This was, admittedly, one of my first thoughts on the matter. I was concerned that the low quality of the equipment (especially since it was sent out for free I presume we're dealing with the bottom of the line) and how this would color the review. The more I think about it though, the more I like it. Presuming that the quality is merely "acceptable" it creates a baseline to review against. All the reviewers listening to these cds will be hearing them in the same way.
The fact that Joe College Paper Reviewer is using a decade-old Aiwa shelf system compared to a top of the line $10k+ hi-fi in an acoustically balanced listening room is nullified. Even subtle differences in personal set-ups and coloration from speakers are removed so that the album will be reviewed based on the music entirely.
I can't say I wouldn't prefer to hear it on a quality stereo system, but perhaps this will help to create a better way to review the actual content.
Not really, in fact I'm part of a growing movement focused on the idea of retro-future. There's a zine in the works and various other projects all focused around a 1950s-1960s "atomic age" view of the future, what we're doing to bring it about and why we should or should not.
Problematically not my college station. They play Top 40 "Alternative" and "Urban" (i.e. rap) exclusively with the rap slot dominating the entire evening. The playlists are selected by the programming directors and DJs have almost no say in things it appears. There are very, very occasionally individual shows, but only after midnight. Seems like it's doing it's job to make more ClearChannel DJs much like the USA Today styled campus paper.
The problem is that certain interfaces are learned over time and others are not. Since you were a child you've probably watched people drive cars for what could ammount to weeks. You know that stepping on the pedal makes it go forward or stop, you know to turn the wheel to make it turn, look into mirrors to see behind you, you probably even had at least a basic idea of how to use the clutch before you ever even started to learn how to drive. The same goes with most other interfaces: you watch people make calls on phones, turn on the oven, put food in the fridge, etc. These are not intuitive to any greater degree you've simply spent more time learning them.
Compare this to the first time you sat down to use the VCR. Ok, you've probably seen people put in tapes, press play, rewind and the other major buttons, but how often did you pay attention when they programmed it? They flipped through some menus most likely and pressed some buttons on the remote, put in a blank tape and left it be. You are far less aware of this interface because it was not as visible to you. Cutting out any problems due to your local setup the basics are probably pretty simple, but you just lack the time at it to do it intuitively.
The first time I used a dvd player it was highly intuitive to use everything except the special functions and most of them were pretty well labeled and took only a few minutes to read. Why? Well, I'd seen people move around menus, turn subtitles on and off, switch audio tracks and so forth so I knew they could be done. The remote had a bunch of buttons to move in directions and another to select so knowing I could move around and having something that looked like it would be used for this I extrapolated the usage out of it and didn't need to read the manual.
I still read the manual before it even got plugged in though. Does it immediately make sense that to get to slow motion you pause and then hit fast-forward? Not at first, but after reading it you brain clicks over and you can understand why it was done. Too many users just give up before then and complain that it doesn't just have a slow-motion button and the engineers should do something about it.
The essential point is to learn the basics of the interface and then extrapolate based on your knowledge of what tasks need to be done. Even if the power button is labeled "Standby Mode Ready" I can probably look around the remote, know that there must be a button to turn it on and off and figure out what most of the others do. Given that knowledge the terms sort of might make sense to be used in such a condition and then you just have to try.
Not reading the manual before asking for help is a problem as well though. When my mother asks how to use her Palm V and responds that she has not read the manual I do not assume that the interface is hard to use, that she is especially stupid or that she's trying to do something esoteric. I realize that she's being lazy and doesn't want to spend the time to learn how to do something and thinks that asking questions is simpler despite how it eats into my own time. Laziness is only partially the answer, the other is that of what people expect. They want technology to be the god in the box. "If it makes my life easier why should I have to learn how to use it in the first place?" dominates the thinking of most people and they refuse to admit that learning something now will make other things much easier in the future. These people do not complain about cars or phones because they have passively learned the essential points of them long ago. The more I interact with people the more I notice how much they dislike learning anything. They balk because they are required to interact with the machine on it's own terms and that means learning something new that they don't know the details of already. The problem is thus a human one, teach people to want to learn and the interface problem is largely solved. Dumbing things down isn't the answer, undumbing the people is.
Pushing technology forward only for people with high-speed network access, decently run networks (my g/f cannot get online in my dorm room despite living one building over due to mismanagement of the campus network), cd burners and no need of boot disks? Sending a 1.41MB file over a modem takes a good deal longer than it does to toss it onto a disk. Burning a couple of files onto a cd is a waste of money and a cd.
Simple backup, boot disks, physically passing around some files, the occasional prof. that makes you submit assignments on disk... face it, floppies are incredibly useful for many applications even if software distribution has largely gone over to cd.
Rolling Stone? Unless you're packing up a stuffed Keith Richards I think you might be a bit mistaken. Yeah, it covered actual music back in the 60s and 70s, but by now it's little more than a glossy teenybopper outlet.
I have an '89 Cadillac DeVille with auto-on and auto-off headlights (the so-called "twilight sentinel", although I thought I beat him at the end of level 4...). The problem is that as of late the system has gotten rather sensitive. It will frequently not turn on for a long period of time unless it is extremely dark yet when confronted with bright light (i.e. going through the drivethrough) it shuts off and you have to go back to manual. Usually this means you forget to turn them off half the time expecting the car to do it automagically.
The idea of lights that go off when you remove the key though sounds rather promising...
For me one of the biggest problems with Netflix is simple: I'm not always in the mood for the same movies. As a film geek who's depleted almost every video store in town and someone who despises Blockbuster there isn't a lot that I haven't seen so obviously harder-to-find titles would be a bonus as there is only one place in town that rents DVDs with any ammount of stock and they often pale in various genres. However just because I want to see a film doesn't mean I want to see it now. I'll regularly spend over an hour or so in the video store passing over films I want to see just because I'm not in the mood. To date I haven't seen Virgin Suicides because every time I pass over it I feel like something else. With Netflix I have to hope that I get a movie I'll want to watch when I get it without a great deal of ability to choose what I get (at the store if they're out of something I get another film I want then, not the next one of my "to see" list). I originally considered them, but the high cost (aside from new releases if you're paying more than a buck and a half a disc you're getting raped or going to blockbuster), the fact that I usually watch at least 5 movies a week on DVD or VHS and don't care to wait a few days to get a movie (when my g/f and I decide to go and rent something, we want it that night to watch, not the next weekend to sit around until we decide to watch it), and my picky tastes on what I watch at the moment and the service doesn't seem like that good of an idea.
Ok, while I likewise agree that there were a few too many panoramic view shots (it seems Jackson equated this with making it more epic) There was a lot that was not explained particularly well in the film. I'm certain they were well-covered in the book, but I'm not a particular fan of Tolkein (he has some good ideas, but letting him write them down tends to be the problem) and have not read it (aside from numerous times of trying to get through the Hobbit and quitting in disgust). The choice of Arwen was quite random. Out of nowhere we have this random elf who saves Frodo and then later there's something going on with Stryder that isn't really explained. Is there something about elves and humans that makes elves live shorter lives? Where was their background? The lines were there to give the gist of what was going on, but they never explained it enough to let the viewer in on it. Perhaps it was cut during filming or possibly intentional, but Stryder alone had the worst loss of backstory of anyone, hopefully this will be remedied in future films.
Overall I felt it was a good movie, not great, but good and the sort I'd watch again every once in a while.
No, the worst casualty of Gamespy was Team Fortress. Back in the day of Quakeworld TF the TF community was a strong, vibrant and highly personal community. Soon one of the better news sites at the core of the community got an offer from Gamespy to become the new Planet Fortress. TF was starting to take off and really hit the mainstream so most people welcomed it and saw it as a good thing. After a few months though it took over. Not because of better content, but because noone else felt the need to go anywhere else. It brought in new players, but only the most casual ones who didn't really care about adding anything. The old staff that had made the original TF Newswire great dropped off and were replaced by much less capable writers, no other site recieved any news and one by one everything else closed down and the community died. Eventually even Ethereal Team Fortress (the oldest site in the community) died and noone was left to care.
When it was Quakespy it was cool, when it was gamespy it worked, but when it had to become a network and a thing to make inordinate ammounts of money it killed everything like a kudzu.
Adams however was a pure materialist who IIRC referred to himself as a "militant atheist" to distinguish this fact as well as to avoid being confused with agnostics.
Re:A PS2 with different games
on
XBox Released
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· Score: 2
I had the chance to play Halo for about 30 min. two weeks ago when I went into Software Etc. (the only play to buy games in this town really) to pick up a copy of Civ3. Was it cool? Yeah, another guy there and I had plenty of fun driving around in the jeep and teaming up on aliens. The night mission I played was cool and interiors (the little bit of them I saw) were pretty good. But it wasn't amazing. I'll admit I didn't get into the game, but based on what I played (albeit with the horrible control that a gamepad offers for FPSs) I'd want to get a copy, but I'd probably end up spending more time on other games...
hmmm... I remember having a problem with LILO for the longest time in that it would only work from a warm boot either soft or hard, but a cold boot would kill it and I'd need to get in again from a boot disk and run it again. Running it on a 1.6 gig drive so size wasn't likely the problem... still never figured it out.
He'll be the next great director of New Zealand film. His main problem is that he isn't an unknown, but rather more as a director of gory, cult horror films (Dead Alive(aka Brain Dead), Bad Taste, etc.) and this is quite a departure from his previous work. As a fan I think he might do a very good job with it, but it's not what he's known for by any stretch.
Just how did Microsoft manage to corner the market with OE so quickly? I'd think that bundling was the primary method, but I simply recall one day everyone of earth was using Eudora and then a few months later most people hadn't even heard of it or any non-OE mail reader.
Actually the statistics of how many people have a given name is rather interesting and can actually be somewhat useful in a historical sense. Anyone in the SCA knows the usefulness of census data that incorporates names as it gives you the ability to ascertain when a particular name came into common usage. While the government might not exactly have this in mind, it is a valid piece of data.
Yes, a friend of mine happened to work in the lab this summer. Sadly I didn't learn very much about the research itself although I have been told that the recipients "suck at basketball".
Actually I find it pretty easy to define anime. It's basically a style of artwork used to tell stories that are often (but not always) geared towards adults and teens.
Would I classify Pokemon as anime? Possibly, but likely not... it's much more of a children's show done in a japanese animation style.
I may not be a good authority on this (I personally dislike anime or rather, I dislike the style of art used in it... I liked the idea behind Bebop so I'm giving it a chance) but I feel that it wouldn't be too tough to define it.
There is a distinct class of payments that I'm seeing ignored here: person to person. If I want to lend a friend of mine $5, get paid back for something I picked up for a friend, buy pizza for a bunch of people or simply leave a quick tip it isn't feasible to use some form of electronic money. In some cases it would merely be inconvenient (going to the bank to transfer funds assuming it can't be done online, but still having to wait a day to get the money) but in other cases it might not be possible (I can't run out and grab sodas for everyone if I'm broke and I can't sign on someone's card). In either case you lose something, be it privacy, security or convience that ruins the situation.
For example my school has a cash chip on all ID cards, but almost noone ever uses it. I don't personally for a variety of reasons: not all machines use it (sometimes some locations have a few card machines and a few cash, but not always), the chip itself is very easily damaged (I keep mine in my wallet and after 2 years of general use it's in very poor shape), it's not very convenient (you have to remember exactly how much you have on it and can't take it off if you want), but most importantly there isn't a universal system in place. Likely some people will only take Visa virtual money and some others AMEx or such... why put a few bucks on my cash card when I can use my cash bills anywhere I want? Similiar things occured at the '96 Olympics in Atlanta. I had a cash card from Coke (I was down on a comp. trip) for $20 and it was more or less impossible to ever use it.
In short a cashless society might be advantageous in some ways, but cash will still be very useful in a large number of transactions precluding a fully cashless society.
I used to carry one myself, but found that it simply wasn't very practical while carrying my backpack around campus as well. I'd put everything in my pack, but it's a bit bulky to take around all the time and it doesn't quite work well for all my gear since I need to use it for school as well and don't want to swap things in and out all the time.
I've been thinking of moving to a vest in place of my double-cargo pants and this looks pretty good, but still has all the other vest problems... *sigh*
Mysticism and anime-influence the main turn-off
on
Review: Final Fantasy
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· Score: 1
I have to agree, the Gaia theory and the whole emphasis on "spirits" and "souls" and such really turned me off to it. I personally dislike anime because of the animation style. I just never cared for it and despite strong commitment to story and quality voice-acting that I hear a lot about I can't get past the animation to enjoy it. I was hoping that this wouldn't be the case, but the overly mystical plot really doesn't endear an atheist and materialist to be tolerant of it.
Maybe a more scientific explanation would have been better with concentration on the bioelectrical energy instead of "spirits" and removing the Gaia part. Not the same movie, but it would probably be stronger and accepted by more people.
While I'm still only an undergrad in biology cloning issues are at the forefront of not only my interests in science, but also my career interests for the future. That said it's impossible to tell that someone is a clone without a valid copy of the original genes to compare them to. AFAIK it would also be impossible to tell whether someone was a child or a clone without extensive testing of genes.
The main telling factor though would be an extreme similiarity in introns. In a standard gel electrophoresis you can match up the most likely, but they won't be (or at least I've known them to be) identical. In such a case it could be assumed barring more extensive testing that you're dealing with a clone.
While I don't personally have a credit card it has appeared to me that there is a large enough number of people out there that not only have them, but are willing to use them to buy things (and definately both software and games) online. I do occasionally by borrowing a card... I just refuse to own one of the dreadful things myself.
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This was, admittedly, one of my first thoughts on the matter. I was concerned that the low quality of the equipment (especially since it was sent out for free I presume we're dealing with the bottom of the line) and how this would color the review. The more I think about it though, the more I like it. Presuming that the quality is merely "acceptable" it creates a baseline to review against. All the reviewers listening to these cds will be hearing them in the same way.
The fact that Joe College Paper Reviewer is using a decade-old Aiwa shelf system compared to a top of the line $10k+ hi-fi in an acoustically balanced listening room is nullified. Even subtle differences in personal set-ups and coloration from speakers are removed so that the album will be reviewed based on the music entirely.
I can't say I wouldn't prefer to hear it on a quality stereo system, but perhaps this will help to create a better way to review the actual content.
Not that you're terribly observant, but he was referring to Valenti's quote regarding VCRs. It just wasn't particularly cogent.
Not really, in fact I'm part of a growing movement focused on the idea of retro-future. There's a zine in the works and various other projects all focused around a 1950s-1960s "atomic age" view of the future, what we're doing to bring it about and why we should or should not.
Problematically not my college station. They play Top 40 "Alternative" and "Urban" (i.e. rap) exclusively with the rap slot dominating the entire evening. The playlists are selected by the programming directors and DJs have almost no say in things it appears. There are very, very occasionally individual shows, but only after midnight. Seems like it's doing it's job to make more ClearChannel DJs much like the USA Today styled campus paper.
The problem is that certain interfaces are learned over time and others are not. Since you were a child you've probably watched people drive cars for what could ammount to weeks. You know that stepping on the pedal makes it go forward or stop, you know to turn the wheel to make it turn, look into mirrors to see behind you, you probably even had at least a basic idea of how to use the clutch before you ever even started to learn how to drive. The same goes with most other interfaces: you watch people make calls on phones, turn on the oven, put food in the fridge, etc. These are not intuitive to any greater degree you've simply spent more time learning them.
Compare this to the first time you sat down to use the VCR. Ok, you've probably seen people put in tapes, press play, rewind and the other major buttons, but how often did you pay attention when they programmed it? They flipped through some menus most likely and pressed some buttons on the remote, put in a blank tape and left it be. You are far less aware of this interface because it was not as visible to you. Cutting out any problems due to your local setup the basics are probably pretty simple, but you just lack the time at it to do it intuitively.
The first time I used a dvd player it was highly intuitive to use everything except the special functions and most of them were pretty well labeled and took only a few minutes to read. Why? Well, I'd seen people move around menus, turn subtitles on and off, switch audio tracks and so forth so I knew they could be done. The remote had a bunch of buttons to move in directions and another to select so knowing I could move around and having something that looked like it would be used for this I extrapolated the usage out of it and didn't need to read the manual.
I still read the manual before it even got plugged in though. Does it immediately make sense that to get to slow motion you pause and then hit fast-forward? Not at first, but after reading it you brain clicks over and you can understand why it was done. Too many users just give up before then and complain that it doesn't just have a slow-motion button and the engineers should do something about it.
The essential point is to learn the basics of the interface and then extrapolate based on your knowledge of what tasks need to be done. Even if the power button is labeled "Standby Mode Ready" I can probably look around the remote, know that there must be a button to turn it on and off and figure out what most of the others do. Given that knowledge the terms sort of might make sense to be used in such a condition and then you just have to try.
Not reading the manual before asking for help is a problem as well though. When my mother asks how to use her Palm V and responds that she has not read the manual I do not assume that the interface is hard to use, that she is especially stupid or that she's trying to do something esoteric. I realize that she's being lazy and doesn't want to spend the time to learn how to do something and thinks that asking questions is simpler despite how it eats into my own time. Laziness is only partially the answer, the other is that of what people expect. They want technology to be the god in the box. "If it makes my life easier why should I have to learn how to use it in the first place?" dominates the thinking of most people and they refuse to admit that learning something now will make other things much easier in the future. These people do not complain about cars or phones because they have passively learned the essential points of them long ago. The more I interact with people the more I notice how much they dislike learning anything. They balk because they are required to interact with the machine on it's own terms and that means learning something new that they don't know the details of already. The problem is thus a human one, teach people to want to learn and the interface problem is largely solved. Dumbing things down isn't the answer, undumbing the people is.
Pushing technology forward only for people with high-speed network access, decently run networks (my g/f cannot get online in my dorm room despite living one building over due to mismanagement of the campus network), cd burners and no need of boot disks? Sending a 1.41MB file over a modem takes a good deal longer than it does to toss it onto a disk. Burning a couple of files onto a cd is a waste of money and a cd.
Simple backup, boot disks, physically passing around some files, the occasional prof. that makes you submit assignments on disk... face it, floppies are incredibly useful for many applications even if software distribution has largely gone over to cd.
Rolling Stone? Unless you're packing up a stuffed Keith Richards I think you might be a bit mistaken. Yeah, it covered actual music back in the 60s and 70s, but by now it's little more than a glossy teenybopper outlet.
I have an '89 Cadillac DeVille with auto-on and auto-off headlights (the so-called "twilight sentinel", although I thought I beat him at the end of level 4...). The problem is that as of late the system has gotten rather sensitive. It will frequently not turn on for a long period of time unless it is extremely dark yet when confronted with bright light (i.e. going through the drivethrough) it shuts off and you have to go back to manual. Usually this means you forget to turn them off half the time expecting the car to do it automagically.
The idea of lights that go off when you remove the key though sounds rather promising...
For me one of the biggest problems with Netflix is simple: I'm not always in the mood for the same movies. As a film geek who's depleted almost every video store in town and someone who despises Blockbuster there isn't a lot that I haven't seen so obviously harder-to-find titles would be a bonus as there is only one place in town that rents DVDs with any ammount of stock and they often pale in various genres. However just because I want to see a film doesn't mean I want to see it now. I'll regularly spend over an hour or so in the video store passing over films I want to see just because I'm not in the mood. To date I haven't seen Virgin Suicides because every time I pass over it I feel like something else. With Netflix I have to hope that I get a movie I'll want to watch when I get it without a great deal of ability to choose what I get (at the store if they're out of something I get another film I want then, not the next one of my "to see" list). I originally considered them, but the high cost (aside from new releases if you're paying more than a buck and a half a disc you're getting raped or going to blockbuster), the fact that I usually watch at least 5 movies a week on DVD or VHS and don't care to wait a few days to get a movie (when my g/f and I decide to go and rent something, we want it that night to watch, not the next weekend to sit around until we decide to watch it), and my picky tastes on what I watch at the moment and the service doesn't seem like that good of an idea.
Ok, while I likewise agree that there were a few too many panoramic view shots (it seems Jackson equated this with making it more epic) There was a lot that was not explained particularly well in the film. I'm certain they were well-covered in the book, but I'm not a particular fan of Tolkein (he has some good ideas, but letting him write them down tends to be the problem) and have not read it (aside from numerous times of trying to get through the Hobbit and quitting in disgust). The choice of Arwen was quite random. Out of nowhere we have this random elf who saves Frodo and then later there's something going on with Stryder that isn't really explained. Is there something about elves and humans that makes elves live shorter lives? Where was their background? The lines were there to give the gist of what was going on, but they never explained it enough to let the viewer in on it. Perhaps it was cut during filming or possibly intentional, but Stryder alone had the worst loss of backstory of anyone, hopefully this will be remedied in future films.
Overall I felt it was a good movie, not great, but good and the sort I'd watch again every once in a while.
No, the worst casualty of Gamespy was Team Fortress. Back in the day of Quakeworld TF the TF community was a strong, vibrant and highly personal community. Soon one of the better news sites at the core of the community got an offer from Gamespy to become the new Planet Fortress. TF was starting to take off and really hit the mainstream so most people welcomed it and saw it as a good thing. After a few months though it took over. Not because of better content, but because noone else felt the need to go anywhere else. It brought in new players, but only the most casual ones who didn't really care about adding anything. The old staff that had made the original TF Newswire great dropped off and were replaced by much less capable writers, no other site recieved any news and one by one everything else closed down and the community died. Eventually even Ethereal Team Fortress (the oldest site in the community) died and noone was left to care.
When it was Quakespy it was cool, when it was gamespy it worked, but when it had to become a network and a thing to make inordinate ammounts of money it killed everything like a kudzu.
Actually it is now: www.eyeplaygames.com and it's free.
Adams however was a pure materialist who IIRC referred to himself as a "militant atheist" to distinguish this fact as well as to avoid being confused with agnostics.
I had the chance to play Halo for about 30 min. two weeks ago when I went into Software Etc. (the only play to buy games in this town really) to pick up a copy of Civ3. Was it cool? Yeah, another guy there and I had plenty of fun driving around in the jeep and teaming up on aliens. The night mission I played was cool and interiors (the little bit of them I saw) were pretty good. But it wasn't amazing. I'll admit I didn't get into the game, but based on what I played (albeit with the horrible control that a gamepad offers for FPSs) I'd want to get a copy, but I'd probably end up spending more time on other games...
hmmm... I remember having a problem with LILO for the longest time in that it would only work from a warm boot either soft or hard, but a cold boot would kill it and I'd need to get in again from a boot disk and run it again. Running it on a 1.6 gig drive so size wasn't likely the problem... still never figured it out.
He'll be the next great director of New Zealand film. His main problem is that he isn't an unknown, but rather more as a director of gory, cult horror films (Dead Alive(aka Brain Dead), Bad Taste, etc.) and this is quite a departure from his previous work. As a fan I think he might do a very good job with it, but it's not what he's known for by any stretch.
Just how did Microsoft manage to corner the market with OE so quickly? I'd think that bundling was the primary method, but I simply recall one day everyone of earth was using Eudora and then a few months later most people hadn't even heard of it or any non-OE mail reader.
Actually the statistics of how many people have a given name is rather interesting and can actually be somewhat useful in a historical sense. Anyone in the SCA knows the usefulness of census data that incorporates names as it gives you the ability to ascertain when a particular name came into common usage. While the government might not exactly have this in mind, it is a valid piece of data.
Yes, a friend of mine happened to work in the lab this summer. Sadly I didn't learn very much about the research itself although I have been told that the recipients "suck at basketball".
Actually I find it pretty easy to define anime. It's basically a style of artwork used to tell stories that are often (but not always) geared towards adults and teens.
Would I classify Pokemon as anime? Possibly, but likely not... it's much more of a children's show done in a japanese animation style.
I may not be a good authority on this (I personally dislike anime or rather, I dislike the style of art used in it... I liked the idea behind Bebop so I'm giving it a chance) but I feel that it wouldn't be too tough to define it.
There is a distinct class of payments that I'm seeing ignored here: person to person. If I want to lend a friend of mine $5, get paid back for something I picked up for a friend, buy pizza for a bunch of people or simply leave a quick tip it isn't feasible to use some form of electronic money. In some cases it would merely be inconvenient (going to the bank to transfer funds assuming it can't be done online, but still having to wait a day to get the money) but in other cases it might not be possible (I can't run out and grab sodas for everyone if I'm broke and I can't sign on someone's card). In either case you lose something, be it privacy, security or convience that ruins the situation.
For example my school has a cash chip on all ID cards, but almost noone ever uses it. I don't personally for a variety of reasons: not all machines use it (sometimes some locations have a few card machines and a few cash, but not always), the chip itself is very easily damaged (I keep mine in my wallet and after 2 years of general use it's in very poor shape), it's not very convenient (you have to remember exactly how much you have on it and can't take it off if you want), but most importantly there isn't a universal system in place. Likely some people will only take Visa virtual money and some others AMEx or such... why put a few bucks on my cash card when I can use my cash bills anywhere I want? Similiar things occured at the '96 Olympics in Atlanta. I had a cash card from Coke (I was down on a comp. trip) for $20 and it was more or less impossible to ever use it.
In short a cashless society might be advantageous in some ways, but cash will still be very useful in a large number of transactions precluding a fully cashless society.
I used to carry one myself, but found that it simply wasn't very practical while carrying my backpack around campus as well. I'd put everything in my pack, but it's a bit bulky to take around all the time and it doesn't quite work well for all my gear since I need to use it for school as well and don't want to swap things in and out all the time.
I've been thinking of moving to a vest in place of my double-cargo pants and this looks pretty good, but still has all the other vest problems... *sigh*
I have to agree, the Gaia theory and the whole emphasis on "spirits" and "souls" and such really turned me off to it. I personally dislike anime because of the animation style. I just never cared for it and despite strong commitment to story and quality voice-acting that I hear a lot about I can't get past the animation to enjoy it. I was hoping that this wouldn't be the case, but the overly mystical plot really doesn't endear an atheist and materialist to be tolerant of it.
Maybe a more scientific explanation would have been better with concentration on the bioelectrical energy instead of "spirits" and removing the Gaia part. Not the same movie, but it would probably be stronger and accepted by more people.
While I'm still only an undergrad in biology cloning issues are at the forefront of not only my interests in science, but also my career interests for the future. That said it's impossible to tell that someone is a clone without a valid copy of the original genes to compare them to. AFAIK it would also be impossible to tell whether someone was a child or a clone without extensive testing of genes.
The main telling factor though would be an extreme similiarity in introns. In a standard gel electrophoresis you can match up the most likely, but they won't be (or at least I've known them to be) identical. In such a case it could be assumed barring more extensive testing that you're dealing with a clone.
While I don't personally have a credit card it has appeared to me that there is a large enough number of people out there that not only have them, but are willing to use them to buy things (and definately both software and games) online. I do occasionally by borrowing a card... I just refuse to own one of the dreadful things myself.