Now, please take off your pants and put your underwear on your head to signal our next meeting.
I'm afraid you tipped your hand. If you were truly my alien overlord, you would know that I long ago burned my underwear and instead glue shredded tin foil to my nether-regions in it's place, as I was instructed.
Now if you'd instructed me to remove the tin foil, I'd be in a world of hurt right now...
Proleptic Julian calendar. Dates in the BC range (and all the way into the late 16th century AD) are typically assumed Julian unless explicitly stated Gregorian. Although I have no idea what the proper technique would be to handle the who Julian leap-year mess and figure out whether Earth really is a Libra or actually a Scorpio with a funny birthday. If only Ussher was still around we could ask him.
As a side note (as if this whole thing isn't a side-note), Lightfoot also put the Earth's birthday near the autumnal equinox, but he didn't nail the date down quite as precisely and made the Earth quite a bit younger (3929 BC vice 4004 BC). Ussher's calculation is just more fun because he published an actual date (I've heard that one of his students actually nailed the time of completion down to around 0900).
The aliens talk only to me and I have the good sense not to answer them (at least not out loud). I just carefully carry out their instructions and try to get mixed up with those crazies.
Actually, IIRC, the Pope made a declaration a while back that there's nothing biblical that bars the existence of extraterrestrial life. For many people who are strongly devoted to one religion or another, even finding a note from their messiah announcing "Just kidding - I didn't think that y'all were going to take me so seriously. Hopefully after I die, somebody will find this and avoid any real disaster," would defer them from their beliefs.
Hey - There's no room for rounding if you're going scriptural on us. The Earth's creation started the night before Oct 23, 4004 BC. (In case anyone was wondering, Earth is a Libra.)
I can't even think of one that I'd use for free, much less want to pay for. Like most college students, I use forums and Facebook and Google and Wikipedia and Amazon.
Amazon's premium service, although expensive ($70/year IIRC), is wonderfully addictive. It eliminates the $25 minimum for free shipping and upgrades you to "free" 2-day shipping. If nothing else, it's worth signing up for their free (1-month) trial if you ever run into something you need quickly and are too cheap to upgrade your shipping option.
Also, they allow you to invite (I think) up to 4 "household members" to share your membership. I do not know how they define "household member", but they haven't objected so far to me sharing a membership with my dad.
Just my $.02 - Donating to Wikipedia still seems more useful.
I'm not convinced that The Office's success was really a factor of a switch in slang as it was good (and different) writing and great work from the cast (Steve Carell of course stands out, but there are several star performers there). Also, Steve Carell plays the manager much differently than his UK counterpart - A little sillier & stupider which I think plays well here. With Coupling (at least from what I saw), they didn't even bother writing new episodes or even re-writing the existing ones. It was nearly word-for-word the original except for the slang.
I mean really, if a character is finishing off a glass of beer, looks at his glass, remarks "Need to make a quick run to the loo," and we next see him standing in front of a urinal, how much of a learning curve is there? He could call the "loo" pretty much anything he wanted and I'd figure it out without too much brain-strain. And I don't find the accents at all distracting - In fact it kind of helps set the tone and let you know that you're in British-humor land rather than American-humor land.
I've not used the commercial LED light bulbs, but standard LEDs dim just fine (at least to a point). I see no obstacle that would stop the bulbs from dimming too.
In fact, a very quick check on the bulbs available at Amazon indicates that they do dim. Is there a dimming problem that you're aware of that's not made clear in the Amazon reviews?
I've heard similar reviews from a co-worker who was very motivated to 'go green'. The '40-watt equivalent' turned out to be an over-sized night-light (per her review - I haven't seen it).
Still, this could be good news. I switched about half-way to CFLs largely to save $$ on electricity, but they're neither as efficient nor as 'green' as LED lights. I priced LED lights but, at the time, they were so damned expensive that it would take ~40 years for the investment to pay itself off. Even if I have to over-rate everything to get the same level of light, it should be better all the way around compared to the current alternatives.
Still, even though this sounds solid, the ominous 'This should be available in 5 years' always makes me a little cautious.
I don't know whether or not you're in the U.S. Here, suggesting that JFK was anything but a superb president will inspire violent responses from a large portion of the populace that was alive when he was assassinated. The anger, grief, confusion, confused patriotism, and fear that gripped the nation after that event has, in many minds, overshadowed the debacle that was his presidency. He was popular, good looking, and died in office - Many people have heroized him. I've talked to people that actually blame Johnson (or even Nixon!?!) for the Bay of Pigs invasion & the Cuban Missile Crisis...
Suggesting that JFK was at all flawed or responsible for anything that might have negatively impacted America would be like suggesting that Columbus may not have been a genius hero-explorer who single handedly discovered America and brought civilization and cake to the poor ignorant savages living here who welcomed him as a liberator.
Did anyone watch the failed American pilot for Red Dwarf? Eww.
I watched it - Be fair. It was as good as the American pilot for Coupling. =)
Seriously, why take a perfectly good series and re-make it only changing the actors' accents and replacing "chips" with "fries" and "loo" with "bathroom"? British humor is a little bit different than American humor - And anyone who is going to enjoy it will be willing to infer from context what a "loo" is when somebody's had too much to drink and needs to pop off to one.
I don't recall the Earth being destroyed. Lister was in stasis for a long, long time as the ship drifted further and further away, but IIRC, Earth was still there - just unreachable in any reasonable length of time (kind of like Dark Star). (Feel free to correct my bad memory.)
But, there was at least one episode where the crew does go back in time to visit Earth. I liked it just because it was so terribly un-P.C. to suggest that JFK needed to be assassinated in order to save the U.S. (Not unrealistic, just not P.C.)
Red Dwarf, like HHGTTG, is one of those things that just isn't for everyone. And, like HHGTTG, I'm not sure it can even be an acquired taste - If you read/watched a few and hated them, you'll probably hate the rest. Personally, I'm a big fan of both - A unique flavor of humor that just can't be duplicated. (Although in the case of HGTTG, I think the radio show out-shines the movie and, although maybe inferior, is more fun to revisit than the books.)
That said, I have to agree with GPP - It aged badly. When I go back to watch the episodes over, it's rare that I watch anything beyond the ship being reconstructed. It was still fun, but lacked a lot of the charm that the early episodes had. Still, I refuse to miss the Easter special - I'll be there front and center out of curiosity if nothing else...
Not at all the case. I love my dog dearly (the cats are OK too I guess...) But that's really part of the problem I see with this.
I accept that you love your pets and accept them as members of your family. That's great and I understand completely - I'm in the same boat. But, if another member of your family died, would you also clone them? Cloning a beloved pet only strikes me as slightly less creepy than cloning a beloved child that died too early...
Like I said in a post above, genetically identical != same animal. We (typically) outlive our pets. That's just the way it is. Forming an emotional bond to an animal just because it shares genes with an animal that you loved just seems unhealthy.
I understand loving your pets. I love my dog and, when he goes, it will be exceeding painful. If I could have him return as a puppy when he dies it would be great.
But genetically identical != same dog. The fact that I don't need a clone doesn't mean I don't love my dog, just that I accept that he'll die one day and that nothing (not even cloning) will bring him back. Well... Maybe burying him in that old Indian burial ground a short hike from my back yard... But that just seems like I'd be asking for trouble.
By dealing with the RIAA at all the ISPs are making a huge mistake. Is my utility company liable if I install grow lamps and start a marijuana farm because they failed to alert the authorities about the power increase? Is my phone company liable if I start calling the state prison regularly and it turns out that I'm organizing to have an informant killed because they weren't monitoring my phone records and didn't recommend a phone tap?
By playing along even in a small role, the ISPs are really stepping in it...
I've looked at several Priuses, but have yet to find the plug that allows their owners to power it off of the grid. Do you have some advance-sale special model?
At which time, I, as the wiley "bad guy", press the button telling the camera to make the clicking noise when taking a picture. After the mean ol'cop has left
You know, down-shifting a couple of gears has a similar effect without having to hack your car. And it'll save you a couple of bucks on that fancy automatic transmission and can improve your engine's performance.
Of course, I'm one of those weirdos that tries to avoid accidents even if they're the other guy's fault. To each their own.
Slashdot Mirror
No pop-up for me! Just a "Blocked by Websense" page that says:
This website violates ******** Computing Use Policy.
Reason: The Websense category "Proxy Avoidance" is filtered.
URL: http://www.adimpact.com/cgi-bin/webapp/nph-demo.cgi/000000A/http/slashdot.org/
Options: If you think this should not be blocked, report it to Cyber Security for review
Maybe I shouldn't try to click through to sites that I'm not familiar with that I know attempt to run scripts while I'm at work... Oops.
Now, please take off your pants and put your underwear on your head to signal our next meeting.
I'm afraid you tipped your hand. If you were truly my alien overlord, you would know that I long ago burned my underwear and instead glue shredded tin foil to my nether-regions in it's place, as I was instructed.
Now if you'd instructed me to remove the tin foil, I'd be in a world of hurt right now...
Thanks for pointing that out (although there really are some functioning jet-packs).
FTS:
RTI now offers a printer that uses coffee instead of ink.
No. They don't. They do offer some pictures of what one might look like if anyone ever (for whatever reason) built one.
TFS is often exaggerated or slightly misleading, but rarely this blatantly wrong.
Proleptic Julian calendar. Dates in the BC range (and all the way into the late 16th century AD) are typically assumed Julian unless explicitly stated Gregorian. Although I have no idea what the proper technique would be to handle the who Julian leap-year mess and figure out whether Earth really is a Libra or actually a Scorpio with a funny birthday. If only Ussher was still around we could ask him.
As a side note (as if this whole thing isn't a side-note), Lightfoot also put the Earth's birthday near the autumnal equinox, but he didn't nail the date down quite as precisely and made the Earth quite a bit younger (3929 BC vice 4004 BC). Ussher's calculation is just more fun because he published an actual date (I've heard that one of his students actually nailed the time of completion down to around 0900).
No - Those people really are crazy.
The aliens talk only to me and I have the good sense not to answer them (at least not out loud). I just carefully carry out their instructions and try to get mixed up with those crazies.
Actually, IIRC, the Pope made a declaration a while back that there's nothing biblical that bars the existence of extraterrestrial life. For many people who are strongly devoted to one religion or another, even finding a note from their messiah announcing "Just kidding - I didn't think that y'all were going to take me so seriously. Hopefully after I die, somebody will find this and avoid any real disaster," would defer them from their beliefs.
...the universe was created 6k years ago.
Hey - There's no room for rounding if you're going scriptural on us. The Earth's creation started the night before Oct 23, 4004 BC. (In case anyone was wondering, Earth is a Libra.)
Assuming the average communicating civilization has a lifetime of 1,000 years...
Damn - We've got less time than I thought. Here I've been rooting for heat death. =(
I can't even think of one that I'd use for free, much less want to pay for. Like most college students, I use forums and Facebook and Google and Wikipedia and Amazon.
Amazon's premium service, although expensive ($70/year IIRC), is wonderfully addictive. It eliminates the $25 minimum for free shipping and upgrades you to "free" 2-day shipping. If nothing else, it's worth signing up for their free (1-month) trial if you ever run into something you need quickly and are too cheap to upgrade your shipping option.
Also, they allow you to invite (I think) up to 4 "household members" to share your membership. I do not know how they define "household member", but they haven't objected so far to me sharing a membership with my dad.
Just my $.02 - Donating to Wikipedia still seems more useful.
Aside from the two Batman Movies with Michale Keaton, the style wasn't really that dark gothic many fans enjoy.
Watch the first full-length Batman movie followed up by the first Michael Keaton flick. It looks plenty dark in comparison.
I'm not convinced that The Office's success was really a factor of a switch in slang as it was good (and different) writing and great work from the cast (Steve Carell of course stands out, but there are several star performers there). Also, Steve Carell plays the manager much differently than his UK counterpart - A little sillier & stupider which I think plays well here. With Coupling (at least from what I saw), they didn't even bother writing new episodes or even re-writing the existing ones. It was nearly word-for-word the original except for the slang.
I mean really, if a character is finishing off a glass of beer, looks at his glass, remarks "Need to make a quick run to the loo," and we next see him standing in front of a urinal, how much of a learning curve is there? He could call the "loo" pretty much anything he wanted and I'd figure it out without too much brain-strain. And I don't find the accents at all distracting - In fact it kind of helps set the tone and let you know that you're in British-humor land rather than American-humor land.
I've not used the commercial LED light bulbs, but standard LEDs dim just fine (at least to a point). I see no obstacle that would stop the bulbs from dimming too.
In fact, a very quick check on the bulbs available at Amazon indicates that they do dim. Is there a dimming problem that you're aware of that's not made clear in the Amazon reviews?
I've heard similar reviews from a co-worker who was very motivated to 'go green'. The '40-watt equivalent' turned out to be an over-sized night-light (per her review - I haven't seen it).
Still, this could be good news. I switched about half-way to CFLs largely to save $$ on electricity, but they're neither as efficient nor as 'green' as LED lights. I priced LED lights but, at the time, they were so damned expensive that it would take ~40 years for the investment to pay itself off. Even if I have to over-rate everything to get the same level of light, it should be better all the way around compared to the current alternatives.
Still, even though this sounds solid, the ominous 'This should be available in 5 years' always makes me a little cautious.
I don't know whether or not you're in the U.S. Here, suggesting that JFK was anything but a superb president will inspire violent responses from a large portion of the populace that was alive when he was assassinated. The anger, grief, confusion, confused patriotism, and fear that gripped the nation after that event has, in many minds, overshadowed the debacle that was his presidency. He was popular, good looking, and died in office - Many people have heroized him. I've talked to people that actually blame Johnson (or even Nixon!?!) for the Bay of Pigs invasion & the Cuban Missile Crisis...
Suggesting that JFK was at all flawed or responsible for anything that might have negatively impacted America would be like suggesting that Columbus may not have been a genius hero-explorer who single handedly discovered America and brought civilization and cake to the poor ignorant savages living here who welcomed him as a liberator.
Did anyone watch the failed American pilot for Red Dwarf? Eww.
I watched it - Be fair. It was as good as the American pilot for Coupling. =)
Seriously, why take a perfectly good series and re-make it only changing the actors' accents and replacing "chips" with "fries" and "loo" with "bathroom"? British humor is a little bit different than American humor - And anyone who is going to enjoy it will be willing to infer from context what a "loo" is when somebody's had too much to drink and needs to pop off to one.
I don't recall the Earth being destroyed. Lister was in stasis for a long, long time as the ship drifted further and further away, but IIRC, Earth was still there - just unreachable in any reasonable length of time (kind of like Dark Star). (Feel free to correct my bad memory.)
But, there was at least one episode where the crew does go back in time to visit Earth. I liked it just because it was so terribly un-P.C. to suggest that JFK needed to be assassinated in order to save the U.S. (Not unrealistic, just not P.C.)
Red Dwarf, like HHGTTG, is one of those things that just isn't for everyone. And, like HHGTTG, I'm not sure it can even be an acquired taste - If you read/watched a few and hated them, you'll probably hate the rest. Personally, I'm a big fan of both - A unique flavor of humor that just can't be duplicated. (Although in the case of HGTTG, I think the radio show out-shines the movie and, although maybe inferior, is more fun to revisit than the books.)
That said, I have to agree with GPP - It aged badly. When I go back to watch the episodes over, it's rare that I watch anything beyond the ship being reconstructed. It was still fun, but lacked a lot of the charm that the early episodes had. Still, I refuse to miss the Easter special - I'll be there front and center out of curiosity if nothing else...
Not at all the case. I love my dog dearly (the cats are OK too I guess...) But that's really part of the problem I see with this.
I accept that you love your pets and accept them as members of your family. That's great and I understand completely - I'm in the same boat. But, if another member of your family died, would you also clone them? Cloning a beloved pet only strikes me as slightly less creepy than cloning a beloved child that died too early...
Like I said in a post above, genetically identical != same animal. We (typically) outlive our pets. That's just the way it is. Forming an emotional bond to an animal just because it shares genes with an animal that you loved just seems unhealthy.
I understand loving your pets. I love my dog and, when he goes, it will be exceeding painful. If I could have him return as a puppy when he dies it would be great.
But genetically identical != same dog. The fact that I don't need a clone doesn't mean I don't love my dog, just that I accept that he'll die one day and that nothing (not even cloning) will bring him back. Well... Maybe burying him in that old Indian burial ground a short hike from my back yard... But that just seems like I'd be asking for trouble.
A race horse or some prized show animal I could maybe understand. But what's the point of cloning a companion animal?
By dealing with the RIAA at all the ISPs are making a huge mistake. Is my utility company liable if I install grow lamps and start a marijuana farm because they failed to alert the authorities about the power increase? Is my phone company liable if I start calling the state prison regularly and it turns out that I'm organizing to have an informant killed because they weren't monitoring my phone records and didn't recommend a phone tap?
By playing along even in a small role, the ISPs are really stepping in it...
I've looked at several Priuses, but have yet to find the plug that allows their owners to power it off of the grid. Do you have some advance-sale special model?
Agreed. Next thing we know, they'll be editting old movies to replace the cops' guns with walkie-talkies. Where will it end?
At which time, I, as the wiley "bad guy", press the button telling the camera to make the clicking noise when taking a picture. After the mean ol'cop has left
You know, down-shifting a couple of gears has a similar effect without having to hack your car. And it'll save you a couple of bucks on that fancy automatic transmission and can improve your engine's performance.
Of course, I'm one of those weirdos that tries to avoid accidents even if they're the other guy's fault. To each their own.
It's not so much about seeing him do something his constituents object to. It's more about inspiring some realism in his supporters.
I would love to see him turn out to be the best president ever and turn the country around. But unfounded idealism is dangerous.