [Computer/SW/SpamAssassin] UID:45951 Activity:nil |
3/13 Anyways to improve our current spam assassin? |
| 2007/3/13-17 [Industry/Jobs] UID:45952 Activity:low |
3/13 Slide is hiring! See: http://www.slide.com/static/jobs for details. We have smart people. We have plans for total world domination including orbital lasers and robot monkey armies. We have interesting problems. Email me if interested. -dans \_ Are the orbital lasers mounted on sharks? \_ No, the sharks kept exploding in a vacuum, and they kept eviscerating the handlers when we tried to put them into spacesuits so we had to scrub that plan. -dans \_ I'll suit up yer sharks.. fer a million bucks \_ We're pretty flush, but, given that this isn't key to our world domination plans, this would be a poor use of a million bucks. That said, we do pay well for developers. -dans \_ There's no way this is going to work until you solve the exploding shark problem. Sorry. I think you guys can do it though. \_ A valid point, but don't hold your breath. It's just not that high on our priority list. -dans \_ Your interest in sharks actually reveals something about your personality. Since you are afraid of being outed by my diagnosis, I wont elaborate. Are you planning to provide the JPG of your hand? -Soda's Board Certified Shrink \_ No sharks? Doooooooomed! Everyone just *knows* you can't have lasers without sharks. \_ Hey who wiped out the discussion of world domination plans and flaming? -dans |
| 2007/3/13-17 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:45953 Activity:moderate |
3/13 Victor Hanson loves '300', unsurprisingly:
http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson101106.html
I still don't think the Spartans were that 'free',
perhaps driven, disciplined, manly, into men,
very manly manly manly, but 'free'? nah.
\_ I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and still agree with you. It was a
Spartan tale told by a Spartan to Spartans.
\_ Yeah I find the movie fun on a gruesome, fun, manly
men doing manly things level. People who read deep
political themes into the movie make me sad.
\_ Gayest. Movie. Ever.
\- on a contemporary note, worth reading the "putatively
about the Persians, but not really" play "The Persians"
[n.b. the wikipedia article about this play is not good].
but once again, for a really amazing work of politcs and
history, with great bearing on contemporary events, rush
forward to events 150yrs laterm and read Thucydides "great
work for all time", History of the Peloponnesian War.
The story of the "fall of Athens" is interesting ... how
do the "enlightened" athenians alienate their neighbors and
allies when their enemies are led by a bunch of freakish,
fascist. Hmm, it's almost like "what does the US have to
for there to be any competition in a paropaganda war
with a bunch of crazies who behead people on tv".
\_ It's more complicated than that and pre-dates the Bush
admin by a few decades or more. If you'd like to discuss
we can start a new thread starting with European colonial
activity in the Middle East and India/Pakistan/Afghanistan
over the last few hundred years, the decline of European
powers as world powers post WWII/during the Cold War, the
West's greatly increasing need for energy out-pacing supply
growth and the recategorization of terrorists as freedom
fighters in various places over time. Then again,
nevermind, even the cliff notes of the cliff notes are too
long for the motd.
\- your comments dont make any sense as a response or
reaction to mine. or really on their own. i was making
\_ I was responding to your last sentence or two.
a specific narrow point: athens, the enlightened side
in the "judgement of history", were in some sense the
bad guys because of the "arrogance of power" ...
[do you know what happened "after" the pel war?]
john dryden wrote:
"When the chosen people grew too strong
"The rightful cause at length became the wrong.
At least in the case of the trojan war, there were
good an bad guys on both sides. while in the case
of the pel war, the leaders of the other side,
the spartans, was kind of a freakish society.
today, none of these people who say thinks like
"the us is the greatest threat to world peace"
actually are pro-north korea or the the islamic
fundamentalists, but the they are more likely to
be affected by us actions ... not belgian style
harsh colonialism, but control of the free trade
agenda, framing the debate on many other issue etc.
and dramatic events like abu graib have accelerated
\_ I don't think abu graib was dramatic. I think it
was overly hyped to be much more dramatic than it
was and was used as a proxy for the secret prisons
the more hard core sorts are taken to but no one has
real information about but which may (or may not)
have 'dramatic events' taking place inside.
this and have eroded some of the good will from
us work in the green revolution, medical science
etc. yes, the selective choice of labels such as
who is a freedom fighter and a terrorist, who are
friendly and unaccetable dictators, who can have nukes
etc is an example of this agenda control.
\_ That sort of agenda control goes both ways. If you
look at the EU press and what a number of their
politicos are saying you'd think Hamas was an
oppressed movement of farmers having their figs
stolen in the night while Hezbollah were a bunch of
pacifist nuns doing the good works of The Peoples,
while the US and allies are world wide villains
and the worst sort of evil imaginable. It's naively
laughable stuff but plenty believe it. This change
in perception is relatively new dating back to only
the early 90s. Prior to that groups like the PLO
were always described as terrorist organizations.
The PLO hasn't changed. Only the names. Overall,
though, I agree with what you're saying. There's
just so much more to it and really the motd isn't
a great place for a discussion that would do the
topic justice.
\- BTW, by agenda control i dont mean (just)
how you spin things [the freedom fighter vs
terroist issue]. i mean literally agenda
control at meetings for say the doha trade
round ... "the most important trade problem
today is software and dvd piracy and the pro-
death forces who want to remove longer terms
for medical patents and micky mouse copyright".
\_ Ah, I see. I'll buy that. No one likes when
someone bigger pushes their agenda. And that's
\- not to mention double standards.
\_ That's the whole point of being bigger.
When you are that much more powerful,
the negotiations are not among equals
but more about how much the little guy
is _allowed_ to have. It is the nature
of power, especially in international
affairs. No one likes being the little
guy and doubly so if they were once the
big time colonial power who owned and
stripped a large chunk of the planet at
the tip of a sword or rifle barrel.
\- yes, i have read the melian dialog
too. and i also know what happened
to athens in the coming decades.
some of the countries being dealt
with high-handedly are not "little
guys", e.g. china. they us
expendiently switches between "we're
right because we are good" and "might
makes right". so start getting ready
for more "fuck yous" from the
international community. it will
be interesting to see how the us
deals with negotiations about cost
bearing on global warming, how they
react to things like china setting
up bilateral deal rather than the
"unversalist" approach of GATT/WTO
etc.
\_ I wasn't really going for the
melian dialogs but they did have
a point. As far as the non-little
guys go, if they get big enough,
such as the USSR during the cold
war, you just get bi-lateral talks
among equals, as expected. If they
are small, then the US is back to
melian style dialog, as expected.
There's no such thing as a unified
international community. There are
nations that have shared goals, but
no further than that. It is always
possible to pick off member states
of a larger coalition, setting up
favorable side deals, etc. I see
no problem. At worst, as I said,
you deal with other large entities
with the respect they've earned as
equals or nearly so. What is so
horrible about that? Are you
predicting some sort of Great Down
Fall of the Evil US when we have to
deal with others as equals? US
power is relatively new to the
planet. Pre-WW2 the US was a joke
on the world stage. We didn't have
a military of any note, any serious
industrial capacity, or much of
anything else going on. What we
did have was a whole lot of
potential which was seen in WW2 to
today.
The Mickey Mouse Copyright Act to you, pal!
We're now at what? 75 years after the death
of the author? 100? How long ago did Walt
die?
\_ Geez, he died in 12/1966: 40 years.
\_ "The Persians bring with them exotic beasts like a rhinoceros and
elephant, and the leader of the Immortals fights Leonidas in a
duel (which the Greeks knew as monomachia)."
No, he doesn't. Was Hanson actually paying attention?
\- in a bit of a coincidence, professor delong has blurb on
the peloponnesian war (where the melian dialog comes from):
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/03/history_as_trag.html
the parts quoting thucydides are worth readings [remind
you of anything? ... bushco, darth cheney, john kerry],
the stuff on kagan is probably not so interesting if you
are not familar with him or his 4vol "standard" work on
the pel war, it's leadup and aftermath.
kagan is kinda crazy .. he's an ultra rightwinger at yale
and was considered sort of a hazard and loose canon ...
who had to be removed form various committees etc.
harvard:harvey mansfield::yale:donald kagan.
if you are interested in international politics, thucydides
is well-worth reading. inspite of being 2400 yrs old ... before
nukes, before even nation states, before global reach of
nations ... but still many deep lessons about might and right,
bandwagoning vs balancing [if you are a minor power, do you
ally with #1 or #2], alliance management, preventative war,
relative vs absolute gains, balance of threat theory, the
importance of individuals vs "historical forces", fog of war,
hawks and doves and domestic politics, ideology and the enemy
law in war ... and the writing is amazing [thuycidides is
supposed ot be one of the absolute hardest to read in the
original tho ... very difficult greek ... it's even "greek"
to a lot of people who know some greek.] it's also an amazing
story at just a plot level ... the tide keeps turning as things
go wrong, leaders die at the wrong time etc.
\_ new post about kagan:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/03/your_onestopsho.html |
| 2007/3/13-17 [Recreation/Travel/LasVegas] UID:45954 Activity:nil |
3/13 Blowing up things in Las Vegas:
http://www.leavinglv.net/stardust.html |
| 2007/3/13-15 [Science/Disaster, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:45955 Activity:low |
3/13 "I don't want to pick on Al Gore," Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus
professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of
experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America.
"But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing,
and we have to temper that with real data."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13gore.html
\_ Did Easterbrook actually point to Gore's use of info on hurricanes
as an "'imperfection' and 'technical flaw'"? Saying "this year
didn't meet the predictions" doesn't disprove Gore's claims in the
movie, nor the fundamental basis for the predictions.
\_ the hurricane criticism was weak. gore said that hurricanes
would become more powerful as ocean water got warmer -- he made
no statement as to the frequency.
\_ This guy needs his tenure and funding pulled and a few death threats
to set him straight. Then he'll "get it".
\_ actually, he just needs to publish convincing evidence that there
is no global warming. if the evidence were irrefutable, he'd win
a nobel prize. as it is, we have 90% certainty that humans are
causing an increase in global temperatures.
\_ He's a Denier! Why are you defending him? Are you a Denier,
too?
\_ "If you rake him over the coals, you're going to find people who
disagree. But in terms of the big picture, he got it right." |
| 2007/3/13-16 [Uncategorized] UID:45956 Activity:nil |
3/13 Hi is there chat, with webcam support, that works in Windows
and Linux?
\_ Isn't Yahoo Messenger capable of this?
\_ And Skype too. |
| 2007/3/13-17 [Reference/RealEstate] UID:45957 Activity:nil |
3/13 Looks like foreclosures are slowing. Is the housing slump coming to a
soft landing?
http://milwaukee.bizjournals.com/nashville/stories/2007/03/05/daily12.html
\_ don't worry, default notices will convert into foreclosures
\_ if so, why is there so much distress in the subprime lenders
market? |
| 2007/3/13-16 [Health/Disease/General, Health/Women] UID:45958 Activity:nil |
3/13 Want to get your woman on the pill? Show her CNN's link:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/03/13/healthmag.pill/index.html
\_ About #2: Low-dose pills are actually better than high-dose pills
in preventing ovarian cancer:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070309/hl_nm/ovarian_cancer_dc
About #9: My wife's dentist told her that antibiotics also
decreases the effectiveness of the pill. |
| 2007/3/13-17 [Computer/SW/OS/Linux] UID:45959 Activity:nil |
3/13 Anyone want to move to Seattle and take a job as a Linux System
Administrator? Take a look at http://marchex.com, then email tsang@soda
for more details. We need exactly those skills that were so
roundly labeled as "irrelevant" while soda was down... and they've
become harder to find, apparently. -- tsang
\_ for company claiming to be a 'search' company, having 0 results
come up from a simple keyword search for Linux under the careers
section doesn't bode well.
\_ Careers -> Current Open Positions -> Job Title = Linux Systems
Administrator... then email me! (I'll try to find out why
the search doesn't work.) --tsang |
| 2007/3/13-17 [Computer/Companies/Yahoo] UID:45960 Activity:nil |
3/13 Nikkei 225 down faster than Yahoo! chart can draw
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=%5EN225&t=1d&l=on&z=m&q=l&c= |
| 2007/3/13-15 [Reference/Law/Court, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:45961 Activity:nil |
3/13 More on the BUSHCO US attorney fiasco:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/b76k6 (boston.com) |
| 7/11 |