It's getting to the point where im not even sure if they remember *why* they are doing this... its becomming one of those "well, my grandad was %variable%, so was my dad, I guess i'll do it too!"
I wouldnt be surprised if soon when some people resists that they are tried for impairing the policemans freedom to oppress you, and you know, cause it has "free" in it, people will be like "oh, its for freedom, thats ok"... wait, I forgot why we were doing this..."hmm"
Yeah but you are looking at it from the wrong way, a responsible government would not do that, at least not without invoking a horrid of public outrage and (hopefully) be impeached.
Furthermore, how would they find out your sexual preferences simply by voting for your prefered candidate? If you arent ashamed about it, whats the problem? If you are ashamed about it, then why are you doing it?...
It sort of sounds like the "Guilty until proven Innocent" mentallity.. tell my wife, tell my employer that I fuck donkeys in my spare time, I dont care, I don't do it, and I would rather not work for an employer that believed it, and even if I did fuck donkeys I wouldnt keep it from my wife, so she'd already know...maybe thats why I married her?... lol
Your little script there could easily be applied to a phone book, or even Slashdot, and if someone/group was doing it out of spite, obviously when 120 million people all get a letter in the mail (because why would you need to give them your e-mail address to vote?) saying that they love 2girls1cup, its not going to work.
I would highly doubt that, throughout the history of computers, various science departments, and even consumers in many cases computers are far superior to those used by government agencies.
But its really hard to believe anything, the only real "proof" we (may) have is stuff like catching them editing Wikipedia articles, or abusing IRC chats, which even if they are true, are childish as far as technical abilities.
I was there for that... all that proves is that our government thinks its a business, any government that was "for the people" would go over all the people who voted against them, and figure out why, not try and manipulate the citizens into voting for them next election.
On the other side though, you can walk up to your local reprisentative or President/Prime Minister and say "damnit I voted for you, look it up, now hear what i have to say"
@ Anonymous Coward.
Bibery and Intimidation costs less when its anonymous, $50 bucks here, maybe slam your hand down on the desk... "ok fine i'll do it"... if someones name is at stake, its going to take a hell of a lot more bribing and/or intimidation... say... in the order of millions, like the various "scandals" in the US and here in Canada.
You already can "for now"... but they are phasing it out, atleast thats what I would assume considering there isnt any other reason to start bringing new Identity cards into play.
"The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) will require all travelers to and from the Americas, the Caribbean, and Bermuda to have a passport or other accepted document that establishes the bearers identity and nationality to enter or re-enter the United States."
Im not sure how many of you have ever crossed the border into/from the US, but the procedure all depends on who the border guard is, and what his mood might be, it can vary anywhere from showing an ID (Passport, drivers license, birth certificate), and simply stating your reason for entering the US... other times, they might require ALL THREE of those identification cards, along with maybe another random document with your name on it (sort of the same as trying to cash a $10,000 bill in a Bank), or you'l have to pull your car to the side, sit in their little room while they look in their Google database or whatever, which generally takes atleast 10 minutes, up to a few hours at times...
Thats what will make people adopt some RFID chipped card in a hurry, especially those that cross the border daily for work... "oh Sally dont be silly, its just a card, and it makes it to quick"
"The Canuk's won't accept an ID card. They have just as many guns and ammo as the US does and they really don't like being screwed with."
Canuck*
But I dont think we (im Canadian) would be very wise to use guns to express our anger towards this identitfication card, considering thats part of the reason why its trying to be implimented, because aparently us crazy Canadians are ever so fond of sending terrorists to your country.:|
"He sat on the Select Standing Committees on Agriculture and Fisheries and on Crown Corporations, as well as the Official Opposition Caucus Committee on Children."
"Before his election to the Legislative Assembly, John operated a dairy farm in Abbotsford."
First of all, I have NO idea what the "Caucus Committee on Children" is, and the only references to it that I can find only come back to various biographies of John Van Dongen... but considering he used to heard cattle, and is involved with some comittee of children? now he wants to heard adults? I digress.
As much as I'd like to believe that this ID Card wont "make it", that we will wake up, and finally realize whats going on...im sure it will eventually, even though most Canadians avoid entering US Soil now, even though our dollars are nearly par, simply because we know its going to be a hassle, and most of us are more aware of the Patriot Act(s) than Americans are... it wont be long before we have a National ID (as apposed to the Provincial that exists now), then a Continental ID card, (North American Union) because "its so much easier", it wont be long before its on the news and daytime TV...
"it used to take me 20 minutes to cross the border, having to dig up all my papers and such, but with this new ID Card it was a snap, was as quick as buying my groceries through the self-check-out isle, its great!"
Well, I was sort of hoping that people would naturally include the emotional reason behind it, and not just that "Look Ma, No Name!" was cause for terrorism unto itself.
"You cannot effect political change, if you do not reveal yourself or your motivations."
Really? so, are you saying that the whole 9/11, Subway Bombings, random car bombings all come with a declaration of intention? and we are entirely certain what the purpose was? and most if not all of those events have effected political change.
Anonymity just doesnt 'lead' to a Leader...you can't really follow "that guy", "That Guy, presented his State Of The Union"...how many people can say they know all of the names of the members of parliment/congress? for most people, they may aswell be anonymous.
And furthermore, why is it that people seem to think that "terrorism" is limited to explosives, and killing? there is also emotional terrorism, psychological terrorism, environmental terrorism, etc...
Anyways, this is all pretty far off topic, my point (originally) was that anonymity and terrorism, or "bad" behavior has quite often come hand in hand, and that the only real 'news-worthy' part of the story is the fact that the "virtual world" now envolves real money, and therefore real consequences...
If I had my way, my vote wouldnt be anonymous in anything requiring a vote...
I assume you mean 'vote' refering to candidates for government, why would I care if its anonymous or not? There is a reason why even/. uses "Coward" in addition to anonymous, I personally dont really care if you agree with my vote or not, its my vote, just like I dont really care about your vote, its your vote.
Its an expression of your opinion, ideal, morality, etc. and im fairly sure that if everyone could find out who voted for who, it might fix some of the voting "issues".
Even in less important votes (although possibly just as accurate) how many people vote for the 'Cowboy Neal' option on/.'s polls? How many people vote for the person they actually hate, "just for the fun of it" because you dont have to stand up for it?
Take a look at how many of the racist/sexist/flatout crude or obnoxious posters use the "Anonymous Coward" option...
Anonymity breeds terrorism. end of sentence.
Argueing over wether communications, or behavior should be monitered in online gaming, should be a moot point to anyone who enjoys their freedom, danger is the price you pay for freedom, freedom is the price you pay for security.
But, the money aspect of it is interesting, its perfectly designed for money laundering, and at speeds previously impossible, hundreds of digital transactions could occur carrying the original sum of money with say... an hour... unlike "real" money where it would probably take months for the same transactions.
Is this a "problem"? Sure, but its basically the intrinsic nature of digital currency, its the price you pay for the ability to pay the price, the only way to stop that from happening is to revert back to a tangible currency, or... try and slow the process down with registrations, redundant security checks, "Life Is No Fun Anymore [Accept] [Decline]"
I'm certainly no expert on the subject, but as far as I am aware Dark matter is matter that fills the equasion when the visible matter doesn't compute...
If a galaxy without dark matter computes, and a galaxy with visible matter with the addition of dark matter computes...
Whats the difference? wouldnt a galaxy made up of entirely dark matter be equal to a galaxy of entirely visible matter?
If you have 3 fish, and two of them are transparent zebrafish, and one is a normal opaque one... they are still 3 fish... as far as im concerened, this doesnt really prove anything other than matter effects other matter wether its visible or not which we already know... however it may disprove that dark matter is neccisary to create a galaxy? (if anyone was actually pondering that?)
I dunno.. I ran XP on 512 for about 2 years, it all depends on how much trimming you do, and I wasnt using it for just Web Browsing and E-Mail either... LightWave, 3dsmax, Office, Photoshop, etc... all with WinAmp and MSN couple other minor apps running constantly...
I even had XP running on a 266MHz for about a year (personal File server)... which even impressed me, I thought that was only Linux territory... (these days)
However, I'd be hard pressed to call Vista "zippy" on 1GB @ 2GHz... closest system I have to that is 1.5GB @ 2.6GHz... and its still "putt-putt-ee"... I guess it depends on what you expect from your OS or Computer... however most of the "lag" in Vista seems mostly to be a cosmetic thing, not neccisarly even the actual speed of the interface, but the layout of things seems to make it appear slow, even when it isnt... im sure there is some technical (and also psychological) words for it that hardcore programmers use when designing the UI... but, I just call it "shitty"... (although i like the Taskbar and Start Menu)
Although, with KDE4 (or 4.2 or whatever) when it gets a little more 'Windows' friendly, might be a great alternative shell for Vista, admitedly I find that somewhat blasphemous, doesnt mean that will prevent me from trying it since its my favorite Shell/Window System for Linux...
Im currently 'Tri-Booting'... XP/Vista/Slackware...but at the moment Vista is just dead space till I swap it out for Server2008...
"I don't think the OEMs are doing it out of their interest to the customer. They seem to be offering XP bcos else the customer will take his business elsewhere, never to return."
So in other words, they are providing what the customers want... instead of providing what the customers want? I see...
Actually, you are right... I used Vista for about 5 days (solid) hoping that I would somehow learn to like it, and failed... I forgot about *that* dialog...
So in other words, the bias of when to show the transfer dialog needs changing, if they ever get around to that I hope its adjustable... "Show After 5 Seconds"... or... "Show After 150MB's Transfered"... maybe even on a per-hard drive basis like the Recycle Bin allowed usage...but im hoping for too much...
If All else fails, you'l move to an operating system based on the failure?...lol
No ofence to the developers of ReactOS, I too hope that they achieve their goal, but considering its been some 12 years in the making (I think?) and they are still in Alpha (almost Beta)... what you should be doing is practicing your Linux (finding a distro you like, wether you like KDE, Gnome, XFCE, etc)
Especially considering: "ReactOS supports only processors with x86 architecture. ReactOS will also work with AMD x64 (AMD64) and Intel x64 (EM64T), however, it will not configure the processor for Long Mode (64-bit) execution."
I have my doubts that it will make it to 2009 unless they change their mission to a bootable Virtual Host (or something)... or are only planning for a niche market (as in user base) for "hardcores" like MenuetOS or something...
What? You mean you hope they fixed the calculation of the transfer rate right?
If they removed the "Transfering File(s)..." dialog, i'd be forced to stare at the LED HDD access lights until they go idle, or more idle until I touched certain files... I'll often move large files (movies, ISO's, etc) to different hard drives or at least different partitions before accessing them... whats going to tell me when its done? sure I could sit there and hit "Mount Image" until it stops saying its an incomplete file... thats very productive...
And if you mean get rid of the text based information... and just have a progress bar, well I'd rahter have it the other way around, just a tooltip saying "5 Minutes Left @ 2MB/s" rather than some progress bar alone where I have to watch it for 10 seconds, and then mentally calculate the rate and completion time...
However, I often (almost never) need to know how long it will be before the 'Recycle Bin' has been emptied, because those files are already "detached" from what I (mentally) consider "usable"
Well, im prone to agree with you on the whole "Proud To Destroy" attitude of Neo-Capitalism, or US society as a whole...(I'm Canadian)
I really doubt that any organization is actively inserting propoganda into/. they can do that via a trickle down effect through well established media outlets...however that does not mean that they are not passively propogating this forum simply because of like-minded topics...
This is still however a noteworthy event, even if its not really an actual event... perhaps/. needs a "This Day in History" rather than having it as a full fledged front page article. It's more of a "huh, neat... next topic"
Scepticism... they've been lied to/betrayed far too often, and now that there has been so many publicized accidents, its no longer quite so Rocket Man... its also pushed in their(our?) faces every day, you no longer have to sit there and ponder about it, building up a sense of enthusiams... instead its just "ever wondered? well stop, here it is!"...
The mood has changed too, Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek was far more playful and adventurious... most of the newer "Outer Space" Sci-Fi is all doom and gloom dystopian environements where you are lucky to make it out alive...and when you do, your freinds are dead...
Slashdot Mirror
Oh yes you can, you just gotta be good at it. :D
It's getting to the point where im not even sure if they remember *why* they are doing this... its becomming one of those "well, my grandad was %variable%, so was my dad, I guess i'll do it too!"
I wouldnt be surprised if soon when some people resists that they are tried for impairing the policemans freedom to oppress you, and you know, cause it has "free" in it, people will be like "oh, its for freedom, thats ok"... wait, I forgot why we were doing this..."hmm"
Yeah but you are looking at it from the wrong way, a responsible government would not do that, at least not without invoking a horrid of public outrage and (hopefully) be impeached.
Furthermore, how would they find out your sexual preferences simply by voting for your prefered candidate? If you arent ashamed about it, whats the problem? If you are ashamed about it, then why are you doing it?...
It sort of sounds like the "Guilty until proven Innocent" mentallity.. tell my wife, tell my employer that I fuck donkeys in my spare time, I dont care, I don't do it, and I would rather not work for an employer that believed it, and even if I did fuck donkeys I wouldnt keep it from my wife, so she'd already know...maybe thats why I married her?... lol
Your little script there could easily be applied to a phone book, or even Slashdot, and if someone/group was doing it out of spite, obviously when 120 million people all get a letter in the mail (because why would you need to give them your e-mail address to vote?) saying that they love 2girls1cup, its not going to work.
Just saying...
C.I.A. Computers In Action.
I would highly doubt that, throughout the history of computers, various science departments, and even consumers in many cases computers are far superior to those used by government agencies.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2965620.stm
But its really hard to believe anything, the only real "proof" we (may) have is stuff like catching them editing Wikipedia articles, or abusing IRC chats, which even if they are true, are childish as far as technical abilities.
"Answer" by Fredric Brown, I would assume...
http://www.alteich.com/oldsite/answer.htm
I was there for that... all that proves is that our government thinks its a business, any government that was "for the people" would go over all the people who voted against them, and figure out why, not try and manipulate the citizens into voting for them next election.
On the other side though, you can walk up to your local reprisentative or President/Prime Minister and say "damnit I voted for you, look it up, now hear what i have to say"
@ Anonymous Coward.
Bibery and Intimidation costs less when its anonymous, $50 bucks here, maybe slam your hand down on the desk... "ok fine i'll do it"... if someones name is at stake, its going to take a hell of a lot more bribing and/or intimidation... say... in the order of millions, like the various "scandals" in the US and here in Canada.
You already can "for now"... but they are phasing it out, atleast thats what I would assume considering there isnt any other reason to start bringing new Identity cards into play.
"The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) will require all travelers to and from the Americas, the Caribbean, and Bermuda to have a passport or other accepted document that establishes the bearers identity and nationality to enter or re-enter the United States."
Im not sure how many of you have ever crossed the border into/from the US, but the procedure all depends on who the border guard is, and what his mood might be, it can vary anywhere from showing an ID (Passport, drivers license, birth certificate), and simply stating your reason for entering the US... other times, they might require ALL THREE of those identification cards, along with maybe another random document with your name on it (sort of the same as trying to cash a $10,000 bill in a Bank), or you'l have to pull your car to the side, sit in their little room while they look in their Google database or whatever, which generally takes atleast 10 minutes, up to a few hours at times...
Thats what will make people adopt some RFID chipped card in a hurry, especially those that cross the border daily for work... "oh Sally dont be silly, its just a card, and it makes it to quick"
"The Canuk's won't accept an ID card. They have just as many guns and ammo as the US does and they really don't like being screwed with."
:|
Canuck*
But I dont think we (im Canadian) would be very wise to use guns to express our anger towards this identitfication card, considering thats part of the reason why its trying to be implimented, because aparently us crazy Canadians are ever so fond of sending terrorists to your country.
http://www.johnvandongen.com/
"He sat on the Select Standing Committees on Agriculture and Fisheries and on Crown Corporations, as well as the Official Opposition Caucus Committee on Children."
"Before his election to the Legislative Assembly, John operated a dairy farm in Abbotsford."
First of all, I have NO idea what the "Caucus Committee on Children" is, and the only references to it that I can find only come back to various biographies of John Van Dongen... but considering he used to heard cattle, and is involved with some comittee of children? now he wants to heard adults? I digress.
As much as I'd like to believe that this ID Card wont "make it", that we will wake up, and finally realize whats going on...im sure it will eventually, even though most Canadians avoid entering US Soil now, even though our dollars are nearly par, simply because we know its going to be a hassle, and most of us are more aware of the Patriot Act(s) than Americans are... it wont be long before we have a National ID (as apposed to the Provincial that exists now), then a Continental ID card, (North American Union) because "its so much easier", it wont be long before its on the news and daytime TV...
"it used to take me 20 minutes to cross the border, having to dig up all my papers and such, but with this new ID Card it was a snap, was as quick as buying my groceries through the self-check-out isle, its great!"
Well, I was sort of hoping that people would naturally include the emotional reason behind it, and not just that "Look Ma, No Name!" was cause for terrorism unto itself.
...how many people can say they know all of the names of the members of parliment/congress? for most people, they may aswell be anonymous.
"You cannot effect political change, if you do not reveal yourself or your motivations."
Really? so, are you saying that the whole 9/11, Subway Bombings, random car bombings all come with a declaration of intention? and we are entirely certain what the purpose was? and most if not all of those events have effected political change.
Anonymity just doesnt 'lead' to a Leader...you can't really follow "that guy", "That Guy, presented his State Of The Union"
And furthermore, why is it that people seem to think that "terrorism" is limited to explosives, and killing? there is also emotional terrorism, psychological terrorism, environmental terrorism, etc...
Anyways, this is all pretty far off topic, my point (originally) was that anonymity and terrorism, or "bad" behavior has quite often come hand in hand, and that the only real 'news-worthy' part of the story is the fact that the "virtual world" now envolves real money, and therefore real consequences...
If I had my way, my vote wouldnt be anonymous in anything requiring a vote...
/. uses "Coward" in addition to anonymous, I personally dont really care if you agree with my vote or not, its my vote, just like I dont really care about your vote, its your vote.
/.'s polls? How many people vote for the person they actually hate, "just for the fun of it" because you dont have to stand up for it?
I assume you mean 'vote' refering to candidates for government, why would I care if its anonymous or not? There is a reason why even
Its an expression of your opinion, ideal, morality, etc. and im fairly sure that if everyone could find out who voted for who, it might fix some of the voting "issues".
Even in less important votes (although possibly just as accurate) how many people vote for the 'Cowboy Neal' option on
Take a look at how many of the racist/sexist/flatout crude or obnoxious posters use the "Anonymous Coward" option...
Anonymity breeds terrorism. end of sentence. Argueing over wether communications, or behavior should be monitered in online gaming, should be a moot point to anyone who enjoys their freedom, danger is the price you pay for freedom, freedom is the price you pay for security. But, the money aspect of it is interesting, its perfectly designed for money laundering, and at speeds previously impossible, hundreds of digital transactions could occur carrying the original sum of money with say... an hour... unlike "real" money where it would probably take months for the same transactions. Is this a "problem"? Sure, but its basically the intrinsic nature of digital currency, its the price you pay for the ability to pay the price, the only way to stop that from happening is to revert back to a tangible currency, or... try and slow the process down with registrations, redundant security checks, "Life Is No Fun Anymore [Accept] [Decline]"
I'm certainly no expert on the subject, but as far as I am aware Dark matter is matter that fills the equasion when the visible matter doesn't compute...
If a galaxy without dark matter computes, and a galaxy with visible matter with the addition of dark matter computes...
Whats the difference? wouldnt a galaxy made up of entirely dark matter be equal to a galaxy of entirely visible matter?
If you have 3 fish, and two of them are transparent zebrafish, and one is a normal opaque one... they are still 3 fish... as far as im concerened, this doesnt really prove anything other than matter effects other matter wether its visible or not which we already know... however it may disprove that dark matter is neccisary to create a galaxy? (if anyone was actually pondering that?)
I thought that was supposed to be a joke... would have been much more effective if it immediately shutdown your computer when you clicked it though...
Black Matter [Click Here]
Black Screen...
I dunno.. I ran XP on 512 for about 2 years, it all depends on how much trimming you do, and I wasnt using it for just Web Browsing and E-Mail either... LightWave, 3dsmax, Office, Photoshop, etc... all with WinAmp and MSN couple other minor apps running constantly...
I even had XP running on a 266MHz for about a year (personal File server)... which even impressed me, I thought that was only Linux territory... (these days)
However, I'd be hard pressed to call Vista "zippy" on 1GB @ 2GHz... closest system I have to that is 1.5GB @ 2.6GHz... and its still "putt-putt-ee"... I guess it depends on what you expect from your OS or Computer... however most of the "lag" in Vista seems mostly to be a cosmetic thing, not neccisarly even the actual speed of the interface, but the layout of things seems to make it appear slow, even when it isnt... im sure there is some technical (and also psychological) words for it that hardcore programmers use when designing the UI... but, I just call it "shitty"... (although i like the Taskbar and Start Menu)
Although, with KDE4 (or 4.2 or whatever) when it gets a little more 'Windows' friendly, might be a great alternative shell for Vista, admitedly I find that somewhat blasphemous, doesnt mean that will prevent me from trying it since its my favorite Shell/Window System for Linux...
Im currently 'Tri-Booting'... XP/Vista/Slackware...but at the moment Vista is just dead space till I swap it out for Server2008...
"I don't think the OEMs are doing it out of their interest to the customer. They seem to be offering XP bcos else the customer will take his business elsewhere, never to return."
So in other words, they are providing what the customers want... instead of providing what the customers want? I see...
Actually, you are right... I used Vista for about 5 days (solid) hoping that I would somehow learn to like it, and failed... I forgot about *that* dialog...
So in other words, the bias of when to show the transfer dialog needs changing, if they ever get around to that I hope its adjustable... "Show After 5 Seconds"... or... "Show After 150MB's Transfered"... maybe even on a per-hard drive basis like the Recycle Bin allowed usage...but im hoping for too much...
If All else fails, you'l move to an operating system based on the failure?...lol
No ofence to the developers of ReactOS, I too hope that they achieve their goal, but considering its been some 12 years in the making (I think?) and they are still in Alpha (almost Beta)... what you should be doing is practicing your Linux (finding a distro you like, wether you like KDE, Gnome, XFCE, etc)
Especially considering:
"ReactOS supports only processors with x86 architecture. ReactOS will also work with AMD x64 (AMD64) and Intel x64 (EM64T), however, it will not configure the processor for Long Mode (64-bit) execution."
I have my doubts that it will make it to 2009 unless they change their mission to a bootable Virtual Host (or something)... or are only planning for a niche market (as in user base) for "hardcores" like MenuetOS or something...
What? You mean you hope they fixed the calculation of the transfer rate right?
If they removed the "Transfering File(s)..." dialog, i'd be forced to stare at the LED HDD access lights until they go idle, or more idle until I touched certain files... I'll often move large files (movies, ISO's, etc) to different hard drives or at least different partitions before accessing them... whats going to tell me when its done? sure I could sit there and hit "Mount Image" until it stops saying its an incomplete file... thats very productive...
And if you mean get rid of the text based information... and just have a progress bar, well I'd rahter have it the other way around, just a tooltip saying "5 Minutes Left @ 2MB/s" rather than some progress bar alone where I have to watch it for 10 seconds, and then mentally calculate the rate and completion time...
However, I often (almost never) need to know how long it will be before the 'Recycle Bin' has been emptied, because those files are already "detached" from what I (mentally) consider "usable"
Or maybe it was Dolphins just playing a joke... or maybe... you guessed it... sharks with lasers...
http://history.nasa.gov/meatball.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_logo
Although, the Star Trek emblem is far better looking, and has withstood the test of time (although trimming itself down)
However...
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-082606a.html
Budweiser may be (the self-proclaimed) "King Of Beer" but its also really s**tty beer... I think thats his point.
lol...
/. they can do that via a trickle down effect through well established media outlets...however that does not mean that they are not passively propogating this forum simply because of like-minded topics...
/. needs a "This Day in History" rather than having it as a full fledged front page article. It's more of a "huh, neat... next topic"
Well, im prone to agree with you on the whole "Proud To Destroy" attitude of Neo-Capitalism, or US society as a whole...(I'm Canadian)
I really doubt that any organization is actively inserting propoganda into
This is still however a noteworthy event, even if its not really an actual event... perhaps
"the next planned human lunar landing Orion 17 will also be by NASA, and is planned for 2019, but no later than 2020"
Quoth Wikipedia.
It would also freshen up the conspiracy theories, which would be a nice change..."nah, they did it all in LightWave, its not real"
Scepticism... they've been lied to/betrayed far too often, and now that there has been so many publicized accidents, its no longer quite so Rocket Man... its also pushed in their(our?) faces every day, you no longer have to sit there and ponder about it, building up a sense of enthusiams... instead its just "ever wondered? well stop, here it is!"... The mood has changed too, Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek was far more playful and adventurious... most of the newer "Outer Space" Sci-Fi is all doom and gloom dystopian environements where you are lucky to make it out alive...and when you do, your freinds are dead...
Magnusrex:
I was not trying to be offensive, I was only saying that your choice of comparison was a little strange.
LingNoi:
My point was that it's not universal.