I personally hope nobody mods you down for expressing a valid opinion, but I am inclined to disagree.
The dude went on a Star Trek celebrity edition of "The Weakest Link" and chose the EFF for his charity. It was tremendous fun watching him trying to explain to Ann Robinson what the fuck the Electronic Frontier Foundation was. All that was missing was a pair of horn-rimmed glasses for him to push up his nose as he was talking.
Instant geek-cred in my book.
More importantly, he's an actor who hasn't forgotten that it's the huge nerds of the world (including the ones bitching about Wesley on usenet) who paid for his house. This perhaps wouldn't be a big deal if it wasn't so rare. Most performers on shows that appeal to geeks seem to have no interest in their audiences beyond the speaking fees they can draw from the convention circuit when their career begins to fizzle out.
Finally, I think it's very snobbish of you to insist that somebody must be a great programmer, mathematician, or scientist in order to be regarded as a "hero" to the likes of us. There are plenty of geek heroes in the humanities: William Gibson, Trent Reznor, Darrin Aronofky, Leo Kottke, Tray Parker and Matt Stone, Douglas Adams, etc. etc. etc.
I'm actually a bigger fan of Wheaton's blog than I ever was of any of his movies. In fact, I frankly think that the majority of the projects he's been involved with as an actor have been crap. I am curious about his books though... he clearly can write well.
The Watchmen was perhaps the best case for nihilism I've seen in English literature. If it doesn't inspire you to embrace it, it will challenge you to ponder why you don't.
Oddly enough, Alan Moore is not really an athiest/nihilist himself, and instead chooses to practice an odd, self-styled flavor of magic paganism. He's commented more than once that he found it remarkable that the entire comics industry began to mimic a "bad mood" he experienced in the mid-80s.
In WWII, Germany declared war on the US as part of their alliance with Japan
Sure... and their U-Boats sunk an American ocean liner or two.
But then again, Iraq's policy towards the US wasn't much different from 1991-2003, and they did attempt to shoot down our aircraft of numerous occasions.
The point is, neither country actually attacked US soil, and while Japan did, it was not anywhere nearly as "unprovoked" as those old 1940s newsreels often claimed.
Then why do Graphic designer houses have all MAC's typically as well as most vieo editing places nowdays
Because their NIC cards won't be recognized on the network without a MAC?
Ohhhh.... you mean Macs!
That's easy: The best graphic design and archetecture software out there (the pro-level stuff, anyway) is mostly Macintosh-based. They are using the right tool for the job.
while the sales drones and managers have cheapies Dell's?
Also easy: Sales drones don't need to run graphic design software. Any $300 shitbox which can run Quicken software is more hardware than they will ever need. It's a shame they must put up with Windows because of this choice, but such is life.
I was once in a bar in Washington DC, when I noticed that they went to the trouble of printing on both sides of their drink coasters, in bold text, the words "we do not serve Coca-Cola products in this establishment."
Figuring that there had to be a story behind it, I asked the bartender about it.
He told me that a guy once walked in to another bar with the same owner as them and ordered a "Rum and Coke." Upon being served a Rum with Pepsi cola in it, he informed the management that he was a representative of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company, and that they would be suing the bar owner for serving Pepsi and calling it Coke.
The owner payed a large settlement, and then promptly and permanently pulled all Coca-Cola products out of all 12 of the bars he owned (some of which were among the more popular in the area) out of pure spite.
These days, bartenders and waitresses in places that have Pepsi know to ask, "is Pepsi okay?" whenever you ask for a Coke.
The thing is, every tech industry wants more women.
First of all, women are nicer to be around. Generally speaking, they tend to look and smell better.
Secondly, if you don't have any women on your staff, it creates the appearance that you have something against hiring women.
Thirdly, any woman who choses a career in what has been traditionally a relativley male-dominated industry is likely to be fairly passionate about the work.
In spite of all those very good reasons for hiring more women, most places don't. You know why? Because there aren't enough qualified women interested in tech jobs out there.
Parents: Encourage your daughters to become tech geeks. If they are at all competent, they'll probably get job offers in response to almost every interview they go to.
You think that's confusing, just wait until Sony offers a new version of the UMD with 2x capacity, called the "Double UMD."
Orders for large Double UMD shipments will pour in from North Korea, Iran, and various locations all over Africa and the Middle East.
President Bush and Prime Minister Blair will be understandably alarmed and distressed that Japan, who has been a solid ally in the war against terrorism, has suddenly begun distributing Double UMD's all over the world.
The sudden lack of trust will lead the West to finally take a close look at the military espionage and weapons-delivery potential of the Sony Aibo, not to mention the disk-shooting PSP. This evidence, along with the reports of Sony-made Double UMD's, will force the hands of America and England to impose a regime change, arresting Kunitake Ando and putting Steve Jobs in charge of a provisional board of directors until the shareholders can elect a new Executive staff via U.N. monitored elections.
It gets worse... More than likely, the "good character" you will be renting will have been powerlevelled by poor asians in gil-seller sweatshops. They will have okay-ish gear, no skill development, and carelessly-chosen power sets. You will be renting a character which has an impressive-looking level, but will get routinely spanked by challenges which legitimate characters can handle easilly.
In spite of delusions of grandeur, the post which kicked all this off had a point. Even at the relative lowbie levels that casual gamers like me play at (my highest WoW character is in the high 20s, and I never really got a CoH character past the mid 30s), it almost always becomes incredibly obvious when you team up with somebody who did not play their character up from the beginning.
But teaked-out power-levellers tend to be just as bad. They got some uber friend of theirs to zip their character through about ten levels an hour without ever learning how to play it, and without ever developping whatever system of skill trees the came is built around. They end up with a character which is about as effective as a character half their level, and also need every damned thing explained to them.
Then again, I see all the cheaters, gold-buyers, and twinks as part of the fun of these games, because they make you fully appreciate the people you meet who are actually fun to game with.
As for rebroadcasting, can you imagine it split into 3 15 minute segments for US advertising?
Hour-long dramas in the US are usually in four acts, not three. There's a break on or around each 15-minute mark.
However, why wouldn't a premium cable channel like Showtime or HBO want to run it ad-free? Buying already-made Doctor Who episodes can't possibly be more expensive than producing episodes of "The Sopranos" or "Six Feet Under."
Not to mention the fact that it was pushing the limits of the 9pm watershed in the UK, nevermind the US.
Only because of violence, which is considered a bigger problem there than here. The UK stations often make cuts to US shows like Buffy and Star Trek out of a desire to tone down violent content. US audiences don't have a problem with an on-screen death now and then.
Three of our highest-rated dramas are a franchise of shows where cops investigate gruesome murder scenes.
The gay character might have been a problem... if this was 1967. These days it's tough to find a US show where there isn't one on the cast.
I think your lack of faith in other people's intellect or their earnestness is either pure bullocks, plain elitism, or just a mere relfection of your utter misanthropy.
I conform to standards as best I can when building web pages, surf with Safari on my Mac and Firefox on my work PC... but I would gladly switch to IE without hesitation if Microsoft were to make a browser that does the job better, just as I once dropped Netscape Navigator for IE 5.
I love western civilization in general, but this is the one part of our culture which drives me nuts lately: the completely vicarious "us"-versus-them cheerleading... what I like to call the "sports fan" mentality.
"I usually vote Democrat, so everytime a car-bomb goes off in Iraq, I'm happy because it makes Bush's decision to go to war look worse."
"I'm a protestant, so every time another story about a cover-up of pedophile priests comes out, I'm giddy with laughter over the human tragedy, because it's a huge embarrassment to Catholics."
"I'm a Linux user, so every time Microsoft users are hit with a virus which shuts down entire companies for the day and costs the US economy millions of dollars, I can barely contain my joy."
Fuck all of you! Groups you are "rooting against" doing poorly, or even groups you are "rooting for" doing well, does nothing to make you a better person, nor does it actually make the world a better place. Get some goddamn perspective and stop being so myopic about your little meaningless dogma! You sound just like a little kid arguing with the neighbor kid over who's faster, Superman or The Flash.
An occasional reccurring character, like Mickey, huh? That would be kind of cool.
The real puzzle is how nobody in the US has taken an interest in putting this show on the air.
Sure, I understand how the SciFi Channel hates to spend money on more than one series at a time, and "Battlestar Galactica" is their pet project right now... but there's a heck of a lot of other stations out there, both cable and broadcast, who you would think could find enough of an audience to pay the BBC rebroadcast fee.
Yay for Internet piracy!
If it weren't for the thieving bastards on alt.binaries.drwho, I would probably have to move to Canada or something to see the best show on TV right now. Avast, me hearties!
Slashdot Mirror
I personally hope nobody mods you down for expressing a valid opinion, but I am inclined to disagree.
The dude went on a Star Trek celebrity edition of "The Weakest Link" and chose the EFF for his charity. It was tremendous fun watching him trying to explain to Ann Robinson what the fuck the Electronic Frontier Foundation was. All that was missing was a pair of horn-rimmed glasses for him to push up his nose as he was talking.
Instant geek-cred in my book.
More importantly, he's an actor who hasn't forgotten that it's the huge nerds of the world (including the ones bitching about Wesley on usenet) who paid for his house. This perhaps wouldn't be a big deal if it wasn't so rare. Most performers on shows that appeal to geeks seem to have no interest in their audiences beyond the speaking fees they can draw from the convention circuit when their career begins to fizzle out.
Finally, I think it's very snobbish of you to insist that somebody must be a great programmer, mathematician, or scientist in order to be regarded as a "hero" to the likes of us. There are plenty of geek heroes in the humanities: William Gibson, Trent Reznor, Darrin Aronofky, Leo Kottke, Tray Parker and Matt Stone, Douglas Adams, etc. etc. etc.
I'm actually a bigger fan of Wheaton's blog than I ever was of any of his movies. In fact, I frankly think that the majority of the projects he's been involved with as an actor have been crap. I am curious about his books though... he clearly can write well.
The Watchmen was perhaps the best case for nihilism I've seen in English literature. If it doesn't inspire you to embrace it, it will challenge you to ponder why you don't.
Oddly enough, Alan Moore is not really an athiest/nihilist himself, and instead chooses to practice an odd, self-styled flavor of magic paganism. He's commented more than once that he found it remarkable that the entire comics industry began to mimic a "bad mood" he experienced in the mid-80s.
In WWII, Germany declared war on the US as part of their alliance with Japan
Sure... and their U-Boats sunk an American ocean liner or two.
But then again, Iraq's policy towards the US wasn't much different from 1991-2003, and they did attempt to shoot down our aircraft of numerous occasions.
The point is, neither country actually attacked US soil, and while Japan did, it was not anywhere nearly as "unprovoked" as those old 1940s newsreels often claimed.
Then why do Graphic designer houses have all MAC's typically as well as most vieo editing places nowdays
Because their NIC cards won't be recognized on the network without a MAC?
Ohhhh.... you mean Macs!
That's easy: The best graphic design and archetecture software out there (the pro-level stuff, anyway) is mostly Macintosh-based. They are using the right tool for the job.
while the sales drones and managers have cheapies Dell's?
Also easy: Sales drones don't need to run graphic design software. Any $300 shitbox which can run Quicken software is more hardware than they will ever need. It's a shame they must put up with Windows because of this choice, but such is life.
Unlike Japan, Iraq didn't attack us first.
Neither did Germany. Either time.
Come to think of it, Japan didn't either attack us first either.
Pearl Harbor was a response to our embargo.
Unlike Japan, Iraq didn't attack us first.
Neither did Germany. Either time.
Even so, anyone who signs up for the military NOW is a damn fool, and deserves what they get.
You spelled "hero" wrong, and the end of your sentence appears to be saying the wrong thing. Here, let me fix it for you.
"Even so, anyone who signs up for the military NOW is a damn hero, and deserves our gratitude and respect."
Much better.
Road per capita? I thought the grandparent was talking about covering land with roads, not people.
Road per surface area would be a much more useful indicator.
Holy crap, mod this up!
Heh. Whoever you are, AC... So far it looks like only you and one other person got the joke.
I was once in a bar in Washington DC, when I noticed that they went to the trouble of printing on both sides of their drink coasters, in bold text, the words "we do not serve Coca-Cola products in this establishment."
Figuring that there had to be a story behind it, I asked the bartender about it.
He told me that a guy once walked in to another bar with the same owner as them and ordered a "Rum and Coke." Upon being served a Rum with Pepsi cola in it, he informed the management that he was a representative of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company, and that they would be suing the bar owner for serving Pepsi and calling it Coke.
The owner payed a large settlement, and then promptly and permanently pulled all Coca-Cola products out of all 12 of the bars he owned (some of which were among the more popular in the area) out of pure spite.
These days, bartenders and waitresses in places that have Pepsi know to ask, "is Pepsi okay?" whenever you ask for a Coke.
Dear Sue,
Go fuck yourself. I'm not going to correct my little niece when she says "LEGOS" and I don't consider your trademark issues to be my problem.
Affectionately,
Golias
The thing is, every tech industry wants more women.
First of all, women are nicer to be around. Generally speaking, they tend to look and smell better.
Secondly, if you don't have any women on your staff, it creates the appearance that you have something against hiring women.
Thirdly, any woman who choses a career in what has been traditionally a relativley male-dominated industry is likely to be fairly passionate about the work.
In spite of all those very good reasons for hiring more women, most places don't. You know why? Because there aren't enough qualified women interested in tech jobs out there.
Parents: Encourage your daughters to become tech geeks. If they are at all competent, they'll probably get job offers in response to almost every interview they go to.
Try to come up with a joint trademark, and you end up with stupid names like "TOSLink"
Bah... Ranting too fast. The stupid name example I meant to offer up was "S/PDIF"
Then again, TOSLink sounds kind of stupid too.
Why did Sony need to make the name "i.Link" when IEEE-1394 worked fine?
You're one of the people in charge of naming GNU products, aren't you?
Why couldn't they just say "FireWire"? Because that would give legitimacy to Apple?
No, I'm pretty sure it's because that would give money to Apple.
IIRC, Sony and Apple both own a bit of the technology behind IEEE-1394, but they own the trademarks separately.
Try to come up with a joint trademark, and you end up with stupid names like "TOSLink"
You think that's confusing, just wait until Sony offers a new version of the UMD with 2x capacity, called the "Double UMD."
Orders for large Double UMD shipments will pour in from North Korea, Iran, and various locations all over Africa and the Middle East.
President Bush and Prime Minister Blair will be understandably alarmed and distressed that Japan, who has been a solid ally in the war against terrorism, has suddenly begun distributing Double UMD's all over the world.
The sudden lack of trust will lead the West to finally take a close look at the military espionage and weapons-delivery potential of the Sony Aibo, not to mention the disk-shooting PSP. This evidence, along with the reports of Sony-made Double UMD's, will force the hands of America and England to impose a regime change, arresting Kunitake Ando and putting Steve Jobs in charge of a provisional board of directors until the shareholders can elect a new Executive staff via U.N. monitored elections.
No no no!
I didn't say paying that much is a good idea... I said charging that much is a good idea.
Big difference there.
It gets worse... More than likely, the "good character" you will be renting will have been powerlevelled by poor asians in gil-seller sweatshops. They will have okay-ish gear, no skill development, and carelessly-chosen power sets. You will be renting a character which has an impressive-looking level, but will get routinely spanked by challenges which legitimate characters can handle easilly.
Overall, this sounds like a bad idea.
People thought pet rocks sounded like a bad idea, but the guy made like a million dollars!
I would try something like this myself, if I wasn't busy with the design of my "Jump to Conclusions" mat.
You know, 7334...
teea?
In spite of delusions of grandeur, the post which kicked all this off had a point. Even at the relative lowbie levels that casual gamers like me play at (my highest WoW character is in the high 20s, and I never really got a CoH character past the mid 30s), it almost always becomes incredibly obvious when you team up with somebody who did not play their character up from the beginning.
But teaked-out power-levellers tend to be just as bad. They got some uber friend of theirs to zip their character through about ten levels an hour without ever learning how to play it, and without ever developping whatever system of skill trees the came is built around. They end up with a character which is about as effective as a character half their level, and also need every damned thing explained to them.
Then again, I see all the cheaters, gold-buyers, and twinks as part of the fun of these games, because they make you fully appreciate the people you meet who are actually fun to game with.
Personally, I don't call it cheating if both sides can do it.
Both sides can re-arrange chess pieces when their opponent is distracted, but it's still cheating to do so.
Grenade-jumping abilities can be regarded as "part of the game", but exploiting a bug to snipe from an invulnerable spot is just lame.
Likewise many US sitcoms (Friends for example) have done great over here, but UK sitcoms along similar lines were total failures.
What are you talking about? Coupling (Original UK) was really just Friends with crooked teeth, and it was a major UK hit.
As for rebroadcasting, can you imagine it split into 3 15 minute segments for US advertising?
Hour-long dramas in the US are usually in four acts, not three. There's a break on or around each 15-minute mark.
However, why wouldn't a premium cable channel like Showtime or HBO want to run it ad-free? Buying already-made Doctor Who episodes can't possibly be more expensive than producing episodes of "The Sopranos" or "Six Feet Under."
Not to mention the fact that it was pushing the limits of the 9pm watershed in the UK, nevermind the US.
Only because of violence, which is considered a bigger problem there than here. The UK stations often make cuts to US shows like Buffy and Star Trek out of a desire to tone down violent content. US audiences don't have a problem with an on-screen death now and then.
Three of our highest-rated dramas are a franchise of shows where cops investigate gruesome murder scenes.
The gay character might have been a problem... if this was 1967. These days it's tough to find a US show where there isn't one on the cast.
I think your lack of faith in other people's intellect or their earnestness is either pure bullocks, plain elitism, or just a mere relfection of your utter misanthropy.
Why must it only be one of those?
Preach on!
I conform to standards as best I can when building web pages, surf with Safari on my Mac and Firefox on my work PC... but I would gladly switch to IE without hesitation if Microsoft were to make a browser that does the job better, just as I once dropped Netscape Navigator for IE 5.
I love western civilization in general, but this is the one part of our culture which drives me nuts lately: the completely vicarious "us"-versus-them cheerleading... what I like to call the "sports fan" mentality.
"I usually vote Democrat, so everytime a car-bomb goes off in Iraq, I'm happy because it makes Bush's decision to go to war look worse."
"I'm a protestant, so every time another story about a cover-up of pedophile priests comes out, I'm giddy with laughter over the human tragedy, because it's a huge embarrassment to Catholics."
"I'm a Linux user, so every time Microsoft users are hit with a virus which shuts down entire companies for the day and costs the US economy millions of dollars, I can barely contain my joy."
Fuck all of you! Groups you are "rooting against" doing poorly, or even groups you are "rooting for" doing well, does nothing to make you a better person, nor does it actually make the world a better place. Get some goddamn perspective and stop being so myopic about your little meaningless dogma! You sound just like a little kid arguing with the neighbor kid over who's faster, Superman or The Flash.
An occasional reccurring character, like Mickey, huh? That would be kind of cool.
The real puzzle is how nobody in the US has taken an interest in putting this show on the air.
Sure, I understand how the SciFi Channel hates to spend money on more than one series at a time, and "Battlestar Galactica" is their pet project right now... but there's a heck of a lot of other stations out there, both cable and broadcast, who you would think could find enough of an audience to pay the BBC rebroadcast fee.
Yay for Internet piracy!
If it weren't for the thieving bastards on alt.binaries.drwho, I would probably have to move to Canada or something to see the best show on TV right now. Avast, me hearties!