If Episode I and II were such a travesty, such a smear on the well-coddled spot of pop culture that you hold so dearly close to your heart, then don't go see Episode III. I mean it. Don't spend any money, don't ask anyone else how good (or bad) it was. Just ignore it when it comes out and leave it behind you forever.
Will you do that? I would venture to say no. That would spoil the fun of having something to bitch about.
The real reason people use as justification to see the new version of anything is that they might miss something that DOESN'T suck, something that everyone else saw on midnight the night before opening night. Heaven forbid I be left out of a geek orgy! But feelings are so strong about Episodes I and II you would figure no one would touch Episode III without biohazard gear and robotic assistance. But they will. In droves. And when Episode III comes out, people will dress up in their Stormtrooper outfits, Darth Vader suits, and Leia bikinis and flock to the theaters.
And they will be thoroughly disappointed.
Expectations for this series are way beyond what anyone can reasonably expect. George Lucas has left the Star Wars universe simmering for far too long and with little discipline for ANYONE to be satisfied with his vision of the beginning of his own saga. Anyone with such high expectations is destined for disappointment, because the movie they see is never as good as the movie they imagine.
So ignore Episode III when it comes out. Don't go see it. And don't complain when it sucks. Because Star Wars does not belong to you. It belongs to George Lucas. And he can rewrite his story (and "history") all he wants, because it's his. If you don't like the story, don't fork over the cash. And if you do go see it, just remember what George Lucas actually said: "the last three [episodes] are more commercial." Don't expect to see the death of every Jedi. Because I am predicting Darth Vader will not show up until the end of the movie. And if there's anything that will get the Star Wars zealots up in arms, it will be the "implied" slaughter of all the Jedi, just like the "implied" slaughter of the Tusken raiders in Episode II. After all, this is a series for kids!
This story is absolutely true. I'm sure this will come as a shock to those who have dealt with Qwest, but I feel I must share my
story...
<rant>
We recently dropped our long distance carrier from our phone line. The phone line is a shared ADSL line. The change goes through, and my DSL disappears. WTF?
I call my ISP, and they talk to my DSL provider (which is not Qwest). They determine within minutes that the circuit is open at Qwest's end, and that I need to call Qwest and get them to fix it.
Sighing heavily, I wait 45 minutes on hold to talk to Qwest DSL tech support. I describe my problem, and they ask if I have done anything to the line recently. Decent question to ask, so I tell them about dropping our LD carrier. He puts me on hold, then conferences me in with a DSL salesman. A DSL salesman! "We don't do have anything to do with someone else's DSL!" the salesman tells me. "You'll have to talk to your ISP again." They transfer me to repair, and repair says there is nothing wrong with my line. My phone line that is. "That's not the problem!" I say. "Well, it's not our problem."
So I call my ISP back, and they say the problem is still at Qwest's end. They can't provide DSL service over an open circuit. I still need to get Qwest on the phone. They tell me to have Qwest conference me in with them. Trying to be patient, I call Qwest again...
After another 45 minutes on hold, I get someone who is even more clueless than the previous person. I tell him my problem, and he wants to look me up in their DSL database. "But I am not a Qwest DSL customer!" I tell him. He looks me up anyway. "I can't find you in the database," he says. Really. I just told you that. Heasks what operating system I'm using. WTF? I ask him to conference in my ISP so that they can describe what's going on. Frequent repetitions of this request are met with a huge amount of resistance. "I can talk to someone here about your problem," he says. "Fine," I say, talk to someone else and put me on hold again.
"We don't support other provider's DSL," he returns with after 5 minutes on hold. "That's not the problem!" I plea. "It's not our problem," he says, and transfers me to repair, who claims they don't have anything to do with DSL. Angry, I hang up, and call my ISP back. "Help me please!"
A few days go by. My ISP and DSL provider escalate this help call within their own systems and get a Qwest person with a clue on the case. Within a few hours, they determine that Qwest miswired my line after we dropped our LD carrier. WTF? Within a few minutes of determining this, my DSL service is back on.
"It's not our problem." No one at Qwest even made the slightest effort to try to delve deeper into my problem, they just wanted to get me off the phone as quickly as possible. Today's tech support is getting more and more useless. If you don't have an inside person in the system, you don't stand a chance of getting your problem fixed these days.
...an appliance with the Java logo on it (at least I hope). As a Java programmer, I have been dying for a toaster or microwave oven with the Java logo on it. Yahoo!!
Now how long will it take for someone to hack this thing and get it sharing music over the Internet using the Gloo network protocol without all that PC hardware getting in the way?
Sontag doesn't really want Linux leaders to rectify the situation. After reading this article, I can see where both SCO and the open-source people are coming from:
SCO: "Our IP is in Linux! We want to get paid everytime someone uses it!"
OPEN-SOURCE: "If your IP is in Linux, tell us where it is so we can remove it!"
SCO: "No! If we told you where it was then you would remove it! How are we going to get paid for our IP being in Linux if it's not in Linux?"
SCO doesn't want their IP to be removed from Linux...and they are not asking the open-source community to remove it. They want it to stay there. They want to preserve a potentially huge source of future revenue. So if making the open-source guys out to be the bad guys and intimidating end-users with lawsuits preserves their revenue stream until the trial, it's a small price to pay in the short-term for a big payoff in the long-term. Pure and simple.
If the stock price happens to go up during all this, I'm sure the SCO higher-ups will be crying a river.
The general encroachment of advertising into EVERY facet of American existence is creating an overall culture of backlash against the very concept of an advertisement. Advertising is showing up everywhere: they have ads on the back of bathroom stall doors, and above men's urinals for Pete's sake! Is no place sacred anymore? Anywhere there is dead space is game for advertising. If you watched the MLB playoffs or the World Series, you would have seen that advertisers secured time on a green screen right behind home plate, so that their ad would be visible everytime someone comes up to bat. Ads are showing up on grass or astroturf fields during broadcasts of football (both soccer and American Football) thanks to computer enhancement. Ads are showing up everywhere, and Americans in particular are getting sick of it. I remember seeing an immigrant on television saying "America has so many advertisements, and they are everywhere!" I had become so insensitive to them, that I hadn't even noticed how many we are subjected to everyday.
Replay/TiVo capitalizes on this abhorrence, as well as ad-blocking software. Web businesses would do well to find creative ways of raising awareness about their products without shoving flashy graphics, pop-up windows, and banner ads down people's throats. Targeted advertising is much better than broadcasted advertising; it focuses on those people who would most likely buy, and doesn't waste time, energy, or money on giving all people (including those who would never buy) the idea to buy their product. Advertising the old-fashioned way is still the most effective way of raising product awareness -- web businesses would be remiss in their duties if they didn't investigate the tried and true avenues of motivation, rather than hope for the best with enticement.
I personally believe it would do everyone -- whether you call yourself a programmer, scripter, engineer, etc. -- a lot of good if you learn as many languages as feasible, with as much variety as possible. I recently started looking for a job and when I started the search, I only wanted a job in my area where I would use Java as my primary programming language. Much to my chagrin, every job search I would conduct repeatedly produced no results. Only when I generalized the programming languages in my job searches did I start finding job listings. It was big wake up call for me, because I thought Java was a safe language to become an expert in because everyone was using it and there would plenty of jobs out there if I became disenchanted with my current job. Boy was I wrong.
Companies these days are only interested in a programming language that will get the job done. If they are progressive enough, they won't care which one it is. In an environment where one or two languages are king and all others are treasonous, if you can put up a solid case for your language of choice (and have the time & energy to evangelize it), then do it. Otherwise, get familiar with as many languages as you can and broaden your knowledge base. Because the days of one-language-fits-all (like COBOL or FORTRAN) are gone forever. Money is quickly becoming the deciding factor in choosing languages, and if one language (scripting or programming) can get the job done cheaper and with less effort,, then the bottom line may have more to say about which language you use than anything else.
Let's face it: the only attraction of UCE for spammers is its cost: sending the same message to thousands, or even millions, of people costs them close to nothing.
Which is why I believe the best solution to significantly reducing spam is to have ISP's charge e-mail users for every message they send out, and receiving ISP's charge for every message they receive. The only reason why snail-mail boxes don't completely overflow with junk mail is that is costs money to send it out and deliver it. Granted, charging for every e-mail is not going to be a popular idea, but I bet it will reduce spam to 10-20% of its current levels. Also, struggling ISP's will have a great source of revenue (since e-mail is still the most used service on the Internet).
When you hit advertisers in their pocketbook, then they'll think twice about sending you anything. After all, paying $500 for illegally calling a citizen who does not wish to be called has certainly kept companies from calling them again. The law hit them in their pocketbook.
Slashdot Mirror
...less XML in my professional life would be an excellent thing. :)
If Episode I and II were such a travesty, such a smear on the well-coddled spot of pop culture that you hold so dearly close to your heart, then don't go see Episode III. I mean it. Don't spend any money, don't ask anyone else how good (or bad) it was. Just ignore it when it comes out and leave it behind you forever.
Will you do that? I would venture to say no. That would spoil the fun of having something to bitch about.
The real reason people use as justification to see the new version of anything is that they might miss something that DOESN'T suck, something that everyone else saw on midnight the night before opening night. Heaven forbid I be left out of a geek orgy! But feelings are so strong about Episodes I and II you would figure no one would touch Episode III without biohazard gear and robotic assistance. But they will. In droves. And when Episode III comes out, people will dress up in their Stormtrooper outfits, Darth Vader suits, and Leia bikinis and flock to the theaters.
And they will be thoroughly disappointed.
Expectations for this series are way beyond what anyone can reasonably expect. George Lucas has left the Star Wars universe simmering for far too long and with little discipline for ANYONE to be satisfied with his vision of the beginning of his own saga. Anyone with such high expectations is destined for disappointment, because the movie they see is never as good as the movie they imagine.
So ignore Episode III when it comes out. Don't go see it. And don't complain when it sucks. Because Star Wars does not belong to you. It belongs to George Lucas. And he can rewrite his story (and "history") all he wants, because it's his. If you don't like the story, don't fork over the cash. And if you do go see it, just remember what George Lucas actually said: "the last three [episodes] are more commercial." Don't expect to see the death of every Jedi. Because I am predicting Darth Vader will not show up until the end of the movie. And if there's anything that will get the Star Wars zealots up in arms, it will be the "implied" slaughter of all the Jedi, just like the "implied" slaughter of the Tusken raiders in Episode II. After all, this is a series for kids!
Can you get this with the optional Temporal Vortex technology? You know, for restoring your system when you do an accidental rm -rf *?
This story is absolutely true. I'm sure this will come as a shock to those who have dealt with Qwest, but I feel I must share my story...
<rant>
We recently dropped our long distance carrier from our phone line. The phone line is a shared ADSL line. The change goes through, and my DSL disappears. WTF?
I call my ISP, and they talk to my DSL provider (which is not Qwest). They determine within minutes that the circuit is open at Qwest's end, and that I need to call Qwest and get them to fix it.
Sighing heavily, I wait 45 minutes on hold to talk to Qwest DSL tech support. I describe my problem, and they ask if I have done anything to the line recently. Decent question to ask, so I tell them about dropping our LD carrier. He puts me on hold, then conferences me in with a DSL salesman. A DSL salesman! "We don't do have anything to do with someone else's DSL!" the salesman tells me. "You'll have to talk to your ISP again." They transfer me to repair, and repair says there is nothing wrong with my line. My phone line that is. "That's not the problem!" I say. "Well, it's not our problem."
So I call my ISP back, and they say the problem is still at Qwest's end. They can't provide DSL service over an open circuit. I still need to get Qwest on the phone. They tell me to have Qwest conference me in with them. Trying to be patient, I call Qwest again...
After another 45 minutes on hold, I get someone who is even more clueless than the previous person. I tell him my problem, and he wants to look me up in their DSL database. "But I am not a Qwest DSL customer!" I tell him. He looks me up anyway. "I can't find you in the database," he says. Really. I just told you that. Heasks what operating system I'm using. WTF? I ask him to conference in my ISP so that they can describe what's going on. Frequent repetitions of this request are met with a huge amount of resistance. "I can talk to someone here about your problem," he says. "Fine," I say, talk to someone else and put me on hold again.
"We don't support other provider's DSL," he returns with after 5 minutes on hold. "That's not the problem!" I plea. "It's not our problem," he says, and transfers me to repair, who claims they don't have anything to do with DSL. Angry, I hang up, and call my ISP back. "Help me please!"
A few days go by. My ISP and DSL provider escalate this help call within their own systems and get a Qwest person with a clue on the case. Within a few hours, they determine that Qwest miswired my line after we dropped our LD carrier. WTF? Within a few minutes of determining this, my DSL service is back on.
"It's not our problem." No one at Qwest even made the slightest effort to try to delve deeper into my problem, they just wanted to get me off the phone as quickly as possible. Today's tech support is getting more and more useless. If you don't have an inside person in the system, you don't stand a chance of getting your problem fixed these days.
</rant>
...an appliance with the Java logo on it (at least I hope). As a Java programmer, I have been dying for a toaster or microwave oven with the Java logo on it. Yahoo!!
Now how long will it take for someone to hack this thing and get it sharing music over the Internet using the Gloo network protocol without all that PC hardware getting in the way?
Sontag doesn't really want Linux leaders to rectify the situation. After reading this article, I can see where both SCO and the open-source people are coming from:
SCO: "Our IP is in Linux! We want to get paid everytime someone uses it!"
OPEN-SOURCE: "If your IP is in Linux, tell us where it is so we can remove it!"
SCO: "No! If we told you where it was then you would remove it! How are we going to get paid for our IP being in Linux if it's not in Linux?"
SCO doesn't want their IP to be removed from Linux...and they are not asking the open-source community to remove it. They want it to stay there. They want to preserve a potentially huge source of future revenue. So if making the open-source guys out to be the bad guys and intimidating end-users with lawsuits preserves their revenue stream until the trial, it's a small price to pay in the short-term for a big payoff in the long-term. Pure and simple.
If the stock price happens to go up during all this, I'm sure the SCO higher-ups will be crying a river.
The general encroachment of advertising into EVERY facet of American existence is creating an overall culture of backlash against the very concept of an advertisement. Advertising is showing up everywhere: they have ads on the back of bathroom stall doors, and above men's urinals for Pete's sake! Is no place sacred anymore? Anywhere there is dead space is game for advertising. If you watched the MLB playoffs or the World Series, you would have seen that advertisers secured time on a green screen right behind home plate, so that their ad would be visible everytime someone comes up to bat. Ads are showing up on grass or astroturf fields during broadcasts of football (both soccer and American Football) thanks to computer enhancement. Ads are showing up everywhere, and Americans in particular are getting sick of it. I remember seeing an immigrant on television saying "America has so many advertisements, and they are everywhere!" I had become so insensitive to them, that I hadn't even noticed how many we are subjected to everyday.
Replay/TiVo capitalizes on this abhorrence, as well as ad-blocking software. Web businesses would do well to find creative ways of raising awareness about their products without shoving flashy graphics, pop-up windows, and banner ads down people's throats. Targeted advertising is much better than broadcasted advertising; it focuses on those people who would most likely buy, and doesn't waste time, energy, or money on giving all people (including those who would never buy) the idea to buy their product. Advertising the old-fashioned way is still the most effective way of raising product awareness -- web businesses would be remiss in their duties if they didn't investigate the tried and true avenues of motivation, rather than hope for the best with enticement.
...indicates their security code will open up security holes. Their credit is so bad, people won't take their cash.
I personally believe it would do everyone -- whether you call yourself a programmer, scripter, engineer, etc. -- a lot of good if you learn as many languages as feasible, with as much variety as possible. I recently started looking for a job and when I started the search, I only wanted a job in my area where I would use Java as my primary programming language. Much to my chagrin, every job search I would conduct repeatedly produced no results. Only when I generalized the programming languages in my job searches did I start finding job listings. It was big wake up call for me, because I thought Java was a safe language to become an expert in because everyone was using it and there would plenty of jobs out there if I became disenchanted with my current job. Boy was I wrong.
Companies these days are only interested in a programming language that will get the job done. If they are progressive enough, they won't care which one it is. In an environment where one or two languages are king and all others are treasonous, if you can put up a solid case for your language of choice (and have the time & energy to evangelize it), then do it. Otherwise, get familiar with as many languages as you can and broaden your knowledge base. Because the days of one-language-fits-all (like COBOL or FORTRAN) are gone forever. Money is quickly becoming the deciding factor in choosing languages, and if one language (scripting or programming) can get the job done cheaper and with less effort,, then the bottom line may have more to say about which language you use than anything else.
Which is why I believe the best solution to significantly reducing spam is to have ISP's charge e-mail users for every message they send out, and receiving ISP's charge for every message they receive. The only reason why snail-mail boxes don't completely overflow with junk mail is that is costs money to send it out and deliver it. Granted, charging for every e-mail is not going to be a popular idea, but I bet it will reduce spam to 10-20% of its current levels. Also, struggling ISP's will have a great source of revenue (since e-mail is still the most used service on the Internet).
When you hit advertisers in their pocketbook, then they'll think twice about sending you anything. After all, paying $500 for illegally calling a citizen who does not wish to be called has certainly kept companies from calling them again. The law hit them in their pocketbook.
BEEP is a "roll-your-own" protocol standard. See the BEEP web site for more details.