Category: Life

Asian films get little coverage here in North America. I find it odd, because most of these films, esp. those produced by Korea as well as Hong Kong, and to a lesser extent Japan, release movies that rival Hollywood in every sense of the meaning.

I can only attribute it to North American ignorance – we, who turn a blind eye to anything outside our borders. The special effects and cinematography found in these titles, easily rival anything of Hollywood. One only has to look at titles like Tae Guk Gi [Korea] and Hero [China].

However, special effects alone do not make a movie. Plot is equally important. This is something that I feel Hollywood has failed to notice; and the reason for the demise of film in this country. It is also something that I believe Asian films excel in. The psychological thriller that I watched the other day; Antarctic Journey comes to mind, as does Oldboy.

Here in Canada, we’ve produced quite a few movies. But whereas Asian films have effects and plot; we rely solely on plot and do not have the budget for effects. We also seem to stick to movies that carry the loaded plot rivaling that of a hefty novel; oft negating light humour or immature titles (read: catering to teens). The result are some great movies [ie. Atanarjuat], but some which could have been greater with the aid of thematic diversity and/or financial support.

When will we see movies like “My Wife is a Gangster”, or the teen “Attack the Gas Station”, or “Initial D” [the Chinese live-action movie based on the anime/manga], or the awesome “Stereo Future” be produced here in Canada? Or France? Or the UK?

I’d argue that the best films today are not made in the USA; but in Korea. Japan has some excellent titles (Takeshi Kitano titles come to mind), as does Hong Kong/China (though I find there’s been a steady decline in quality productions in the last decade). But Korea seems to be dishing it out. Bollywood (India) is another big film producer, but it doesn’t seem to cater to Western tastes which is why I’ve excluded its presence.

I wonder how long this quality market will remain unknown to the rest of the world. Some Chinese hits have made it accross into the mainstream here (Kung Fu Hustle, Hero, Croutching Tiger Hidden Dragon); but I’ve yet to see any Korean ones make it through.

So me being myself, I decided to buy the entire Cowboy Bebop series. If you go through BestBuy or some other North American retailer, the set will cost you around $220. Prohibitively expensive; the kind of inexcusable price that promotes piracy. However, you can get the Japanese set for $36 at Japananimation.com. Comes with Japanese/English dubs and subs. That’s where I bought it.

Anywho, on the DVD itself, there was this pleasant note at the bottom:

It says: “All rights reserved. Unauthorized Copying, reproduction, hiring, lending, pblic performance and broadcasting prohibited.” [The typo on the word “public” is their own]

In other words, its illegal for me to lend this DVD, a DVD that I own and bought, to a friend. Fookin ridiculous. I’m glad the person in charge of writing that text doesn’t work for a publishing house – I sure wouldn’t want to be arrested because I lent a book to my sister. Or my mom.

I take it, by both the typo and the anal repetition of the affair [copying = reproduction, public performance = broadcasting], that this was made-up by some bloke on the spot. That said – how upsetting.

UPDATE: Oooohhh it gets better! Check this gem out! This is the back cover of the DVD product.

So – viewing this product in coaches, hotels, hospitals, oil rigs or schools is grounds for “civil action” and “criminal prosecution”. I’m also not allowed to exchange this DVD for another. Or edit it for fun on my computer. Again – book analogy. I’m not allowed to write in this book (edit); or exchange it with a friend for another. The fact that they go out of their way to prohibit its use in oil rigs and hospitals just seems heartless; though it seems odd that they went out of their way to make mention of it.

Were there too many people “illegally watching” this legal product on oil rigs? Wonder what kind of punishment one should get for airing this in a hospital room. Of course a hospital/school/institution/etc. wide broadcast is immoral; but such an activity is already prohibited under the fact that the DVD prohibits public viewing/broadcasting. They mean to block the personal viewing inside a room. Its like saying “oh we’re sorry, but you’re not allowed to read this book outloud in a hospital room.”

Media content industries sure get alot of leeway with copyright laws.

I’m Canadian. How can I not care about this issue that has reigned the news over here for the last few years; and has been the cause of much tension between Canada and the US.

Canada claims victory in softwood lumber dispute with U.S.

By BETH DUFF-BROWN
Associated Press

TORONTO — Canada claimed victory in the softwood lumber dispute with the United States following a key NAFTA panel ruling on Wednesday, and is demanding quick repayment of billions of dollars in penalties collected by Washington.

The United States responded that it intended to keep imposing the tariffs and resume negotiations with Canada, basically disregarding the ruling Wednesday by an extraordinary challenge panel under the North American Free Trade Agreement. The panel dismissed U.S. claims that an earlier NAFTA ruling in favor of Canada violated trade rules.

The Bush administration imposed the tariffs in 2002 after accusing Canada of subsidizing its lumber industry. Most U.S. timber is harvested from private land at market prices, while in Canada, the government owns 90 percent of timberlands and charges fees for logging. The fee is based on the cost of maintaining and restoring the forest.

Since then, it has lost some $4.1 billion (U.S.) in punitive tariffs.

Canadian trade officials believe the win could be the final blow to the U.S. timber industry’s claims that Canadian producers are unfairly subsidized. But they acknowledge the battle may not be over because the Americans still have some options outside NAFTA, including a formal constitutional challenge or action under WTO regulations.

A statement from the office of the U.S. Trade Representative said Washington was disappointment with the ruling, but said it intends to keep in place its punitive tariffs on imports of Canadian softwood lumber.

“It will have no impact on the antidumping and countervailing duty orders,” spokeswoman Neena Moorjani said in a statement.

The U.S. Commerce Department in December cut tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber from an average of 27.2 percent to 21.2 percent, in an effort to appease Ottawa.

“We continue to have concerns about Canadian pricing and forestry practices,” Moorjani said. “We believe that a negotiated solution is in the best interests of both the United States and Canada, and that litigation will not resolve the dispute.”

Both countries said they intended to resume negotiations over the long-standing dispute by the end of August.

But Canadian Trade Minister Jim Peterson was claiming a major victory and said Canada believes the ruling would hasten a negotiated end to the dispute that began more than four years ago.

“We are extremely pleased that the (panel) dismissed the claims of the United States,” Peterson said in a statement. “This is a binding decision that clearly eliminates the basis for U.S.-imposed duties on Canadian softwood lumber.

“We fully expect the United States to abide by this ruling, stop collecting duties and refund the duties collected over the past three years.”

JMcArdle.com Server Stats:
Successful server requests 1,013,288 Requests
Successful requests in last 7 days 20,332 Requests
Successful requests for pages 48,946 Requests
Successful requests for pages in last 7 days 12,249 Requests
….
Distinct hosts served 16,875 Hosts

So I passed the 1,000,000 mark for server requests. That means that stuff, such as my sig images, were requested from this server a total of 1,000,000 times since February 2005. Of those, however, only 50,000 have consisted of pages being visited.

Now if only this site would actually be worth visiting :p

Update: Should be noted that “pages visited” also counts the times that people have loaded my PHP image sigs; and therefore does not give an accurate representation of actual visits to this site.

Students Charged as Felony Hackers

In other educational news – 13 high school students in the PowerPage’s home state of Pennsylvania (the Kutztown 13 as they’re known) were charged with third-degree felonies for misusing their school-issued Apple iBooks. Their heinous crime? They used the administrator password (which was taped on the back of the computers, no less) to install unauthorized software. Not BitTorrent, not Limewire, but iChat AV. Sheesh.

Now that’s not the only thing that the kids are accused of doing, they also turned off the monitoring software (Apple Remote Desktop?) and even used it to monitor the admins. In addition, they’re accused of using hacking tools to find the new admin password when it was changed from the password that was taped on the back of the machines.

James Shrawder uncle of fifteen-year-old John Shrawder set up a Web site, CutUsABreak.org, to tell the students’ side of the story. The even posted the letter sent to the students charged with the felonies. The sells t-shirts and bumper stickers, including my favorite: “Arrest me, I know the password!”

The Kutztown Area School District issued a press release detailing the laptop policy violations but the charges still smack of heavy-handedness to me.

Do they really want to graduate a class of students that must check “Yes” for the question “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?” Give them community service and suspend their computer or Internet privileges, maybe, but felony convictions for being kids? Give me a break.

UPDATE:

New charges were filed yesterday against the teens. A charge of computer theft has been lodged against all 13 defendants, so that they are now charged with three variations of computer trespassing.

Source site is now 404.

Is it just me, or is this just an instance of using big words and the law to cover the stupidity of the administration?

First off: Charging 15 year old kids with a felony for this? To me, given the crime, its as if a teacher charged a child with “criminal assault with a deadly weapon” because the kid threw a snowball at someone else. It is true that the kids broke the rules – and for that they should be punished. Suspended from using the computers maybe. But charging them with criminal offenses of this degree is beyond any level of comprehension.

Second of all, though the kids did do wrong, the administrators shouldn’t be so easily off the hook either. If anything, it seems that they are using these allegations and charges to take attention away from their clear lack of competence. They essentially created the massive security hole that was so easily exploited, and should be equally under scrutiny for their extreme level of incompetence.

Visit www.cutusabreak.org for more, albeit biased, information.