Going back to school
It's been twenty years since I started at Georgia Tech to study Computer Science, and it's been over ten years since I was a professional programmer. So, I figure, I'm going to check out Harvard's CS50 for refresher and updating on programming thinking & theory.
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Seeker of Power, a Rene Belloq story
I decided to put Raiders of the Lost Ark on this morning while doing some other things. One of my go-to movies that I can watch an infinite amount of times. This morning I was struck by how much I wish they would reboot this franchise in a new way rather than what looks to be Indiana Jones 5 coming our way.
Here's my idea:
Titled: "Seeker of Power"
- Movie opens with the finale of Belloq's life, a screaming soul racing at his face, and then goes black. Transition screen (X years before...)
- We see young Rene Emile Belloq growing up on his family vineyard, finding an old Etruscan artifact and igniting his fascination with historical relics. Something his family does not approve of, his father expects him to take over their vineyards. And thus he is driven by a constant striving for his father's approval.
- Next is him going to college at Sorbonne, where we meet young Indiana Jones as they become friends, bonding over their family backgrounds, before ultimately Belloq betrays Indy to snatch the Archaelogical Society Prize.
- We see the schism and the betrayal; Belloq tries to make his own way and leaving Indy behind him, and yet by nature of their careers they keep intersecting. Their stories repeatedly interweaving as they chase the same treasures. Imagine the map with flight paths overlapping or racing, etc.
- Then enters the Nazi intrigue as Belloq finds a growing source of money for treasures to be Hitler. And the growing discomfort with the Nazis as a benefactor, but as we've seen - he'll do anything to win. So he does more and more jobs until it leads to the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
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Washington DC discusses a TLDR Bill against awful Terms of Services
I wasn't aware of it, but poster 'tgsovlerkhgsel' on Hacker News shared this insight into how Germany handles this:
Don't bother. Just ban/declare invalid any surprising clauses, with a regularly updated list of prohibited abusive terms that people try to slip in.
Germany has an explicit rule like that (§ 305c BGB): terms that are so unusual that the counterparty didn't have to expect them are null and void, and any ambiguities are interpreted against the side using reusable T&C's. Terms are further invalid (§ 307 BGB) if they unfairly disadvantage the other party against good faith etc.
The real meat starts in 308 and following, explicitly banning many terms - for example arbitration requirements (309 item 14).
So, doing my due diligence, I was curious to read the actual law. And as such I discovered the German government provides their laws in official translations.
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