Many labels that are releasing vinyl records these days provide a download code for you to get an mp3 version of the album for free from their website. This is far better than digitizing the record yourself, obviously, and honors fair use. If they don't provide this to you, it's easy enough to just look on pirate bay for it, especially for new releases - and the kind of music hipsters like is usually very easy to find that way.
The only really useful thing that a turntable that connects to your computer provides (which of course you could do with any turntable via line-in anyway...) is digitizing obscure stuff that's out of print and unavailable on CD or on the internet. In this case, the record company shouldn't care - if they can't be bothered to have the music available for purchase, they really can't complain about people making digital recordings of old records for personal use. Especially since many of them have demonstrated that they understand fair use and respect the consumers by offering free digital versions of their vinyl releases.
Of course, there is a financial/piracy prevention logic to it as well - even the hippest hipster has an mp3 player, and is going to look for a digital copy of anything they buy on vinyl. If they get it for free from the record company, they won't have to look on piratebay, which means the demand on piratebay is (ever so slightly) diminished.
I think he was making a joke, but if you've seen the episode in question I think you'll agree the point stands - Jeremy was hesitant to push himself and the car to the limit from fear of his own safety before fear of doing anything to the car.
I'm sure that was in his mind as well, but I'm guessing he's quite used to that feeling from thrashing all the most expensive cars in the world around their test track all the time so it's not as huge a concern as it would be for anyone else.
If I took an expensive car around a track, yes, I would probably be more concerned about doing something to the car than doing something to myself, but I think Jeremy is past that phase (and you know that they must have ridiculous insurance policies).
I don't know if Ma8thew is joking or what, but it's simply not true... the AC is correct. I've downloaded a few TV series using bittorrent over the years, and have never seen a torrent that put all the episodes into one big.rar file. This includes things like torrents containing all of The Twilight Zone, all Star Trek TOS, all of Quantum Leap, etc - huge torrents where a single.rar file would be ridiculous, as well as smaller torrents of single seasons (for example) that would fit in a 4-5gb.rar file if someone was stupid enough to do it that way.
Now, I *have* seen torrents that put everything into one big.rar file, but not TV episodes. I can't remember the last time I saw something like that, anyway... I think most people have gotten a clue and realized that it's stupid to do that with bittorrent.
When you do see torrents like that, generally they die out as soon as someone else puts one up that isn't like that.
My guess is that Ma8thew once looked for a TV show to download on bittorrent and found it in a single.rar file, which is certainly possible, but hasn't looked for anything else and doesn't download things very much.
Under your plan, suddenly no one will casually browse other peoples' profiles. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I wouldn't be comfortable browsing profiles if I knew they might know (even if they're good friends and it's perfectly benign) - and your story about picking up a girl illustrates the point.
If she was actually interested, then yeah, that's valuable to both parties - they'll both know the other person's probably interested. But what if the girl wasn't actually interested, and just is in the habit of accepting friend requests? As you note, if they've got mutual friends, she'll probably accept. But then, she sees this guy checking out her profile all the time - facebook stalking her - and she thinks he's a creep.
She's better off not knowing that he's checking her out, I'd say.
Being from Buffalo I was curious that I'd never heard of that - turns out it's actually in Syracuse, which is two cities east of Buffalo (Rochester in between) and about a two and a half hour drive:)
The basin and range represents continental crustal extension, which is spread out across the entire region. This is more-or-less driven by pulling on either end. Actually, the driving forces are not completely understood (which is why I'm using "more-or-less" to describe these things).
Oceanic crustal extension, on the other hand, is more-or-less being pushed apart from the center. So the rifting and so on is focused in one area - the rift zone. That's why the Mid Atlantic Ridge or the East African Rift - spreading centers - are (more or less) linear features and not spread out like the basin and range is.
Note that while I call it "oceanic crustal extension", it is obviously not limited to oceanic crust - it is rifting the continental crust in Africa. But, this is why we say a new ocean will form here, but not in the western US. When the continental crust is pushed open enough, oceanic crust will begin to form. Oceanic crust is thin and dense, which is why it's topographically lower than continental crust, which tends to form more thickly and is less dense.
I'm a geology grad student (and my B.S. in geology is from the University of Rochester, where this latest research is from) studying tectonics, but I'll admit freely that my explanation may be wrong as this isn't really my focus (I'm more interested in compressional, rather than extensional, tectonics). So I welcome any corrections anyone can offer.
It often takes several combined factors to form features like the great lakes. The glaciers played a huge role in shaping the landscape, but that's just on top of the rifting etc. I might mention also that the rifting stuff is limited to the western great lakes (particularly Superior) - lakes Erie and Ontario were formed essentially exclusively by glacial and other erosional processes. There has been a lot written on this topic - it's pretty interesting to read through the understood history of the region, and how these ideas were formed.
As the other guy mentioned, there are a lot of interesting geology field trip stops around the great lakes that help one to understand how this works. The University of Rochester itself is basically a field trip stop - it's built on a glacial moraine. The adjacent Mt. Hope Cemetery, which dates back to the founding of the city in the early 1800s, is extremely hilly and jam-packed full of interesting glacial features. And it's quite easy to see the difference between Erie/Ontario and Superior just by visiting both areas - and not hard to imagine that they were formed by a variety of different processes.
Source & disclaimer: I am a geology grad student, I'm originally from Buffalo, NY - on lake Erie - and I got my B.S. in geology at the University of Rochester, actually; so I'm familiar with geology of the great lakes region (particularly New York and its adjacent lakes Erie and Ontario).
This is a trend in corporate/news/etc photography, to provide photo illustration that's interesting and creative rather than a boring portrait. Check out Strobist, which in the past couple of years has greatly influenced this kind of photography.
The real answer, though, is this - BYU probably has a staff photographer or two to provide publicity photos. Their assignments probably don't specify to do anything other than a simple portrait, which I'm sure they do - but then since they're bored they also try stuff like this, which the PR person in charge sees and realizes is a lot more interesting and therefore makes the university seem more interesting. And whether that works or not for nerds on slashdot is irrelevant - the university obviously wants a positive and interesting public image, and good web design and photography greatly help toward that goal despite having nothing to do with the school's academics or research.
Now we're getting ridiculously off-topic, but anyway...
Inglorious Basterds was *really* good (certainly not perfect, obviously), but it doesn't play as well to a non-movie-geek audience as Tarantino's earlier films do.
That said, a lot of non-movie-geeks did really like it... but it was probably for the violence (which while not extreme compared to previous "exploitation" kinds of films, is incredibly extreme compared to even the goriest mainstream films) and the occasional humor. Not for the excellent script, pacing, directing, cinematography, set design, acting (purposefully over-the-top in places, certainly), etc., for which it deserves critical accolade.
All of Tarantino's films are like this - the action, violence, and humor appeal to a general audience, and the excellent film making appeals to film geeks. The difference with Inglorious Basterds is that the ratio of general appeal to artistic excellence was shifted, which is the trend Tarantino has been following starting with Kill Bill 2 and Death Proof. You may argue about the quality of those films (I didn't enjoy Kill Bill 2 that much) but he's definitely on the mark with Inglorious Basterds. I suspect within his next few films he'll release something that forgoes the general appeal entirely and is so self-indulgent that it's lost on the critical audience as well, and then he'll have a big come-back with something that everyone likes again.
I have a Sony PRS-505, and it's great. You can use DRM'd stuff with it, but it will accept essentially any format so you're not restricted in any way from reading anything you want to. There is a open source e-book manager, calibre, which will convert among formats if you have something weird the reader doesn't like. Also, calibre will automatically download articles from any website that posts them, for free, including expensive magazines like The Economist. It supports pay-sites as well.
As far as PDFs go, though, as the other guy said, you're pretty much out of luck. Sony touts the ability to re-flow PDFs, but it doesn't work - at all - for something with a complicated layout, which is the only kind of thing you should be using a PDF for anyway. Trying to zoom and pan around the PDF is a fruitless exercise in frustration. It's too bad, because it would be excellent for so many purposes (journal articles that aren't available as plain text, lonely planet guides whose PDFs are formatted with two pages per pdf page which makes them unusable, etc).
If you're dead-set on PDFs, wait for something better. If you just want to read books, e-book readers today are excellent.
In the episode, or maybe in a follow-up episode, they addressed the first fault you mention. They show and explain a chart showing MPG vs. speed for both A/C and windows down driving, and where they cross (around 50mph or so, as you say, as I recall).
I think they covered driving style, too, but I saw it a while ago so I'm not sure. Whether they mentioned it specifically or not, though, they were driving on a NASCAR-style oval track at as constant a speed as could be managed (whether or not they used cruise control, I don't recall), which at least partially eliminates the effect of different driving styles, which would be greater on the open road with traffic.
Not to defend their methods too much - they do make a lot of obvious mistakes in most episodes - but in most cases they acknowledge and explain such things. I guess they don't think things through before doing them, and then realize their mistakes later... and then don't have the time or money to re-do experiments.
I read those in regular English classes in middle school (grade 7 or 8 as I recall) - they are science fiction, certainly, but are so well known that at least some students will have read them already. Considering this is a science fiction specific course, some more interesting choices should be in order.
I don't mean to imply that Fahrenheit 451 and Flowers for Algernon aren't good works or that they're uninteresting, but in the context of a high school science-fiction-specific class, seeing selections like this on the syllabus (even if I hadn't already read them) would have made me, as a student, groan to myself. That's partially just me, of course - I'm not afraid to admit that I have an aversion to things that are really popular;)
However, beyond that, these kinds of books have been beaten to death in schools and in popular culture. They've lost some of their impact. I think students should still read them, but I wouldn't choose them as required reading for a class when there are so many other directions you could go.
I grew up in Buffalo, NY and crossed the border there countless times over the years, and I always found the same thing - they are deadly serious at all times. I have (stupidly, I must say) attempted to be slightly humorous in my answers to their questions at times, since I'm so familiar with the process, and they never even bat an eye.
However... one time I was coming back from Toronto for whatever reason, and the guy asked where I was coming from, where I was going, the usual. And then, he asked a subtle joke question in reply to whatever my answer was. I was dumbfounded for a few seconds because it was so unexpected... then I gave a little smile and he waved me through without changing the expression on his face. It was pretty bizarre.
The thing with Fry's is that different salespeople direct you to different sections because they actually put the same items in different sections! For example, there are two aisles with A/V cables, at different ends of the store. Both aisles have different products, but some products are in both aisles. So, you can never really tell when you're comparing things if you're looking at everything they carry - you have to walk across the store to check the other aisle too. Bizarre.
There are three or four aisles with headphones/earbuds, too. In their defense, sometimes there is a logic to it - all the headphones geared towards MP3 players are in one section, and the headphones for computers (with microphones, etc) are in another. Good in concept, but logistically it apparently doesn't work (or they just couldn't figure it out somehow), because there are in fact two aisles with MP3 player headphones/earbuds. One is next to the aisle with actual MP3 players, the other is at the other end of the store, near the home stereo stuff. And these two aisles don't have the same products - it's a completely different selection.
I never quite understood that either (other than enabling the "california roll" sushi pun) until I moved to California. Just about everyone here - including police - does a rolling stop, every single time, except in the busiest 4-way stop sign intersections. In fact, if it's an intersection without much cross traffic, if you actually come to a full stop at a stop sign you're likely to get hit from behind because no one expects it!
I think what he may have been saying is that games don't "go on sale" as often or in the same way as DVDs. For example, the first week they come out, new release DVDs are often discounted $5 or so (~25%) at most brick-and-mortar stores. Can you imagine this being the case for games? If in the first week new release games were $45, and then they went up to $60 after that, first-week sales volumes would be huge. That's dangerous, of course, because depending on the game sales the first week are probably huge anyway, and if the game actually sucks then no one's going to be suckered into paying $60 for it after the word gets out after the first week. You'd have to decide carefully if your game is good enough to pull such a thing off.
I thought it was actually really good - unique controls and movement ability, which really wasn't messy once you get used to it, an interesting and well-constructed environment, and it's very stylish overall, in a good way. I'm guessing it wasn't liked by a lot of people because it *is* so different from typical games. Most people probably passed on it when they got confused by the controls and didn't give it a chance, and others when they realized it wasn't a run and gun game (you can play the whole game without firing a single shot if you're good).
It didn't promise more than what it delivered, but I think the hype may have misrepresented what it was going to deliver because people were expecting something else. Basically, the people who didn't like it were not expecting something that was so unlike typical FPS games. Those who understood what it was trying to do and were hoping that it was actually different from typical FPS games, like myself, were pleasantly surprised with how good it actually was.
It is a little repetitive, but actually, it is less so than most any other recent FPS I can think of. The puzzles are all based on running and jumping, yes, but because the movement mechanics are unique and the puzzles are always set in different environments with multiple possible pathways, it never felt like I was just doing the same thing over and over.
It was kind of short, but it was satisfying. And you know what? Gears of War was shorter, and far less satisfying, and that was a huge hit (and not just for the multiplayer, which I didn't think was very good).
I feel silly defending a game like this, but I really did like it, and since it's so cheap now ($20 or so at most stores) it's definitely worth giving a chance if you haven't.
I don't know about other people, but for me, the "default" gnome layout (it varies by distro but is mostly very similar) is simply not the way I like to arrange things.
You know, I've spent all the years that I've been using computers figuring out what works best for me. I know how I want things arranged in order to suit my computing style such that I'm most efficient and so things best "make sense" to me. When presented with a stock gnome setup, I immediately want to rearrange everything, add functionality here, remove some there that I don't care about. In short, I want it to look, feel, and act exactly how I want it to. I don't care that they think there's a better way - that's not what I want, I want my own way.
Granted, KDE does this too (especially with KDE 4), but now I'm getting to the point. When it comes to customizing the desktop to get it to behave exactly as you like, gnome really doesn't make it easy, while KDE does. With KDE, it's relatively easy to radically change the way it works (from the user's perspective), without installing things or editing config files - this configurability is built in to be fairly easy to use. With gnome, I'm sure you can point out all kinds of things you can do to radically alter it, but it's really not the same. I know you can install things that offer alternate interfaces (like the OS X style dock, or the interface on EEEbuntu) but if you just have a standard gnome install, you don't have the ability to do much with it.
This is something you get used to. If you configure gnome to be somewhat close to how you like it and you use it for a while, it's fine. I'm sure I would adapt to it eventually. However, once you've seen that in KDE you can get it exactly how you like it rather than just sorta how you like it, it's hard to be stuck with the limited options in gnome.
KDE has its problems, and it's not always straightforward to customize certain things, but at least they try to give you the option, where gnome doesn't.
All that said, I just picked up a MacBook Pro a couple weeks ago, and I'm conflicted. I like the computer, and I like OS X, but I can't get it to work like the KDE config I've been fine tuning for years previously, obviously. I'm adapted to it by now, but the Mac way of doing things is still not *my* way of doing things, and I think I'll forever be wishing to be able to do things with desktop interaction that are bog-standard in both KDE and gnome. I understand the interface that Apple has designed, but it's not how I work. The point is that Apple and gnome are similar here - they've come up with a certain way of doing things and they make it hard to customize that. It works for a lot of people - most people, even - but not everybody.
If gnome works for you, great! Frankly, considering the mess that KDE 4 has been going through, I wish sometimes I could be satisfied with gnome. However, to be incredulous as to why people prefer KDE is a little short-sighted and I hope my lengthy post offers a little bit of explanation:)
You can undo closing a tab by right-clicking on the tab bar (if this works for me only because of an extension I have installed, which is possible, sorry - but at least that means there is an extension that will help you:) )
I can echo your statement for Thailand as well - except that I don't think there are these copyright cop sweeps as you've described in Malaysia. Actually, it was quite refreshing - you are essentially free to do as you wish there, other than actual harmful crimes like robbery (of physical items) and violence.
The point of my reply, though, is to point out that this kind of institutionalized bootlegging exists in North America as well - if you're ever in Toronto check out the Pacific Mall - "North America's Largest Indoor Asian Mall" (http://www.pacificmalltoronto.com/). There are at least ten or so separate shops selling bootleg DVDs and CDs. A lot of it is Asian stuff that isn't officially distributed in the US or Canada, yes, but easily 25% of it is mainstream Hollywood movies. It's a weird place... it's a nice mall in an upscale suburb in Canada, but with blatant bootlegging all over the place! Actually, there are a lot of official releases as well (of both Asian and Hollywood stuff), but I'm not sure how many people actually buy it (same deal as in any marketplace in Asia).
I don't know if perhaps they have the same thing going on, where they close down on certain days to avoid getting busted, but I've been there several times and the same shops have always been there and are always open.
I agree with your first major point, but I think you're off on your second - large-scale fraud is really not that common in science. You hear about it here on slashdot all the time, and everyone loves picking apart the summary and headline (not the article or the original paper of course) and declaring the scientists did something wrong, but really, scientists aren't that stupid. If you publish something that's actually bad, or fraudulent, you will get called on it and ridiculed. Maybe not right away (if you manage to get it published, obviously it's not right away), but eventually. There are people who carry on their pet theories for years, and indoctrinate their grad students into it, while the rest of the people in that field ridicule them... well, whatever, sucks for those grad students, but no one else listens to those scientists and they don't affect the field at all.
I don't have an iPhone (or an iPod for that matter) for just that reason - but I did just buy a MacBook Pro after being an exclusive Linux user for the past few years, and I have to say, I am definitely self-conscious about being seen with it. I was something of a "Linux snob" before, so I'm certainly not an Apple snob! But, like you're saying, I know a lot of people will think I'm "that guy" if they see me with the macbook (or if I had an iPhone), and I don't want that to be the case. Pathetic, I know, but I've spent years building up my reputation as the computer and gadget guy *without* any Apple products, which makes me cool (I'm joking - I know this actually makes me seem like a dork to the population at large).
I covered up the glowing apple on the top of the macbook with gaffer's tape and drew a penguin on it (my own personal logo, not Tux) with silver sharpie just to be sure:)
Slashdot Mirror
Many labels that are releasing vinyl records these days provide a download code for you to get an mp3 version of the album for free from their website. This is far better than digitizing the record yourself, obviously, and honors fair use. If they don't provide this to you, it's easy enough to just look on pirate bay for it, especially for new releases - and the kind of music hipsters like is usually very easy to find that way.
The only really useful thing that a turntable that connects to your computer provides (which of course you could do with any turntable via line-in anyway...) is digitizing obscure stuff that's out of print and unavailable on CD or on the internet. In this case, the record company shouldn't care - if they can't be bothered to have the music available for purchase, they really can't complain about people making digital recordings of old records for personal use. Especially since many of them have demonstrated that they understand fair use and respect the consumers by offering free digital versions of their vinyl releases.
Of course, there is a financial/piracy prevention logic to it as well - even the hippest hipster has an mp3 player, and is going to look for a digital copy of anything they buy on vinyl. If they get it for free from the record company, they won't have to look on piratebay, which means the demand on piratebay is (ever so slightly) diminished.
I think he was making a joke, but if you've seen the episode in question I think you'll agree the point stands - Jeremy was hesitant to push himself and the car to the limit from fear of his own safety before fear of doing anything to the car.
I'm sure that was in his mind as well, but I'm guessing he's quite used to that feeling from thrashing all the most expensive cars in the world around their test track all the time so it's not as huge a concern as it would be for anyone else.
If I took an expensive car around a track, yes, I would probably be more concerned about doing something to the car than doing something to myself, but I think Jeremy is past that phase (and you know that they must have ridiculous insurance policies).
I don't know if Ma8thew is joking or what, but it's simply not true... the AC is correct. I've downloaded a few TV series using bittorrent over the years, and have never seen a torrent that put all the episodes into one big .rar file. This includes things like torrents containing all of The Twilight Zone, all Star Trek TOS, all of Quantum Leap, etc - huge torrents where a single .rar file would be ridiculous, as well as smaller torrents of single seasons (for example) that would fit in a 4-5gb .rar file if someone was stupid enough to do it that way.
Now, I *have* seen torrents that put everything into one big .rar file, but not TV episodes. I can't remember the last time I saw something like that, anyway... I think most people have gotten a clue and realized that it's stupid to do that with bittorrent.
When you do see torrents like that, generally they die out as soon as someone else puts one up that isn't like that.
My guess is that Ma8thew once looked for a TV show to download on bittorrent and found it in a single .rar file, which is certainly possible, but hasn't looked for anything else and doesn't download things very much.
Under your plan, suddenly no one will casually browse other peoples' profiles. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I wouldn't be comfortable browsing profiles if I knew they might know (even if they're good friends and it's perfectly benign) - and your story about picking up a girl illustrates the point.
If she was actually interested, then yeah, that's valuable to both parties - they'll both know the other person's probably interested. But what if the girl wasn't actually interested, and just is in the habit of accepting friend requests? As you note, if they've got mutual friends, she'll probably accept. But then, she sees this guy checking out her profile all the time - facebook stalking her - and she thinks he's a creep.
She's better off not knowing that he's checking her out, I'd say.
Just so you know, the USGS was actually formed in the 1870's (1879)!
I'm guessing that's not exactly what you meant, but I thought I'd point it out.
Thanks for pointing it out in the first place - now I have someplace I need to check out next time I pass through Syracuse :)
Being from Buffalo I was curious that I'd never heard of that - turns out it's actually in Syracuse, which is two cities east of Buffalo (Rochester in between) and about a two and a half hour drive :)
Here's some info,
And here's a photo.
The basin and range represents continental crustal extension, which is spread out across the entire region. This is more-or-less driven by pulling on either end. Actually, the driving forces are not completely understood (which is why I'm using "more-or-less" to describe these things).
Oceanic crustal extension, on the other hand, is more-or-less being pushed apart from the center. So the rifting and so on is focused in one area - the rift zone. That's why the Mid Atlantic Ridge or the East African Rift - spreading centers - are (more or less) linear features and not spread out like the basin and range is.
Note that while I call it "oceanic crustal extension", it is obviously not limited to oceanic crust - it is rifting the continental crust in Africa. But, this is why we say a new ocean will form here, but not in the western US. When the continental crust is pushed open enough, oceanic crust will begin to form. Oceanic crust is thin and dense, which is why it's topographically lower than continental crust, which tends to form more thickly and is less dense.
I'm a geology grad student (and my B.S. in geology is from the University of Rochester, where this latest research is from) studying tectonics, but I'll admit freely that my explanation may be wrong as this isn't really my focus (I'm more interested in compressional, rather than extensional, tectonics). So I welcome any corrections anyone can offer.
It often takes several combined factors to form features like the great lakes. The glaciers played a huge role in shaping the landscape, but that's just on top of the rifting etc. I might mention also that the rifting stuff is limited to the western great lakes (particularly Superior) - lakes Erie and Ontario were formed essentially exclusively by glacial and other erosional processes. There has been a lot written on this topic - it's pretty interesting to read through the understood history of the region, and how these ideas were formed.
As the other guy mentioned, there are a lot of interesting geology field trip stops around the great lakes that help one to understand how this works. The University of Rochester itself is basically a field trip stop - it's built on a glacial moraine. The adjacent Mt. Hope Cemetery, which dates back to the founding of the city in the early 1800s, is extremely hilly and jam-packed full of interesting glacial features. And it's quite easy to see the difference between Erie/Ontario and Superior just by visiting both areas - and not hard to imagine that they were formed by a variety of different processes.
Source & disclaimer: I am a geology grad student, I'm originally from Buffalo, NY - on lake Erie - and I got my B.S. in geology at the University of Rochester, actually; so I'm familiar with geology of the great lakes region (particularly New York and its adjacent lakes Erie and Ontario).
This is a trend in corporate/news/etc photography, to provide photo illustration that's interesting and creative rather than a boring portrait. Check out Strobist, which in the past couple of years has greatly influenced this kind of photography.
The real answer, though, is this - BYU probably has a staff photographer or two to provide publicity photos. Their assignments probably don't specify to do anything other than a simple portrait, which I'm sure they do - but then since they're bored they also try stuff like this, which the PR person in charge sees and realizes is a lot more interesting and therefore makes the university seem more interesting. And whether that works or not for nerds on slashdot is irrelevant - the university obviously wants a positive and interesting public image, and good web design and photography greatly help toward that goal despite having nothing to do with the school's academics or research.
Now we're getting ridiculously off-topic, but anyway...
Inglorious Basterds was *really* good (certainly not perfect, obviously), but it doesn't play as well to a non-movie-geek audience as Tarantino's earlier films do.
That said, a lot of non-movie-geeks did really like it... but it was probably for the violence (which while not extreme compared to previous "exploitation" kinds of films, is incredibly extreme compared to even the goriest mainstream films) and the occasional humor. Not for the excellent script, pacing, directing, cinematography, set design, acting (purposefully over-the-top in places, certainly), etc., for which it deserves critical accolade.
All of Tarantino's films are like this - the action, violence, and humor appeal to a general audience, and the excellent film making appeals to film geeks. The difference with Inglorious Basterds is that the ratio of general appeal to artistic excellence was shifted, which is the trend Tarantino has been following starting with Kill Bill 2 and Death Proof. You may argue about the quality of those films (I didn't enjoy Kill Bill 2 that much) but he's definitely on the mark with Inglorious Basterds. I suspect within his next few films he'll release something that forgoes the general appeal entirely and is so self-indulgent that it's lost on the critical audience as well, and then he'll have a big come-back with something that everyone likes again.
I have a Sony PRS-505, and it's great. You can use DRM'd stuff with it, but it will accept essentially any format so you're not restricted in any way from reading anything you want to. There is a open source e-book manager, calibre, which will convert among formats if you have something weird the reader doesn't like. Also, calibre will automatically download articles from any website that posts them, for free, including expensive magazines like The Economist. It supports pay-sites as well.
As far as PDFs go, though, as the other guy said, you're pretty much out of luck. Sony touts the ability to re-flow PDFs, but it doesn't work - at all - for something with a complicated layout, which is the only kind of thing you should be using a PDF for anyway. Trying to zoom and pan around the PDF is a fruitless exercise in frustration. It's too bad, because it would be excellent for so many purposes (journal articles that aren't available as plain text, lonely planet guides whose PDFs are formatted with two pages per pdf page which makes them unusable, etc).
If you're dead-set on PDFs, wait for something better. If you just want to read books, e-book readers today are excellent.
In the episode, or maybe in a follow-up episode, they addressed the first fault you mention. They show and explain a chart showing MPG vs. speed for both A/C and windows down driving, and where they cross (around 50mph or so, as you say, as I recall).
I think they covered driving style, too, but I saw it a while ago so I'm not sure. Whether they mentioned it specifically or not, though, they were driving on a NASCAR-style oval track at as constant a speed as could be managed (whether or not they used cruise control, I don't recall), which at least partially eliminates the effect of different driving styles, which would be greater on the open road with traffic.
Not to defend their methods too much - they do make a lot of obvious mistakes in most episodes - but in most cases they acknowledge and explain such things. I guess they don't think things through before doing them, and then realize their mistakes later... and then don't have the time or money to re-do experiments.
I read those in regular English classes in middle school (grade 7 or 8 as I recall) - they are science fiction, certainly, but are so well known that at least some students will have read them already. Considering this is a science fiction specific course, some more interesting choices should be in order.
I don't mean to imply that Fahrenheit 451 and Flowers for Algernon aren't good works or that they're uninteresting, but in the context of a high school science-fiction-specific class, seeing selections like this on the syllabus (even if I hadn't already read them) would have made me, as a student, groan to myself. That's partially just me, of course - I'm not afraid to admit that I have an aversion to things that are really popular ;)
However, beyond that, these kinds of books have been beaten to death in schools and in popular culture. They've lost some of their impact. I think students should still read them, but I wouldn't choose them as required reading for a class when there are so many other directions you could go.
and no one is going to shop at Woolworths to look for a Macbook Pro. And even if they tried, they'd fail.
Funny you should say that, because this guy mentioned that he bought his Macbook Pro at a Woolworth's ;)
I grew up in Buffalo, NY and crossed the border there countless times over the years, and I always found the same thing - they are deadly serious at all times. I have (stupidly, I must say) attempted to be slightly humorous in my answers to their questions at times, since I'm so familiar with the process, and they never even bat an eye.
However... one time I was coming back from Toronto for whatever reason, and the guy asked where I was coming from, where I was going, the usual. And then, he asked a subtle joke question in reply to whatever my answer was. I was dumbfounded for a few seconds because it was so unexpected... then I gave a little smile and he waved me through without changing the expression on his face. It was pretty bizarre.
The thing with Fry's is that different salespeople direct you to different sections because they actually put the same items in different sections! For example, there are two aisles with A/V cables, at different ends of the store. Both aisles have different products, but some products are in both aisles. So, you can never really tell when you're comparing things if you're looking at everything they carry - you have to walk across the store to check the other aisle too. Bizarre.
There are three or four aisles with headphones/earbuds, too. In their defense, sometimes there is a logic to it - all the headphones geared towards MP3 players are in one section, and the headphones for computers (with microphones, etc) are in another. Good in concept, but logistically it apparently doesn't work (or they just couldn't figure it out somehow), because there are in fact two aisles with MP3 player headphones/earbuds. One is next to the aisle with actual MP3 players, the other is at the other end of the store, near the home stereo stuff. And these two aisles don't have the same products - it's a completely different selection.
I never quite understood that either (other than enabling the "california roll" sushi pun) until I moved to California. Just about everyone here - including police - does a rolling stop, every single time, except in the busiest 4-way stop sign intersections. In fact, if it's an intersection without much cross traffic, if you actually come to a full stop at a stop sign you're likely to get hit from behind because no one expects it!
I think what he may have been saying is that games don't "go on sale" as often or in the same way as DVDs. For example, the first week they come out, new release DVDs are often discounted $5 or so (~25%) at most brick-and-mortar stores. Can you imagine this being the case for games? If in the first week new release games were $45, and then they went up to $60 after that, first-week sales volumes would be huge. That's dangerous, of course, because depending on the game sales the first week are probably huge anyway, and if the game actually sucks then no one's going to be suckered into paying $60 for it after the word gets out after the first week. You'd have to decide carefully if your game is good enough to pull such a thing off.
I thought it was actually really good - unique controls and movement ability, which really wasn't messy once you get used to it, an interesting and well-constructed environment, and it's very stylish overall, in a good way. I'm guessing it wasn't liked by a lot of people because it *is* so different from typical games. Most people probably passed on it when they got confused by the controls and didn't give it a chance, and others when they realized it wasn't a run and gun game (you can play the whole game without firing a single shot if you're good).
It didn't promise more than what it delivered, but I think the hype may have misrepresented what it was going to deliver because people were expecting something else. Basically, the people who didn't like it were not expecting something that was so unlike typical FPS games. Those who understood what it was trying to do and were hoping that it was actually different from typical FPS games, like myself, were pleasantly surprised with how good it actually was.
It is a little repetitive, but actually, it is less so than most any other recent FPS I can think of. The puzzles are all based on running and jumping, yes, but because the movement mechanics are unique and the puzzles are always set in different environments with multiple possible pathways, it never felt like I was just doing the same thing over and over.
It was kind of short, but it was satisfying. And you know what? Gears of War was shorter, and far less satisfying, and that was a huge hit (and not just for the multiplayer, which I didn't think was very good).
I feel silly defending a game like this, but I really did like it, and since it's so cheap now ($20 or so at most stores) it's definitely worth giving a chance if you haven't.
I don't know about other people, but for me, the "default" gnome layout (it varies by distro but is mostly very similar) is simply not the way I like to arrange things.
You know, I've spent all the years that I've been using computers figuring out what works best for me. I know how I want things arranged in order to suit my computing style such that I'm most efficient and so things best "make sense" to me. When presented with a stock gnome setup, I immediately want to rearrange everything, add functionality here, remove some there that I don't care about. In short, I want it to look, feel, and act exactly how I want it to. I don't care that they think there's a better way - that's not what I want, I want my own way.
Granted, KDE does this too (especially with KDE 4), but now I'm getting to the point. When it comes to customizing the desktop to get it to behave exactly as you like, gnome really doesn't make it easy, while KDE does. With KDE, it's relatively easy to radically change the way it works (from the user's perspective), without installing things or editing config files - this configurability is built in to be fairly easy to use. With gnome, I'm sure you can point out all kinds of things you can do to radically alter it, but it's really not the same. I know you can install things that offer alternate interfaces (like the OS X style dock, or the interface on EEEbuntu) but if you just have a standard gnome install, you don't have the ability to do much with it.
This is something you get used to. If you configure gnome to be somewhat close to how you like it and you use it for a while, it's fine. I'm sure I would adapt to it eventually. However, once you've seen that in KDE you can get it exactly how you like it rather than just sorta how you like it, it's hard to be stuck with the limited options in gnome.
KDE has its problems, and it's not always straightforward to customize certain things, but at least they try to give you the option, where gnome doesn't.
All that said, I just picked up a MacBook Pro a couple weeks ago, and I'm conflicted. I like the computer, and I like OS X, but I can't get it to work like the KDE config I've been fine tuning for years previously, obviously. I'm adapted to it by now, but the Mac way of doing things is still not *my* way of doing things, and I think I'll forever be wishing to be able to do things with desktop interaction that are bog-standard in both KDE and gnome. I understand the interface that Apple has designed, but it's not how I work. The point is that Apple and gnome are similar here - they've come up with a certain way of doing things and they make it hard to customize that. It works for a lot of people - most people, even - but not everybody.
If gnome works for you, great! Frankly, considering the mess that KDE 4 has been going through, I wish sometimes I could be satisfied with gnome. However, to be incredulous as to why people prefer KDE is a little short-sighted and I hope my lengthy post offers a little bit of explanation :)
You can undo closing a tab by right-clicking on the tab bar (if this works for me only because of an extension I have installed, which is possible, sorry - but at least that means there is an extension that will help you :) )
I can echo your statement for Thailand as well - except that I don't think there are these copyright cop sweeps as you've described in Malaysia. Actually, it was quite refreshing - you are essentially free to do as you wish there, other than actual harmful crimes like robbery (of physical items) and violence.
The point of my reply, though, is to point out that this kind of institutionalized bootlegging exists in North America as well - if you're ever in Toronto check out the Pacific Mall - "North America's Largest Indoor Asian Mall" (http://www.pacificmalltoronto.com/). There are at least ten or so separate shops selling bootleg DVDs and CDs. A lot of it is Asian stuff that isn't officially distributed in the US or Canada, yes, but easily 25% of it is mainstream Hollywood movies. It's a weird place... it's a nice mall in an upscale suburb in Canada, but with blatant bootlegging all over the place! Actually, there are a lot of official releases as well (of both Asian and Hollywood stuff), but I'm not sure how many people actually buy it (same deal as in any marketplace in Asia).
I don't know if perhaps they have the same thing going on, where they close down on certain days to avoid getting busted, but I've been there several times and the same shops have always been there and are always open.
I agree with your first major point, but I think you're off on your second - large-scale fraud is really not that common in science. You hear about it here on slashdot all the time, and everyone loves picking apart the summary and headline (not the article or the original paper of course) and declaring the scientists did something wrong, but really, scientists aren't that stupid. If you publish something that's actually bad, or fraudulent, you will get called on it and ridiculed. Maybe not right away (if you manage to get it published, obviously it's not right away), but eventually. There are people who carry on their pet theories for years, and indoctrinate their grad students into it, while the rest of the people in that field ridicule them... well, whatever, sucks for those grad students, but no one else listens to those scientists and they don't affect the field at all.
I don't have an iPhone (or an iPod for that matter) for just that reason - but I did just buy a MacBook Pro after being an exclusive Linux user for the past few years, and I have to say, I am definitely self-conscious about being seen with it. I was something of a "Linux snob" before, so I'm certainly not an Apple snob! But, like you're saying, I know a lot of people will think I'm "that guy" if they see me with the macbook (or if I had an iPhone), and I don't want that to be the case. Pathetic, I know, but I've spent years building up my reputation as the computer and gadget guy *without* any Apple products, which makes me cool (I'm joking - I know this actually makes me seem like a dork to the population at large).
I covered up the glowing apple on the top of the macbook with gaffer's tape and drew a penguin on it (my own personal logo, not Tux) with silver sharpie just to be sure :)