Minh’s Notes

That title must’ve gotten your attention, for its sheer length. I’m not much of a moviegoer (alright, call me deprived), but I must say, this film was good and worth it.

In fact, it was so good that it got some songs stuck in my head. That’s a distinction reserved for only a few of the many, many movies released in my lifetime, such as Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Forrest Gump, and El Norte – yes, the one from Morality & Justice class; don’t ask me how.

Well, time to dust off Episode 4, as Peter mentioned.

If anyone has managed to keep their copy of Adobe Atmosphere (I applaud you), now’s the time to revisit Star Wars 3D, the result of months of hard work by the Atmosphere community. It’s a collection of oodles of realistic worlds and avatars themed to Star Wars and set in a movie theater. (You might want to get a high-speed connection first, though, because it’s real graphics-intensive.)

Entry №643, posted by Minh Nguyễn at 11:58 PM | Edit | Permalink
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Congress recently passed the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act. Its main selling point is that it allows those movie censoring services, like ClearPlay, to continue. “But there’s more!” as those annoying car salesmen always tell you.

It also deals with the shocking crime of recording movies in the movie theater, for the purpose of selling it or putting on a P2P network. Now, I’m not going to try and defend that practice, because I don’t have that big of a soapbox.

With the bill, the sentence for comitting such a crime will be three years for the first offense. The sentence for a second offense varies from source to source – six to ten years – but I don’t feel like reading the entire text of the bill to find out what it really is.

Here’s what The Register, a reputable British news source, has to say:

The bill also calls for three years in cases where a person is caught recording a movie in a theater with a camcorder – and six years for a second offence. It also indemnifies theater operators against all criminal and civil liabilities arising from detaining suspects “in a reasonable manner.” (Welcome to movie jail.)

Since involuntary manslaughter brings, on average, anywhere from 0 to 36 months’ incarceration, one might well question the morality of going harder on those who trade files than on those who negligently cut short the lives of fellow citizens. But the 109^th Congress is about nothing if not morality, and it understands well the essential sacredness of the nation’s ruling cartels.

(Read the rest of the Register article.)

Yes, jail – or as the British apparently spell it, gaol – is a deterrent. But, um, if anything, the new sentence requirements will make the bootleggers more secretive. I’m sure they already use hidden cameras instead of the bulky camcorders that this bill targets, and the technology is getting better, so hidden cameras could produce higher-quality footage. What next? Are they going to start regulating the sale of vinyl records?

In other words, it’ll just deter them from getting caught.

Thanks to Neil Turner for the tip.

Entry №624, posted by Minh Nguyễn at 5:57 PM | Edit | Permalink
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As you may know, The Hobbit might not be coming out as a sequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy anytime soon. That’s because of issues with who owns the rights to The Hobbit.

You can help change that. Visit Let the Hobbit Happen to find out how to help convince the rights holders to allow the Lord of the Rings’ director to film the prequel.

The website suggests snail-mailing a postcard to personalize the effort and make it more convincing, but it also links to an official online petition form that you can use, if you don’t feel like spending some change.

Thanks to James “kovu” Russel for the link.

Entry №72, posted by Minh Nguyễn at 4:36 PM | Edit | Permalink
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