That's because streaming from Netflix or Amazon just works, on your TV, on your phone, on your computer
Unless your Internet is down. Or slow. Or a high-quality stream will saturate it (hello, DSL!). Or you're HBO, beholden to the whims of cable companies, and the cable company has to approve any device which wants to stream HBO content. You want to use HBO GO on Comcast? That's fine, but you're doing it on your Roku or PC, not your PS3. There's a fully functional PS3 HBO app, but Comcast disallows it, for no other reason than they can. This happens even if your Internet provider is not Comcast and thus Comcast's servers are not involved. Or you want to stream something not available through Netflix or Amazon. ( A good portion of things) Or you don't want to be beholden to a company which can cancel your plan and lock you out of all the content they carry at any time. Or you want to watch the decent extras. Or you don't want to pay for subscriptions to 2+ online services just to get the content that you could get for $11/month from Netflix's dvd-by-mail.
The instant availability of titles is the only advantage streaming has. That's a nice feature, but shit, you give up SO MUCH to get it.
"or failed to obtain parental consent before marrying him."
""You're too young to consent to sex, but you can consent to be wedded." Unbelievable."
Because marriage simply being between bride and groom is a fairly recent development. Before, it was all about an exchange of value between two families. The bride was property, and that's why her father "gave her away."
Steve Jobs, IMO, was not at all a "terrible person". He was, however, a person with some personality issues (which by many counts, he did correct somewhat with time and age).
I guess.. devil's advocate, but is that not what a "terrible person" is?
Steve Jobs was a terrible person. He setup a deal with a local car dealership to switch cars on a regular basis for the sole purpose of never having to get a license plate so he could park in handicap spaces without getting a ticket.
I think you're confusing your Steve Jobs abuses, as those are two different issues. He just parked in the handicapped spots where he worked because he knew no one would tow him. The thing about the license plates was that he didn't want one because he didn't want to be "tracked" in public.
new sequels commissioned using only a handful of the original actors and one original writer.
Please do not let the writer be George Lucas. Please do not let the writer be George Lucas. Please do not let the writer be George Lucas.
It's not, it's Lawrence Kasdan, whose first writing credit was the screenplay for Empire Strikes Back. He also wrote the screenplay for Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Big Chill, Grand Canyon, Wyatt Earp. He's also tried directing, but the general sentiment seems to be that he's a better writer than director.
I believe... and strongly hope that George Lucas is receiving the Gene Roddenberry treatment from the early-mid 1980s: "kicked upstairs." Executive Producer but without the power to really meddle or force his vision. So far in the credits for the new star wars he's listed simply as "creative consultant," and he gets a credit for the original series characters.
Interestingly, the production designer is Rick Carter (Back to the Future 2&3, Jurassic Park, War Horse, Avatar).
I must disagree. Mr. Ford has played in a number of films where I thought he did an excellent job, even though the films where of marginal quality overall. His portrayal of Jack Ryan is pretty good and both of those movies are worth seeing. I thought "Six Days Seven Nights" was horrible as a movie, but Harrison Ford was good in it. "The Fugitive" is a really great film for him as was "Witness" and "Sabrina" and they are well worth seeing, but forget about "K-19", "Random hearts", and "Air Force One". "Regarding Henry" is interesting too if you get a chance.
It's true, and Sabrina is one film I haven't seen that I should check out. I did use the timeline "in the last 20 years" intentionally, as his last Jack Ryan film is now just 20 years old, and The Fugitive is now 21 years old. Looking back I'm not a fan of his Air Force One performance, since to me it was the solidifying of the one type of character that he really seems to play these days: the grouchy, angry, bitter (and now old) man. I don't like that sort of Harrison Ford. I almost never see him in any other sort of demeanor in interviews either. Is that just how he is these days and he can't even break out of it on screen? That would be pretty sad, but I'm hoping the truth is otherwise.
Don't judge Harrison Ford by his "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" characters which are both campy and unbelievable
Actually, I do judge him by those characters. Are they campy and unbelievable? Yes, but it's his ability that sells them. He does an excellent job with what was essentially fluff. He -didn't- do as good a job in the 4th Indiana Jones movie, or movies like Cowboys and Aliens.
Harrison Ford's improv and ad-hoc line rewriting in the original Star Wars trilogy resulted in some of Han Solo's better moments. If he'd just read the script as was written the character wouldn't have worked nearly as well (and I do think the Han Solo character works well in the original trilogy).
Holy shit, I would NOT have rated any of the prequels higher than Jedi. Jedi sadly had a bit too much Ewok, but it has the best-choreographed of the space battles in all the Star Wars movies, Luke's confrontation with Vader and the Emperor was perfection (especially with the use of lighting), and the whole Jabba cold open is great stuff as well.
There's some shoddy writing in Jedi, but the acting is actually good enough to pull it off. I can't say the same of the acting in any of the prequel movies.
Episode VII is the movie they should have made years ago. Instead, we got the godawful prequels and now all the original cast is a hundred years old and will be lucky to get through filming without needing paramedics standing by at all times.
Have you watched any Harrison Ford movie in the past 20 years where you thought he did a good job? I haven't.
The Cantina band stops playing for a bit to watch the spectacle but soon starts up again. Wipe over to the main story after audience applause.
I always thought that the Cantina music would be great dubbed over that scene from Return of the King where Frodo and Gollum are fighting over the ring in Mount Doom. Someone has to make that a reality.
If you want me to become emotionally invested in your story, you can't just suddenly say "Ignore everything I've been telling you for the past 30 years"
This isn't a change of existing policy. All along has been the understanding that only the movies are considered part of Lucasfilm canon.
Other people can write as many stories as they want, but that doesn't mean "it happened" in the official universe.
I never said we'd be out of oil by 2020. Make no mistake, we -will- be out of oil at some time; it's not going to appear by magic. Nature creates oil, but on a pretty vast time scale, and it's clear we're using it at a faster than replacement rate.
I'm not sure about Abrams though. Lost may have lost its way
I'd say most of Lost was really co-show-runners Damon Lindeloff's and Carlton Cuse's baby. Abrams came up with the concept and directed the pilot episode, but after that, Lindeloff and Cuse ran the show.
I kept waiting for the reveal of the Plan the Cylons supposedly had.
I think it was somewhat explained by "Battlestar Galactica: The Plan."
However, it wasn't a good plan. It was a fairly shitty plan that most Cylons didn't know about, and it ended when Caprica Cavil outed "Brother Cavil" on Galactica, revealing them to be Cylon models.
Hmmm. I would say that FF13's battle system was a BIG improvement on FF12's, but it's true, I still prefer the earlier FFs. I'll say when FFX came out, its battle system felt fresh and fast just because they got rid of all the pauses between turns, allowing combat to flow as fast as the player desired. I have a hard time going back to play the classic FFIV just because the pacing (battle system and otherwise) is so glacial.
To that request, I'd point you to the above rebuttal. You're trying to make coal more expensive so it compares cost-wise to solar
It really means making coal producers and burners pay for the actual cost of their energy generation -- at the moment, the costs get paid for by the rest of society (usually the government and health care organizations). So you could have coal become more expensive by charging them for the direct pollution and side-effects.
If that is untenable, then you could subsidize solar so that it's as competitive with coal as it would be if coal's costs weren't subsidized. This is the method that we're using now, up for discussion in the article.
And those 97% of climate scientists would be generally paid nothing if it were determined they'd been flat out wrong (again) for the last 2 decades. At the least they'd be discredited and viewed as incompetent. The grants and foundations that make their work possible would evaporate. A cynical person would point out that pure self-preservation might encourage some to speak that which ensures their job over the truth.
A cynical person perhaps, but not a smart one. I file that one along with the conspiracy theory that drug companies have cured cancer but don't release the cure because they make more money on expensive cancer treatments. Both totally ignore the human element and the impossibility of keeping an entire industry of scientists lying for decades... out of self-preservation? It doesn't even pass the laugh test.
The waste issue is easily solvable with thorium power, as there is much less of it and it only needs to be stored for a few hundred years. A Yucca Mountain type site would be fine, or there are alternatives.
But no one wants to deal with it. There IS no Yucca-mountain type of site, it was shut down because locals, once again, didn't want nuclear waste stored in their area, and their congressional representatives are powerful.
Wind and solar plants use weather reports as forecast for the next hours (not months, that is nonsense) and are perfectly predictable
Ok, the wind is low and it's nighttime (even in the daytime solar will not generate NEAR the amount of energy until you cover the surface of the country with panels). What do you do? If the answer is "burn more oil from Russia than you used to," that's the solution Germany chose.
Slashdot Mirror
That's because streaming from Netflix or Amazon just works, on your TV, on your phone, on your computer
Unless your Internet is down. Or slow. Or a high-quality stream will saturate it (hello, DSL!).
Or you're HBO, beholden to the whims of cable companies, and the cable company has to approve any device which wants to stream HBO content. You want to use HBO GO on Comcast? That's fine, but you're doing it on your Roku or PC, not your PS3. There's a fully functional PS3 HBO app, but Comcast disallows it, for no other reason than they can. This happens even if your Internet provider is not Comcast and thus Comcast's servers are not involved.
Or you want to stream something not available through Netflix or Amazon. ( A good portion of things)
Or you don't want to be beholden to a company which can cancel your plan and lock you out of all the content they carry at any time.
Or you want to watch the decent extras.
Or you don't want to pay for subscriptions to 2+ online services just to get the content that you could get for $11/month from Netflix's dvd-by-mail.
The instant availability of titles is the only advantage streaming has. That's a nice feature, but shit, you give up SO MUCH to get it.
the products he created.
Which would be nothing. Underlings created the products Jobs got the adulation.
Good, intelligent work, poorly directed, is absolutely useless.
"or failed to obtain parental consent before marrying him."
""You're too young to consent to sex, but you can consent to be wedded." Unbelievable."
Because marriage simply being between bride and groom is a fairly recent development. Before, it was all about an exchange of value between two families. The bride was property, and that's why her father "gave her away."
Steve Jobs, IMO, was not at all a "terrible person". He was, however, a person with some personality issues (which by many counts, he did correct somewhat with time and age).
I guess.. devil's advocate, but is that not what a "terrible person" is?
Steve Jobs was a terrible person. He setup a deal with a local car dealership to switch cars on a regular basis for the sole purpose of never having to get a license plate so he could park in handicap spaces without getting a ticket.
I think you're confusing your Steve Jobs abuses, as those are two different issues. He just parked in the handicapped spots where he worked because he knew no one would tow him. The thing about the license plates was that he didn't want one because he didn't want to be "tracked" in public.
Lost was good at first, but went down hill fast.
Well that's fine, he created the characters and directed the pilot, and that was the end of that.
But I also liked Super 8. And while I don't think it approaches real greatness, I think the Star Trek reboot was pretty good.
J. J. Abrams is a total wildcard. He CAN do really good stuff... and he also can do fairly bad stuff.
He directed the Star Trek reboot like it was a Star Wars movie instead of Star Trek, so this seems like it could be a natural for him.
new sequels commissioned using only a handful of the original actors and one original writer.
Please do not let the writer be George Lucas. Please do not let the writer be George Lucas. Please do not let the writer be George Lucas.
It's not, it's Lawrence Kasdan, whose first writing credit was the screenplay for Empire Strikes Back. He also wrote the screenplay for Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Big Chill, Grand Canyon, Wyatt Earp. He's also tried directing, but the general sentiment seems to be that he's a better writer than director.
I believe ... and strongly hope that George Lucas is receiving the Gene Roddenberry treatment from the early-mid 1980s: "kicked upstairs." Executive Producer but without the power to really meddle or force his vision. So far in the credits for the new star wars he's listed simply as "creative consultant," and he gets a credit for the original series characters.
Interestingly, the production designer is Rick Carter (Back to the Future 2&3, Jurassic Park, War Horse, Avatar).
I must disagree. Mr. Ford has played in a number of films where I thought he did an excellent job, even though the films where of marginal quality overall. His portrayal of Jack Ryan is pretty good and both of those movies are worth seeing. I thought "Six Days Seven Nights" was horrible as a movie, but Harrison Ford was good in it. "The Fugitive" is a really great film for him as was "Witness" and "Sabrina" and they are well worth seeing, but forget about "K-19", "Random hearts", and "Air Force One". "Regarding Henry" is interesting too if you get a chance.
It's true, and Sabrina is one film I haven't seen that I should check out. I did use the timeline "in the last 20 years" intentionally, as his last Jack Ryan film is now just 20 years old, and The Fugitive is now 21 years old. Looking back I'm not a fan of his Air Force One performance, since to me it was the solidifying of the one type of character that he really seems to play these days: the grouchy, angry, bitter (and now old) man. I don't like that sort of Harrison Ford. I almost never see him in any other sort of demeanor in interviews either. Is that just how he is these days and he can't even break out of it on screen? That would be pretty sad, but I'm hoping the truth is otherwise.
Don't judge Harrison Ford by his "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" characters which are both campy and unbelievable
Actually, I do judge him by those characters. Are they campy and unbelievable? Yes, but it's his ability that sells them. He does an excellent job with what was essentially fluff. He -didn't- do as good a job in the 4th Indiana Jones movie, or movies like Cowboys and Aliens.
Harrison Ford's improv and ad-hoc line rewriting in the original Star Wars trilogy resulted in some of Han Solo's better moments. If he'd just read the script as was written the character wouldn't have worked nearly as well (and I do think the Han Solo character works well in the original trilogy).
"False presumptions?" Care to back that up, buddy?
Holy shit, I would NOT have rated any of the prequels higher than Jedi.
Jedi sadly had a bit too much Ewok, but it has the best-choreographed of the space battles in all the Star Wars movies, Luke's confrontation with Vader and the Emperor was perfection (especially with the use of lighting), and the whole Jabba cold open is great stuff as well.
There's some shoddy writing in Jedi, but the acting is actually good enough to pull it off. I can't say the same of the acting in any of the prequel movies.
Episode VII is the movie they should have made years ago. Instead, we got the godawful prequels and now all the original cast is a hundred years old and will be lucky to get through filming without needing paramedics standing by at all times.
Have you watched any Harrison Ford movie in the past 20 years where you thought he did a good job? I haven't.
I suppose he was passable in Ender's Game.
The Cantina band stops playing for a bit to watch the spectacle but soon starts up again. Wipe over to the main story after audience applause.
I always thought that the Cantina music would be great dubbed over that scene from Return of the King where Frodo and Gollum are fighting over the ring in Mount Doom. Someone has to make that a reality.
If you want me to become emotionally invested in your story, you can't just suddenly say "Ignore everything I've been telling you for the past 30 years"
This isn't a change of existing policy. All along has been the understanding that only the movies are considered part of Lucasfilm canon.
Other people can write as many stories as they want, but that doesn't mean "it happened" in the official universe.
I never said we'd be out of oil by 2020. Make no mistake, we -will- be out of oil at some time; it's not going to appear by magic. Nature creates oil, but on a pretty vast time scale, and it's clear we're using it at a faster than replacement rate.
I'm not sure about Abrams though. Lost may have lost its way
I'd say most of Lost was really co-show-runners Damon Lindeloff's and Carlton Cuse's baby. Abrams came up with the concept and directed the pilot episode, but after that, Lindeloff and Cuse ran the show.
I kept waiting for the reveal of the Plan the Cylons supposedly had.
I think it was somewhat explained by "Battlestar Galactica: The Plan."
However, it wasn't a good plan. It was a fairly shitty plan that most Cylons didn't know about, and it ended when Caprica Cavil outed "Brother Cavil" on Galactica, revealing them to be Cylon models.
IE, X-Files.
Hmmm. I would say that FF13's battle system was a BIG improvement on FF12's, but it's true, I still prefer the earlier FFs. I'll say when FFX came out, its battle system felt fresh and fast just because they got rid of all the pauses between turns, allowing combat to flow as fast as the player desired. I have a hard time going back to play the classic FFIV just because the pacing (battle system and otherwise) is so glacial.
To that request, I'd point you to the above rebuttal. You're trying to make coal more expensive so it compares cost-wise to solar
It really means making coal producers and burners pay for the actual cost of their energy generation -- at the moment, the costs get paid for by the rest of society (usually the government and health care organizations). So you could have coal become more expensive by charging them for the direct pollution and side-effects.
If that is untenable, then you could subsidize solar so that it's as competitive with coal as it would be if coal's costs weren't subsidized. This is the method that we're using now, up for discussion in the article.
Plenty of job titles that have been made obsolete by the march of progress.
Which is all well and good until it's your job that's gone.
No one has a right to work in his chosen field. You change or you die. And someday I will have to make that choice too.
And those 97% of climate scientists would be generally paid nothing if it were determined they'd been flat out wrong (again) for the last 2 decades. At the least they'd be discredited and viewed as incompetent. The grants and foundations that make their work possible would evaporate. A cynical person would point out that pure self-preservation might encourage some to speak that which ensures their job over the truth.
A cynical person perhaps, but not a smart one. I file that one along with the conspiracy theory that drug companies have cured cancer but don't release the cure because they make more money on expensive cancer treatments. Both totally ignore the human element and the impossibility of keeping an entire industry of scientists lying for decades... out of self-preservation? It doesn't even pass the laugh test.
The waste issue is easily solvable with thorium power, as there is much less of it and it only needs to be stored for a few hundred years. A Yucca Mountain type site would be fine, or there are alternatives.
But no one wants to deal with it. There IS no Yucca-mountain type of site, it was shut down because locals, once again, didn't want nuclear waste stored in their area, and their congressional representatives are powerful.
Wind and solar plants use weather reports as forecast for the next hours (not months, that is nonsense) and are perfectly predictable
Ok, the wind is low and it's nighttime (even in the daytime solar will not generate NEAR the amount of energy until you cover the surface of the country with panels). What do you do? If the answer is "burn more oil from Russia than you used to," that's the solution Germany chose.
Oil, going out of business since the 70's!
Ah, so the replacement/creation rate of oil is higher than the usage?