And remember that just because someone's been working in IT for 20 years does NOT mean that they have 20 years worth of experience. They might have 1 year of experience, twenty times over.
What I'd be interested in is how they understand the changes from when they first started to today.
And where they agree and disagree with the changes.
After years and years in this industry, people form opinions.
In my opinion, WinNT was great at 3.51 and became unstable at 4.0. Moving to 2000 was okay but they've kept the same scheduler all the way to 2008. Not to mention that they never learned to insist on clean divisions between apps and data and system config and user preferences in such a way that makes backing up the data and the config and the apps simple.
Don't get me started on the ease of making system backups on a Sequent system. They had bootable tapes. If anything went wrong I could restore the OS by just booting it with the last backup tape.
Uphill! Both ways! In the snow!
And I had to write a WYSIWYG word processor for an abacus! Without beads! Before zero was invented!
This pretty much shows how certain ISP's help spammers. Particularly since they did not IMMEDIATELY bring up their backup link. Instead they waited until the weekend.
Now, do you agree that the crime drama TV series have that in common? You don't have to. And yet the people who write crime dramas do not seem to run out of material. Despite being limited to only Earth, only humans and no time travel.
You can force the writers to do the bookkeeping, but then you shouldn't be surprised when the final product has all the excitement of an accounts-receivable ledger.
Yeah, and CSI doesn't have a lot of viewers.
You might want to work on that thought.
Law and Order and Starsky and Hutch could both be described as "crime dramas", but beyond the barest outlines of the plot they are completely different.
Hmmm, that seems to contradict your other statement about "bookkeeping".
Despite not including Japanese attacks on New York, the crime dramas continue to be produced and they continue to draw large audiences. Despite the lack of alien races.
I've already posted this but why not post it again? http://www.psiphi.org/cgi/upc-db/booklist.html There are a LOT of books out there, published, that pretty much conform to existing canon.
Yet people like you keep saying that doing so is damn near impossible.
Well, what you consider to be impossible has been done over and over and over again for decades.
Star Trek is about the galaxy. That galaxy is, ironically, portrayed smaller than a typical city. That treatment is part of canon. Star Trek isn't a cop show and can't be treated like one.
*WHOOOOOSH*
That was the sound of the point of my post going over your head.
Here is the point again: There have been dozens of cop show TV series made. There have been hundreds of crime drama movies made.
Yet the writers never seem to run out of material as you claim the Star Trek writers have.
But fans hated it because it required that wiggle room.
I watched the pilot and decided to skip it after that. Why do guys need to take off their shirts to get the decon gel on them... but the female did not? Right then I could tell that it would be about titillation and really bad stories.
The existing canon is massive and hugely restricting.
And the "canon" for crime drama is even larger and more restrictive.
Yet series after series and movie after movie continue to be produced. And some of them are very good.
And that's just crime drama. Medical dramas are an entirely different genre that keeps being produced as well.
On one planet. With one intelligent species. Without time travel. Etc.
Establish a core set of major powers? A new one isn't going to appear overnight.
And that is the kind of thinking that ruins Star Trek. Why do you need ANOTHER alien race in ANOTHER empire?
No contact between the Romulans and Federation for 50-ish years? You can't set a story in that era and have Romulans.
Why would you NEED Romulans for that story?
Aligned with the Klingons? Not going to be fighting them, then.
And... ? Given that point of view, no current day crime dramas would ever be produced because we aren't fighting the Japanese.
It makes no sense.
New alien race? Sure, but where'd they come from?
Again, why do you NEED another alien species? Crime dramas turn out story after story after story using only humans.
Star Trek has over a dozen major species. And you want more?
The time has come to create something fresh. Maybe it shouldn't be Star Trek anymore; maybe Star Trek should be left dead. Maybe what comes next should have been brand new.
Yeah, maybe someone could do that and maybe call it "Firefly". Or maybe "Babylon 5". Or "Stargate". Or BSG or Dr. Who or Farscape or.......
It's been done. It has been done.
The question, as I originally stated, is: Is it really too much to ask that a story in an established franchise stick to previously established material?
No, it is not too much to ask. All it requires is a few TALENTED WRITERS. And that is where the problem is with Star Trek. The current writers seem to be encouraged by people with your viewpoint to just skip the canon and write a "sci-fi movie" with available slots to plug in some basic Star Trek items / names so that it will bring in the fan base. They are mediocre writers. They are NOT good writers.
By the end of Voyager, the 24th century is no longer interesting. The galaxy is too small, and the players too firmly established.
Yet we have year after year of cop shows on TV. And crime drama movies. All set in present day.
And they never seem to run out of material. One one planet. With one species. In one genre. WITHOUT TIME TRAVEL.
What limits the writers of the Star Trek movies is their self-imposed requirement that every movie MUST feature the crew of a previous TV series. And their skill as writers.
And the reason they do that is because they're depending upon the existing fan base to drive ticket sales.
Then you understand nothing.
on
Ender in Exile
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· Score: 1
I understand completely that you think that things operating outside of established limitations for the purposes of continuing the plot is in any way related to, specific to, unique to, or even particularly problematic in sci-fi.
Then you understand nothing.
No, the use of "magic" is not limited to science fiction. But it is very prevalent in science fiction. And science fiction provides the best examples of such outside of pure fantasy.
But it does. Not well-defined ones, yet clearly it has limitations.
Yeah, that seems to be your mental block. You refuse to acknowledge that such limitations do not exist.
As I've said, they can be (and are) discarded at any time by the writer for no other reason than he needs to discard them to get himself out of a corner that he's written himself into.
Which is why they are "magic".
Keep arguing that they have limits. Even though they do not.
If a car needs to drive farther on a tank of gas than is physically possible, and the author wants it to, it is done. So cars are magic?
I have a car. It is not magic. But it is bound by the physical laws. It simply cannot go "farther on a tank of gas than is physically possible".
Now, if a writer includes things that he claims to be "cars" in his plot... but they violate physics... then they are magic. Particularly if they tend to make evil twins appear in the passenger seat.
Magic is the absence of limitations. It is when the writer can have it do whatever he wants it to do because the plot requires it.
Because your usage of the word "magic" simply means "plot contrivance", and has nothing to do with the genres of sci-fi or fantasy despite your attempts to segregate the term, because anything can be used as a plot device.
Look up "cliche". Go ahead. Do it.
No. Magic is when there are no limitations. A transporter can move someone across a room. Or it can move them across a planet. Between planets. Between systems. Between galaxies. It all depends upon what the writer wants the transporter to do.
A transporter can create an evil twin of someone.
There aren't many writers who would have someone's evil twin appear after he's been shot by a gun. Nor would they write about a 45 that could shoot something in orbit. People understand guns and cars. The writers can get away with cliches. But they cannot get away with magic.
Is it really too much to ask that a story in an established franchise stick to previously established material?
Otherwise, it is just a cynical attempt to cash in on an existing fan base by making a movie that is NOT Star Trek and then use the character names and a few items from that franchise to get them to pay to see it anyway.
Think about it. What is the MINIMUM number of changes that would have to be made in that trailer to make it a Battlestar Galactica movie? A Perry Rhodan movie? Another Star Wars movie? Another Starship Troopers movie?
My suspicions are that this film is largely going to consist of tits, explosions, and weirdly shaped evil aliens.
Wasn't that the plot of Starship Troopers 3?
I'm serious here. Go watch it and mentally replace the names of the characters with names from Star Trek.
I would have thought that a franchise would be more than the trademarked names of the characters and toys. But I guess that I'm wrong.
Did you laugh during the homage segment? (spoiler)
on
New Star Trek Trailer
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· Score: 1
I'll try to keep this spoiler-free.
During the obvious homage, I laughed because I didn't see oil traces anywhere else. I envisioned a goon squad armed with carpet cleaners making sure the place is tidy after the crime.
That or a rather morally ambivalent cleaning crew working for the hotel.
If it is "magic" then it does not matter.
on
Ender in Exile
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· Score: 1
Does it really matter exactly what the specifics are, as long as there are orders-of-magnitude limitations?
That depends upon whether you understand my initial post in this thread.
If it is magic then it does not matter because it will always function EXACTLY as the plot requires it to. Or not function. Or function incorrectly.
And such functioning / non-fuctioning / mis-functioning will be entirely independent of ANY OTHER FACTORS.
The only difference I can see is that we have a basis for knowing that a dead battery would prevent a Mustang from starting, while we just have to assume the transporter doesn't work through a storm. Big whoop; either way it's a plot device.
... and...
Sure, your 67 Mustang is never going to cause an evil-you to be summoned from an alternate dimensions (unless there's a Stephen King story I haven't read), but well that's sci-fi in the Trek world for you.
No. That's the point. It is magic. With a car, people understand the limitations and the writer has to work within those limitations.
With magic, there are no limitations. The magic does whatever the plot requires it to do.
The car might break down. On a deserted road. In the middle of a forest. In a storm. Near an old house. Where a terrible murder happened twenty years ago. And the killer was never caught.
That's covered under "cliche". And cliches are another mark of a bad writer.
When the car crashes into a tree, the writer has to explain WHY it crashed. In a way that is acceptable to the reader (who is probably a driver himself). Not just say that there was a crash and an evil twin of the driver materializes in the passenger seat. And the evil twin can only be destroyed by putting both of them back into the crashed car and driving backwards.
Again, the point is that MAGIC means a lazy writer who is probably going for a light story with a moral (look before you leap) rather than anything more involved. And any writer who tries magic in an involved story will miss aspects that would have rendered the plot moot because the protagonist would have more options open to him than the writer thought of.
Transporters are a perfect example of that.
on
Ender in Exile
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· Score: 1
Personally, I don't give a crap *why*, say, a transporter in Star Trek works, or whether or not it's based on a strong, real-world theoretical underpinning. I only care that it works consistently, with a specific set of restrictions to govern it's use (for example, it shouldn't work through a shield... pity ST was never consistent on that point:).
What's the minimum range? Maximum range? Minimum amount of material that can be moved? Maximum amount of material that can be moved? Etc.
They tend to fail whenever it is convenient to the plot for them to fail.
Other times they are 100% effective, safe and reliable. People who do not trust them are mocked for being Luddites.
They sprout new functionality as needed to further the plot.
And they were initially written in because having to use the shuttle every time would have been too expensive to film.
The problem is that since they are not based upon any current technology, any plot that would be instantly invalidated by them simply requires that the writer render them non-functional for the duration. Try to number the different problems with the transporters in all the TV shows and movies.
Warning: side effects may include death, alternate dimensions and/or evil/non-evil duplication / division.
Those are usually pretty light.
on
Ender in Exile
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· Score: 4, Interesting
The problem is that as you get further and further away from current science you end up more and more in the realm of "magic".
And if the writer is resorting to that, then the story is probably going to be pretty light and dependent upon plot contrivances to get the writer out of any corner he ends up writing himself into.
In the fountain of youth example, it could matter. How available is the process? Is it possible to restrict who gets it? What about pricing? Would there be wars over it with eternal youth offered as the plunder? Or is the secret something anyone can cook up in their kitchen using dandelions and shower scum?
Light stories are good for obvious moral statements (think "Twilight Zone"). But they tend to fall apart on anything longer.
The more basic the change is (eternal youth) the more ramifications it will have on society. And the less likely the writer will have addressed them. Or even thought of them.
"The discovery answers an age-old question that has puzzled biologists since the time of Darwin: How can organisms be so exquisitely complex, if evolution is completely random, operating like a 'blind watchmaker'?" said Chakrabarti, an associate research scholar in the Department of Chemistry at Princeton.
No, it was never "completely random".
The changes MUST result in a viable individual.
Stillbirths and miscarriages do NOT contribute mutations to the gene pool.
It stifles creativity. People need to come up with new things like Babylon 5 and Firefly.
Or not! Look at how many novels there are, written by hard core fans, set in the Star Trek universe. And almost all of them stick to established canon.
Any GOOD writer can take an existing universe and create ORIGINAL stories in it.
Any BAD writer can take an existing universe and "reboot" it.
This is about bad writers and bad producers trying to wring a hit movie out of a dedicated fan base.
I recall a LOT of posts here on Slashdot about "well I'm patenting patent trolling" or words to that effect every time a patent troll story comes up. Unfortunately I cannot find any at the moment.
Obama Rezko (no quotes): Results 1 - 10 of about 1,298 for Obama rezko Palin tropper-gate (no quotes): Results 1 - 10 of about 3,072 for Palin trooper-gate
...and...
(On the other hand, Obama Ayers does give different results, but the majority of the stories are about the GOP going negative, which shows that numbers don't always prove a point)
So, when the numbers agree with you then the numbers are correct.
But when the numbers contradict you, well, everyone knows you cannot trust the numbers anyway.
Like I've said, it's not so much what is reported, but what is NOT reported as well.
And I recommend that you stick to that rationalization.
The ONLY reason that Republicans rant against "the MSM" is because they want to control the messages that their followers hear and believe. And, if possible, what everyone else hears and believes as well.
The fact is that MOST of the people in the country did NOT care about Rezko. They were worried about losing their homes and their jobs and their savings.
Then they hear a story about some guy losing his job because he stood up for some guy that Palin wanted fired.
THAT resonates with the people already worried about THEIR jobs. A lot more than "Joe the Plumber" crying about the possibility of paying higher taxes on a quarter million dollars that he does NOT have yet.
AND the Obama campaign STILL did not make an issue of it.
Quite unlike McCain's strategy of "guilt by association" smears.
Do many users need a faster PC? On a clean Windows box when are you waiting on the computer?
Whenever you initially launch an app. If you can cut that time down so that the apps APPEAR to launch instantaneously then you're a GOD!
It isn't about actual time spent typing or whatever.
It's about the perception of waiting for the machine to do what you just told it to do.
How many times do you launch an app... wait a bit... hourglass... only to wait while a splash screen comes up telling you the name of the app you just launched... wait a bit... the app appears... wait a bit... okay, now you can type something in that app.
Click save... save where... wait a bit... okay, save complete and you can get back to work.
They don't define "faster" to include the response time of the interface.
But most users DO include the interface response time in their opinion of which is "faster".
I think Microsoft made a big mistake with the "fade in" menus. Just turning them off gives the user the impression that you've made their machine "faster". Even though email works at the same speed as before. As does Word. As do their games.
Even though it is what TFA does, you can't really just compare the raw numbers.
Then feel free to dig up your own numbers and process them however you want. Just be ready to justify WHY you chose that/those particular numbers and processing methods.
One MSNBC commentator got a "chill up his leg" after hearing Obama speak.
Great. Now check out Fox news for counter examples.
Which is one of the reasons why you have to look at TOTAL numbers and not the comments of individuals.
Obama went to Europe and every major news outlet sent high level reporters to follow him. McCain went to Iraq and Afghanistan and it was ignored.
Obama spoke in the open in Europe and thousands of people attended those events.
McCain would not try that in Iraq or Afghanistan.
It isn't the destination written on the ticket. It is the ACTIONS taken at that destination.
McCain's trips got the same coverage as Obama's trips.
McCain's ACTIONS on got less coverage because his ACTIONS did not generate any new NEWS.
If McCain had drawn the crowd in Iraq that Obama had in Germany that would have been huge news. And it would have been covered as such.
Actually, yes I will, because McCain's losing ratio was less than his "coverage" ratio.
Only if you're counting the popular vote instead of the electoral college vote. And if you're doing that then you need to look at who voted how in which state.
And who did NOT vote. People simply were not motivated enough by McCain to get out and vote for him. And that percentage is far larger than the difference in the coverage.
Every mistake made by Biden -- from an actual gaffe ("Hillary Clinton would've been a better choice") to a flabbergasting moronity ("We and France kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon") -- has been smoothed-over by the press, while Sarah Palin's inability to name another act by her boss (she did name one) was replayed on comedy and "news" channels umpteen times.
First off, Palin's own actions and words were what got her that kind of coverage on the comedy shows.
Secondly, the press did cover Biden's "gaffes".
But it is a self-referential system. Palin gave the comedy shows better material. Which means that the newspapers covered the comedy shows covering Palin. Which means that the pundits talked about the newspaper coverage of the comedy shows' coverage of Palin.
McCain chose Palin. That was part of his strategy to energize the Religious Right AND an attempt to get the female vote. It's his own fault if she ended up feeding material to the media that he would rather not have fed to them.
But the reactions here (on Slashdot) to articles about the candidates various technological positions did seem to do fairly well from a "number of comments" point of view.
I'd say that this is more a matter of the same phenomena that we see in every election now. The "pundits" talk about whatever is easiest for them to talk about. And they're words get coverage because it's easier for the "reporters" to just regurgitate whatever they've heard.
So, rather than research a subject and ask INFORMED questions of the candidates THEMSELVES we get the topic de jour from the pundits, then echoed by the reporters, then echoed by other reporters and then echoed by other pundits. Since all of the pundits and reporters are talking about it, it MUST be an important issue, right?
I think that is why we saw so many websites pop up this election that did independent fact-checking of the candidates' public statements.
Slashdot Mirror
And remember that just because someone's been working in IT for 20 years does NOT mean that they have 20 years worth of experience. They might have 1 year of experience, twenty times over.
What I'd be interested in is how they understand the changes from when they first started to today.
And where they agree and disagree with the changes.
After years and years in this industry, people form opinions.
In my opinion, WinNT was great at 3.51 and became unstable at 4.0. Moving to 2000 was okay but they've kept the same scheduler all the way to 2008. Not to mention that they never learned to insist on clean divisions between apps and data and system config and user preferences in such a way that makes backing up the data and the config and the apps simple.
Don't get me started on the ease of making system backups on a Sequent system. They had bootable tapes. If anything went wrong I could restore the OS by just booting it with the last backup tape.
Uphill! Both ways! In the snow!
And I had to write a WYSIWYG word processor for an abacus! Without beads! Before zero was invented!
This pretty much shows how certain ISP's help spammers. Particularly since they did not IMMEDIATELY bring up their backup link. Instead they waited until the weekend.
It seems that they're more interested in protecting the music industry than supporting the education of their people.
Anyone want to predict what the outcome will be in about 20 years?
I put it in quotes for a reason. I even spelled it out earlier in this thread.
And they never seem to run out of material. One one planet. With one species. In one genre. WITHOUT TIME TRAVEL.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1032403&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=25795391#25795635
Now, do you agree that the crime drama TV series have that in common? You don't have to. And yet the people who write crime dramas do not seem to run out of material. Despite being limited to only Earth, only humans and no time travel.
Yeah, and CSI doesn't have a lot of viewers.
You might want to work on that thought.
Hmmm, that seems to contradict your other statement about "bookkeeping".
Despite not including Japanese attacks on New York, the crime dramas continue to be produced and they continue to draw large audiences. Despite the lack of alien races.
I've already posted this but why not post it again?
http://www.psiphi.org/cgi/upc-db/booklist.html
There are a LOT of books out there, published, that pretty much conform to existing canon.
Yet people like you keep saying that doing so is damn near impossible.
Well, what you consider to be impossible has been done over and over and over again for decades.
*WHOOOOOSH*
That was the sound of the point of my post going over your head.
Here is the point again:
There have been dozens of cop show TV series made.
There have been hundreds of crime drama movies made.
Yet the writers never seem to run out of material as you claim the Star Trek writers have.
I watched the pilot and decided to skip it after that. Why do guys need to take off their shirts to get the decon gel on them ... but the female did not? Right then I could tell that it would be about titillation and really bad stories.
Here's a site for you on that very subject:
http://www.firsttvdrama.com/enterprise/index.php3
And the "canon" for crime drama is even larger and more restrictive.
Yet series after series and movie after movie continue to be produced. And some of them are very good.
And that's just crime drama. Medical dramas are an entirely different genre that keeps being produced as well.
On one planet. With one intelligent species. Without time travel. Etc.
And that is the kind of thinking that ruins Star Trek. Why do you need ANOTHER alien race in ANOTHER empire?
Why would you NEED Romulans for that story?
And ... ? Given that point of view, no current day crime dramas would ever be produced because we aren't fighting the Japanese.
It makes no sense.
Again, why do you NEED another alien species? Crime dramas turn out story after story after story using only humans.
Star Trek has over a dozen major species. And you want more?
Yeah, maybe someone could do that and maybe call it "Firefly". Or maybe "Babylon 5". Or "Stargate". Or BSG or Dr. Who or Farscape or .......
It's been done. It has been done.
The question, as I originally stated, is:
Is it really too much to ask that a story in an established franchise stick to previously established material?
No, it is not too much to ask. All it requires is a few TALENTED WRITERS. And that is where the problem is with Star Trek. The current writers seem to be encouraged by people with your viewpoint to just skip the canon and write a "sci-fi movie" with available slots to plug in some basic Star Trek items / names so that it will bring in the fan base. They are mediocre writers. They are NOT good writers.
Yet we have year after year of cop shows on TV. And crime drama movies. All set in present day.
And they never seem to run out of material. One one planet. With one species. In one genre. WITHOUT TIME TRAVEL.
What limits the writers of the Star Trek movies is their self-imposed requirement that every movie MUST feature the crew of a previous TV series. And their skill as writers.
And the reason they do that is because they're depending upon the existing fan base to drive ticket sales.
Other writers are not so limited.
http://www.psiphi.org/cgi/upc-db/booklist.html
There's enough material there for a hundred movies.
Then you understand nothing.
No, the use of "magic" is not limited to science fiction. But it is very prevalent in science fiction. And science fiction provides the best examples of such outside of pure fantasy.
Yeah, that seems to be your mental block. You refuse to acknowledge that such limitations do not exist.
As I've said, they can be (and are) discarded at any time by the writer for no other reason than he needs to discard them to get himself out of a corner that he's written himself into.
Which is why they are "magic".
Keep arguing that they have limits. Even though they do not.
I have a car. It is not magic. But it is bound by the physical laws. It simply cannot go "farther on a tank of gas than is physically possible".
Now, if a writer includes things that he claims to be "cars" in his plot ... but they violate physics ... then they are magic. Particularly if they tend to make evil twins appear in the passenger seat.
Magic is the absence of limitations. It is when the writer can have it do whatever he wants it to do because the plot requires it.
Look up "cliche". Go ahead. Do it.
No. Magic is when there are no limitations. A transporter can move someone across a room. Or it can move them across a planet. Between planets. Between systems. Between galaxies. It all depends upon what the writer wants the transporter to do.
A transporter can create an evil twin of someone.
There aren't many writers who would have someone's evil twin appear after he's been shot by a gun. Nor would they write about a 45 that could shoot something in orbit. People understand guns and cars. The writers can get away with cliches. But they cannot get away with magic.
Yes. And I even corrected it.
No. You do not understand.
Because it does not have limits is what makes it magic.
Again, it is magic because it does not have limitations.
If it is needed to transport something further than you have specified, it is done. And it is done because it is magic.
If it needs to have some other function (such as creating a twin of you) then that is done. Again, because it is magic.
Features are added as the plot requires them. It is magic.
Whatever limitations there are are only there because the plot requires them. It is magic.
Previously "established" limitations will be ignored if the plot requires them. It is magic.
Is it really too much to ask that a story in an established franchise stick to previously established material?
Otherwise, it is just a cynical attempt to cash in on an existing fan base by making a movie that is NOT Star Trek and then use the character names and a few items from that franchise to get them to pay to see it anyway.
Think about it. What is the MINIMUM number of changes that would have to be made in that trailer to make it a Battlestar Galactica movie? A Perry Rhodan movie? Another Star Wars movie? Another Starship Troopers movie?
THAT is why canon is important.
Wasn't that the plot of Starship Troopers 3?
I'm serious here. Go watch it and mentally replace the names of the characters with names from Star Trek.
I would have thought that a franchise would be more than the trademarked names of the characters and toys. But I guess that I'm wrong.
I'll try to keep this spoiler-free.
During the obvious homage, I laughed because I didn't see oil traces anywhere else. I envisioned a goon squad armed with carpet cleaners making sure the place is tidy after the crime.
That or a rather morally ambivalent cleaning crew working for the hotel.
That depends upon whether you understand my initial post in this thread.
If it is magic then it does not matter because it will always function EXACTLY as the plot requires it to. Or not function. Or function incorrectly.
And such functioning / non-fuctioning / mis-functioning will be entirely independent of ANY OTHER FACTORS.
... and ...
No. That's the point. It is magic. With a car, people understand the limitations and the writer has to work within those limitations.
With magic, there are no limitations. The magic does whatever the plot requires it to do.
The car might break down. On a deserted road. In the middle of a forest. In a storm. Near an old house. Where a terrible murder happened twenty years ago. And the killer was never caught.
That's covered under "cliche". And cliches are another mark of a bad writer.
When the car crashes into a tree, the writer has to explain WHY it crashed. In a way that is acceptable to the reader (who is probably a driver himself). Not just say that there was a crash and an evil twin of the driver materializes in the passenger seat. And the evil twin can only be destroyed by putting both of them back into the crashed car and driving backwards.
Again, the point is that MAGIC means a lazy writer who is probably going for a light story with a moral (look before you leap) rather than anything more involved. And any writer who tries magic in an involved story will miss aspects that would have rendered the plot moot because the protagonist would have more options open to him than the writer thought of.
What's the minimum range? Maximum range? Minimum amount of material that can be moved? Maximum amount of material that can be moved? Etc.
They tend to fail whenever it is convenient to the plot for them to fail.
Other times they are 100% effective, safe and reliable. People who do not trust them are mocked for being Luddites.
They sprout new functionality as needed to further the plot.
And they were initially written in because having to use the shuttle every time would have been too expensive to film.
The problem is that since they are not based upon any current technology, any plot that would be instantly invalidated by them simply requires that the writer render them non-functional for the duration. Try to number the different problems with the transporters in all the TV shows and movies.
Warning: side effects may include death, alternate dimensions and/or evil/non-evil duplication / division.
The problem is that as you get further and further away from current science you end up more and more in the realm of "magic".
And if the writer is resorting to that, then the story is probably going to be pretty light and dependent upon plot contrivances to get the writer out of any corner he ends up writing himself into.
In the fountain of youth example, it could matter. How available is the process? Is it possible to restrict who gets it? What about pricing? Would there be wars over it with eternal youth offered as the plunder? Or is the secret something anyone can cook up in their kitchen using dandelions and shower scum?
Light stories are good for obvious moral statements (think "Twilight Zone"). But they tend to fall apart on anything longer.
The more basic the change is (eternal youth) the more ramifications it will have on society. And the less likely the writer will have addressed them. Or even thought of them.
Because most of the city parks that I know of are not very good landing zones for helicopters. Not to mention the wind effects within a city.
This is the first I've ever heard of such claims.
From TFA:
No, it was never "completely random".
The changes MUST result in a viable individual.
Stillbirths and miscarriages do NOT contribute mutations to the gene pool.
Please tell me that he was quoted incorrectly.
Or not! Look at how many novels there are, written by hard core fans, set in the Star Trek universe. And almost all of them stick to established canon.
Any GOOD writer can take an existing universe and create ORIGINAL stories in it.
Any BAD writer can take an existing universe and "reboot" it.
This is about bad writers and bad producers trying to wring a hit movie out of a dedicated fan base.
I'd disagree about the "not obvious" part.
I recall a LOT of posts here on Slashdot about "well I'm patenting patent trolling" or words to that effect every time a patent troll story comes up. Unfortunately I cannot find any at the moment.
You're linking to posts on Slashdot that reference your own posts on Slashdot. And you want to talk about bias? Look up "echo chamber".
Yes, yes he did.
Yes and ... what the fuck are you talking about?
Pay attention. Pay close attention.
The media coverage is PART of the strategy.
Did you get that? About it being part of the strategy?
So the strategy cannot fail because the media chose not to participate the way YOU would LIKE them to.
The strategy failed because the strategy was FLAWED. The strategy had LARGER flaws and MORE of them than the opponents' strategy.
So, when the numbers agree with you then the numbers are correct.
But when the numbers contradict you, well, everyone knows you cannot trust the numbers anyway.
And I recommend that you stick to that rationalization.
The ONLY reason that Republicans rant against "the MSM" is because they want to control the messages that their followers hear and believe. And, if possible, what everyone else hears and believes as well.
The fact is that MOST of the people in the country did NOT care about Rezko. They were worried about losing their homes and their jobs and their savings.
Then they hear a story about some guy losing his job because he stood up for some guy that Palin wanted fired.
THAT resonates with the people already worried about THEIR jobs. A lot more than "Joe the Plumber" crying about the possibility of paying higher taxes on a quarter million dollars that he does NOT have yet.
AND the Obama campaign STILL did not make an issue of it.
Quite unlike McCain's strategy of "guilt by association" smears.
Whenever you initially launch an app. If you can cut that time down so that the apps APPEAR to launch instantaneously then you're a GOD!
It isn't about actual time spent typing or whatever.
It's about the perception of waiting for the machine to do what you just told it to do.
How many times do you launch an app ... wait a bit ... hourglass ... only to wait while a splash screen comes up telling you the name of the app you just launched ... wait a bit ... the app appears ... wait a bit ... okay, now you can type something in that app.
Click save ... save where ... wait a bit ... okay, save complete and you can get back to work.
They don't define "faster" to include the response time of the interface.
But most users DO include the interface response time in their opinion of which is "faster".
I think Microsoft made a big mistake with the "fade in" menus. Just turning them off gives the user the impression that you've made their machine "faster". Even though email works at the same speed as before. As does Word. As do their games.
Then feel free to dig up your own numbers and process them however you want. Just be ready to justify WHY you chose that/those particular numbers and processing methods.
Great. Now check out Fox news for counter examples.
Which is one of the reasons why you have to look at TOTAL numbers and not the comments of individuals.
Obama spoke in the open in Europe and thousands of people attended those events.
McCain would not try that in Iraq or Afghanistan.
It isn't the destination written on the ticket. It is the ACTIONS taken at that destination.
McCain's trips got the same coverage as Obama's trips.
McCain's ACTIONS on got less coverage because his ACTIONS did not generate any new NEWS.
If McCain had drawn the crowd in Iraq that Obama had in Germany that would have been huge news. And it would have been covered as such.
Only if you're counting the popular vote instead of the electoral college vote. And if you're doing that then you need to look at who voted how in which state.
And who did NOT vote. People simply were not motivated enough by McCain to get out and vote for him. And that percentage is far larger than the difference in the coverage.
First off, Palin's own actions and words were what got her that kind of coverage on the comedy shows.
Secondly, the press did cover Biden's "gaffes".
But it is a self-referential system. Palin gave the comedy shows better material. Which means that the newspapers covered the comedy shows covering Palin. Which means that the pundits talked about the newspaper coverage of the comedy shows' coverage of Palin.
McCain chose Palin. That was part of his strategy to energize the Religious Right AND an attempt to get the female vote. It's his own fault if she ended up feeding material to the media that he would rather not have fed to them.
But the reactions here (on Slashdot) to articles about the candidates various technological positions did seem to do fairly well from a "number of comments" point of view.
I'd say that this is more a matter of the same phenomena that we see in every election now. The "pundits" talk about whatever is easiest for them to talk about. And they're words get coverage because it's easier for the "reporters" to just regurgitate whatever they've heard.
So, rather than research a subject and ask INFORMED questions of the candidates THEMSELVES we get the topic de jour from the pundits, then echoed by the reporters, then echoed by other reporters and then echoed by other pundits. Since all of the pundits and reporters are talking about it, it MUST be an important issue, right?
I think that is why we saw so many websites pop up this election that did independent fact-checking of the candidates' public statements.