Pop culture if a fickle beast. It takes a good idea, packages it, slaps a price tag on it, then shoves it down your throat from every direction until you can't stand it anymore. This is what it has done to Sci-Fi.
It beat Star Trek to death. I know at least 20 sci-fi fans, and none admit to
watching 'Enterprise' regularly. Star Wars has been turned into a merchandising machine. "Merchandising! Merchandising! Where the REAL money from the movie is made." - Yogurt.
My advice is just be patient. Pop culture takes obscure stuff, thows it into the mainstream, then dumps it for something new a year or two later. Now Tolkien is all the rage. Just wait, in time people will become tired of that too and eventually new and fresh ideas will come back to Sci-Fi. Or someone will do a "Foundation" movie series that will make LOTR look like a bedtime story.
I'm afraid I have to disagree with most of the posts that I've read so far that talk about how you should pick a field to major in college. While it is nice to hear "choose the field because you love it", I believe that is a secondary reason one should choose a career field. The fact of the matter is this: You work to earn money so you can provide for you and your family. Therefore, you should pick a career field in which you believe you have the best potential to earn a living. Pick something that you have an aptitude for doing. This may be something you like, but it may not. In a perfect world, we would all get to do what we love. However, it isn't, so we don't.
Another point: How often do we change what we love? More often than you think. How many girlfriends have you had? How ofen do you love to hear a song, then eventually tire of it? How often do you change from one hobby to the next? How often do you get bored with your current job and want a new challenge? Love can be fickle. If you want to have something that will last and be fully satisfying, you better have more reasons for doing it than love alone.
Things you love are better off as hobbies than as work. I know people that went to work at Hershey Foods, Inc. and thought they found their dream job because they were major choco-haulics. However, they soon lost their love of chocolate because they were saturated with it every day. Now, chocolate makes them think of work. It is a rare thing indeed when we find something that we can love for the rest of our lives. That's why it's so special when you have found someone you can marry.
Beleive it or not, I have seen too many good workers get fired, laid-off, down-sized, you name it all because they could not make their co-workers and supervisors believe they worked hard. I have been working in the corporate world for over 5 years and this I know: Illusion is more important than reality. You can work your tail off and do a good job, but if your superiors don't believe you are working hard then your career is over. You have to give the illusion that you are a hard worker, weither you are or not.
Example: A friend of mine had a job and he was a wiz. A guru. He could do anything they asked him to do. Yet he was down-sized. Why? Because he never gave the illusion that he was working hard at what he did. He did his work quickly. He finnished every task assigned to him, however he then went back to his desk and idled while waiting for the next assignment. The reality of the situation was that he worked hard and did as much, if not more than his collegues. But to his manager, all he saw of my friend was him sitting at his desk playing games on his computer. That's what his collegues saw too. When review time came around, naturally they all had bad impressions of him. He got a low rating. When it was time for lay-offs, his poor review made him one of the first on the list.
Another Example: A fried of mine, who worked with the friend in the first example, is not the sharpest pencil in the drawer. He's not very techincialy savy, but knows enough to get buy. He usually takes his time working on things and he is always bugging other people on how to do his assignments. He comes in late, around 10 am and is prone to take vacations during periods of mandatory overtime. So how come he gets a better review than my first friend? He milks his assignments, so he's always busy. He's alwasy bugging other people, so they think he has a ton of work. It takes him five times as long to do the same task as the first friend. This guy always has something to say at the meetings and always has something to tell his manager. End result is that his co-workers and manager all think he is really busy and working hard, when really, he takes his good old time doing things. I'm even skeptical about his hours, because he tells me that he gets in late and stays until the manager leaves, then he does to. Basically, his job is not to do work, but to make it look like his is doing work. He's pretty good at it too, cause he's been around for 10 years.
What should you learn from this? Perception is more important than reality. The facts do not matter. What does matter is how people interpret the facts, what point of view they have, and what conclusions they draw using the facts from their point of view. You want job security? Being an indespensible guru is nice, but if you can't be that then you have to put yourself in the position to be viewed as a valuable productive member of your organization from the view points of your collegues and managers. You can do this by communication. Make sure you talk to everyone on your team, weither it's about your assignment or theirs. Help others out with their stuff when you can. At the beginning of the day, have a question ready for your manager about your assignment and always have something to tell him that you are working. Always have a comment during status meetings, even if it is just a re-hash of stuff you have already said to others earlier in the week. The trick is, the more you talk about what you are doing, the more it looks like you are busy doing it from their point of view. Part of your job is making your peers believe you are doing a good job. This is not advice on how to slack, but how to keep your job weither you slack or not and someday it may save you from the unemployment line.
Great games. Both have strategy, but at different levels. Just depends on what you prefer. I find StarCraft is faster paced while CounterStrike is more like chess. The joke with my friends was that if you were playing StarCraft and found that you we not building several things at once or doing several things at once, you were LOSING. CounterStrike on the other hand is more like chess where you position yourself and wait to strike when the time is right. Sometimes this happens quickly, but most of the time you are waiting or moving in slowly.
If you like StarCraft you might want to check out Warlords Battlecry 2. This is what Warcraft 3 should have been. A bunch of races (Human, Dwarf, Dark Dwarf, Barbarian, Minotaurs, Daemon, Orc, Fey, High Elf, Wood Elf, Dark Elf, and Undead) to master and the ability to build up hero characters to lead them in battle. My friends that use to play StarCraft now play WBC2. Check it out.
I just read an article on how the rate of banana crop failures from pests and disease are at a current rate that they may be gone in ten years if nothing can be done to stop it. Genitically engineering more resistant bananas is one option.
....I'd have to go with TMNT. half-shell armor. They can breathe underwater. They have weapons. They're ninja's, so they could have stealth and surprise on their side, which can be an overwhelming advantage. Especially if we are talking about the original Eastman & Laird (sp?) TMNT where they would hide in trash cans then jump out and slash people to pieces. I'm not saying that the PR's could not win, just that over several fights and situations the Turtles have a better chance to win a majority of the fights.
at the shelf space in your local computer game store. I have seen a shrinking PC game section and an increasing PS2 game section. So much so that the PS2 games now occupy 3 of the 4 walls in the store, plus the majority of the mid-floor space. However, I do not believe that has any relavance to PC's being left in the dust. Probably, it means that the stores get more sales from the PS2 games.
Also reminds me of the YB-49
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/b-49.htm I remember watching a show where they though about using it for a commercial passengar jet.
I saw one of those Vulcan's at Duxford once. Pretty cool looking aircraft. If you ever get a chance to go to the Duxford Air Museum I highly reccomend it.
Exploration is not usually done by "governments", espcially in the past. It's impractical in the short term. There will always be the arguments of "Why spend money on that when we need to fix all these other problems?" But, exploration gets done, none the less. How? Private enterprise. People spend their own money, or borrow it, to do the exploration in hopes to find riches. Treasure hunting. That is what it will take for us to get to the Moon again, and Mars for that matter. Someone will have to have a vision, an idea, on how to make a fortune by going to Mars or the Moon. Right now, there seems to be nothing there that will make the trip worth it. You would spend far more money than you would gain. However, that will not always be true. One day, it will be worth it, for one reason or another. We just have to have patience and wait for that day to come and have the courage to act when that day does come.
I would use the slime as a containment device. Designed to keep the rioting from spreading. Just slime-off a perimeter around the rioters and funnell them to where you want them to go. Since this slime has to be spread on the ground first, it seems highly unlikely that you would be able to shoot it under a large crowd. This sounds more like something you put on the ground where the riot has not reached yet. Sort of like a moat, that they have to cross. You stand behind the "moat-o-slime" and shoot tear gas into the crowd to disperse or drive them a particular way. Violent rioters that would want to attack you would have to cross the moat or keep at a range. They could probably cross it sucessfully, but at a greatly reduce speed. Like walking across wet ice or a wet soapy floor. With no speed and greatly reduced footing, you could easily over power them by the time they reach you.
It could be pretty effective, but I would worry about the flamibility and environmental impact of the slime. How does this stuff react if they throw a molitoff-cocktail on it? If they can get it to burn it's no good and I would not want to stop a riot by creating a haz-mat spill.
The web is probably the only place on earth, that I can think of ATM, where it is best to be short and fat. Of course, I'm speaking of web site design. Keep the content as close to the main index page as possible, if not right on it. Slashdot has a pretty good example of this. Just about anything is only a few clicks away from the index page and the fresh content is right up front.
Keep in mind that video resolutions can vastly effect how a page is viewed. While trying out some ideas, see what it looks like at 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768. Sometimes you'll be surprised at the results.
A good design can flow with the resizing of the browser window too. Not every one has their browser maximized.
White space is your friend.
Other than that, do whatever you want, really. Some may tell you not to use dark colors, others will tell you not use bright colors. (I designed a web page once where I got complaints that it was too dark and too bright) In the end, make sure the web site serves it's purpose. That's all that really matters.
Look at the steel industy. Started out as black-smiths and sword-smiths..."cottage industries". Industrial Revolution moved it towards larger and larger production plants..."Carnegie Steel"..."Bethelhem Steel". Technological advances moved it back to smaller steel plants. Look at refrigeration. Ice Wagons brought ice to our homes so we could store food longer in our "ice box". Technology brought us "refrigerators" that preserve our food and make ice for us.
Technology shifts the balance of power between the large to the small. It levels the playing field. Who benefits more from the web? A mega-store like Wal-Mart or K-Mart or a mom & pop store in smallville. Answer: mom & pop, because the mega-stores could already reach everywhere due to their sheer size and multiple locations. With the web, the mom & pop store can reach all over the world from one location at considerablely less cost. The web leveled the playing field. Possibily even giving the advantage to the mom & pop store.
The world around us is constantly changing. It always has and it always will. It almost makes me laugh when I see or hear people act shocked when things change. What were they expecting?
"How many bug episodes have there been, now? 4? (Cockroaches, flies, bees, little-glowy-green-things from inside trees)"
I love that episode with the little-glowy-green-things. It's called "Darkness Falls", I believe. It is the only episode I own on tape. The cool thing is that the other episode on that tape is my second favorite one, "The Erlenmeyer Flask". Great shows. Of course, they were both first season. Personally, I liked the ones where they would track down folk legends and myths like the Jersey Devil, but they ran out of those stories pretty quick.
...once said that "Form follows function". I agree with that; the form of the thing should flow from it's function. Whether it is a house, a car, a computer, or a toaster the function should dictate the form. The form should be derived from the function with the intent to optimise the function by keeping it easy to use. Form has a place, but it is secondary to the function because the function is where the form originates. Or at least, that is where it should originate.
Granted, Tremors is not a blockbuster movie, but it can be enjoyable. The main thing are the characters. Val [Kevin Bacon] and Earl [Fred Ward] are excellent anti-heros with wonderful chemistry. Burt [Michael Gross] and Heather [Reba McEntire] are pretty good too as the survivalists. (In Tremors 2, Gross takes his character to the next level and is hilarious) It's easy to be dissapointed with this movie when you go in expecting that it's a straight horror flick, when it's really a blend. This is a fun movie that does not take its self too seriously.
I'm sure they could do a wonderful job with the special effects of a new kind of terminator, but that would be beating a dead horse. According to their time-line, they already sent back their most advanced prototype in T2. It may be wiser to break away from that and move to a more epic kind of movie as suggested by the title "Rise of the Machines".
Originally, all the characters in the first movies believed it was possible to go back in time and change the past/future. To make another movie, all they have to do is say that they were wrong. Instead of thinking of time in the way that "Back to the Future" thinks of it, think of time as they did in "12 Monkees". (you can't change anything because you already tried to) So, at the end of T2 they thought they changed the future, but they actually didn't. Everything happened just the way the T2 layed it down. And the new movie picks up somewhere around the creation of SkyNet and carries on through the nuclear holocost and the machines rising from the ashes.
If they do it right, they could squeeze two more enjoyable movies out of this, the next one being "The Rise of John Connor" where the humans are almost wiped out, and along comes Connor and he saves them and they wipe the machines out, end of saga. I believe, if they want to, they can make this movie more than just a brainless one-liner dialog summertime action movie, they need to swtich to an epic style. Just my opinion, of course.
Someone else pointed out that the skies are clearer, but failed to mention why. It's because the air is colder and cannot hold as much water vapor, humidity, as in the summer. Less water vapor means less hazy skies. The water vapor can reflect the light from cities nearby and greatly reduce visibility. Only the really bright stars and planets are visible. This is also why deserts are good for star gazing. Other factors can be polution and elivation. That's why they put observatories on top of mountains. There is less atmosphere above them to interfere with their observations.
The 3 main meteorite showers I observe are the Leonids, Geminids, and the Percids. So, yeah it's best for it to be really cold and clear. Just make sure you bring enough blankets and some hot beverages.
America is not blameless and the US is attacking the Taliban, but that is where the facts end in your post. Someone once told me that the best place to hide a lie is between two truths. Aparently you heard that as well. Yes, the US did some bad things during the cold war. It was a very messed up time in the world, with global thermonuclear war hanging over the head over the entire planet. Yes, the US is attacking the Taliban for events that happened on 11 Sep. 2001, but your statements in between these facts are misguided at best.
The United States did not rush into this, as you seem to suggest. Take a close look at any newspaper in the past month and you will see that the US tried diplomatic approaches for a whole month. The Taliban refused, so the only option left is a military action. Bin Laden and the Taliban are very closely linked, financially speaking, from what I've read in the various news sources. Especially the BBC. So naturally, the US is striking the ruling government to 1)stop terrorists linked to the WTC attack and 2)send a message that America and it's allies will not tolerate terrorism anymore.
As for comparing this military action to a war on Islam, again I think you need to read the papers a little closer. This is not an all out war against Islam. The objectives are clear, to stop people like Bin Laden from killing. I agree with you that war is bad and should be avoided, if possible. But there is a proper time for everything, even war. With the evidence pointing to Bin Laden as it seems to be, the actions the US is taking seem measured and appropriate. They are not launching an all out war. They are not dropping nukes on innocent civilians, although they have in the past (Hiroshima & Nagasaki).
If this is an attack on Islam, then why is the US attacking Afganistan? What religous signifigance does Afganistan have to Islam? Not much. The US has backed pro-Muslim policies and nations too. The US has defended Islamic countries from cold war enemies and other Islamic countries. Remember when the US defended Saudi Arabia and freed Kuwait? Do you have some piece of evidence to refute these facts so you can justifiy your claim?
Now for Isreal. That situation is not anywhere as simple as you make it out to be. The political history of that region is very complex. The US has taken an active role in promoting peace in that region. Personally, I believe that it is a waste of time. There are too many extreemists on both sides that refuse to negotiate and refuse to compromise. In refusing, they condem themselves to more death and destruction. It feeds on itself in a cycle of retaliation for retaliations. It will take an act of God to bring peace to that land.
Companies want skilled employees that are cheap. That's why they dump a ton of work on underpaid college interns. *chuckle* Really, companies want skilled people with experience more than well rounded people with high GPA's. Frankly, I think they could care less about you being well rounded. A diploma is nothing more than a personal goal you have achieved, in there eyes.
Colleges on the other hand, are a little more devious. When you get right down to it, they are a business. Not for profit, necessarily, but to keep students paying their salaries. They court you to go there, once attending they try to keep you there, and they beg you to give them donations for the rest of your life after you leave.
The first and last are obvious so I shall discuss the middle, how they keep you there. Well, they argue that you need to be well rounded. So what they do is create the "Gen. Ed." cirriculum that everyone has to take. And they put restrictions on how many of each subject you can take. And requirements for classes that are determined to be a "writing class" among other things. There are many reasons as to why it should be done (being well rounded, school respect, etc.) but the end result is that you end up taking way more classes than you are interested in taking. Add in a Major and you are lucky to get out in 8 semesters. Remember, they do not offer each class every semester. I've seen classes that only appear once every two years, if even that often. I remember them telling me "Don't worry about not having a Major picked, you have plenty of time" when they really mean "Feel free to take your time, we have no problems with taking your money". On top of that, I know all the transfer students that have lost countless semesters worth of credits because the one school did not recognise the other's classes. Do the laws of physics, math, and grammer change from school to school? No, but any excuse they can use to make you take more classes is good. Also, the Gen. Ed. curriculum keeps each of the departments with a steady flow of students scrambeling to fill the last holes in their sheets so they can graduate. "..I need a writing class on T,TH at 1-1:50......here we go, 'the impact of 20th centruy abstract art in third world nations'..." We've all been there.
That being said. I think it is a bad idea to rush through College in 4 years. With all that is listed above, the strain is too much. College should be fun, I should hope. I started out to push through in 4 years using 18 credit semesters and summer classes. Then I realized I was missing out on too much because of the work load. I lightened my classload down to 15 and used my summers and time off to get internships, which helped me get my job that I have now. Basically, I learned that companies want skilled people with experience more than well rounded people with high GPA's.
(spoiler alert)
I'd also like to add one annoying bit:
the transporter - I thought the whole reason to make it new and dangerous was so that it was NOT used to solve their problems.
Other than that, I liked it alot. It was very refreshing. I think the human reaction to vulcan impedance is quite believable. I compare it to the feeling that you get as a child when you are tired of your parents trying to run your life. You want to go out on your own and do it yourself.
Bakula is a good actor. As long as he gets good scripts he has the potential to give a good performance. Granted, I don't quite know why he stayed behind either, other than to squeeze in that last fight scene. I like what I see from the other characters too. I just hope I can remember to watch each week.
Slashdot Mirror
It beat Star Trek to death. I know at least 20 sci-fi fans, and none admit to watching 'Enterprise' regularly. Star Wars has been turned into a merchandising machine. "Merchandising! Merchandising! Where the REAL money from the movie is made." - Yogurt.
My advice is just be patient. Pop culture takes obscure stuff, thows it into the mainstream, then dumps it for something new a year or two later. Now Tolkien is all the rage. Just wait, in time people will become tired of that too and eventually new and fresh ideas will come back to Sci-Fi. Or someone will do a "Foundation" movie series that will make LOTR look like a bedtime story.
Another point: How often do we change what we love? More often than you think. How many girlfriends have you had? How ofen do you love to hear a song, then eventually tire of it? How often do you change from one hobby to the next? How often do you get bored with your current job and want a new challenge? Love can be fickle. If you want to have something that will last and be fully satisfying, you better have more reasons for doing it than love alone.
Things you love are better off as hobbies than as work. I know people that went to work at Hershey Foods, Inc. and thought they found their dream job because they were major choco-haulics. However, they soon lost their love of chocolate because they were saturated with it every day. Now, chocolate makes them think of work. It is a rare thing indeed when we find something that we can love for the rest of our lives. That's why it's so special when you have found someone you can marry.
Example: A friend of mine had a job and he was a wiz. A guru. He could do anything they asked him to do. Yet he was down-sized. Why? Because he never gave the illusion that he was working hard at what he did. He did his work quickly. He finnished every task assigned to him, however he then went back to his desk and idled while waiting for the next assignment. The reality of the situation was that he worked hard and did as much, if not more than his collegues. But to his manager, all he saw of my friend was him sitting at his desk playing games on his computer. That's what his collegues saw too. When review time came around, naturally they all had bad impressions of him. He got a low rating. When it was time for lay-offs, his poor review made him one of the first on the list.
Another Example: A fried of mine, who worked with the friend in the first example, is not the sharpest pencil in the drawer. He's not very techincialy savy, but knows enough to get buy. He usually takes his time working on things and he is always bugging other people on how to do his assignments. He comes in late, around 10 am and is prone to take vacations during periods of mandatory overtime. So how come he gets a better review than my first friend? He milks his assignments, so he's always busy. He's alwasy bugging other people, so they think he has a ton of work. It takes him five times as long to do the same task as the first friend. This guy always has something to say at the meetings and always has something to tell his manager. End result is that his co-workers and manager all think he is really busy and working hard, when really, he takes his good old time doing things. I'm even skeptical about his hours, because he tells me that he gets in late and stays until the manager leaves, then he does to. Basically, his job is not to do work, but to make it look like his is doing work. He's pretty good at it too, cause he's been around for 10 years.
What should you learn from this? Perception is more important than reality. The facts do not matter. What does matter is how people interpret the facts, what point of view they have, and what conclusions they draw using the facts from their point of view. You want job security? Being an indespensible guru is nice, but if you can't be that then you have to put yourself in the position to be viewed as a valuable productive member of your organization from the view points of your collegues and managers. You can do this by communication. Make sure you talk to everyone on your team, weither it's about your assignment or theirs. Help others out with their stuff when you can. At the beginning of the day, have a question ready for your manager about your assignment and always have something to tell him that you are working. Always have a comment during status meetings, even if it is just a re-hash of stuff you have already said to others earlier in the week. The trick is, the more you talk about what you are doing, the more it looks like you are busy doing it from their point of view. Part of your job is making your peers believe you are doing a good job. This is not advice on how to slack, but how to keep your job weither you slack or not and someday it may save you from the unemployment line.
If you like StarCraft you might want to check out Warlords Battlecry 2. This is what Warcraft 3 should have been. A bunch of races (Human, Dwarf, Dark Dwarf, Barbarian, Minotaurs, Daemon, Orc, Fey, High Elf, Wood Elf, Dark Elf, and Undead) to master and the ability to build up hero characters to lead them in battle. My friends that use to play StarCraft now play WBC2. Check it out.
I can't imagine a world without bananas.
One button?? Ah, one button mouse....Mac user. Nice to see there are still some Mac gamers left out there. :)
....I'd have to go with TMNT. half-shell armor. They can breathe underwater. They have weapons. They're ninja's, so they could have stealth and surprise on their side, which can be an overwhelming advantage. Especially if we are talking about the original Eastman & Laird (sp?) TMNT where they would hide in trash cans then jump out and slash people to pieces. I'm not saying that the PR's could not win, just that over several fights and situations the Turtles have a better chance to win a majority of the fights.
at the shelf space in your local computer game store. I have seen a shrinking PC game section and an increasing PS2 game section. So much so that the PS2 games now occupy 3 of the 4 walls in the store, plus the majority of the mid-floor space. However, I do not believe that has any relavance to PC's being left in the dust. Probably, it means that the stores get more sales from the PS2 games.
Also reminds me of the YB-49 http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/b-49.htm I remember watching a show where they though about using it for a commercial passengar jet.
I saw one of those Vulcan's at Duxford once. Pretty cool looking aircraft. If you ever get a chance to go to the Duxford Air Museum I highly reccomend it.
Exploration is not usually done by "governments", espcially in the past. It's impractical in the short term. There will always be the arguments of "Why spend money on that when we need to fix all these other problems?" But, exploration gets done, none the less. How? Private enterprise. People spend their own money, or borrow it, to do the exploration in hopes to find riches. Treasure hunting. That is what it will take for us to get to the Moon again, and Mars for that matter. Someone will have to have a vision, an idea, on how to make a fortune by going to Mars or the Moon. Right now, there seems to be nothing there that will make the trip worth it. You would spend far more money than you would gain. However, that will not always be true. One day, it will be worth it, for one reason or another. We just have to have patience and wait for that day to come and have the courage to act when that day does come.
It could be pretty effective, but I would worry about the flamibility and environmental impact of the slime. How does this stuff react if they throw a molitoff-cocktail on it? If they can get it to burn it's no good and I would not want to stop a riot by creating a haz-mat spill.
Keep in mind that video resolutions can vastly effect how a page is viewed. While trying out some ideas, see what it looks like at 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768. Sometimes you'll be surprised at the results.
A good design can flow with the resizing of the browser window too. Not every one has their browser maximized.
White space is your friend.
Other than that, do whatever you want, really. Some may tell you not to use dark colors, others will tell you not use bright colors. (I designed a web page once where I got complaints that it was too dark and too bright) In the end, make sure the web site serves it's purpose. That's all that really matters.
Look at the steel industy. Started out as black-smiths and sword-smiths..."cottage industries". Industrial Revolution moved it towards larger and larger production plants..."Carnegie Steel"..."Bethelhem Steel". Technological advances moved it back to smaller steel plants. Look at refrigeration. Ice Wagons brought ice to our homes so we could store food longer in our "ice box". Technology brought us "refrigerators" that preserve our food and make ice for us.
Technology shifts the balance of power between the large to the small. It levels the playing field. Who benefits more from the web? A mega-store like Wal-Mart or K-Mart or a mom & pop store in smallville. Answer: mom & pop, because the mega-stores could already reach everywhere due to their sheer size and multiple locations. With the web, the mom & pop store can reach all over the world from one location at considerablely less cost. The web leveled the playing field. Possibily even giving the advantage to the mom & pop store.
The world around us is constantly changing. It always has and it always will. It almost makes me laugh when I see or hear people act shocked when things change. What were they expecting?
I love that episode with the little-glowy-green-things. It's called "Darkness Falls", I believe. It is the only episode I own on tape. The cool thing is that the other episode on that tape is my second favorite one, "The Erlenmeyer Flask". Great shows. Of course, they were both first season. Personally, I liked the ones where they would track down folk legends and myths like the Jersey Devil, but they ran out of those stories pretty quick.
Hey, maybe StoneHenge is just an acient toxic waste dump. You never know. :)
Originally, all the characters in the first movies believed it was possible to go back in time and change the past/future. To make another movie, all they have to do is say that they were wrong. Instead of thinking of time in the way that "Back to the Future" thinks of it, think of time as they did in "12 Monkees". (you can't change anything because you already tried to) So, at the end of T2 they thought they changed the future, but they actually didn't. Everything happened just the way the T2 layed it down. And the new movie picks up somewhere around the creation of SkyNet and carries on through the nuclear holocost and the machines rising from the ashes.
If they do it right, they could squeeze two more enjoyable movies out of this, the next one being "The Rise of John Connor" where the humans are almost wiped out, and along comes Connor and he saves them and they wipe the machines out, end of saga. I believe, if they want to, they can make this movie more than just a brainless one-liner dialog summertime action movie, they need to swtich to an epic style. Just my opinion, of course.
The 3 main meteorite showers I observe are the Leonids, Geminids, and the Percids. So, yeah it's best for it to be really cold and clear. Just make sure you bring enough blankets and some hot beverages.
"up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z, start"
more like "someone set up us the BERT!"
The United States did not rush into this, as you seem to suggest. Take a close look at any newspaper in the past month and you will see that the US tried diplomatic approaches for a whole month. The Taliban refused, so the only option left is a military action. Bin Laden and the Taliban are very closely linked, financially speaking, from what I've read in the various news sources. Especially the BBC. So naturally, the US is striking the ruling government to 1)stop terrorists linked to the WTC attack and 2)send a message that America and it's allies will not tolerate terrorism anymore.
As for comparing this military action to a war on Islam, again I think you need to read the papers a little closer. This is not an all out war against Islam. The objectives are clear, to stop people like Bin Laden from killing. I agree with you that war is bad and should be avoided, if possible. But there is a proper time for everything, even war. With the evidence pointing to Bin Laden as it seems to be, the actions the US is taking seem measured and appropriate. They are not launching an all out war. They are not dropping nukes on innocent civilians, although they have in the past (Hiroshima & Nagasaki).
If this is an attack on Islam, then why is the US attacking Afganistan? What religous signifigance does Afganistan have to Islam? Not much. The US has backed pro-Muslim policies and nations too. The US has defended Islamic countries from cold war enemies and other Islamic countries. Remember when the US defended Saudi Arabia and freed Kuwait? Do you have some piece of evidence to refute these facts so you can justifiy your claim?
Now for Isreal. That situation is not anywhere as simple as you make it out to be. The political history of that region is very complex. The US has taken an active role in promoting peace in that region. Personally, I believe that it is a waste of time. There are too many extreemists on both sides that refuse to negotiate and refuse to compromise. In refusing, they condem themselves to more death and destruction. It feeds on itself in a cycle of retaliation for retaliations. It will take an act of God to bring peace to that land.
Companies want skilled employees that are cheap. That's why they dump a ton of work on underpaid college interns. *chuckle* Really, companies want skilled people with experience more than well rounded people with high GPA's. Frankly, I think they could care less about you being well rounded. A diploma is nothing more than a personal goal you have achieved, in there eyes.
Colleges on the other hand, are a little more devious. When you get right down to it, they are a business. Not for profit, necessarily, but to keep students paying their salaries. They court you to go there, once attending they try to keep you there, and they beg you to give them donations for the rest of your life after you leave.
The first and last are obvious so I shall discuss the middle, how they keep you there. Well, they argue that you need to be well rounded. So what they do is create the "Gen. Ed." cirriculum that everyone has to take. And they put restrictions on how many of each subject you can take. And requirements for classes that are determined to be a "writing class" among other things. There are many reasons as to why it should be done (being well rounded, school respect, etc.) but the end result is that you end up taking way more classes than you are interested in taking. Add in a Major and you are lucky to get out in 8 semesters. Remember, they do not offer each class every semester. I've seen classes that only appear once every two years, if even that often. I remember them telling me "Don't worry about not having a Major picked, you have plenty of time" when they really mean "Feel free to take your time, we have no problems with taking your money". On top of that, I know all the transfer students that have lost countless semesters worth of credits because the one school did not recognise the other's classes. Do the laws of physics, math, and grammer change from school to school? No, but any excuse they can use to make you take more classes is good. Also, the Gen. Ed. curriculum keeps each of the departments with a steady flow of students scrambeling to fill the last holes in their sheets so they can graduate. "..I need a writing class on T,TH at 1-1:50......here we go, 'the impact of 20th centruy abstract art in third world nations'..." We've all been there.
That being said. I think it is a bad idea to rush through College in 4 years. With all that is listed above, the strain is too much. College should be fun, I should hope. I started out to push through in 4 years using 18 credit semesters and summer classes. Then I realized I was missing out on too much because of the work load. I lightened my classload down to 15 and used my summers and time off to get internships, which helped me get my job that I have now. Basically, I learned that companies want skilled people with experience more than well rounded people with high GPA's.
- the transporter - I thought the whole reason to make it new and dangerous was so that it was NOT used to solve their problems.
Other than that, I liked it alot. It was very refreshing. I think the human reaction to vulcan impedance is quite believable. I compare it to the feeling that you get as a child when you are tired of your parents trying to run your life. You want to go out on your own and do it yourself.Bakula is a good actor. As long as he gets good scripts he has the potential to give a good performance. Granted, I don't quite know why he stayed behind either, other than to squeeze in that last fight scene. I like what I see from the other characters too. I just hope I can remember to watch each week.