This is one of the few topics I feel strongly compelled enough to comment on. For those who voted Serenity topping Star Wars, I understand completely. Let's be real here. Star Wars was a space opera, a caricature of science fiction. The SF genre, in my own opinion, is one that deals in honest ways with how science impacts our lives on a daily basis. Star Wars wasn't an original story to this genre. It was the same old good versus evil, take down the evil conglomerate story which could have easily been told in a Western. Serenity crossed boundaries in ways Star Wars did not. It relied on a political back story familiar to those of us not subject to "empires" even as it showed a human side to the struggle. What? Luke Skywalker lost his hand in a lightsaber battle to Darth Vader, only to have it replaced by seamless prosthetic? Malcolm Reynolds got the crap kicked out of him and LIMPED away from his LUCKY defeat of the bad guy. His crew fared no better.
The story itself was more relevant to our society than Star Wars. The primary struggle in Star Wars was Luke not becoming his father and joining the monolithic religion his own version of which was opposed to. It was individualistic, properly suited for the coming 80s decade of similar attitudes of self-preservation. Serenity dealt with issues of survival of minority against a seemingly benevolent majority. It mirrored one man's issues of being on the losing side of a war and contrasted them to the why's and how's wars are won and lost. Given the 14 episodes of backstory from the single season it was on and one comes away with an even better understanding of this movie.
In summary, Serenity trumps Star Wars as a sci-fi movie because it is actually more REAL and deals more specifically with real issues. It is not some fairytale fantasy story, able to be retold in any genre without losing anything.
I have tried my best since first hearing of the Zune to think of it in a non-partisan (Apple v. Microsoft) perspective. However, after seeing one for myself, reading multiple reviews which are both glowing and disparaging, and hearing reactions from other users, my initial suspicions are confirmed. Quite frankly, if I ever had need or desire of the alleged functionality of the Zune, I would have simply bought a Palm LifeDrive instead. As it is, my 4 gig iPod and Tungsten E2 perform admirably for any and every need I could conceive. The only remarkable aspect of the Zune is the WiFi interface which is disappointingly dedicated to limited file sharing with other Zune users. If such a capability were expanded to include any device able to receive or send a file, I could see the point of it. However, it reminds me far too much of some of those early WiFi game devices which let one play against other users in their immediate area. I bought one as a teenager and was frustrated that it seemed I was the only owner wherever I went. I can only imagine how disappointing it would be to drop so much cash for a prettified MP3 player only to find myself alone in the coffeeshop.
In truth, I believe the poor initial showing of the Zune has far more to do with a waning influence of Microsoft than any serious issue with the device itself. Many Windows users I have spoken to are very wary of the upcoming Vista release and more than a little tired of continual security issues being exposed. PlayStation 3 appears to be a killer machine and far ahead of anything the Xbox line is capable of, at the present time. The last two years may very well be looked back on someday as the beginning of the final decline of Microsoft.
I can see sites like YouTube and later incarnations of the same being used far more heavily for political purposes. I have used it to promote my friend's music and also to make political music videos (two of which are listed below). In the future, I plan to utilize it as my video blog and just link to it from my normal blog. It's only a matter of time before politicians, their supporters, and their opponents catch on to it in an even bigger way than now. Look for it to happen as more of the younger generation matures to the point of being serious candidates for office.
This seems like a great deal of effort and technology to apply to what I have always found to be the perfect time to go to the bathroom, grab a beer from the fridge, or just get my butt off the couch for a few minutes. Assuming I don't want to do any of those things then I simply use the "killer app" which has always been around since the first VCR's: the fast forward button. Two or three minutes of commercials whiz by in under 20 seconds and I am back to my show.
Jack Thompson makes for a curiously good study of the psychology of other such "crusaders for the children", and there have been many in history. Starting with Meletus, who prosecuted Socrates for being ""a doer of evil, who corrupts the youth; and who does not believe in the gods of the state, but has other new divinities of his own" we can trace multiple examples of those who sought to place themselves in a position of youth advocate, if only to bolster their own narrow ideology of what young people should be taught. Religion has certainly always played a large hand in such crusades, as shown by some of the more spectacular witch trials in which supposedly afflicted children were the primary evidence and witnesses for prosecution. In the last century, we see striking examples in the early days of rock and roll in which a young Ronald Reagan is found wondering "are these people just showing their individuality, or is it possible that there is a plot involved?"
Along this vein of standing against that which is popular among youth yet deemed subversive by older, establishment types, their value can be found in actually helping to further that which they stand against. Jack Thompson doesn't like violent video games. Thus, his cause and his rallying cry against them only serve to bring more attention to those games by society in general and youth in particular who find yet another way to piss off their parents.
Odd how quickly you come to defend an un-cited site when you didn't do much research on the matter. The fact is, I found that same list, verbatim, on multiple sites:
Many do attribute to Nightweed and many do not. Since lists such as these are usually somewhat viral in nature and distribution, original authorship is often difficult if not impossible to determine. However, if the original author is indeed Angry Girl/Nightweed, then my thanks to her for compiling the list.
Typing this on a 17" Intel iMac running OS X Tiger and Windows XP. Next to that machine sits a G4 Powerbook running OS X Tiger and Ubuntu linux. Across the room is my lovely wife at her own desk. She is using a G5 iMac running Tiger. Next to that is the only pure Windows machine in the place: a Toshiba tablet PC running XP, which is only even turned on at the moment because it is acting as Internet server to share our Verizon datacard connection through (you guessed it) an attached Airport Express router.
The ONLY time I ever log into XP on my iMac is to play some game or another that I can't on Tiger. (Hitman: Blood Money and GTA: San Andreas are my two biggest time wasters at the moment.)
The reason is so simple yet so apparently overlooked by would-be switchers. Aside from the above-mentioned gaming, there is nothing I can't do with my Mac that I can with XP. Even my wife can run her statistical analysis software on her Mac (SPSS). I have complete compatibility with all Office formats, along with Adobe Photoshop, Maya, and Poser. I have both Safari and Firefox for web browsing and an ever more muscular Mail program which accesses every email account I have. I can listen to music, watch movies, and even play some ported games. In short, there is absolutely NOTHING a mainstream user does on an XP machine that I cannot do on a Mac and with a greater degree of visual appeal and seamlessness between applications.
Aside from that, I have no fear of some new security flaw or virus infiltrating my Mac systems whereas the XP installs are continually needing updates, patches, and new virus definitions. Then there is the integration of hardware. The iSight cameras, built-in and the external one for the laptop, are among the highest quality webcams on the market. The Apple remote has proved unexpectedly useful for truly making the iMacs into entertainment centers. The three digital cameras in the house (one Sony and two Canon SLR) are all recognized with no necessary driver installations, as are the two photo and one inkjet printers. Managing our little wireless network is also a simple and elegant task with Apple's easy to use Airport interface. Upgrading the RAM on all three Macs was a simple as removing a small panel with a screwdriver, whereas the XP machine required removing the keyboard, unfastening a panel and navigating a myriad of wires and interface points I would never trust my wife to do on her own.
The bottom line is that Pro and Con lists are largely irrelevant and becoming ever more so as Apple's market share grows and more people become fed up with the bloated and buggy Windows interface that is only going to get worse with the graphically demanding Vista.
Slashdot Mirror
This is one of the few topics I feel strongly compelled enough to comment on. For those who voted Serenity topping Star Wars, I understand completely. Let's be real here. Star Wars was a space opera, a caricature of science fiction. The SF genre, in my own opinion, is one that deals in honest ways with how science impacts our lives on a daily basis. Star Wars wasn't an original story to this genre. It was the same old good versus evil, take down the evil conglomerate story which could have easily been told in a Western. Serenity crossed boundaries in ways Star Wars did not. It relied on a political back story familiar to those of us not subject to "empires" even as it showed a human side to the struggle. What? Luke Skywalker lost his hand in a lightsaber battle to Darth Vader, only to have it replaced by seamless prosthetic? Malcolm Reynolds got the crap kicked out of him and LIMPED away from his LUCKY defeat of the bad guy. His crew fared no better. The story itself was more relevant to our society than Star Wars. The primary struggle in Star Wars was Luke not becoming his father and joining the monolithic religion his own version of which was opposed to. It was individualistic, properly suited for the coming 80s decade of similar attitudes of self-preservation. Serenity dealt with issues of survival of minority against a seemingly benevolent majority. It mirrored one man's issues of being on the losing side of a war and contrasted them to the why's and how's wars are won and lost. Given the 14 episodes of backstory from the single season it was on and one comes away with an even better understanding of this movie. In summary, Serenity trumps Star Wars as a sci-fi movie because it is actually more REAL and deals more specifically with real issues. It is not some fairytale fantasy story, able to be retold in any genre without losing anything.
I have tried my best since first hearing of the Zune to think of it in a non-partisan (Apple v. Microsoft) perspective. However, after seeing one for myself, reading multiple reviews which are both glowing and disparaging, and hearing reactions from other users, my initial suspicions are confirmed. Quite frankly, if I ever had need or desire of the alleged functionality of the Zune, I would have simply bought a Palm LifeDrive instead. As it is, my 4 gig iPod and Tungsten E2 perform admirably for any and every need I could conceive. The only remarkable aspect of the Zune is the WiFi interface which is disappointingly dedicated to limited file sharing with other Zune users. If such a capability were expanded to include any device able to receive or send a file, I could see the point of it. However, it reminds me far too much of some of those early WiFi game devices which let one play against other users in their immediate area. I bought one as a teenager and was frustrated that it seemed I was the only owner wherever I went. I can only imagine how disappointing it would be to drop so much cash for a prettified MP3 player only to find myself alone in the coffeeshop.
In truth, I believe the poor initial showing of the Zune has far more to do with a waning influence of Microsoft than any serious issue with the device itself. Many Windows users I have spoken to are very wary of the upcoming Vista release and more than a little tired of continual security issues being exposed. PlayStation 3 appears to be a killer machine and far ahead of anything the Xbox line is capable of, at the present time. The last two years may very well be looked back on someday as the beginning of the final decline of Microsoft.
I can see sites like YouTube and later incarnations of the same being used far more heavily for political purposes. I have used it to promote my friend's music and also to make political music videos (two of which are listed below). In the future, I plan to utilize it as my video blog and just link to it from my normal blog. It's only a matter of time before politicians, their supporters, and their opponents catch on to it in an even bigger way than now. Look for it to happen as more of the younger generation matures to the point of being serious candidates for office.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoSnTHB7hZI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW-E_svcwDo
This seems like a great deal of effort and technology to apply to what I have always found to be the perfect time to go to the bathroom, grab a beer from the fridge, or just get my butt off the couch for a few minutes. Assuming I don't want to do any of those things then I simply use the "killer app" which has always been around since the first VCR's: the fast forward button. Two or three minutes of commercials whiz by in under 20 seconds and I am back to my show.
Jack Thompson makes for a curiously good study of the psychology of other such "crusaders for the children", and there have been many in history. Starting with Meletus, who prosecuted Socrates for being ""a doer of evil, who corrupts the youth; and who does not believe in the gods of the state, but has other new divinities of his own" we can trace multiple examples of those who sought to place themselves in a position of youth advocate, if only to bolster their own narrow ideology of what young people should be taught. Religion has certainly always played a large hand in such crusades, as shown by some of the more spectacular witch trials in which supposedly afflicted children were the primary evidence and witnesses for prosecution. In the last century, we see striking examples in the early days of rock and roll in which a young Ronald Reagan is found wondering "are these people just showing their individuality, or is it possible that there is a plot involved?"
Along this vein of standing against that which is popular among youth yet deemed subversive by older, establishment types, their value can be found in actually helping to further that which they stand against. Jack Thompson doesn't like violent video games. Thus, his cause and his rallying cry against them only serve to bring more attention to those games by society in general and youth in particular who find yet another way to piss off their parents.
Odd how quickly you come to defend an un-cited site when you didn't do much research on the matter. The fact is, I found that same list, verbatim, on multiple sites:
e lid=31&contentid=3945&page=2 (which attributes it to Rense)
m azing_facts_about_voting_in_the_usa.php (which doesn't give a source, only that it has been seen "going around")
7 /20_amazing_fact.html (which has an unsourced version without links and one with links sourced to Nightweed)
t ml (attributed to Angry Girl/Nightweed and Bob Rowe)
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?chann
http://whatreallyhappened.com/usa_vote_facts.html (which attributes to Nightweed)
http://utterlyboring.com/archives/2004/12/19/20_a
http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2006/0
http://www.coastalpost.com/04/12/02a.htm (without links and attributed to Bob Rowe)
http://www.comicpress.com/ElectionFiasco.htm (verbatim post, unsourced)
http://www.guerrillafunk.com/thoughts/doc000023.h
http://www.argusfest.org/ (unsourced, but verbatim)
And on and on and on....
Many do attribute to Nightweed and many do not. Since lists such as these are usually somewhat viral in nature and distribution, original authorship is often difficult if not impossible to determine. However, if the original author is indeed Angry Girl/Nightweed, then my thanks to her for compiling the list.
Here's my set-up:
Typing this on a 17" Intel iMac running OS X Tiger and Windows XP. Next to that machine sits a G4 Powerbook running OS X Tiger and Ubuntu linux. Across the room is my lovely wife at her own desk. She is using a G5 iMac running Tiger. Next to that is the only pure Windows machine in the place: a Toshiba tablet PC running XP, which is only even turned on at the moment because it is acting as Internet server to share our Verizon datacard connection through (you guessed it) an attached Airport Express router.
The ONLY time I ever log into XP on my iMac is to play some game or another that I can't on Tiger. (Hitman: Blood Money and GTA: San Andreas are my two biggest time wasters at the moment.)
The reason is so simple yet so apparently overlooked by would-be switchers. Aside from the above-mentioned gaming, there is nothing I can't do with my Mac that I can with XP. Even my wife can run her statistical analysis software on her Mac (SPSS). I have complete compatibility with all Office formats, along with Adobe Photoshop, Maya, and Poser. I have both Safari and Firefox for web browsing and an ever more muscular Mail program which accesses every email account I have. I can listen to music, watch movies, and even play some ported games. In short, there is absolutely NOTHING a mainstream user does on an XP machine that I cannot do on a Mac and with a greater degree of visual appeal and seamlessness between applications.
Aside from that, I have no fear of some new security flaw or virus infiltrating my Mac systems whereas the XP installs are continually needing updates, patches, and new virus definitions. Then there is the integration of hardware. The iSight cameras, built-in and the external one for the laptop, are among the highest quality webcams on the market. The Apple remote has proved unexpectedly useful for truly making the iMacs into entertainment centers. The three digital cameras in the house (one Sony and two Canon SLR) are all recognized with no necessary driver installations, as are the two photo and one inkjet printers. Managing our little wireless network is also a simple and elegant task with Apple's easy to use Airport interface. Upgrading the RAM on all three Macs was a simple as removing a small panel with a screwdriver, whereas the XP machine required removing the keyboard, unfastening a panel and navigating a myriad of wires and interface points I would never trust my wife to do on her own.
The bottom line is that Pro and Con lists are largely irrelevant and becoming ever more so as Apple's market share grows and more people become fed up with the bloated and buggy Windows interface that is only going to get worse with the graphically demanding Vista.
For a (slight) glimpse at the stakes of a game like this, consider the recent Robin Williams film "Man of the Year". The movie was okay, but the truly frightening thing was how likely a scandal like a rigged election, purposefully or otherwise, might take place. However, before I go into some facts I found through surfing about Diebold and electronic voting, I wanted to point out that even if it was demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bush was elected through vote fraud of some kind (not that many of us need any further convincing), it doesn't mean Kerry automatically gets to take the White House and Bush is out. What would most likely happen, along with a series of investigations and lawsuits, is the Supreme Court court would invalidate the election results and declare a new election, at a reasonable time period. Dennis Hastert would assume the throne until the new election results were confirmed but nothing Bush has done would be invalidated, at least, not right away. Even if he was fraudulently elected, he was still the de-facto sitting President and so his actions would be legal (in a manner of speaking). Congress could take some action to reverse some of his doings, but that assumes they want to in the first place. Now, on to Diebold. Found via a Google of "Diebold facts": 1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S. http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold 2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry. http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html 3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers. http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_comp any.html http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/ 042804landes.html 4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/m ain632436.shtml http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886 5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines. http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004 /03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitraki s/031004fitrakis.html
6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=New s&file=article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.ph p
7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candid