I'm not sure quite how serious a Three Mile Island-style incident would've been in an RBMK, but it's unlikely to have been pretty.
Three Mile Island was a literal core meltdown, if only a 'partial' one. You clearly know more nuclear engineering than I do, but I'd hazard a guess that if Three Mile Island were an RBMK the safe Zone of Exclusion would be at least fifty miles, and the only safe path up the east coast would have to bypass Pennsylvania almost entirely.
So pretty damn bad. Look at where the island sits; only 75 miles from Wilmington and 100 miles from Philadelphia.
They understand when a trope is so spot-on it isn't actually funny in that instance; there's no wit, none of the millisecond long confusion and subsequent cognitive leap that makes your brain say "what the fuc....Hahaha that's hilarious!" Not that Soviet Russia jokes were ever hysterical to begin with...
Anyway, in Soviet Russia they get this rule of humor, unnlike on slashdot where I've already seen five Soviet Russia comments in this post...
So many famous quotes talk about the gravity of "walking through that door", about the hope of "opening a new door" or "closing a door...opening a window" that I wonder how much people associate doors metaphorically with permission to forget and ignore everything on the other side?
Of course, ancient Greeks used architecture, specifically an image of a large house, to remember things: a common technique to plan and memorize a speech was to lay it out visually in your head, each room representing a major topic and each door perhaps representing a transition or gravid point. So architecture as memory cuts both ways.
At least according to the multiple slashdotters who called me a "butthurt hipster suffragist" when I mentioned OtherOS in the last Sony Sucks post and modded me -1 flamebait.
According to them Sony had every right to remove the function; the vast majority of uses were infringing, Geohot knew exactly what would happen, and he's furthermore a sell-out pussy for not utterly destroying his life in a hopeless legal battle.
Meanwhile I haven't bought a Sony product in 10 years, think the PS3 was no better than 360 in the first place, and would rather give my money to companies that honor hundreds of years of law (not to mention fucking common sense) regarding who owns something once it's been paid for.
Absolutely true. In my anecdotal experience, men can be exceptionally dangerous because they're more likely to drive recklessly or aggressively.
But when it comes to distracted driving or simple bad driving - people who clearly suck at the task overall as opposed to lacking focus or objectivity in a given situation - women take the cake. I have no idea who causes more accidents or more fatalities, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's still men, but the crappy lady driver skits from the 50's have a lot of truth in them to this day.
I always find the mentality that a car makes you independent funny.
Even funnier is the huge number of people who go into fucking hysterics over the $700 million cost of a new train while completely ignoring the multiple billions of dollars people spend driving roughly the route of that train every single year. Americans have this baffling subconscious assumption that roads and cars are effectively free - despite the massive ongoing costs - while public transit represents some unprecedented and inexcusable waste of money on top of the perfectly good and perfectly cheap system we already have. Trains and buses represent, to so many people I know, just a glorified taxi which costs too much and won't ever be convenient.
Yeah, sometimes the fiscally, socially, and environmentally responsible option isn't the most convenient. And sometimes people can't do math. Imagine that.
For public transit not to suck it would have to travel every two minutes between where I live and where I work and not stop along the way. That would mean running about a million times as many buses as we currently have.
Oh, please. These arguments that public transit self-evidently sucks simply because it takes longer than a car, especially from fools like you who say that without regard to whether it's "two minutes" or three hours longer, are getting really old. Do four-star restaurants suck simply because your food doesn't come for 25 minutes while McDonald's could have given you a Big Mac in 60 seconds? Does code from your in-house developer suck because you could get the project done three weeks earlier and $8,000 cheaper in India (with 9 times as many bugs and no flexibility at all)?
Different solutions to the same problem have different relative strengths. Americans' moronic default opinion that speed and convenience matter above all else is what sucks, not public transit.
Drivers should be only punished if there driving is dangerous.
The amount of preventive punishment: seat belts, speed limits, etc is mind boggling. All in the name of safety.
This isn't about pre-crime, it's about statistically valid expansions on the rules of reckless endangerment. Not to mention that driving while on your cell phone is dangerous. Your use of the phrase 'preventive punishment' suggests you disagree with all primary enforcement of safety issues that don't immediately and automatically threaten an accident, and favor instead punishing people only for severe and undeniable problems like running stop lights or actually causing accidents. This position is rather stupid, however. By your logic a demolitions expert could drive around in an unmarked van containing acids and TNT; so long as they don't run red lights there's no cause to question or restrict them until after they have an accident and the explosives kill unsuspecting firefighters - if even then. Or, also by your twisted logic, someone with an open carry permit can carry their Glock down the street with the safety off and their finger in the trigger guard so long as they're careful not to point it at people; the most egregious and obvious threat of accident has been mitigated, so all underlying risks and idiocies are acceptable.
Circumstances and behaviors statistically proven to increase the frequency or severity of accidents - with no redeeming qualities other than marginal convenience and making overconfident twats feel safer, more in control, and/or more badass - can and should be restricted. Seriously, read studies on overconfidence effects: 93% of drivers feel they're better than average, and a vast majority of people think they can safely or efficiently multitask while driving, computing, etc. while also believing most other people cannot. The truth is that less than 10% of the population can truly 'multitask' in the way we commonly use and perceive the word; it's much safer if we all put down the fucking phone and no one is allowed to self-determine their status as the 1 person out of 10 who can (somewhat) safely talk on the phone and eat a challupa while driving.
Not all government intervention represents a creeping nanny state or the protection of idiots; quit perverting scientifically valid public safety recommendations into an excuse for egocentric libertarian bitching.
Drivers should be only punished if there driving is dangerous. Drivers exhibiting signs of impaired driving (like slow reaction), excessively long cushions to the next car, speed lower than traffic.
The amount of preventive punishment: seat belts, speed limits, etc is mind boggling. All in the name of safety.
Punish drivers for the crime, actual accident which was there fault, actual impediment to the traffic, not for the achieving preconditions of what will actually happen. As long as I am concerned the driver could be sleeping on the back seat, if his robotic car manages to drive the car meanwhile.
This is all of course excludes DUI. Those need to be moved to the buses for life, period.
Drivers should be only punished if there driving is dangerous.
The amount of preventive punishment: seat belts, speed limits, etc is mind boggling. All in the name of safety.
This isn't about pre-crime or expanding the 'nanny state', it's about making statistically valid expansions to the rules on reckless endangerment. The entire point of the article is that cell phone or laptop use while driving is dangerous. You don't wait for someone with a lethal weapon to actually kill someone before you bother to punish them for doing stupid shit with it. By your logic a man with an open carry permit can just stroll down the street with their Glock, safety off and finger in the trigger guard at all times, and no one should do anything about it until after someone else gets shot or he accidentally blows his own foot off. Or a licensed pyrotechnics company can drive down the street in unmarked vans and they shouldn't be punished for carrying acids and explosives without a placard until after they have an accident and a dozen firefighters get killed when their van unexpectedly mushroom-clouds. Same environment, same lethal results, same arrogant assumption that if it doesn't obviously and automatically kill someone else the durned guberment better not start tromping on your rights and conveniences.
If a behavior is statistically proven to increase or significantly worsen accidents, and has no compensating qualities other than marginal convenience, we have every right to restrict it. Speed limits may not be very effective, but we were wrong to assume they were before getting solid data (and in any case, speed limits were originally intended to conserve fuel and control rates of consuming fuel as much as to promote safety; the safety part stayed around past the gas crisis as a 'think of the children' fallacy, if I recall correctly) . In the case of cell phones, however, we generally assumed they were safe, and the data are now proving us wrong. It's valid science, not government meddling. Quit transforming patently obvious safety issues into an excuse for libertarian bitching.
I can't get to the referenced ntsb.gov page but the CNN article states just the opposite. The last line in CNN's article reads: "It would not apply to hand-free devices or to passengers."
The CNN article is simply wrong. The original report and the vastly more detailed CBS article state clearly that the ban would cover all communications uses of electronics.
I still don't understand where the problem comes in.
I know when I buy a product I don't just say "Oooh, 4.76 stars! Gimme that one!". I read every damn review I can get: I read amazon, newegg, hardocp, etc. I make a point of reading both the stellar and the abysmal reviews; of reading both user and professional reviews. I just don't see myself falling to fakes. How is some harried Chinese shill, paid by the word or by the post, going to poison my impression of the product when there are still people writing the sort of real, detailed reviews that clearly took both time and a genuine user experience to write?
It's not that I think spam reviews will all be obviously vapid or riddled with 'Engrish' straight out of some pseudo-racist 70's action film; I just don't think that even a careful, literate fake can bullshit an authentic experience in a convincing and time-efficient manner.
And I know I'm supposed to be proud of my extraordinary time investment in researching products and my technical acumen versus the typical consumer; I know I'm supposed to think of the 'average' user as some knuckle dragging moron or arthritic grandma who would easily be fooled, Still, outside the deluded minds of preening digerati the average person isn't really too bad. I think they'll spot total bullshit almost as easily as I could.
Note to slashdot: It'll be hard to maintain whatever shred of journalistic veneer and integrity you have left if you start posting advertisements for sister websites as 'sponsorships' of semi-legitimate discussions or stories.
The fact that everyone else does it is still no excuse.
Hehehe, typo filled ranting aside, I agree completely. It seems beyond the average US citizen's mental grasp that there are people who would like to live peacefully whilst still being diametrically opposed to everything that the US stands for.
How about you don't lump us all together as imperialist, culture-bound yahoos? Where do you get this shit from, anyway? Fox News coverage of Michele Bachmann?
And I liked that it was just a few select items - when I go to museums there is so much stuff the novelty seems to be diminished for each individual item.
Which is why I spent probably 30 minutes of my hour groveling in front of the Darth Vader costume. Seriously, it's fucking terrifying up close, even when you can see the cheesiness of all the 'life-support equipment' being only painted fiberglass.
Ok, now THAT is a real jewel, a piece of history. The rest is nice and all, but nowhere in the same league.
Well, it's not in the same league yet, I guess, but it's all kind of arbitrary. You're making it sound like only ubiquitous appeal plus a certain age qualify something as 'a real jewel'. And if you feel strongly about the age part - not saying for sure that you do, but while I'm thinking - The Wizard of Oz is only 70 years old. You don't think a culturally significant number of people will feel the same way about Star Wars or Bladerunner in the year 2040?
That guy probably has the best sci-fi cinema collection in the world; TFA doesn't say who bought it, but I bet it's him.
The full-size science fiction museum he opened in Seattle seems to get mediocre reviews, but when I saw a small traveling exhibit of his collection I almost creamed my pants. An original, full Darth Vader suit, Arnold's leather jacket from Terminator, Luke's severed hand model with lightsaber, Dan Akryod's suit and proton pack from Ghostbusters, several Bladerunner costumes, the original witch's hat from the Wizard of Oz, many artifacts from Star Trek and TNG, etc.
People are not arrested and prosecuted for accidents. They were at a bomb range, not recklessly firing cannon balls in the middle of residential areas. They took appropriate precautions, but shit happens, and their insurance pays for the damage.
If anything the Mythbusters are too careful. It's clear not just from their "don't try this at home" every half hour but from everything they do that they're expected to exemplify caution and thorough planning in all circumstances. And they have a big-ass staff to do it; not just the entire crew at M5 but a lot of people at their insurance company examine and clear every stunt.
No, any jury or civil judge would inevitably conclude that the Mythbusters were careful to a fault. They'd ask for a free T-shirt, tell the insurance company to pay up and the victims to quit bitching, and send Adam and Jamie on their merry way.
But if customers aren't stupid they will notice decreased value of the service and switch to kiosk rentals.
Which have a Ron Jeremy-sized hard on for late fees- or at least, late fees under the new guise of charging you by the day. I don't know anyone who uses kiosks who doesn't pay as much or more in extra days as they did in outright penalties at old-school Blockbusters. You can say that people don't have to keep them for 8 days and this is true; people also don't have to pay the minimum on their credit cards or finance their cars, but they do and it's a predictable source of income for banks and car dealers. Much as extra days are a major source of income for Redbox.
Just because it's a machine in a parking lot and just because they don't call it a 'late fee' anymore doesn't mean the model is different. All they've done is remove the guilt and vindictive gouging from the process - and then promoted their new, spiffed up late fees as a convenience service.
Blockbuster's site sucks compared to Netflix, and their disc mailing schedule is slower, but for me to put some pain in Netflix's wallet it has been worth it to me.
Giving money to Blockbuster won't pressure Netflix to improve streaming, Netflix already wanted that; it's every single movie producer that doesn't want it. And I presume both services have access to the same DVDs. So what are you accomplishing?
Starz was Netflix' biggest contract, and during renewal talks Netflix offered them ten times as much money to renew the deal. Starz still said no - not unless Netflix would make a special 'Starz' plan that cost more.
Big Content won't give Netflix a simple, reasonable streaming contracts because that's 'not the model'; they give Netflix the very last dregs of the market for a film, and when it looks like anyone might possibly be waiting for a film on Netflix rather than watching it somewhere else they stop giving Netflix streaming rights - and even try to fuck with their acquisition of DVDs.
It's content producers' obsession with gouging the shit out of every distribution channel and their delusional attempts to make internet video behave like premium cable services that keeps streaming shitty, not Netflix' management.
You hate Blockbuster, but you'll use it to punish Netflix. How about you show some contempt for the assholes holding the cards and pulling the strings rather than despising the companies that are trying to give you a cheap, convenient option for video?
Politicians want to hear from people in their district. The moment the staffer realizes it's a robocall, they will HANG UP and not even record the fact that you called. If you call repeatedly, it still only gets you marked down once, until the staffer realizes that you do nothing but robocall at which time you get marked down zero times.
Anyone using this to advocate an issue is doing active harm to their cause. Call your politician your damn self. It's free.
The point is showing politicians how crass and condescending it is to call someone on the phone with a pre-recorded message.
If they realize you're a robot, start ignoring you, and no one draws any parallels to their own campaign tactics then it probably can't be saved - both the politicians' intelligence and that of voters who respond positively to robocalls - but at least you tried.
My first thought for using the system was harassing corrupt and ignorant jerks, with an ironic twist; I don't think anyone really expects much more from this than a symbolic gesture or some pranks/harassment.
Slashdot Mirror
So I should be a vampire?
I'm cool with that. Geeks are practically vampires already: we hate the sun, we can't score with chicks, we fear running water, and we talk funny.
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
- Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I disapprove of what you say, but I will conspire with you in ruining an innocent woman's life just to prove a point about free speech.
- LK
I think I like the original version better...
I'm not sure quite how serious a Three Mile Island-style incident would've been in an RBMK, but it's unlikely to have been pretty.
Three Mile Island was a literal core meltdown, if only a 'partial' one. You clearly know more nuclear engineering than I do, but I'd hazard a guess that if Three Mile Island were an RBMK the safe Zone of Exclusion would be at least fifty miles, and the only safe path up the east coast would have to bypass Pennsylvania almost entirely.
So pretty damn bad. Look at where the island sits; only 75 miles from Wilmington and 100 miles from Philadelphia.
They understand when a trope is so spot-on it isn't actually funny in that instance; there's no wit, none of the millisecond long confusion and subsequent cognitive leap that makes your brain say "what the fuc....Hahaha that's hilarious!" Not that Soviet Russia jokes were ever hysterical to begin with...
Anyway, in Soviet Russia they get this rule of humor, unnlike on slashdot where I've already seen five Soviet Russia comments in this post...
So many famous quotes talk about the gravity of "walking through that door", about the hope of "opening a new door" or "closing a door...opening a window" that I wonder how much people associate doors metaphorically with permission to forget and ignore everything on the other side?
Of course, ancient Greeks used architecture, specifically an image of a large house, to remember things: a common technique to plan and memorize a speech was to lay it out visually in your head, each room representing a major topic and each door perhaps representing a transition or gravid point. So architecture as memory cuts both ways.
At least according to the multiple slashdotters who called me a "butthurt hipster suffragist" when I mentioned OtherOS in the last Sony Sucks post and modded me -1 flamebait.
According to them Sony had every right to remove the function; the vast majority of uses were infringing, Geohot knew exactly what would happen, and he's furthermore a sell-out pussy for not utterly destroying his life in a hopeless legal battle.
Meanwhile I haven't bought a Sony product in 10 years, think the PS3 was no better than 360 in the first place, and would rather give my money to companies that honor hundreds of years of law (not to mention fucking common sense) regarding who owns something once it's been paid for.
70% - Women on the phone
Absolutely true. In my anecdotal experience, men can be exceptionally dangerous because they're more likely to drive recklessly or aggressively.
But when it comes to distracted driving or simple bad driving - people who clearly suck at the task overall as opposed to lacking focus or objectivity in a given situation - women take the cake. I have no idea who causes more accidents or more fatalities, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's still men, but the crappy lady driver skits from the 50's have a lot of truth in them to this day.
I always find the mentality that a car makes you independent funny.
Even funnier is the huge number of people who go into fucking hysterics over the $700 million cost of a new train while completely ignoring the multiple billions of dollars people spend driving roughly the route of that train every single year. Americans have this baffling subconscious assumption that roads and cars are effectively free - despite the massive ongoing costs - while public transit represents some unprecedented and inexcusable waste of money on top of the perfectly good and perfectly cheap system we already have. Trains and buses represent, to so many people I know, just a glorified taxi which costs too much and won't ever be convenient.
Yeah, sometimes the fiscally, socially, and environmentally responsible option isn't the most convenient. And sometimes people can't do math. Imagine that.
For public transit not to suck it would have to travel every two minutes between where I live and where I work and not stop along the way. That would mean running about a million times as many buses as we currently have.
Oh, please. These arguments that public transit self-evidently sucks simply because it takes longer than a car, especially from fools like you who say that without regard to whether it's "two minutes" or three hours longer, are getting really old. Do four-star restaurants suck simply because your food doesn't come for 25 minutes while McDonald's could have given you a Big Mac in 60 seconds? Does code from your in-house developer suck because you could get the project done three weeks earlier and $8,000 cheaper in India (with 9 times as many bugs and no flexibility at all)?
Different solutions to the same problem have different relative strengths. Americans' moronic default opinion that speed and convenience matter above all else is what sucks, not public transit.
Drivers should be only punished if there driving is dangerous.
The amount of preventive punishment: seat belts, speed limits, etc is mind boggling. All in the name of safety.
This isn't about pre-crime, it's about statistically valid expansions on the rules of reckless endangerment. Not to mention that driving while on your cell phone is dangerous. Your use of the phrase 'preventive punishment' suggests you disagree with all primary enforcement of safety issues that don't immediately and automatically threaten an accident, and favor instead punishing people only for severe and undeniable problems like running stop lights or actually causing accidents. This position is rather stupid, however. By your logic a demolitions expert could drive around in an unmarked van containing acids and TNT; so long as they don't run red lights there's no cause to question or restrict them until after they have an accident and the explosives kill unsuspecting firefighters - if even then. Or, also by your twisted logic, someone with an open carry permit can carry their Glock down the street with the safety off and their finger in the trigger guard so long as they're careful not to point it at people; the most egregious and obvious threat of accident has been mitigated, so all underlying risks and idiocies are acceptable.
Circumstances and behaviors statistically proven to increase the frequency or severity of accidents - with no redeeming qualities other than marginal convenience and making overconfident twats feel safer, more in control, and/or more badass - can and should be restricted. Seriously, read studies on overconfidence effects: 93% of drivers feel they're better than average, and a vast majority of people think they can safely or efficiently multitask while driving, computing, etc. while also believing most other people cannot. The truth is that less than 10% of the population can truly 'multitask' in the way we commonly use and perceive the word; it's much safer if we all put down the fucking phone and no one is allowed to self-determine their status as the 1 person out of 10 who can (somewhat) safely talk on the phone and eat a challupa while driving.
Not all government intervention represents a creeping nanny state or the protection of idiots; quit perverting scientifically valid public safety recommendations into an excuse for egocentric libertarian bitching.
Drivers should be only punished if there driving is dangerous. Drivers exhibiting signs of impaired driving (like slow reaction), excessively long cushions to the next car, speed lower than traffic.
The amount of preventive punishment: seat belts, speed limits, etc is mind boggling. All in the name of safety.
Punish drivers for the crime, actual accident which was there fault, actual impediment to the traffic, not for the achieving preconditions of what will actually happen. As long as I am concerned the driver could be sleeping on the back seat, if his robotic car manages to drive the car meanwhile.
This is all of course excludes DUI. Those need to be moved to the buses for life, period.
Drivers should be only punished if there driving is dangerous.
The amount of preventive punishment: seat belts, speed limits, etc is mind boggling. All in the name of safety.
This isn't about pre-crime or expanding the 'nanny state', it's about making statistically valid expansions to the rules on reckless endangerment. The entire point of the article is that cell phone or laptop use while driving is dangerous. You don't wait for someone with a lethal weapon to actually kill someone before you bother to punish them for doing stupid shit with it. By your logic a man with an open carry permit can just stroll down the street with their Glock, safety off and finger in the trigger guard at all times, and no one should do anything about it until after someone else gets shot or he accidentally blows his own foot off. Or a licensed pyrotechnics company can drive down the street in unmarked vans and they shouldn't be punished for carrying acids and explosives without a placard until after they have an accident and a dozen firefighters get killed when their van unexpectedly mushroom-clouds. Same environment, same lethal results, same arrogant assumption that if it doesn't obviously and automatically kill someone else the durned guberment better not start tromping on your rights and conveniences.
If a behavior is statistically proven to increase or significantly worsen accidents, and has no compensating qualities other than marginal convenience, we have every right to restrict it. Speed limits may not be very effective, but we were wrong to assume they were before getting solid data (and in any case, speed limits were originally intended to conserve fuel and control rates of consuming fuel as much as to promote safety; the safety part stayed around past the gas crisis as a 'think of the children' fallacy, if I recall correctly) . In the case of cell phones, however, we generally assumed they were safe, and the data are now proving us wrong. It's valid science, not government meddling. Quit transforming patently obvious safety issues into an excuse for libertarian bitching.
I can't get to the referenced ntsb.gov page but the CNN article states just the opposite. The last line in CNN's article reads: "It would not apply to hand-free devices or to passengers."
The CNN article is simply wrong. The original report and the vastly more detailed CBS article state clearly that the ban would cover all communications uses of electronics.
I still don't understand where the problem comes in.
I know when I buy a product I don't just say "Oooh, 4.76 stars! Gimme that one!". I read every damn review I can get: I read amazon, newegg, hardocp, etc. I make a point of reading both the stellar and the abysmal reviews; of reading both user and professional reviews. I just don't see myself falling to fakes. How is some harried Chinese shill, paid by the word or by the post, going to poison my impression of the product when there are still people writing the sort of real, detailed reviews that clearly took both time and a genuine user experience to write?
It's not that I think spam reviews will all be obviously vapid or riddled with 'Engrish' straight out of some pseudo-racist 70's action film; I just don't think that even a careful, literate fake can bullshit an authentic experience in a convincing and time-efficient manner.
And I know I'm supposed to be proud of my extraordinary time investment in researching products and my technical acumen versus the typical consumer; I know I'm supposed to think of the 'average' user as some knuckle dragging moron or arthritic grandma who would easily be fooled, Still, outside the deluded minds of preening digerati the average person isn't really too bad. I think they'll spot total bullshit almost as easily as I could.
Note to slashdot: It'll be hard to maintain whatever shred of journalistic veneer and integrity you have left if you start posting advertisements for sister websites as 'sponsorships' of semi-legitimate discussions or stories.
The fact that everyone else does it is still no excuse.
Hehehe, typo filled ranting aside, I agree completely. It seems beyond the average US citizen's mental grasp that there are people who would like to live peacefully whilst still being diametrically opposed to everything that the US stands for.
How about you don't lump us all together as imperialist, culture-bound yahoos? Where do you get this shit from, anyway? Fox News coverage of Michele Bachmann?
And I liked that it was just a few select items - when I go to museums there is so much stuff the novelty seems to be diminished for each individual item.
Which is why I spent probably 30 minutes of my hour groveling in front of the Darth Vader costume. Seriously, it's fucking terrifying up close, even when you can see the cheesiness of all the 'life-support equipment' being only painted fiberglass.
Ok, now THAT is a real jewel, a piece of history. The rest is nice and all, but nowhere in the same league.
Well, it's not in the same league yet, I guess, but it's all kind of arbitrary. You're making it sound like only ubiquitous appeal plus a certain age qualify something as 'a real jewel'. And if you feel strongly about the age part - not saying for sure that you do, but while I'm thinking - The Wizard of Oz is only 70 years old. You don't think a culturally significant number of people will feel the same way about Star Wars or Bladerunner in the year 2040?
Hahaha...whew, that's a good one.
Now tell me we're gonna have flying cars 'within the next 15-30 years'.
After all those versions Lucas will release the real money maker: the version where he takes Jar Jar back out.
That guy probably has the best sci-fi cinema collection in the world; TFA doesn't say who bought it, but I bet it's him.
The full-size science fiction museum he opened in Seattle seems to get mediocre reviews, but when I saw a small traveling exhibit of his collection I almost creamed my pants. An original, full Darth Vader suit, Arnold's leather jacket from Terminator, Luke's severed hand model with lightsaber, Dan Akryod's suit and proton pack from Ghostbusters, several Bladerunner costumes, the original witch's hat from the Wizard of Oz, many artifacts from Star Trek and TNG, etc.
Best damn hour of my life.
That's very interesting....
An evil thing Facebook won't do.
Or is that just what they want us to think...?
Conspiracy theorists, start your foiling!
People are not arrested and prosecuted for accidents. They were at a bomb range, not recklessly firing cannon balls in the middle of residential areas. They took appropriate precautions, but shit happens, and their insurance pays for the damage.
If anything the Mythbusters are too careful. It's clear not just from their "don't try this at home" every half hour but from everything they do that they're expected to exemplify caution and thorough planning in all circumstances. And they have a big-ass staff to do it; not just the entire crew at M5 but a lot of people at their insurance company examine and clear every stunt.
No, any jury or civil judge would inevitably conclude that the Mythbusters were careful to a fault. They'd ask for a free T-shirt, tell the insurance company to pay up and the victims to quit bitching, and send Adam and Jamie on their merry way.
But if customers aren't stupid they will notice decreased value of the service and switch to kiosk rentals.
Which have a Ron Jeremy-sized hard on for late fees- or at least, late fees under the new guise of charging you by the day. I don't know anyone who uses kiosks who doesn't pay as much or more in extra days as they did in outright penalties at old-school Blockbusters. You can say that people don't have to keep them for 8 days and this is true; people also don't have to pay the minimum on their credit cards or finance their cars, but they do and it's a predictable source of income for banks and car dealers. Much as extra days are a major source of income for Redbox.
Just because it's a machine in a parking lot and just because they don't call it a 'late fee' anymore doesn't mean the model is different. All they've done is remove the guilt and vindictive gouging from the process - and then promoted their new, spiffed up late fees as a convenience service.
Blockbuster's site sucks compared to Netflix, and their disc mailing schedule is slower, but for me to put some pain in Netflix's wallet it has been worth it to me.
Giving money to Blockbuster won't pressure Netflix to improve streaming, Netflix already wanted that; it's every single movie producer that doesn't want it. And I presume both services have access to the same DVDs. So what are you accomplishing?
Starz was Netflix' biggest contract, and during renewal talks Netflix offered them ten times as much money to renew the deal. Starz still said no - not unless Netflix would make a special 'Starz' plan that cost more.
Big Content won't give Netflix a simple, reasonable streaming contracts because that's 'not the model'; they give Netflix the very last dregs of the market for a film, and when it looks like anyone might possibly be waiting for a film on Netflix rather than watching it somewhere else they stop giving Netflix streaming rights - and even try to fuck with their acquisition of DVDs.
It's content producers' obsession with gouging the shit out of every distribution channel and their delusional attempts to make internet video behave like premium cable services that keeps streaming shitty, not Netflix' management.
You hate Blockbuster, but you'll use it to punish Netflix. How about you show some contempt for the assholes holding the cards and pulling the strings rather than despising the companies that are trying to give you a cheap, convenient option for video?
Politicians want to hear from people in their district. The moment the staffer realizes it's a robocall, they will HANG UP and not even record the fact that you called. If you call repeatedly, it still only gets you marked down once, until the staffer realizes that you do nothing but robocall at which time you get marked down zero times.
Anyone using this to advocate an issue is doing active harm to their cause. Call your politician your damn self. It's free.
The point is showing politicians how crass and condescending it is to call someone on the phone with a pre-recorded message.
If they realize you're a robot, start ignoring you, and no one draws any parallels to their own campaign tactics then it probably can't be saved - both the politicians' intelligence and that of voters who respond positively to robocalls - but at least you tried.
My first thought for using the system was harassing corrupt and ignorant jerks, with an ironic twist; I don't think anyone really expects much more from this than a symbolic gesture or some pranks/harassment.