There's a reason animals (and humans) are paranoid about shit we don't understand. From a survival standpoint, it's an advantageous attitude to have. And right now, I'm pretty fucking paranoid about being anywhere near people with Ebola!
Then you need to educate yourself because ebola is NOT even in the top 20 pathogens you should be worried about. Infectious disease doctors worry about diseases like Vancomycin-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus which is an example of a much more serious threat. You're worrying about a meteor strike when while living in Tornado Alley. Sure there is a tiny risk but it isn't what you should be concerned about. Ebola is scary but there are MUCH scarier and FAR more likely pathogens out there.
Ebola is hard to transmit, easy to contain, evolves slowly and is very unlikely to come anywhere near you in the near future.
You realise the different between some freeze dried sample in a jar, in a sealed drawer, in a sealed room, and a living human being infected with it and being transfered all over the place? Right?
Of course there are differences which is why comparing the two is both stupid and irrelevant. The failure modes have nothing to do with one another. It is well understood how ebola is transmitted and we have very well established containment protocols that we know work well. Ebola is not highly communicative, readily contained and the risks are quite low. The CDC doesn't even consider it among the most dangerous pathogens because it is relatively hard to transmit. They've already had the ebola virus in Atlanta for study. The only thing different here is simply that they have a live patient to handle which is something infections disease doctors deal with every single day.
Is there a research interest? Is supportive therapy that much better here and the CDC is the place with isolation expertise? What advantage is being sought?
Probably yes there is a research interest. Otherwise there would be no reason to choose Atlanta (home of the CDC) of all possible treatment locations. There are plenty of places for treatment but only one place where the experts at the CDC can look at things up close. It's a lot harder to bring the CDC to the patient than the other way around.
Yes they do. Nobody's perfect but I trust the CDC to handle this. I've met people that work there. I'm married to a physician that deals with the CDC from time to time and she trusts them. They are very good at their job.
It's not like they lose track of pathogens or accidentally expose workers to smallpox, no sirree bob.
And that is relevant in what way here? Seriously. Explain to me how some leftover vials of a pathogen from decades ago has any relevance to this case beside pointing out the already obvious fact that there is a tiny but non-zero chance someone might do something stupid. That failure mode has precisely zero bearing on this issue. People are not perfect, news at 11.
Cut out the sissy NIMBY scaremongering. There is really, truly nothing to worry about here. It's not funny and it scares people who don't know any better.
Let's bring all the diseases here. What could go wrong?
In all likelihood, nothing. The CDC handles copies of pretty much every known pathogen on the planet. It is the premier pathogen research institution on the planet. They've already seen ebola. The only thing novel about this is that they are bringing in a live patient with the disease to a top tier hospital so they can bring the best tools to bear on researching the disease and hopefully treating this guy.
I don't know anything about Atlanta's medical scene
So why are you trying to panic people over unrelated clumsy decisions made decades ago? The fact that some people stupidly left some pathogens lying around a long time ago has pretty much nothing to do with this case.
I know there are brilliant doctors and scientists in Atlanta who handle highly-communicable diseases, but is this such a brilliant idea?
Ebola is hardly the only scary pathogen handled by the CDC. In fact I believe the CDC doesn't even consider this among the most dangerous of pathogens because of the relative difficulty in transmission which requires direct contact and it evolves relatively slowly apparently. They know very well how to handle this. The main concern is that they actually follow proper procedures. If they do that then there is little to worry about.
If you really want to study ebola to find a cure this is probably a very good idea provided they exercise appropriate caution. You want the experts at the CDC to be able to study this up close in a live patient. Of course one has to wonder why we had to wait for an american physician to get infected before deciding this was a good idea...
but a New York judge ruled against them, responding to prosecutors' worries that web service providers could just move information around the world to avoid investigation.
IANAL but when information is subpoenaed the company is breaking the law if they move, destroy or hide any requested information. If the party receiving the subpoena is found to have hidden evidence then the judge can rule against them as if the evidence was available and damaging. (it's more complicated than what I'm saying but I think this is the basic process) So I'm not really sure what the prosecutors are worried about that isn't already adequately covered under current law. It would be no different than someone using Fedex to send a paper document to another country. We have that situation covered under current law.
The reality is that you can build a decent set top box for casual gaming for under $50.
If it is so easy then why haven't you or anyone else done it? Sure you could probably come up with a cheap piece of hardware that can play simple games, though $50 is probably pushing it a bit. You'd have to do some serious volume to get to that sort of price point and to get that volume you'd have to have the software ready to go on day one or else no one will buy it. Chicken meet egg. Furthermore people already have a device they carry with them for casual gaming in the form of a smartphone. Why would they spend an extra $50 plus more for games to get something they already have in less convenient form. FDevices like Roku (which are close to that price point) could fill this function but pretty much nobody uses it for that even though it is possible today.
The reality is that the economics of that business are more complicated than building a cheap box and then hoping developers will flock to it. "Build it and they will come" is a pretty shitty business model in most cases.
Wooooo... 5% of the world didn't know of Nokia until they became the largest cellphone manufacturer.
Yeah, I'm sure they were a household name in India, China, Brazil and Russia too... [/sarcasm]
Seriously, if more than 10% of the world's population (and I'm being generous) had ever heard of Nokia prior to them getting into cell phones I'd be shocked.
Rotoscopy was part of the appeal of the movie, not a drawback.
Glad you enjoyed it but I think it looks like a B-Movie that would go straight to DVD these days. It looks really amateurish. Ruins the entire experience for me. It's the same reason I can't really stand old Dr Who episodes. The FX is so pathetic that it ruins some pretty awesome stories and even some decent acting.
A work of art trying to depict 'different' place/time needs to have a skewed perspective.
That doesn't mean it needs to look like a high school art project.
Why is it awful? Because LOTR, in its core, is about loss. Loss of innocence, youth, friends, your whole world, in the face of events bigger than life. It's a tragic story. Those battles were supposed to be desperate and grim. The victories were supposed to come at a cost, not to be taken as granted.
That would be a pretty neat trick since probably the majority of the audience already knew the story having read the books. While I won't argue that Jackson could have done a better job with those elements in places, it is there. I don't think RB's LOTR take on those elements was meaningfully better.
And RB movie is a whole, despite not covering all three books.
I disagree. It has an ending but the wrong one and I find that unforgivable. Either tell the whole story or don't bother. If you are going to tell just part of the story the title shouldn't mislead on that fact.
There were supposed to be an ending, it was never made.
Because the movie was not very good and thus didn't make much money. Sure it was faithful to the source material but the animation was pretty bad which matters a lot. It looks like a low budget B movie drawn like one that would go straight to DVD today. It needs to have a good story (check), good visuals/sound (miss) and be well acted (miss). Plus if the producers planned on making a second movie their naming choice for the movie was quite peculiar.
Jacksons were action movies, not adventure movies.
Calling something an "action movie" is shorthand for saying it's visually interesting but not very deep. Basically anything by Michael Bay. I don't think that fits the Jackson LOTR movies well at all. They were more complex than that. Hardly flawless masterpieces but certainly better takes on LOTR than anything else that has been put out there. I think your distinction between action and adventure is silly but if Jackson's LOTR isn't an adventure movie, I'm not really sure what is.
It is great you like action movies, but lotr should never have been one - if anything it is more like a psychological thriller - like RBs version.
I'm indifferent to the movie genre and whether I like it or not has little to do with the amount of action in the movie. I generally disagree with your characterization of the Jackson LOTR movies as merely action movies. Just because there are some big action set pieces doesn't make them shallow action movies.
As for it being a psychological thriller, exactly how are you going to do the siege of Gondor as a psychological thriller and really do it justice? Battle of Helm's Deep? The balrog? I don't see any way to do those without making it a very dull and visually uninteresting movie. While there are certainly powerful psychological elements to the books I never once considered them a to be primarily a psychological thriller and I've certainly read them enough to know.
But PJ have to please the masses, RB didnt have to consider the "sex and action only" crowd.
If anyone was watching any LOTR movie for the "sex" then they desperately need to get out more.
Actually, Tolkien collaborated on sheet music w/ Donald Swann:
Point remains that NOBODY wants to go see The Hobbit: A Musical Adventure. (well maybe the audience for Broadway musicals but nobody else) Just because some song lyrics were in the books doesn't mean it is a good idea to put them in a movie, especially one that intends to make any sort of profit.
No insult intended (seriously) but you were pretty much the only one who thought that. They are a Finnish company and that fact is well known worldwide. I can see how one might think they were Asian though since so much electronics comes from that part of the world. But Nokia got quite a lot of press regarding where they were from.
China with its essentially a rigged economy based on something close to slave labor.
And you know this how exactly? I've actually been to China whereas you pretty clearly have not. Slave labor? 'Fraid not. China has a lot of people and so thanks to supply and demand, wages are relatively low there. (but rising fast) Yes the Chinese government has a hand in everything but there are plenty of places in the US and EU economies where free trade does not exist and the government is heavily involved. Agriculture, weapons manufacturing, Boeing/Airbus, satellites, automobiles, and many more.
The only way to compete economically with that is to become that.
Your argument would be more credible if the US and EU didn't have manufacturing sectors equal to or larger than China's manufacturing sector. Cheap labor is only helpful for products that have a high labor content. Lots of products require relatively little labor or require specialized labor that isn't cheap anywhere. I have a stamping press in my plant for making wire leads. Operating this press requires some of skilled labor to set up and then it is all automated. No amount of cheap labor from China can undercut us on price, we're fast and we can pay our people good wages too. There are some products we can't compete with China on and there are some products China can't compete with us on. The trick is knowing which is which.
I do not see any value at all joining all of these organisations, much less paying for the privilege.
There can be lots of value to them but getting that value requires actual work on your part. If all you are doing is paying the membership fee to list it on your resume then there is no point to joining. However if you actually attend events, meet colleagues and talk with them, get involved in the organizations, etc you can actually get a ton of value out of them. I'm a member of two professional organizations (not ACM) which I actively participate in. I've gotten job interviews, excellent contacts for specific expertise, a certification important in my profession, contacts for funding, and even made some friends. You can get the most value often by being an officer in the organization (they always need help) and actually working hard to do a good job.
I'm a member of a few professional organizations. Most of them are kind of money grabs when it comes to anything education related. To maintain a certification I have to get 30 hours of continuing education each year and wouldn't you know that the professional organization is just all too happy to sell it to me for vaguely unreasonable amounts of money. Or I can attend about 15 meetings and conferences a year, also costing $ each time. I try not to get too worked up about it but it isn't cheap even if it sometimes is useful to be a member.
There are basically just a few reasons to join professional organizations. The biggest one by far is networking. These organizations can be a terrific way to get yourself known in your profession and sometimes get opportunities if you do it right. There also for some professions is accreditation and credentialing. I don't just mean joining the organization to have it on your resume. I have an accounting certification which has been very useful to me professionally. Sometimes there are learning opportunities which can be helpful though usually they are just pointless money grabs by the organization.
No. Last time I visited Comcast to get some gear there were about 30 people in line and I waited about an hour, not counting driving time to get to the one service center which is about 25 miles from my house. They announced loudly that if we were just dropping off gear that we could put it in their drop off big (a cardboard box) which nobody believed. Then there was no way to prove that you had dropped it off.
Fortunately my dealings with Comcast have been minimal and the service has been largely reliable for my needs. TV is WAY overpriced for what you get but the internet service isn't too bad as long as you don't need to deal with support too much.
He seals them in the barrels so they are water tight.
Of course if they are water tight then they are air tight too... That bit never made sense to me even when I was reading it as a kid for the first time. Unless there was a hole in the barrel the dwarves should have suffocated. If there was a hole in barrel they should have drowned.
Yeeeeah, we'll get right on that. Everyone from the studio execs to the Oscar committee will positively leap with glee when we release our new $200,000,000 holiday-season spectacular, THE HOBBIT, PART II: A LEISURELY RIDE DOWN THE RIVER.
So instead we got a drawn out, absurd even by fantasy movie standards, pointless action scene that added nothing to the story. That entire scene could have been cut out and the movie would have been better for it. At most it should have been 1-2 minutes long if they absolutely had to have some action.
Pro tip: Don't quit your day job to move to Hollywood.
Sounds like you already did and worked on The Hobbit.
WTF? It's fantasy with wizards, elves and dragons, and you're talking about suspension of disbelief?
Why not? Suspension of disbelief is probably the most important thing about sci-fi and fantasy movies. Far more than say a romantic comedy. You can do it well or you can do it poorly. You need a good script, good acting and good special effects to make a movie like that believable. If you are going to ask the audience to believe in magic or magic-science for 2-3 hours that is fine but you can't simply throw anything on the screen and excuse it just because the story says it is magic. The story has to be carefully crafted, the acting has to be believable and the special effects have to be good enough to keep your brain from screaming "bullshit" the whole time.
I've always had a hard time getting into Dr Who as an example. The stories are often flat out amazing and the acting has had some pretty good moments but the special effects and cinematography have been so bad (especially the older stuff) that my brain simply couldn't accept it. I have the same problem with Star Trek except that the stories aren't as good (IMO) though the FX is better (not great but better). One can enjoy them but I'm always left thinking that they could have been better.
Um, maybe Ralph Bakshi movie is an atrocity for you. For me it's the best Tolkien adaptation ever.
That rotoscoped steaming turd? I've rarely been more disappointed at a movie. It had reasonable fidelity to the books but that alone was hardly enough to make it good. I remember excitedly renting it from the video store sometime during the 1980s and thought that it was a really badly done movie. I thought the rotoscoping was bizarre and still do - uncanny valley reaction I guess. The voice acting was meh at best and the "action" was nothing to write home to mom about. Plus they released it as The Lord of The Rings but it only covered about half the story. I can live with it being condensed into a single movie even if they chop a lot out but then give some indication that there is more to the story. I clearly remember saying "That's it? Where is the rest of it?"
Jackson's adaptations of LOTR, like the recent The Hobbit trilogy, could have used more editing but it was at least in general a good and engaging movie. Visually excellent, faithful enough to the books in most places, captures the epic The worst bits of Jackson's adaptations are when they start going off script for stupid jokes like the dwarf tossing joke during the battle of helm's deep. It wasn't all bad but a high percentage of the dialog that deviated from Tolkien's words was pretty campy. That sort of thing should have only been on a gag reel. More editing would could have made a tighter story but it was a decent movie even if an imperfect adaptation.
'Major sponsors include Ford, General Motors, IMRA, Michigan Engineering, NYK, Qatar Airways and Siemens PLM Software.'
Why is that unfair? Other teams are permitted to get sponsors. It's their problem if they can't recruit good sponsors. Plus most of those companies hire Michigan engineering graduates so why wouldn't they sponsor the students they are likely to hire?
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There's a reason animals (and humans) are paranoid about shit we don't understand. From a survival standpoint, it's an advantageous attitude to have. And right now, I'm pretty fucking paranoid about being anywhere near people with Ebola!
Then you need to educate yourself because ebola is NOT even in the top 20 pathogens you should be worried about. Infectious disease doctors worry about diseases like Vancomycin-intermediate Staphylococcus aureus which is an example of a much more serious threat. You're worrying about a meteor strike when while living in Tornado Alley. Sure there is a tiny risk but it isn't what you should be concerned about. Ebola is scary but there are MUCH scarier and FAR more likely pathogens out there.
Ebola is hard to transmit, easy to contain, evolves slowly and is very unlikely to come anywhere near you in the near future.
You realise the different between some freeze dried sample in a jar, in a sealed drawer, in a sealed room, and a living human being infected with it and being transfered all over the place? Right?
Of course there are differences which is why comparing the two is both stupid and irrelevant. The failure modes have nothing to do with one another. It is well understood how ebola is transmitted and we have very well established containment protocols that we know work well. Ebola is not highly communicative, readily contained and the risks are quite low. The CDC doesn't even consider it among the most dangerous pathogens because it is relatively hard to transmit. They've already had the ebola virus in Atlanta for study. The only thing different here is simply that they have a live patient to handle which is something infections disease doctors deal with every single day.
Is there a research interest? Is supportive therapy that much better here and the CDC is the place with isolation expertise? What advantage is being sought?
Probably yes there is a research interest. Otherwise there would be no reason to choose Atlanta (home of the CDC) of all possible treatment locations. There are plenty of places for treatment but only one place where the experts at the CDC can look at things up close. It's a lot harder to bring the CDC to the patient than the other way around.
Yup, CDC knows how to handle this sort of shit.
Yes they do. Nobody's perfect but I trust the CDC to handle this. I've met people that work there. I'm married to a physician that deals with the CDC from time to time and she trusts them. They are very good at their job.
It's not like they lose track of pathogens or accidentally expose workers to smallpox, no sirree bob.
And that is relevant in what way here? Seriously. Explain to me how some leftover vials of a pathogen from decades ago has any relevance to this case beside pointing out the already obvious fact that there is a tiny but non-zero chance someone might do something stupid. That failure mode has precisely zero bearing on this issue. People are not perfect, news at 11.
Cut out the sissy NIMBY scaremongering. There is really, truly nothing to worry about here. It's not funny and it scares people who don't know any better.
Let's bring all the diseases here. What could go wrong?
In all likelihood, nothing. The CDC handles copies of pretty much every known pathogen on the planet. It is the premier pathogen research institution on the planet. They've already seen ebola. The only thing novel about this is that they are bringing in a live patient with the disease to a top tier hospital so they can bring the best tools to bear on researching the disease and hopefully treating this guy.
I don't know anything about Atlanta's medical scene
So why are you trying to panic people over unrelated clumsy decisions made decades ago? The fact that some people stupidly left some pathogens lying around a long time ago has pretty much nothing to do with this case.
I know there are brilliant doctors and scientists in Atlanta who handle highly-communicable diseases, but is this such a brilliant idea?
Ebola is hardly the only scary pathogen handled by the CDC. In fact I believe the CDC doesn't even consider this among the most dangerous of pathogens because of the relative difficulty in transmission which requires direct contact and it evolves relatively slowly apparently. They know very well how to handle this. The main concern is that they actually follow proper procedures. If they do that then there is little to worry about.
If you really want to study ebola to find a cure this is probably a very good idea provided they exercise appropriate caution. You want the experts at the CDC to be able to study this up close in a live patient. Of course one has to wonder why we had to wait for an american physician to get infected before deciding this was a good idea...
but a New York judge ruled against them, responding to prosecutors' worries that web service providers could just move information around the world to avoid investigation.
IANAL but when information is subpoenaed the company is breaking the law if they move, destroy or hide any requested information. If the party receiving the subpoena is found to have hidden evidence then the judge can rule against them as if the evidence was available and damaging. (it's more complicated than what I'm saying but I think this is the basic process) So I'm not really sure what the prosecutors are worried about that isn't already adequately covered under current law. It would be no different than someone using Fedex to send a paper document to another country. We have that situation covered under current law.
The reality is that you can build a decent set top box for casual gaming for under $50.
If it is so easy then why haven't you or anyone else done it? Sure you could probably come up with a cheap piece of hardware that can play simple games, though $50 is probably pushing it a bit. You'd have to do some serious volume to get to that sort of price point and to get that volume you'd have to have the software ready to go on day one or else no one will buy it. Chicken meet egg. Furthermore people already have a device they carry with them for casual gaming in the form of a smartphone. Why would they spend an extra $50 plus more for games to get something they already have in less convenient form. FDevices like Roku (which are close to that price point) could fill this function but pretty much nobody uses it for that even though it is possible today.
The reality is that the economics of that business are more complicated than building a cheap box and then hoping developers will flock to it. "Build it and they will come" is a pretty shitty business model in most cases.
Wooooo ... 5% of the world didn't know of Nokia until they became the largest cellphone manufacturer.
Yeah, I'm sure they were a household name in India, China, Brazil and Russia too... [/sarcasm]
Seriously, if more than 10% of the world's population (and I'm being generous) had ever heard of Nokia prior to them getting into cell phones I'd be shocked.
Most people knew them for their snow tires before their cell phones.
Not in the US they didn't. Virtually nobody in the US knew of Nokia the company before they became the big name in cell phone hand sets.
Rotoscopy was part of the appeal of the movie, not a drawback.
Glad you enjoyed it but I think it looks like a B-Movie that would go straight to DVD these days. It looks really amateurish. Ruins the entire experience for me. It's the same reason I can't really stand old Dr Who episodes. The FX is so pathetic that it ruins some pretty awesome stories and even some decent acting.
A work of art trying to depict 'different' place/time needs to have a skewed perspective.
That doesn't mean it needs to look like a high school art project.
Why is it awful? Because LOTR, in its core, is about loss. Loss of innocence, youth, friends, your whole world, in the face of events bigger than life. It's a tragic story. Those battles were supposed to be desperate and grim. The victories were supposed to come at a cost, not to be taken as granted.
That would be a pretty neat trick since probably the majority of the audience already knew the story having read the books. While I won't argue that Jackson could have done a better job with those elements in places, it is there. I don't think RB's LOTR take on those elements was meaningfully better.
And RB movie is a whole, despite not covering all three books.
I disagree. It has an ending but the wrong one and I find that unforgivable. Either tell the whole story or don't bother. If you are going to tell just part of the story the title shouldn't mislead on that fact.
There were supposed to be an ending, it was never made.
Because the movie was not very good and thus didn't make much money. Sure it was faithful to the source material but the animation was pretty bad which matters a lot. It looks like a low budget B movie drawn like one that would go straight to DVD today. It needs to have a good story (check), good visuals/sound (miss) and be well acted (miss). Plus if the producers planned on making a second movie their naming choice for the movie was quite peculiar.
Jacksons were action movies, not adventure movies.
Calling something an "action movie" is shorthand for saying it's visually interesting but not very deep. Basically anything by Michael Bay. I don't think that fits the Jackson LOTR movies well at all. They were more complex than that. Hardly flawless masterpieces but certainly better takes on LOTR than anything else that has been put out there. I think your distinction between action and adventure is silly but if Jackson's LOTR isn't an adventure movie, I'm not really sure what is.
It is great you like action movies, but lotr should never have been one - if anything it is more like a psychological thriller - like RBs version.
I'm indifferent to the movie genre and whether I like it or not has little to do with the amount of action in the movie. I generally disagree with your characterization of the Jackson LOTR movies as merely action movies. Just because there are some big action set pieces doesn't make them shallow action movies.
As for it being a psychological thriller, exactly how are you going to do the siege of Gondor as a psychological thriller and really do it justice? Battle of Helm's Deep? The balrog? I don't see any way to do those without making it a very dull and visually uninteresting movie. While there are certainly powerful psychological elements to the books I never once considered them a to be primarily a psychological thriller and I've certainly read them enough to know.
But PJ have to please the masses, RB didnt have to consider the "sex and action only" crowd.
If anyone was watching any LOTR movie for the "sex" then they desperately need to get out more.
Actually, Tolkien collaborated on sheet music w/ Donald Swann:
Point remains that NOBODY wants to go see The Hobbit: A Musical Adventure. (well maybe the audience for Broadway musicals but nobody else) Just because some song lyrics were in the books doesn't mean it is a good idea to put them in a movie, especially one that intends to make any sort of profit.
Nokia is indeed a Japanese company.
I think Nokia will be surprised to hear that since their HQ is in Finland and always has been.
The submitter AND the editor are confusing Nokia with Ericsson, which IS a Finnish company.
And Ericssson will be surprised to hear they are no longer Swedish.
I thought that Nokia was a Japanese company.
No insult intended (seriously) but you were pretty much the only one who thought that. They are a Finnish company and that fact is well known worldwide. I can see how one might think they were Asian though since so much electronics comes from that part of the world. But Nokia got quite a lot of press regarding where they were from.
China with its essentially a rigged economy based on something close to slave labor.
And you know this how exactly? I've actually been to China whereas you pretty clearly have not. Slave labor? 'Fraid not. China has a lot of people and so thanks to supply and demand, wages are relatively low there. (but rising fast) Yes the Chinese government has a hand in everything but there are plenty of places in the US and EU economies where free trade does not exist and the government is heavily involved. Agriculture, weapons manufacturing, Boeing/Airbus, satellites, automobiles, and many more.
The only way to compete economically with that is to become that.
Your argument would be more credible if the US and EU didn't have manufacturing sectors equal to or larger than China's manufacturing sector. Cheap labor is only helpful for products that have a high labor content. Lots of products require relatively little labor or require specialized labor that isn't cheap anywhere. I have a stamping press in my plant for making wire leads. Operating this press requires some of skilled labor to set up and then it is all automated. No amount of cheap labor from China can undercut us on price, we're fast and we can pay our people good wages too. There are some products we can't compete with China on and there are some products China can't compete with us on. The trick is knowing which is which.
I do not see any value at all joining all of these organisations, much less paying for the privilege.
There can be lots of value to them but getting that value requires actual work on your part. If all you are doing is paying the membership fee to list it on your resume then there is no point to joining. However if you actually attend events, meet colleagues and talk with them, get involved in the organizations, etc you can actually get a ton of value out of them. I'm a member of two professional organizations (not ACM) which I actively participate in. I've gotten job interviews, excellent contacts for specific expertise, a certification important in my profession, contacts for funding, and even made some friends. You can get the most value often by being an officer in the organization (they always need help) and actually working hard to do a good job.
I'm a member of a few professional organizations. Most of them are kind of money grabs when it comes to anything education related. To maintain a certification I have to get 30 hours of continuing education each year and wouldn't you know that the professional organization is just all too happy to sell it to me for vaguely unreasonable amounts of money. Or I can attend about 15 meetings and conferences a year, also costing $ each time. I try not to get too worked up about it but it isn't cheap even if it sometimes is useful to be a member.
There are basically just a few reasons to join professional organizations. The biggest one by far is networking. These organizations can be a terrific way to get yourself known in your profession and sometimes get opportunities if you do it right. There also for some professions is accreditation and credentialing. I don't just mean joining the organization to have it on your resume. I have an accounting certification which has been very useful to me professionally. Sometimes there are learning opportunities which can be helpful though usually they are just pointless money grabs by the organization.
Is the line shorter in other towns?
No. Last time I visited Comcast to get some gear there were about 30 people in line and I waited about an hour, not counting driving time to get to the one service center which is about 25 miles from my house. They announced loudly that if we were just dropping off gear that we could put it in their drop off big (a cardboard box) which nobody believed. Then there was no way to prove that you had dropped it off.
Fortunately my dealings with Comcast have been minimal and the service has been largely reliable for my needs. TV is WAY overpriced for what you get but the internet service isn't too bad as long as you don't need to deal with support too much.
He seals them in the barrels so they are water tight.
Of course if they are water tight then they are air tight too... That bit never made sense to me even when I was reading it as a kid for the first time. Unless there was a hole in the barrel the dwarves should have suffocated. If there was a hole in barrel they should have drowned.
Yeeeeah, we'll get right on that. Everyone from the studio execs to the Oscar committee will positively leap with glee when we release our new $200,000,000 holiday-season spectacular, THE HOBBIT, PART II: A LEISURELY RIDE DOWN THE RIVER.
So instead we got a drawn out, absurd even by fantasy movie standards, pointless action scene that added nothing to the story. That entire scene could have been cut out and the movie would have been better for it. At most it should have been 1-2 minutes long if they absolutely had to have some action.
Pro tip: Don't quit your day job to move to Hollywood.
Sounds like you already did and worked on The Hobbit.
WTF? It's fantasy with wizards, elves and dragons, and you're talking about suspension of disbelief?
Why not? Suspension of disbelief is probably the most important thing about sci-fi and fantasy movies. Far more than say a romantic comedy. You can do it well or you can do it poorly. You need a good script, good acting and good special effects to make a movie like that believable. If you are going to ask the audience to believe in magic or magic-science for 2-3 hours that is fine but you can't simply throw anything on the screen and excuse it just because the story says it is magic. The story has to be carefully crafted, the acting has to be believable and the special effects have to be good enough to keep your brain from screaming "bullshit" the whole time.
I've always had a hard time getting into Dr Who as an example. The stories are often flat out amazing and the acting has had some pretty good moments but the special effects and cinematography have been so bad (especially the older stuff) that my brain simply couldn't accept it. I have the same problem with Star Trek except that the stories aren't as good (IMO) though the FX is better (not great but better). One can enjoy them but I'm always left thinking that they could have been better.
Um, maybe Ralph Bakshi movie is an atrocity for you. For me it's the best Tolkien adaptation ever.
That rotoscoped steaming turd? I've rarely been more disappointed at a movie. It had reasonable fidelity to the books but that alone was hardly enough to make it good. I remember excitedly renting it from the video store sometime during the 1980s and thought that it was a really badly done movie. I thought the rotoscoping was bizarre and still do - uncanny valley reaction I guess. The voice acting was meh at best and the "action" was nothing to write home to mom about. Plus they released it as The Lord of The Rings but it only covered about half the story. I can live with it being condensed into a single movie even if they chop a lot out but then give some indication that there is more to the story. I clearly remember saying "That's it? Where is the rest of it?"
Jackson's adaptations of LOTR, like the recent The Hobbit trilogy, could have used more editing but it was at least in general a good and engaging movie. Visually excellent, faithful enough to the books in most places, captures the epic The worst bits of Jackson's adaptations are when they start going off script for stupid jokes like the dwarf tossing joke during the battle of helm's deep. It wasn't all bad but a high percentage of the dialog that deviated from Tolkien's words was pretty campy. That sort of thing should have only been on a gag reel. More editing would could have made a tighter story but it was a decent movie even if an imperfect adaptation.
'Major sponsors include Ford, General Motors, IMRA, Michigan Engineering, NYK, Qatar Airways and Siemens PLM Software.'
Why is that unfair? Other teams are permitted to get sponsors. It's their problem if they can't recruit good sponsors. Plus most of those companies hire Michigan engineering graduates so why wouldn't they sponsor the students they are likely to hire?