Go to the movies in grey slacks and a white shirt. Carry with you a black vest with a gold name badge. If you're annoyed at someone's phone usage, and the theater ushers won't give him the boot, walk out, put on the vest, walk back in, and escort the incosiderate twerp out. AFAIK the punishment for impersonating an usher is much less than impersonating a police officer and well worth it.
I thought that all phone lines had to be alive enough to let you call 911 (emergency) and 611 (set up new phone service)? Dial any other number and you get an immediate busy signal, or maybe a recording explaining? That's the way it was in all (I think) of the apartments I've lived in.
'Wallace dismisses consumers' anger over incessant pop-ups that gum up their computers. "Pop-ups have been around a long time. Just because they're an annoyance you shouldn't have to pay damages," he said.'
A mere "annoyance"? Motherfucker, I've seen computers that were UNUSABLE because of popups. As far as I'm concerned, if you turn a $1,000 computer into an unusable paperweight, you very much *should* pay damages.
PS: don't miss the follow-up to that piece. Best line ever: "I laughed heartily as I got questions from one of my former employees about FTP code the he was rewriting. It had taken 3 years of tuning to get code that could read the 60 different types of FTP servers, those 5000 lines of code may have looked ugly, but at least they worked."
And for those who don't like exercise, I suggest Joel. Samples:
"The idea that new code is better than old is patently absurd. Old code has been used. It has been tested. Lots of bugs have been found, and they've been fixed. There's nothing wrong with it. It doesn't acquire bugs just by sitting around on your hard drive. Au contraire, baby!... it has grown little hairs and stuff on it and nobody knows why. Well, I'll tell you why: those are bug fixes.
One of them fixes that bug that Nancy had when she tried to install the thing on a computer that didn't have Internet Explorer. Another one fixes that bug that occurs in low memory conditions. Another one fixes that bug that occurred when the file is on a floppy disk and the user yanks out the disk in the middle. That LoadLibrary call is ugly but it makes the code work on old versions of Windows 95.
Each of these bugs took weeks of real-world usage before they were found. The programmer might have spent a couple of days reproducing the bug in the lab and fixing it. If it's like a lot of bugs, the fix might be one line of code, or it might even be a couple of characters, but a lot of work and time went into those two characters. When you throw away code and start from scratch, you are throwing away all that knowledge. All those collected bug fixes. Years of programming work."
Lucky for me, I work in a giant enterprise (to me, anyway... is 10k+ employees 'giant'?) but I work on small apps--calendars for meeting rooms, surveys, inventory management, etc.--thus I get paid to write PHP. Just because you're in a giant soul-sucking conglomorate doesn't mean there isn't fun work to be done.:-)
and how long until companies realize this and start stripping off everything between '+' and '@' to make sure their spam gets through? no use signing up for a credit card with foo+yourcrappybank@gmail.com if they're just gonna sell your address sans '+...'.
My favorite KB article of all time is kb832894: "...security issues in Internet Explorer could allow an attacker to compromise a Windows-based system. For example, an attacker could run programs on your computer while you view a Web page. This affects all computers with Internet Explorer installed (even if you don't run Internet Explorer as your Web browser). [emphasis added]"
Nothing ever succeeds for "no good reason." Chrysler K-cars a) ran just fine and b) didn't cost much, which is why they went on to become the mind-boggling success they did. They also got much better milage than the boats the rest of Detroit was still turning out. "Technically inferior" != "inferior on all fronts." Anytime something is for sale, price *is* a consideration!
Excellent post, both interesting and informative. Could you provide a few more details about the security system, along with where the museum is and the rough cash value of the artworks contained therein? Thanks.;-)
(Just kidding about the details, but I was sincere that it was interesting.)
with all the zillions of dollars lucas spent cleaning it up, how did NO ONE notice the blocks still visible around the TIE fighters during the fight scene with the falcon in Ep 4?!?!?
...and take advantage of the situation! boost your karma by posting +5 comments from the earlier thread!
remember, don't plagarize the '+5, funny' ones because funny mods don't help your karma.
you can also take a +3 comment and preface it with "I know I'll get modded down for saying this, but..." or "I know this'll cost me karma, but..." That'll give it a good kick in the ratings.
I forgot to mention--the guy in the 'Comedian' trailer did fewer than the other guy, but one I know for sure he did was for the first Fast & Furious movie. "In a world, beyond the law..."
Re: the "In a world..." guy--do yourself a favor, if you haven't already, and find the trailer for Jerry Seinfeld's "Comendian" [later] OK, never mind, here it is. Enjoy.
Also, there were/are a couple guys (2, maybe 3) that did the "In a world..." thing. Google and ye shall find.
I think I might have it, and I think slashdot might be comprimised! I saw the story on the front page, clicked the link to read more, and all of a suddent Slashdot had this really crappy color scheme.
I bought my iPod exclusively for car use. I don't run with it or use it at home or work. Short answer: you just get used to it. I do the same thing--glance at the ipod, look at road, scroll the wheel, glance at the ipod. It might take a couple "drives" and many "putts" to get the song I want, but I'm much better at it now than I used to be. Like, after 3 or 4 "spins" it starts to speed up a bunch, so I do three spins and then glance down.
As a test, I just did four spins through 'artists' (starting at the top of the list--'All,' followed by numbers) and when my finger was at the top on each rev I saw A, B, G, and R. So, to get to, say, F, I would either do spin-spin-pause, spin-spin-pause, or just keep spinning slowly but steadily.
Just know that it has rules and try to learn its behavior. Speaking of which, I don't think they've ever changed the bahavior. The click wheel just moves the four buttons to four corners of the wheel. (Yes, wheels have corners.:-) )
I'd *love* to agree, but if someone brings an infected machine *inside* your firewall--possible at home, more likely if you run an open AP (default settings, remember), and *very* likely at work. Sadly, we *do* need firewalls on the desktop. *Also*. Remember, security is *layers*.
Huh? The stuff he's running his effects on came from *somewhere.* And when he made the SE, he would have had to digitize the whole thing before he started adding the new effects, and he probably cleaned the whole thing up before adding effects in the first place! (I doubt he said "I'll tack on some effects here later, so don't clean this scene up until after the effects are in.") The version we all want is probably just laying around somewhere, ready to encode onto DVD.
I don't mind tiny fixes, like cleaning up the shadow under the landspeeder in EP 4, or the sound work they do each and every time, but major effects (ring-around-the-death-star blow-up scene), new 'filler' scenes (jawas at mos eisley), and major story/plot changes (Hayden at the end of ROTJ, han shooting first, jabba in EP4) have *got* to go.
I didn't mention but the DVDs I made look and sound at least as good as the widescreen THX trilogy on VHS (connected the LD player to the D/A converter with an S-video cable), they won't degrade from repeated viewings, they have chapters, and since I made them myself, there's no CSS, so I can dupe them as much as I want (for Backup Purposes Only (TM), of course.) I also made a fourth disk with all of the supplimental laserdisc extras (trailers and interviews)--just like a real boxed set!
The TiVo's FF speeds, and the little 'jump-back' it does when you press 'play', work really well, but you can turn the (useless) "catch up to real time" button (to the right of the zero) to a 30-second skip very easily. Just view a pre-recorded show (works on all shows once it's set up, but you have to enable it with a show from your 'now playing' list) and press select-play-select-three-zero-select. You'll hear a 'bong' or two while doing this but at the end of the sequence you'll hear a happy 'bing bing bing' letting you know it works.
That button, which was previously totally unused, now has half of its mark worn off on my remote. The only sucky thing is if you power down your TiVo (not just standby but unplug, or suffer a power outage) you have to reprogram it.
Good idea. That's why I took my LD player and pre-SE copy of the trilogy, hooked it up to an analog-to-firewire converter, imported it with iMovie, dropped the iMovie files into FinalCut Pro, exported as MPEG2, and made DVDs with DVD Studip Pro.
But you're missing the point. "Why does he have to subsidize the transfer for you?" Answer: HE DOESN'T. He would make a BLOODY FUCKING HUGE PROFIT if he would release the originals.
90% of the people I know--geeks and nongeeks, fanboys and non-fanboys, would *rather* have the ORIGINALS. Period. The fanboys, well, we know why we want the originals. Everyone else, even if they don't know the finer points of han-shoots-first, just WANT the originals, for reasons they can't quite put their fingers on. Some thing the additions look tacky and added-on, other just, for some reason, like the IDEA that these are ORIGINAL. For the same reason some people would rather have a painting than a litho, or a *real* antique and not a repro.
Think of it this way: there are X people who will buy Star Wars no matter what. But there are Y people that will NOT buy it because it's not the original. I suppose there are a few (we'll call them Z) who really *like* the new editions and *wouldn't* buy the originals. Do you really think that Z is greater than Y? Lucas *spent* all this money on TWO (!!!) rounds of retreads just to PISS OFF (and lose sales from) group Y.
And remember these things: 1) the originals are ALREADY THERE. He can transfer them and clean them up a bit, THAT'S IT. He;s actually investing *more* money to change them! 2) DVD technology allows you to 'branch' as much as desired. Even Spielberg lets you see guns or walkie-talkies in ET. And no sense mentioning--3) he could release TWO WHOLE DVDs, one with the original version, and one with the new version. And there is a small group of collectors (um, group Q) that will buy both. Hell, my friend did--he has the trilogy TWICE on laserdisc--the pre-SE *and* the special editions.
Lucas is acting like a spoiled child, that if you aren't going to play with his toys HIS WAY, you aren't goin to play with them at all. Really, it comes down to this: it would cost practically nothing to release the originals. He would make a buttload of money by doing so. Why isn't he?
FWIW, I remember Sony's site being one of the first I visited when I got online in 1996, specifically becauseI wanted to see info on the new, upcoming DVD format. At that time, according to them, DVD meant Digital Video Disc. I didn't hear "versatile" until much later.
Slashdot Mirror
Go to the movies in grey slacks and a white shirt. Carry with you a black vest with a gold name badge. If you're annoyed at someone's phone usage, and the theater ushers won't give him the boot, walk out, put on the vest, walk back in, and escort the incosiderate twerp out. AFAIK the punishment for impersonating an usher is much less than impersonating a police officer and well worth it.
I thought that all phone lines had to be alive enough to let you call 911 (emergency) and 611 (set up new phone service)? Dial any other number and you get an immediate busy signal, or maybe a recording explaining? That's the way it was in all (I think) of the apartments I've lived in.
...that pigfucker should be burned at the stake:
'Wallace dismisses consumers' anger over incessant pop-ups that gum up their computers. "Pop-ups have been around a long time. Just because they're an annoyance you shouldn't have to pay damages," he said.'
A mere "annoyance"? Motherfucker, I've seen computers that were UNUSABLE because of popups. As far as I'm concerned, if you turn a $1,000 computer into an unusable paperweight, you very much *should* pay damages.
Fuck. You.
PS: don't miss the follow-up to that piece. Best line ever: "I laughed heartily as I got questions from one of my former employees about FTP code the he was rewriting. It had taken 3 years of tuning to get code that could read the 60 different types of FTP servers, those 5000 lines of code may have looked ugly, but at least they worked."
And for those who don't like exercise, I suggest Joel. Samples:
"The idea that new code is better than old is patently absurd. Old code has been used. It has been tested. Lots of bugs have been found, and they've been fixed. There's nothing wrong with it. It doesn't acquire bugs just by sitting around on your hard drive. Au contraire, baby!... it has grown little hairs and stuff on it and nobody knows why. Well, I'll tell you why: those are bug fixes.
One of them fixes that bug that Nancy had when she tried to install the thing on a computer that didn't have Internet Explorer. Another one fixes that bug that occurs in low memory conditions. Another one fixes that bug that occurred when the file is on a floppy disk and the user yanks out the disk in the middle. That LoadLibrary call is ugly but it makes the code work on old versions of Windows 95.
Each of these bugs took weeks of real-world usage before they were found. The programmer might have spent a couple of days reproducing the bug in the lab and fixing it. If it's like a lot of bugs, the fix might be one line of code, or it might even be a couple of characters, but a lot of work and time went into those two characters. When you throw away code and start from scratch, you are throwing away all that knowledge. All those collected bug fixes. Years of programming work."
Lucky for me, I work in a giant enterprise (to me, anyway... is 10k+ employees 'giant'?) but I work on small apps--calendars for meeting rooms, surveys, inventory management, etc.--thus I get paid to write PHP. Just because you're in a giant soul-sucking conglomorate doesn't mean there isn't fun work to be done. :-)
and how long until companies realize this and start stripping off everything between '+' and '@' to make sure their spam gets through? no use signing up for a credit card with foo+yourcrappybank@gmail.com if they're just gonna sell your address sans '+...'.
"It'd be a real pain in the butt to have to calculate orbital vectors every time you wanted to take out the trash."
;-)
Yeah. NASA hates that kind of work.
My favorite KB article of all time is kb832894: "...security issues in Internet Explorer could allow an attacker to compromise a Windows-based system. For example, an attacker could run programs on your computer while you view a Web page. This affects all computers with Internet Explorer installed (even if you don't run Internet Explorer as your Web browser). [emphasis added]"
Nothing ever succeeds for "no good reason." Chrysler K-cars a) ran just fine and b) didn't cost much, which is why they went on to become the mind-boggling success they did. They also got much better milage than the boats the rest of Detroit was still turning out. "Technically inferior" != "inferior on all fronts." Anytime something is for sale, price *is* a consideration!
Excellent post, both interesting and informative. Could you provide a few more details about the security system, along with where the museum is and the rough cash value of the artworks contained therein? Thanks. ;-)
(Just kidding about the details, but I was sincere that it was interesting.)
with all the zillions of dollars lucas spent cleaning it up, how did NO ONE notice the blocks still visible around the TIE fighters during the fight scene with the falcon in Ep 4?!?!?
trilogy owners: look at 1:35:16 for one example.
...and take advantage of the situation! boost your karma by posting +5 comments from the earlier thread!
remember, don't plagarize the '+5, funny' ones because funny mods don't help your karma.
you can also take a +3 comment and preface it with "I know I'll get modded down for saying this, but..." or "I know this'll cost me karma, but..." That'll give it a good kick in the ratings.
I forgot to mention--the guy in the 'Comedian' trailer did fewer than the other guy, but one I know for sure he did was for the first Fast & Furious movie. "In a world, beyond the law..."
Re: the "In a world..." guy--do yourself a favor, if you haven't already, and find the trailer for Jerry Seinfeld's "Comendian" [later] OK, never mind, here it is. Enjoy.
Also, there were/are a couple guys (2, maybe 3) that did the "In a world..." thing. Google and ye shall find.
I think I might have it, and I think slashdot might be comprimised! I saw the story on the front page, clicked the link to read more, and all of a suddent Slashdot had this really crappy color scheme.
I bought my iPod exclusively for car use. I don't run with it or use it at home or work. Short answer: you just get used to it. I do the same thing--glance at the ipod, look at road, scroll the wheel, glance at the ipod. It might take a couple "drives" and many "putts" to get the song I want, but I'm much better at it now than I used to be. Like, after 3 or 4 "spins" it starts to speed up a bunch, so I do three spins and then glance down.
:-) )
As a test, I just did four spins through 'artists' (starting at the top of the list--'All,' followed by numbers) and when my finger was at the top on each rev I saw A, B, G, and R. So, to get to, say, F, I would either do spin-spin-pause, spin-spin-pause, or just keep spinning slowly but steadily.
Just know that it has rules and try to learn its behavior. Speaking of which, I don't think they've ever changed the bahavior. The click wheel just moves the four buttons to four corners of the wheel. (Yes, wheels have corners.
"ITMJ is part of OSTG, like Slashdot."
LOLOMGWFT
I'd *love* to agree, but if someone brings an infected machine *inside* your firewall--possible at home, more likely if you run an open AP (default settings, remember), and *very* likely at work. Sadly, we *do* need firewalls on the desktop. *Also*. Remember, security is *layers*.
Huh? The stuff he's running his effects on came from *somewhere.* And when he made the SE, he would have had to digitize the whole thing before he started adding the new effects, and he probably cleaned the whole thing up before adding effects in the first place! (I doubt he said "I'll tack on some effects here later, so don't clean this scene up until after the effects are in.") The version we all want is probably just laying around somewhere, ready to encode onto DVD.
I don't mind tiny fixes, like cleaning up the shadow under the landspeeder in EP 4, or the sound work they do each and every time, but major effects (ring-around-the-death-star blow-up scene), new 'filler' scenes (jawas at mos eisley), and major story/plot changes (Hayden at the end of ROTJ, han shooting first, jabba in EP4) have *got* to go.
I didn't mention but the DVDs I made look and sound at least as good as the widescreen THX trilogy on VHS (connected the LD player to the D/A converter with an S-video cable), they won't degrade from repeated viewings, they have chapters, and since I made them myself, there's no CSS, so I can dupe them as much as I want (for Backup Purposes Only (TM), of course.) I also made a fourth disk with all of the supplimental laserdisc extras (trailers and interviews)--just like a real boxed set!
The TiVo's FF speeds, and the little 'jump-back' it does when you press 'play', work really well, but you can turn the (useless) "catch up to real time" button (to the right of the zero) to a 30-second skip very easily. Just view a pre-recorded show (works on all shows once it's set up, but you have to enable it with a show from your 'now playing' list) and press select-play-select-three-zero-select. You'll hear a 'bong' or two while doing this but at the end of the sequence you'll hear a happy 'bing bing bing' letting you know it works.
That button, which was previously totally unused, now has half of its mark worn off on my remote. The only sucky thing is if you power down your TiVo (not just standby but unplug, or suffer a power outage) you have to reprogram it.
Good idea. That's why I took my LD player and pre-SE copy of the trilogy, hooked it up to an analog-to-firewire converter, imported it with iMovie, dropped the iMovie files into FinalCut Pro, exported as MPEG2, and made DVDs with DVD Studip Pro.
But you're missing the point. "Why does he have to subsidize the transfer for you?" Answer: HE DOESN'T. He would make a BLOODY FUCKING HUGE PROFIT if he would release the originals.
90% of the people I know--geeks and nongeeks, fanboys and non-fanboys, would *rather* have the ORIGINALS. Period. The fanboys, well, we know why we want the originals. Everyone else, even if they don't know the finer points of han-shoots-first, just WANT the originals, for reasons they can't quite put their fingers on. Some thing the additions look tacky and added-on, other just, for some reason, like the IDEA that these are ORIGINAL. For the same reason some people would rather have a painting than a litho, or a *real* antique and not a repro.
Think of it this way: there are X people who will buy Star Wars no matter what. But there are Y people that will NOT buy it because it's not the original. I suppose there are a few (we'll call them Z) who really *like* the new editions and *wouldn't* buy the originals. Do you really think that Z is greater than Y? Lucas *spent* all this money on TWO (!!!) rounds of retreads just to PISS OFF (and lose sales from) group Y.
And remember these things: 1) the originals are ALREADY THERE. He can transfer them and clean them up a bit, THAT'S IT. He;s actually investing *more* money to change them! 2) DVD technology allows you to 'branch' as much as desired. Even Spielberg lets you see guns or walkie-talkies in ET. And no sense mentioning--3) he could release TWO WHOLE DVDs, one with the original version, and one with the new version. And there is a small group of collectors (um, group Q) that will buy both. Hell, my friend did--he has the trilogy TWICE on laserdisc--the pre-SE *and* the special editions.
Lucas is acting like a spoiled child, that if you aren't going to play with his toys HIS WAY, you aren't goin to play with them at all. Really, it comes down to this: it would cost practically nothing to release the originals. He would make a buttload of money by doing so. Why isn't he?
FWIW, I remember Sony's site being one of the first I visited when I got online in 1996, specifically becauseI wanted to see info on the new, upcoming DVD format. At that time, according to them, DVD meant Digital Video Disc. I didn't hear "versatile" until much later.
enjoy!
nah, it's just his first day pimping his techno-thingy blog. expect to see a lot more from him.
;-)