...how can a helmet determine that the terrorist in the bush is more important than the cat in the bush? They're both potentially threatening. What are you, a first-level wizard?
Except that DARPA and the US military aren't profit-seeking organizations.
They drink from an essentially boundless well of cash. They have other goals which you may or may not agree with, but profitability is *not* one of them.
The 2nd amendment was meant to leave ultimate power in the hands of the people--by enabling them to take up arms against a tyrannical government if required. Recall that the men who wrote the constitution has just done this very thing themselves--in fact, Lexington and Concord, the first battles of the Revolutionary War, were fought because the government was attempting to disarm the citizenry.
Bravo. That's one of the reasons I dislike the modern policy of framing the discussion in terms of "hunters". As soon as you establish that context in the minds of the general populace, you've undermined your own position. You'd be hard pressed to find a modern politician who would publicly state that every American has the right to defend themselves from tyranny, despite that it's very clearly stated in the highest law in the land.
The Milky Way is about 100,000ly across, so the ping times from one side to the other would be 200,000 years - try playing Intergalactic Counter Strike over that.
The aliens have mostly switched to play-by-email RPGs. Their advanced cultures find greater advantage in their ability to consider their role-play decisions for a few centuries, and they scoff at primitive societies and their "twitch" gameplay.
You're a quitter. One who walks out of movies. One who doesn't even try to enjoy something. I get it. Opinions from people who walk out of movies are pretty useless to those of us who don't. I've never walked out of a movie in my life. Anyone who has -- is way too much of a pessimist to ever listen to. Go back to reading books if you require that much from your entertainment.
I don't know about that. I've never walked out of a movie, but I can think of a couple that I wish I would have walked out on. "Saw", for one... I also recommended that everyone I know walk out of Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" as soon as they saw the Martian die. If I had, I probably would have thought it was good.
I'm not sure where China fits, they very well might have more individuals in jail than the US. In a totalitarian state with a billion people, I'd be surprised if they didn't, but the per capita prison population is much more useful and fair when making the comparison.
All of the same could be said about Alien except it had three sequels, thus it is better.
At least that's what I would say if I though those external factors meant anything regarding the quality of the film itself.
You can have any opinion you want about the quality of the film. If all you had said was that Alien was the better movie, I would agree.
However, you said:
Aliens was just an average action movie, nothing special at all.
To say that it was "nothing special" is to deny the influence that Aliens, not Alien, had on popular culture. Aliens established the now archetypal "space marine", spawned comics, novels, video games, spinoff movies, classic nerd quotes, etc. Sure, you can trace that all back to Alien, but only through Aliens.
If you ignore Jar-Jar and midichlorians, it was the best of the prequel trilogy.
(NOTE: Revenge of the Sith was the most *awesome* of them, but it wasn't as good a movie as the first one. The second one really has no redeeming value.)
They pretty much hate everything. The first (and only, thus far) review I've read there that didn't say anything bad about the movie was Batman Begins, and I'd stick that one on my short list of the best movies ever made.
But then again, my favourite Matrix movie was the second one, so what do I know...
I thought the second one was really good until I saw the third one.
That scene with the Architect was brilliant, it really made the movie for me. Then the third one happened and you find out that that everything in the second was totally irrelevant.
It blows my mind why anyone would want to take a okay movie (the only one I'd call "good" was the first one) and plunge it into irrelevancy with a steaming shit-pile of a sequel. (I'm still referring to the second and third movies there, btw.)
Successful conspiracies, by definition, are unknowable.
That's totally untrue. Unless secrecy is your success condition, once a conspiracy has succeeded, there's often no need to maintain secrecy any longer.
An obvious example that's happened many times in history would be a conspiracy to overthrow a ruler and replace him with one of the conspirators. It would be a pretty silly thing to do if no one knew you did it. And once your new ruler is place, why be secretive? You're no longer a shadowy conspirator, you're a hero.
Heh. It's often thought that many alien abduction stories (which are very different from UFO's, but anyways . ..) stem from ASP, or Awareness during Sleep Paralysis. It's essentially a waking dream where you can't move but you can hallucinate things (you eyes see the real world but you mind, still in a dreamstate, can superimpose a dream over the real world).
So this is totally off-topic, but I had no idea that was an actual documented condition. That used to happen to me almost every night. Not the hallucinations, but being aware while I was asleep. I'd sometimes have paranoid feelings while it was going on, but I never saw or heard things that weren't there.
Still happens occasionally, but it's pretty rare these days.
Any tie to Microsoft is a tie they can and will exploit, a liability no one can really afford.
I agree with the first part of that sentence, but not the second.
Many organizations, both large and small, can afford to deal with Microsoft, and in fact make huge profits doing so.
If that were true, why are so many people makeing ASP.NET websites? Why are so many companies successfully running Exchange servers?
I don't like working with Microsoft software any more than you do (well, maybe a *little* more, windows 2000/XP don't really bother me), but obviously it works out for a lot of people.
Slashdot Mirror
...how can a helmet determine that the terrorist in the bush is more important than the cat in the bush? They're both potentially threatening. What are you, a first-level wizard?Except that DARPA and the US military aren't profit-seeking organizations.
They drink from an essentially boundless well of cash. They have other goals which you may or may not agree with, but profitability is *not* one of them.
At least we can finally stop that Anonymous Coward guy from posting those goatse links.
Bravo. That's one of the reasons I dislike the modern policy of framing the discussion in terms of "hunters". As soon as you establish that context in the minds of the general populace, you've undermined your own position. You'd be hard pressed to find a modern politician who would publicly state that every American has the right to defend themselves from tyranny, despite that it's very clearly stated in the highest law in the land.
My friend's Chinese wife said that the Firefly actors' Chinese pronunciation is pretty awful, it might do you more harm than good.
Bagels aren't mathematically delicious enough to fit the equations.
The aliens have mostly switched to play-by-email RPGs. Their advanced cultures find greater advantage in their ability to consider their role-play decisions for a few centuries, and they scoff at primitive societies and their "twitch" gameplay.
I don't know about that. I've never walked out of a movie, but I can think of a couple that I wish I would have walked out on. "Saw", for one... I also recommended that everyone I know walk out of Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" as soon as they saw the Martian die. If I had, I probably would have thought it was good.
I'm not sure where China fits, they very well might have more individuals in jail than the US. In a totalitarian state with a billion people, I'd be surprised if they didn't, but the per capita prison population is much more useful and fair when making the comparison.
Um, thanks to Dubya and Dick, you won't need bridges and roads for very much longer...no one can afford to drive on them
Ending a century of cheap oil prices may end up being the only good thing the Bush administration accomplished.
No, not "one of", *the* highest in the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisons_in_the_United_States
You can have any opinion you want about the quality of the film. If all you had said was that Alien was the better movie, I would agree.
However, you said:
Aliens was just an average action movie, nothing special at all.To say that it was "nothing special" is to deny the influence that Aliens, not Alien, had on popular culture. Aliens established the now archetypal "space marine", spawned comics, novels, video games, spinoff movies, classic nerd quotes, etc. Sure, you can trace that all back to Alien, but only through Aliens.
Or...
"A communications disruption can mean only one thing... invasion!"
Sorry... couldn't resist.
Nothing takes down an enemy botnet like a game of Global Thermonuclear War.
Okay, it's a little hokey, I'll grant you that.
Still, you gotta give props to any movie that can take the concept of a billionaire ninja in a cape seriously and pull it off.
Pop culture, two sequels and the entire video game industry would seem to contradict you.
If you ignore Jar-Jar and midichlorians, it was the best of the prequel trilogy.
(NOTE: Revenge of the Sith was the most *awesome* of them, but it wasn't as good a movie as the first one. The second one really has no redeeming value.)
The Onion AV Club is another good one.
They pretty much hate everything. The first (and only, thus far) review I've read there that didn't say anything bad about the movie was Batman Begins, and I'd stick that one on my short list of the best movies ever made.
No, because low expectations reduce the prices the theaters have to pay for it. It's Indianna Jones, people will see it anyway.
I thought the second one was really good until I saw the third one.
That scene with the Architect was brilliant, it really made the movie for me. Then the third one happened and you find out that that everything in the second was totally irrelevant.
It blows my mind why anyone would want to take a okay movie (the only one I'd call "good" was the first one) and plunge it into irrelevancy with a steaming shit-pile of a sequel. (I'm still referring to the second and third movies there, btw.)
You skipped a post in your quote.
I was replying to:
It's almost as though Microsoft is actively trying to fail.How so? They've already got at least 3 versions of the console. How is it that further confusing the market is their only possible means of success?
This may shock you, but the most popular and financially successful non-portable console of this generation has a grand total of *one* version.
That's totally untrue. Unless secrecy is your success condition, once a conspiracy has succeeded, there's often no need to maintain secrecy any longer.
An obvious example that's happened many times in history would be a conspiracy to overthrow a ruler and replace him with one of the conspirators. It would be a pretty silly thing to do if no one knew you did it. And once your new ruler is place, why be secretive? You're no longer a shadowy conspirator, you're a hero.
So this is totally off-topic, but I had no idea that was an actual documented condition. That used to happen to me almost every night. Not the hallucinations, but being aware while I was asleep. I'd sometimes have paranoid feelings while it was going on, but I never saw or heard things that weren't there.
Still happens occasionally, but it's pretty rare these days.
I agree with the first part of that sentence, but not the second.
Many organizations, both large and small, can afford to deal with Microsoft, and in fact make huge profits doing so.
If that were true, why are so many people makeing ASP.NET websites? Why are so many companies successfully running Exchange servers?
I don't like working with Microsoft software any more than you do (well, maybe a *little* more, windows 2000/XP don't really bother me), but obviously it works out for a lot of people.