Once you get past the introductions and the "I like everything except rap/metal/country (choose your typical singled out genre)", there's still plenty to talk about. Songs in general have a good combination of easy to understand qualitative concepts that extend beyond "this is better than that" to discuss. There's also the element of, "Hey we both like this ___, have you tried listening to ___?" Movies are the same way (as shown in that poll), though I'm a little surprised music beat movies by that much.
They better bring that "Walking on Sunshine" dog back. The ending of that episode broke my heart! That and the episode when Fry learns about his brother's son.
And even that episode with Fry's dog had stuff that had me hyperventilating with laughter. Like the Professor desperately trying to convince everyone how hot the lava is. Ridiculous! The show has that "just right" combination of hilarity, hard sci-fi cleverness, heart, and absurdity. Seasons 2-4 of Futurama easily stacks up to any 3 great seasons from the Simpsons.
I know when I was taking my classes in physics as an undergrad, there were several people in your situation. People who wanted to get into a new field at 30 or 40 and picked physics. This was the same sort of "crisis" I was having at around 30. The old, "I'm just doing something I'm good at to make a living, but doing nothing to advance civilization. Even at the smallest level." There's a fear that as the years go on and I both make more money and get deeper into family life, I'll be "stuck in programming."
4 years later, I'm still a programmer, but at least I'm working at a scientific company now. Not astrophysics yet, but I'm slowly inching myself away from silly corporate database entry web apps... and towards scientific DB entry web apps.:)
I can start to feel the pull of my mid-life years. To put it in a dorky RPG way, I'm starting to use my Wisdom attribute a lot more and my Intelligence attribute less. Maybe those free MIT online courses will help, without having to go back to college.
How do I mod you Insightful, Informative, Flamebait, and Troll all at the same time? "Exhaustive" would be a great mod option in this situation. Or maybe "Thread Killer."
And it's a tough call- there's so many to choose from. Pish posh. It's the microprocessor. TI? Intel? I don't know, but the science and tech seemed to move faster than ever since then.
Don't forget. The main character has to either have amnesia, woken up from a coma, has been destined to be greater than what his/her upbringing by his foster parent would suggest, or has a "dark past."
I have a free copy of vista and I am thinking about waiting for sp1 So do I. MSDN tempts me to install lots of stuff early, but Vista wasn't one of them. Too much of a potential pain to go back if something goes wrong.
my title was actually 'Webmaster' and I hated it. I've always felt the term Webmaster was something pretentious a bunch of dorks came up with to give themselves a cool job title. These days, it's just plain dorky. I've taken many web jobs over the last 11 years, and have always actively tried to convince my employers to change the job title away from Webmaster. Software Engineer, Web Developer, Web Admin, Software Architect, anything else that's more fitting than something that sounds like I rolled some 10-sided dice to generate my job abilities.
My last job at a prominent non-profit journalism org, I even overheard one idiot say something to the effect of, "We need someone who's more of a webmaster. This guy (me), is too much of a developer and into site architecture." What does that even mean? Did she even know what she meant? I think people who use this term are the type to always be stuck about 3 steps behind the rest of the internet. Next year, they'll be howling about how the company needs to adapt to Web 2.0 trends.
Good to see they are pulling virtual goods, how about the real junk coming from China (this has been a real problem, especially with things like musical instruments) What are you, my keyboard? That's exactly what I was going to write. I'm not sure if they're scams or just junk. I keep hearing different things. Like some say they don't get anything shipped after they paid. Some people say the stuff turns out to be junk. And then there's the obvious absurdity of a $200 shipping fee for a no reserve guitar that can be won for $1.
According to a random page I found while googling and not caring if it's valid or not, DLP recently has been in the lead among business projectors vs. LCD. See a few paragraphs down
That means the technology will stick around for a while, and I personally prefer the visual quality and price/performance of DLP vs. LCD and plasma. I don't think this bulb life
"setback" will kill it since it doesn't have all its baskets in one egg:), eg. TVs.
If I had the money to finish my basement and home theater room right now, DLP would be my choice. And I'm talking home theater projector, not TV. It always bugs me how every few months some company announces it's showcasing the world's largest LCD TV. 80", 90", 100", or 46'. Who cares!?! What donkey goes and buys these things? If you're going to go big, get a high quality projector and a high quality screen, regardless whether it's DLP or LCD.
There's a lot of free/random stuff floating around on satellite TV if you point your dish around. Is this an appropriate point to insert a "Single Female Lawyer" joke/reference? Oh well.
Single Female Lawyer
Fighting for her client!
Wearing sexy miniskirts
And being self-reliant...
being so sharp and clear that imperfections in the porn actors and actresses are causing problems in the industry. You mean it's not the continuing increase in tatoos and piercings on the pr0n stars who peaked in the mid-1990s that's turning people off?
Raise your hand if you bought a player because it plays both SACD and DVD-Audio... Um hmmm.
The first problem is the amount of titles. I don't doubt that there'll be more compelling titles coming out faster for both HD formats combined. But I subscribe to the theory that combo-players will prolong the eventuality or even kill the chances that one day one format will win. It sort of gives both sides an excuse to continue releasing titles in their format.
So why should consumers care? Maybe they shouldn't if combo players become prolific. But I don't think they really help out the economies of scale thingymatheory, because there will continue to be two HD disc formats. Meaning two types of factories making these discs instead of all plants pressing one type of disc.
Then again, maybe one day I won't be able to resist diving in when the number of titles grow.:(
As collateral damage, I think a Master of Magic revival was killed because of MoO 3. I remember hearing that the MoO 3 team was going to be given a crack at doing MoM 2 afterwards... but then MoO 3 came out and it sucked.
Apparently you have not noticed the huge rise in obesity in the United States. It seems like there's a rise in anorexia in the U.S. as well. Everytime I see a bunch of teenagers around, the group is made up of some fat kids and some bony kids. Barely any in the middle. Now that I think about it, adults are like this too. Where is the middle ground???
When interviewed, they said, "We're just cavemen. We do not understand these shiny so-called 'mice'. When we randomly bang on these 'keyboards', glyphs appear magically on what you people refer to as 'monitors'. We spend more time with our wives because we cower in fear of the grinding and wind-like noises that emminate from these miniature 'towers'."...(in a stern voice) "But what we do know is that computer problems can sometimes cause significant emotional distress, similar to what happens when a problem occurs between spouses."
CPI could accumulate the the same dataset needed over time if they would put up an online survey. If it's for a good cause or a decent public-accessable dataset, I'm sure they would find plenty of happy volunteers. All it would take is a web-form where you can volunteer your location, cable service, fees, advertized bandwidth, and other known competitors in area. Then they can provide some test packets to record the current actual service available at that time. Use this dataset to produce multiple geographic map overlays, and people could use this to quickly spot the best deals in a region, exclusionary zones, false/misleading advertizing, etc. Don't think that some version of this type of plan hadn't been bandied about already at CPI. [source: Me] Talks with various organizations in forming partnerships for gathering data from those partners' members had occurred last year. Long story short, talks halted. Management in place in 2005/2006 were the cause of this, directly and indirectly. So instead of having a large sampling of "user-submitted data" practically pre-packaged, those doors are now closed.
I'm sure if you send them the web survey idea, the new E.D. would strongly consider it, even if a couple of bad seeds still linger there. Though I don't think this method would generate as much or as quickly the data (bad grammar, I know) as their potential partnerships in the past would. Or simply getting it from the FCC would. There's also a matter of their web department in recent years being run by a communications, marketing and editorial beaureaucracy instead of a tech person.
They have cherry-picked specific, high-income areas in which to roll out. It's very likely that many areas will *never* get broadband service, if these companies get their way.
Is this a fact cited somewhere? I'd actually be interested in a link. My parents live in a community in Northern Virginia (generally very high income area compared to the rest of the US) that is of higher income than most of northern Virginia. The houses (single, town, condos) are densely built together, so there's a pretty big concentration of people as well. Up until two years ago, nobody could get broadband unless it was business class Covad or whatever. Then Cox finally came in. AFAIK, they still can't get alternatives like DSL or FiOS. With the kind of service they're getting with cable internet, I bet they'd switch in an instant to a competitor.
I guess what I'm getting at is, that if it was based on income + population density, they would have been swooped upon five years ago.
Now to only get a tiny human to pilot the robot ship like Innerspace... And a young Elizabeth Shue as the field scientist similar to Epcot Center's vomit inducing Body Wars attraction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slylandro
For those who don't remember the reference. And if you haven't played it, you should just bypass the link entirely for this one: Moreso than the non-carbon based races in the game, the idea of a race from "below" shrouded in mystery like the Orz always fascinated me. What the hell are they, where/what/when do they come from? It boggles my mind.
I would hope...there was more than one other alien civilization.
Well, yes.
They are called the French and they across the pond.
One of the great first jokes from Futurama had people from all over the world counting down on New Year's Eve prior to the year 3000, in their own languages. (at the same time for some reason). Even aliens counted down in their language. But the French counted down in English. So in less than a thousand years, they probably won't be so alien to us.
Slashdot Mirror
Once you get past the introductions and the "I like everything except rap/metal/country (choose your typical singled out genre)", there's still plenty to talk about. Songs in general have a good combination of easy to understand qualitative concepts that extend beyond "this is better than that" to discuss. There's also the element of, "Hey we both like this ___, have you tried listening to ___?" Movies are the same way (as shown in that poll), though I'm a little surprised music beat movies by that much.
And even that episode with Fry's dog had stuff that had me hyperventilating with laughter. Like the Professor desperately trying to convince everyone how hot the lava is. Ridiculous! The show has that "just right" combination of hilarity, hard sci-fi cleverness, heart, and absurdity. Seasons 2-4 of Futurama easily stacks up to any 3 great seasons from the Simpsons.
4 years later, I'm still a programmer, but at least I'm working at a scientific company now. Not astrophysics yet, but I'm slowly inching myself away from silly corporate database entry web apps... and towards scientific DB entry web apps.:)
I can start to feel the pull of my mid-life years. To put it in a dorky RPG way, I'm starting to use my Wisdom attribute a lot more and my Intelligence attribute less. Maybe those free MIT online courses will help, without having to go back to college.
Don't forget. The main character has to either have amnesia, woken up from a coma, has been destined to be greater than what his/her upbringing by his foster parent would suggest, or has a "dark past."
In that picture, she looks like Chloe from Smallville.
My last job at a prominent non-profit journalism org, I even overheard one idiot say something to the effect of, "We need someone who's more of a webmaster. This guy (me), is too much of a developer and into site architecture." What does that even mean? Did she even know what she meant? I think people who use this term are the type to always be stuck about 3 steps behind the rest of the internet. Next year, they'll be howling about how the company needs to adapt to Web 2.0 trends.
According to a random page I found while googling and not caring if it's valid or not, DLP recently has been in the lead among business projectors vs. LCD. See a few paragraphs down
:), eg. TVs.
That means the technology will stick around for a while, and I personally prefer the visual quality and price/performance of DLP vs. LCD and plasma. I don't think this bulb life "setback" will kill it since it doesn't have all its baskets in one egg
If I had the money to finish my basement and home theater room right now, DLP would be my choice. And I'm talking home theater projector, not TV. It always bugs me how every few months some company announces it's showcasing the world's largest LCD TV. 80", 90", 100", or 46'. Who cares!?! What donkey goes and buys these things? If you're going to go big, get a high quality projector and a high quality screen, regardless whether it's DLP or LCD.
Single Female Lawyer
Fighting for her client!
Wearing sexy miniskirts
And being self-reliant...
Single Female Lawyer
Having lots of sex.
Raise your hand if you bought a player because it plays both SACD and DVD-Audio... Um hmmm.
:(
The first problem is the amount of titles. I don't doubt that there'll be more compelling titles coming out faster for both HD formats combined. But I subscribe to the theory that combo-players will prolong the eventuality or even kill the chances that one day one format will win. It sort of gives both sides an excuse to continue releasing titles in their format.
So why should consumers care? Maybe they shouldn't if combo players become prolific. But I don't think they really help out the economies of scale thingymatheory, because there will continue to be two HD disc formats. Meaning two types of factories making these discs instead of all plants pressing one type of disc.
Then again, maybe one day I won't be able to resist diving in when the number of titles grow.
What about stereo vs. mono? And I don't mean the "stereo" (fake two channel mono) of YouTube videos to date.
As collateral damage, I think a Master of Magic revival was killed because of MoO 3. I remember hearing that the MoO 3 team was going to be given a crack at doing MoM 2 afterwards... but then MoO 3 came out and it sucked.
When interviewed, they said, "We're just cavemen. We do not understand these shiny so-called 'mice'. When we randomly bang on these 'keyboards', glyphs appear magically on what you people refer to as 'monitors'. We spend more time with our wives because we cower in fear of the grinding and wind-like noises that emminate from these miniature 'towers'." ...(in a stern voice) "But what we do know is that computer problems can sometimes cause significant emotional distress, similar to what happens when a problem occurs between spouses."
I'm sure if you send them the web survey idea, the new E.D. would strongly consider it, even if a couple of bad seeds still linger there. Though I don't think this method would generate as much or as quickly the data (bad grammar, I know) as their potential partnerships in the past would. Or simply getting it from the FCC would. There's also a matter of their web department in recent years being run by a communications, marketing and editorial beaureaucracy instead of a tech person.
Is this a fact cited somewhere? I'd actually be interested in a link. My parents live in a community in Northern Virginia (generally very high income area compared to the rest of the US) that is of higher income than most of northern Virginia. The houses (single, town, condos) are densely built together, so there's a pretty big concentration of people as well. Up until two years ago, nobody could get broadband unless it was business class Covad or whatever. Then Cox finally came in. AFAIK, they still can't get alternatives like DSL or FiOS. With the kind of service they're getting with cable internet, I bet they'd switch in an instant to a competitor.
I guess what I'm getting at is, that if it was based on income + population density, they would have been swooped upon five years ago.
When these giant masses hurl toward Earth, would the exploding robots help us to more fully understand Juffo-Wup?
For those who don't remember the reference. And if you haven't played it, you should just bypass the link entirely for this one: Moreso than the non-carbon based races in the game, the idea of a race from "below" shrouded in mystery like the Orz always fascinated me. What the hell are they, where/what/when do they come from? It boggles my mind.