Slashdot Mirror

North American media tends to drive things into the ground (not that others don't to, the last season of Monty Python's Flying Circus, sans Cleese, apart from a few moments, was clearly beyond its prime).

I remember the same thing happened to MASH. I look back at the original few seasons when McLean Stevenson and Wayne Rogers were still there, and they constitute some incredibly funny moments in TV history. Once they were gone and Alda exerted more control as the "Star", the tendency to be overly maudlin and topical ruined the goon show quality.

Peanuts certainly went past its prime. It's heyday in the late 1960s and into the late 1970s certainly constitutes probably the greatest comic strip there ever was (and I've yet to see a cartoonist that doesn't think Charles M. Schulz was the best the medium ever produced). But clearly the concept had run out of gas by the 1980s, and like anything taken too far, it began to be a terrible caricature of its former self. The whole strip turned into a cliche. If Schulz had walked away in 1980, he would have the left the strip at the top of its game. I don't think it was, in his case, for want of money, with TV and even movies, and the wide syndication, he was probably the best-paid writer in comic strip history. I think it was that he just couldn't leave it behind.

Watterson left C&H in a place where its perfection was never compromised. I've reread my collection a dozen times, at it all seems so perfect. Nothing is stale or reused. It's now art for the ages.

Exactly. It's all the same things that made The Simpsons great. It's a caricature of humanity at its best (the caricature, not the humanity ;) ).

Except Watterson did something that Groening didn't--leave at the peak. Financially, Groening made the better move. Artistically, Watterson did.

# any of various primates with short tails or no tail at all
# imitate uncritically and in every aspect; "Her little brother apes her behavior"
# copycat: someone who copies the words or behavior of another
# caricature: represent in or produce a caricature of; "The drawing caricatured the President"
# anthropoid: person who resembles a nonhuman primate

You can thank me for the free English lesson later.

I couldn't think of Maddow's name. I think Bill O'Reilly is a caricature... which is saying something given the company listed above.

Even more frightening than the fact that people take Limbaugh et al. seriously is that MANY people take them seriously.

I love the iPhone - it's slick. iPods piss me off a little, because I want a USB storage device that plays music. Mac Books are fantastic. I have a netbook, and it's fairly functional and portable.
 
Where does this leave me? Well, this is bigger and less functional than my netbook. It's far slicker, however. If you offered me a Mac Book the same size, for the same price, I'd be all over it. If I didn't have a netbook, and wanted something like that, I wouldn't go for this.
 
I don't see this having anywhere near the same success as the iPod and iPhone, nor Mac Books. However, I think there is a niche for this product. It's not me, and it's not you, but I bet they can sell a million of them. I hate to call up the stereotypical caricature of a Mac user, as none of the ones I know fit it, but I can see this working well for someone wearing dockers and drinking a latte.
 
I think this will be a coffee table gracer. I think it will be another shiny toy for people with a fair bit of cash, and a lot of other Apple products kicking around. I think it will end up on bedside tables. It will get used for Sunday morning crosswords. You'll find one on the arm of a chair near a fireplace on a cold evening.
 
In short, I think this will become THE stereotype Apple product. It will be for those with too much money to buy for a stupid purpose, when the traditional things which filled that niche all work better. But it will be shiny. And Apple will sell lots of them.

There is a reason why Pixar's characters have been so successful and why their characters are always caricatures.

Wait, it's the Supreme Court's fault that Congress passed crap laws?

No. It's the supreme court's fault that they misuse article III as if it were article V, which it in no way resembles or implies; it's the supreme court's fault that they disobey the constitution on behalf of the entire government; it's the supreme court's fault that the government is operating far outside its constitutionally authorized bounds.

The supreme court set themselves up -- unauthorized by the people -- as those who could re-define the constitution. Then, on top of that, they worked, and are working, to destroy everything it stands for. That's why they're at the top of that list. They enable the congress to make, and keep in force, laws that are explicitly forbidden, or not authorized, by the constitution.

The constitution has one critical flaw: It has no teeth. Violating it, on the part of judges, legislators... there is no penalty. Because of this, they can do whatever they want. And they do. This is why we are suffering under the inversion of the commerce clause. This is why we have ex post facto laws. This is why eight of the ten amendments of the bill of rights have been turned into caricatures of themselves in currently extant law. And this is why copyright law no longer resembles anything even vaguely implied in Article I, section 8, paragraph 8.

Those films can't be in the public domain. They're only 39 years old.

Perhaps CBS is just THINKING IT OVER!

For those that don't get the joke... Jack Benny had a bit (originally on his radio program, but he did it at least a few other times) where the supposedly incredible tight-wad Jack Benny (as mentioned elsewhere in the thread he played a caricature of himself) was accosted by a mugger who told him "Your money or your life!" After some silence the mugger said "Hey pal, did you hear me? I said, YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE!" then Jack Benny finally responds "I'M THINKING IT OVER!"

One wonders about the reliability of such wanted pictures, when it seems they serial produce them, cutting and pasting from the same image...

... unless they were looking for very general-looking features, that display a recognizable trait. They don't need to be precise to be reliable. Consider how we can recognize caricatures of celebrities from very stylized cartoon drawings.

But that makes it even more disturbing that they'd use a real and recognizable person, without his knowledge. It's not that his features matched exactly what they want, it's that they feel he has some generally useful features that can be used in a variety of composites. They're taking a person and turning him into clip art. Callous.

You wouldn't use pictures of yourself to make composites of wanted terrorists. You wouldn't use family or friends, or probably even a citizen of your country. But if you don't give a rat's ass about other people in the world, you can do whatever you want with an image of one without feeling a shred of shame. Worse yet, if there are people you don't like but you can't attack them with legitimate arguments, why not try to associate them with bigger enemies? What better way to do that than to use their image to create pictures of terrorists? You could implicitly say "Here's you as a terrorist" while explicitly saying "The image was used randomly for its general features and is not meant to be identified with the original subject."

It's outrageous, egregious, preposterous.

Follow the strategy and everything will come together, there are few surprises and the AI has no emotion, no ego. No raid boss will deny you victory because you stepped on its toes.

What. I'm a bit confused at your metaphor here.

From what I can tell, your basic metaphor is that "killing the raid boss" is equivalent to "completing the project". "Following the strat" would be equivalent to "following the manual." In both times, you reach the result of "raid boss killed!" or "Project complete!"

Your metaphor seems to be stating that stepping on the feet of the project(?) would cause it to suddenly not work. I really doubt that after creating, say a car, insulting its mother would cause it to fail on you. Just as insulting a raid boss's mother won't cause it to suddenly power up to 9001.

Perhaps you mean instead of "Completing the project," you mean "Completing the project and getting the satisfaction of the boss." For this, yeah. If you called his daughter a whore it'll end up badly and your project may fail. But you've added a modifier here. A similar modifier in WoW could be "Kill the raid boss and get loot X." In either situation, an outside modifier changes the requirements for victory. However, I suppose the warcraft example is something uncontrollable. But...the same can apply to real life as well if the boss comes in with a foul mood, looks at your completed project, calls it total shit and throws a chair at it.

Also, I argue against "there are few surprises" and "no emotion, no ego" for WoW. There are surprises in that one person's connection may be bad. Maybe one player has a grudge against another and purposely tries to kill them wiping the raid. Maybe once the loot does drop, person X starts whining and bitching that person Y beat him on it, declaring that since he's worked so hard on the project (killing the boss) he should deserve a larger share of the reward.

Being a raid leader does NOT make you a leader, it just gives you some play experience at doing it. If you use it at just a light intro to the real thing, then you will do fine. But if you think it prepares you for the real thing or even is the same as the real thing, then you will fail horribly.

I take issue with this. Do people somehow become mere caricatures once they enter the virtual world? Do they become cartoonish simpletons giving people working with them nothing but a ghoulish mirror of true humanity?

False. The building block analogy is fallacious precisely because of the point laid out above. A more accurate example may be if the architect had spent years messing around with architectural programs but hasn't actually built a real building. His blueprints are up to par, he's great at calculating the stresses and where to strengthen the walls, how to place the bars, where to rivet, so on. He may not have experience in reality, but his ability in the abstract is near equivalent.

I admit. Some skills gained in one arena do not necessarily translate to another. People playing online games will have difficulty hiding their emotions in reality, being used to no one seeing their face. They may be more slovenly or visibly odd since they haven't had to combine body language with their managerial skills. But that's something they'll learn in the future.

Perhaps if a world of warcraft manager managed strictly through cyberspace rather than at the office, perhaps with a "body on the ground" to be his eyes, ears, and face his or her managerial abilities would shine.

Once again Slashdotterers jump the pun and explore every available tangent.

Notice that we're all talking about a caricature of a settlement. No complaint or legal argument is offered in the fine article. (I'm generally nonplussed by reporting on legal issues and even less happy when the terms of a settlement are withheld from the public without legally justfiable cause, which IMHO should be as rare as the toads in winter.) But even so, the objection was to the promotion of a commercial product into the classroom. One designed to do what? Allow students to support Amazon & Sprint?

We're talking about Amazon's marketing as much as the public/private partnership being fostered by University administrators.

I want to 'see' e-readers supplant the tome as much as the next geek, but in this case it's reasonable to to require publicly funded institutions not favor technology which doesn't meet the needs of [legally] blind students before we pimp the student body, promote a half baked solution and give a huge commercial advantage to a single corporation. I don't believe there's a logical excuse for not having had the Kindle ready to meet the ADA standard before it is shoved to the head of class.

It's not as if Amazon is trying to be altruistic here, and what's wrong with a little delay in the name of egalitarianism? Are we afraid it might set a precedent, that the FDA might, all of a sudden, start requiring pre-market safety research, delaying the next wonder treatment for erectile dysfunction, or perhaps we're all worried that the FCC might hinder Clear Station or Rupert Murdoch in their bid to dominate ownership our failing systems of commercialized journalism?

Who knows, maybe the Fed will.... No! Not a chance... B-)

I think way too much is being made over a decision to hand-wave web shooters instead of wasting screen time and attention to the montage of Peter's attempts to create the advanced tech, both the nozzle and the web fluid, required for the mechanical version. These are action movies, and there is little to no science in action movies, only tech. When the tech is not pre-existing and is not hand-waved as "developed by a multinational corporation," it must be explained. When you already have one spider bite giving someone enhanced danger sense, crazy physical strength, and wall-climbing abilities, why not toss in web-slinging and free up a slow five minutes for more explosions?

Of course the villains (for the most part) have advanced tech of their own--they would otherwise fail to provide the entertainment value. Unless it's an X-men kind of universe where mutants are common, villains must have a way to use vast amounts of power for their evil deeds; otherwise the whole film is going to be a ho-hum series of thwarted muggings. The easiest way to give them superpowers is to make them technological superpowers and explain them by saying, "some company threw enough money at the idea to make it happen." This is of course also fantasy, but it's a staple that nobody takes issue with.

And, to be frank, tech DOES have negative social influences, though "evil" is too strong a word for them and there are positives too. The society we live in extends breadth at the cost of depth. Myspa--er, Facebook friends are more numerous and less satisfying as flesh-and-blood friends. The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory holds true. You probably do not know your neighbors. Despite the unquestionable increases in quality of life over the past hundred years, people are more stressed out than ever before. This is because we have gotten into the habit of modifying our behavior to better suit the needs of the tech we use, because the opposite is only lately becoming plausible. The Spider-Man villains were driven crazy by their tech: the Green Goblin had his serum and Doc Ock's harness hacked his mind. These are big-screen sized caricatures of the small sacrifices we make for techne all the time.

If there is some sort of message in these films about science and technology, which I really doubt, it is not "science is evil" but "ensure that technology serves you and not the other way around."

I'm sorry, but no.

I read Ringworld for the first time a couple of months ago, and to be honest, I was entirely underwhelmed. The premise was silly in the first place, the characters might have looked good once but now seemed to be simple caricatures of silly stereotypes from the dawn of modern sci-fi, and the writing was not very good.

There was nothing at all resolved - why was this ring built? Who built it? Why did they build it? What happened to it? Where did they go? How long ago did they leave? What has happened in the mean time? What else is on the ring? Are there any civilizations that are modern remaining on it?

And on top of that, the author has NO concept of falling action. Literally, the main plot point (how do we get off this thing?) was resolved (maybe, kind of), and three paragraphs later, the book was over.

I was completely underwhelmed. My wife tells me there are sequels, but without the first book actually being finished, I think that they've got to be just finishing up the story that was essentially abandoned.

Now, I guess I would have to concede that if you are talking about making a show about the whole series, including all the information in the sequels (which is substantial, according to what I'm reading on Wikipedia), then maybe. But the book its self left me extremely unsatisfied.

~W

You know if you've taken "Bio 102" I would hope you would know that micro-evolution and macro-evolution are biological terms. High school biology curriculum topic really.

Wikipedia link despite the US-centric poor content quality of the article, get a real textbook on biology instead, a big fat hardcover one. To say that micro-evolution and macro-evolution differs only in quantitative terms as said in the Wikipedia article is pure (American) bullshit (and the "authoritative" argument completely irrelevant in its meaninglessness --it's simply a political statement and certainly not a scientific one no matter who makes it). From a biology/science perspective alleles and genes are simply not the only components in evolution. For example the difference in alleles and genes between some apes and humans are only a few percent (and there aren't all that many percentages different between most mammals either) and far less on its own than it takes to explain the differences between the species: evolution is not simply about what data is present (alleles/genes) but also what data is read and used by the organism and how, i.e. there's far more to evolution than simple differences in alleles (specific allele changes = micro-evolution as they always happen over a fairly short period of time while the bigger picture which includes much more than series of allele changes = macro-evolution).

And the Wikipedia statement "Contrary to belief among the anti-evolution movement proponents, evolution of life forms beyond the species level ("macroevolution", i.e. speciation) has indeed been observed and documented by scientists on many occasions.[5]" is sourced to a (hopefully layman) list of "examples" that are fucking hopeless in their total disregard for the actual questions of interest and seemingly utterly confuses speciation with various forms of breeding, hybridization, and simple mutations (including fatal ones! that's a laugh), and the examples are nowhere close to the big questions and issues regarding macro-evolution.

It should go without saying that lessening the criteria for what can be determined to be observed naturally occurring speciation until the criteria are low enough will "solve" the issues, but it also of course makes doing any such completely useless with regard to science unless one is a brain dead idiot who "believes" it must be so because of assumptions (and that is not science despite how many "scientists" do it, including far too many biologists).

Bloody hard to take biology as a whole seriously with that many idiots around: they're the ones destroying science far more effectively than any strange religious micro-sized minorities.

Ah the cesspool of politicized "science" that is the US. Why does the US consistently and continually have to fuck up the meanings of words and concepts and twist them into grotesque caricatures devoid of intelligence? And not just in science, for fucks sake they've even managed to turn "liberal" into de facto "fascist"! (look closely and most US "liberals" are merely pinkish fascists, the word liberal as used when describing the political ideology meant the exact opposite originally and still does in most of the world).

Rant over but god damn it I've gotten so fed up with all the shite coming out of the US, particularly during the last twenty years. Will they stop soon?

Something a friend sent me....

ATLAS SHRUGGED: THE ABRIDGED VERSION (with spoilers)

AYN RAND
Hello, I'm Ayn Rand. I wrote a novel based on my Objectivist philosophy called The Fountainhead, but I don't think 700 pages was quite enough to get my point across, so I will write the exact same novel, only it will take 1100 pages this time.

READERS
Hey, great.

HEROINE
I'm Dagny Taggart. I am a railroad tycoon, woman-in-a-man' s-world, stunningly beautiful heroine. I am the only person capable of running this railroad. I am the only woman in the universe worth a damn. I am also the only woman in the universe with a real job. I am basically the only woman in this novel.

LOVE INTEREST #1
I have worshiped you, the only woman in the universe worth a damn, from afar for my whole life.

HEROINE
That's nice.

LOVE INTEREST #2
I have worshiped you, the only woman in the universe worth a damn, naked on the forest floor. Yet I will nobly step aside in the name of noble idealism, despite the fact that I love you and want you, the only woman in the universe worth a damn, desperately.

HEROINE
Okay.

LOVE INTEREST #3
I worship you, the only woman in the universe worth a damn. Let us have creepy rape fantasy sex now. I will not ask permission to do all these kinky things to you, but luckily you want to be forced into all the kinky things, you dirty biatch.

HEROINE
This is clearly true love! Stick it in me.

ALL
Who is John Galt?

AYN RAND
I am not telling. Instead, please listen to someone pontificate about my Objectivist philosophy for a while.

SOMEONE
[Pontificates]

VILLAINS
There are many of us, but we are all exactly the same. We are caricatures of evil socialists and embodiments of pure evil. Let us create a perfect socialist world order ruled by the inept! We all suck! Socialism sucks! Ha ha!

HEROES
We are all exactly the same. We are noble and perfect and have very angular and insolent faces. We can read each other's minds and the minds of everyone else in this novel, leaving less room for misunderstanding and more room for pontificating. And we are all in love with Dagny Taggart, the only woman in the universe worth a damn.

ALL
Who is John Galt?

VILLAIN
[Threatens hero.]

HERO
[Flips coin]
If it's heads, I will gaze apathetically. If it's tails, I will laugh heartily.

VILLAIN
Although these are the only two things any of you heroes have done for the past 800 pages, I am shocked at this response! How could you! How dare you!?!

HERO
I will now pontificate about Ayn Rand's philosophy. It has been at least 50 pages since you've heard it.

AYN RAND
It is so convenient that all of my heroes are in perfect agreement about my philosophy so that their pontificating is so interchangeable.

ALL
Who is John Galt?

JOHN GALT
Hello. In this, the culmination of all the pontificating, I will explain Ayn Rand's philosophy for a full 57 pages. No, I am not kidding. This one monologue will last for 57 pages. Oh and also, I love Dagny.

DAGNY
I love you too. Man, this is really going to suck for Love Interest #3.

LOVE INTEREST #3
Despite my passionate love for you and enjoyment of our rape sex, and the fact that there is no other woman on earth worth a damn, and the fact that I sacrificed my life's passion on your behalf, and t hat I spent my entire fortune to get a divorce to be with you, I will now nobly step aside in the name of noble idealism.

DAGNY
Great! I will miss our creepy rape sex. Farewell.

LOVE INTEREST #3
Bye.

READER
Wait, what?

ATLAS
[Shrugs]
THE END

And where exactly did I say that?

Besides, there's no real reason to write mad fast during a lesson: if you can take enough notes with pen and paper, you certainly can with a tablet pc, and there are things that simply are more straightforward to do on a tablet, like drawing schemes, writing on a pdf/slides as it was a book, making stupid caricatures of professors...

Caricature creators in Slovakia sure have inspirations.. not a single day without a fuck up

Not to be offensive, but how greasy is this guy's face? You'd think there would be *more* contrast between his skin and his corneas and teeth, which would make a general "face" easier to pick out (even if it were a Cheshire-cat caricature, it's a baseline). However, there's a noticable glare off his forehead that I'd imagine would skew the results (as it'd significantly take a chunk out of his otherwise-round head to the point it wouldn't even hit on a fuzzy match).

My suggestion is to get this guy some Noxzema and try again.

If I go into a large crowd somewhere in the US and start shouting that you guys deserved 9/11 for your arrogance, not only am I likely to start a riot - I'm also likely to get beaten to death or shot.

You can think that, if you like. But your comic-book caricature version of the U.S. is just that.

"right-wing ideology is about maintaining the status quo"?!?!

That's a laugher. Just try shaking up the Che-worshiping power structure in wackademia and see who worships the status quo.

Yeah, and we all know what a powerful group those college professors are! Forget the halls of Congress, forget the board room, all the really important decisions are made in front of a blackboard!

BTW, 1995 called. It wants its goofy caricature of academics back.

Take a look at all the power the federal government has in the US. Look how it's running amok.

It isn't, but the fact that you think it is tells me all I need to know about your ideology.

Now tell me: is it the left or the right who wants to turn the single largest sector of the US economy - health care - over to the already all-too-powerful government?

Neither. The bills in Congress would do nothing of the sort.

Some members of the left -- not the ones in power, mind you -- would like to turn health insurance over to the government. But no one in America is seriously advocating turning health care over to the government (as in the UK, where doctors are government employees).

Now you tell me: is is the left or the right who wants to preserve a failed health care system, at the expense of tens of thousands of lives per year, in order to avoid rocking the boat and maintain the stock price of a handful of large corporations?

Tell me: is it the left or the right that's always screaming for more taxes to feed the monster of government?

Tell me: is it the left or the right that's always screaming for lower taxes on rich people (especially the estate tax) and complaining about "redistribution of wealth"?

Is it the left or the right that wants to replace the income tax (which is progressive, reducing the concentration of wealth) with a sales tax (which, at best, would be flat and maintain the status quo in terms of wealth concentration; more likely it would be regressive and concentrate wealth even further)?

Is it the left or the right that denounces community organizing, challenges voter registrations, and generally opposes anything that would grant political power to those who are underrepresented?