This really is a fascinating discussion, but I'm not so sure we can say what about our memories is real and what's...exaggerated (wrong word).
Personally, I can't remember anything about childhood when people ask me. "what's your earliest memory" doesn't pull anything. However, I could be driving around my hometown and see a house where I used to play with a friend who later moved to Cincinatti, a house with a HUGE dog, a box of toys and a dead VW bug on blocks in the yard. It's not the earliest, it's just the most relevant to the setting.
I agree with a previous poster who said that memory is like history - what's true can only be discerned in hindsight and it keeps changing as we gather new input (new memories). Whenever you remember something it's always jaded by the fact that you're not then, you're now thinking about then. Mentally-speaking you're a generation or three removed from the event and despite how vividly you remember, it's filtered.
I should also mention that I have an amazingly accurate but equally flighty memory - I can remember song lyrics with one listen but can't memorize tezt at all. I can remember the order of colors of my elementary school's jungle-gym dome but can't remember how I know I love pecan pie.
mmm. That made little sense. All i'm saying is that as fascinating a concept as first memories are I think the principle is flawed - you're having the memory NOW, which means it can't possibly be exactly as it was THEN.
I can't get TV reception in my part of New York City (who'd figure?) and there's little worth watching anyway. But I've got a DVD player and a VCR too - I see no need whatsoever to pay Time-Warner WAY too much money to bombard me with ads - I get enough of that in Manhattan (I work by Times Square - ick).
However. If I could get just The History Channel, Comedy Central, AMC, Bravo and SciFi I'd do it.
Sidebar - I kinda like the fact that TV shows are being released on DVD. I just picked up the first Season of Law & Order cheap and LOVED it: no commercials and no scheduling. Easily worth 40 bucks.:)
audible.com's web-site annoys the hell out of me - every link on the site is a java command, basically meaning you can't open a link in a new window - you're stuck on a linear surf-path. So what happens when you want to compare two products? You need to open another window and renavigate to what you're looking for from the front of the site.
Interestingly, the only part of the site that DOESN'T do this is the customer service portion? Why? Chances are because that part of the site is outsourced to a third-party customer service company. Smooth guys, real smooth.
This misapplication of outmoded laws is a direct result of the media and justice systems being run by the Washington fat cats and the Jewish media moguls in New York and Hollywood.
Sigh. If you want to read some good journalism on the "Jewish Conspiracy" check out this book by Jon Ronson. It's called "Them: Adventures with Extremists." You can read an interview with the author here. He basically investigates cults of all forms and sees what's true and what's not. Spoiler: A lot of it's true but not at all in the way you think. It's a great read. Until then, knock that unsubstantiated, mildly racist shit off, will you?
Ooh! I think (tho I'm not sure - I'll know when I get home from work) that this update fixes the pesky "iSub powers down after inactivity and never wakes up without a plug-unplug of the USB cord or a restart" problem. I can't wait.:)
I'm also tickled pink about openGL 1.4 - does this fix the problem with games like DiabloII (or Baldur's gate II) that refuse to run acceptably with 3D-acceleration turned on? Please say yes.:)
ST:TMP was bloated and slooooooow.
ST:II rocked. best large-ship combat EVER.
ST:III's first half wasn't too bad, then slid downhill. Scotty disabling the excelsior was priceless.
ST:IV. Ho hum. Cute, but...not my style.
ST:V never happened, although the scene w/ Kirk et al in the brig was memorable.
ST:VI was my second favorite of the Originals. Tight.
ST:GEN was awful and had no basis in logic or physics. sheesh.
ST:FC was pretty awsome. The borg still creep me out after all these years.
ST:INS was alright, but really fluffy.
We'll see about this one.
On a side note, WHY did the trailer for Nemesis (and for generations, for that matter) have to show the enterprise ramming the romulan (I'm assuming) ship? I wanted that to be a surprise, damnit.
...or is apple.slashdot.org mirroring macslash more and more recently? The interesting thing is that macslash usually beats slashdot to it, but the interesting discussions happen here.:)
I dunno dude, I thought ST:VI was one of the tightest in the franchise - Kirk's immense hatred of the Klingons for killing his son played out really well in that flick, the special effects were good and the zero-g scene was pretty flippin' awsome. ('Course, ST:II holds the special place in my heart.)
All I'm sayin' is you can't really generalize from the one particular. I'll wait and see what happens when I hit the theater tonight.
continuity is key. For example: I'm about 1/3 of the way through Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, and it's awsome. At one point in the game you get whisked away to an island to rescue a party member and have to find your way back - it takes about 20-30 days in game time to return.
Problem is, once you get back a. all the quests you had going are kinda hard to pick up again (mostly because your journal gets wiped each chapter. I can't begin to describe how annoying that is) and b. everybody treats you like you haven't left.
It's a real downer. I almost want to start over and finish EVERYTHING in athkala before I head for that damn island.:)
(b) a lower enclosure disposed below and in a tandem arrangement with said upper enclosure, said lower enclosure including a lower annular sidewall having a substantially inverted conical configuration and open upper and lower ends and defining a lower interior chamber, said lower annular sidewall of said lower enclosure being mounted at said open upper end thereof to said upper annular sidewall at said open lower end of said upper enclosure such that said lower annular sidewall and lower interior chamber of said lower enclosure are substantially continuous and in flow communication with said upper annular sidewall and upper interior chamber of said upper enclosure...
Ok, one, that's one sentence, and two, the word "said" appears there 11 times. I felt like I was listening to "Einstein on the beach" again.
But apart from that, it (and the rest of the patents) describes the thing, and it's not a tornado gun like most of y'all are hypothesizing. It's...well, it's basically a wind-powered coffee grinder - no blades, just wind. So you can forget about pointing it at someone and watching their molecules randomly rearrange themselves, k?;)
Do any similar 'non-commercial' radio station designations exist in the USA?
College radio.
For example, one of the Brooklyn colleges (might be fordham, but I could be wrong) has an AWSOME radio station. New stuff, old stuff. Generally light, almost always good. Accoustic flavor to it. They even air the college basketball games (not that I care really, but I love sports stuff for background sound).
My dial at home's always tuned to it - I'll let you know the channel when I'm not at work.:)
Gotta go with Douglas Adams' universe. I'm probably not as well versed in sci-fi as some people here (I gave up reading it a few years ago) but it seems to me that his universe is the most realistic - all the power belongs to the media, nobody cares about anything, stupidity and bloody-mindedness are the norm and no one really has any idea as to what's going on.:)
I also liked the universe Asimov created in the "Stars like Dust" trilogy. I'm annoyed that it's out of print - I wanted to give it to someone for christmas.
My all-time favs tho are sci-fi stories that happen here, like Adams' Dirk Gently series or the Illuminatus Trilogy. I find them easier to immerse yourself in. People seem to forget that Sci-fi doesn't automatically assume spaceships and all that.:)
Yeah, but prolly not to anywhere near the same extent - proprietary hardware, remember? Added to which, Mac OS X isn't offering windows application interoperability.
On MS's mind, sure. In their sights...not nearly.:)
My mom's hilarious. She calls me with problems on her Toshiba laptop, even though the last three cmputers I've owned have been macs and she bought me two of them. Sigh.:)
First, let me say that I truly appreciate the humor...but it got me thinking.:)
[deep breath]: I WANT TO BE ABLE TO THINK. I don't want information, ads or not, pumped at me 24/7. I don't want to be able to check my stocks or get the sports scores at the grocery store, I WANT TO BUY FOOD FOR DINNER AND GO HOME. I want to be able to live in my head for ten minutes while I pick up ground beef and hamburger helper. I don't want the CONVENIENCE, I don't want to SAVE TIME. Goddamnit, I can think for myself and I really don't care what coca-cola thinks I should be drinking with dinner tonight. There is a certain pleasure to cruising down a supermarket aisle, humming to myself and thinking about stuff.
Shit like this is why I don't watch TV.
Every wonder why products in a supermarket (say, tomato sauce) aren't in any real kind of order? Because manufacturers pay MORE to have the supermarkets place their products at eye-level. This is the same thing - tell you what's on sale and you're more likely to buy it. It's one of the major tenets of advertising - "if people can't see your product it won't sell," the corollary being "if people see product x more than product y, they'll be more likely to buy product x."
Personally, I'd find this experiment interesting from a tech perspective but I'd rather not use it. But then again I'm not in their core shopping demographic - I rarely spend more than 20 bucks at a time on groceries.:)
it's sister-article is much more interesting. It's on how much product placement is featured in the new bond movie, and how some are worried that the franchise is sliding downhill into 2-hour ads.
This quote cracked me up:
Norelco's senior vice president of marketing Nina Riley won't reveal how the new Spectra shaver is used in the film except to say it's in a "very pivotal scene."
You want to archive, you got it. If audible goes out of business the files you've downloaded will still work. If you cancel your subscription your files will still work. If you get a new computer AND audible tanks you might have a problem - there'd be no server to validate your login with, right? So what do you do?
Easy. You burn the files to CD and rip them as MP3s. You need to be careful that it doesn't sound like shit (it took a few tries for me to do it. I wasn't pirating or anything, I just wanted to see if it could be done. And it can:) but it's definitely possible.
Slashdot Mirror
I came awfully close, but my dad actually DID beat it. He STILL holds that over my head. :)
Triv
This really is a fascinating discussion, but I'm not so sure we can say what about our memories is real and what's...exaggerated (wrong word).
Personally, I can't remember anything about childhood when people ask me. "what's your earliest memory" doesn't pull anything. However, I could be driving around my hometown and see a house where I used to play with a friend who later moved to Cincinatti, a house with a HUGE dog, a box of toys and a dead VW bug on blocks in the yard. It's not the earliest, it's just the most relevant to the setting.
I agree with a previous poster who said that memory is like history - what's true can only be discerned in hindsight and it keeps changing as we gather new input (new memories). Whenever you remember something it's always jaded by the fact that you're not then, you're now thinking about then. Mentally-speaking you're a generation or three removed from the event and despite how vividly you remember, it's filtered.
I should also mention that I have an amazingly accurate but equally flighty memory - I can remember song lyrics with one listen but can't memorize tezt at all. I can remember the order of colors of my elementary school's jungle-gym dome but can't remember how I know I love pecan pie.
mmm. That made little sense. All i'm saying is that as fascinating a concept as first memories are I think the principle is flawed - you're having the memory NOW, which means it can't possibly be exactly as it was THEN.
Triv
ouch. It's WAAAAY too early in the morning to be dealing with puns of that caliber. You've been up all night at Callihan's, haven't you?
Triv
I can't get TV reception in my part of New York City (who'd figure?) and there's little worth watching anyway. But I've got a DVD player and a VCR too - I see no need whatsoever to pay Time-Warner WAY too much money to bombard me with ads - I get enough of that in Manhattan (I work by Times Square - ick).
:)
However. If I could get just The History Channel, Comedy Central, AMC, Bravo and SciFi I'd do it.
Sidebar - I kinda like the fact that TV shows are being released on DVD. I just picked up the first Season of Law & Order cheap and LOVED it: no commercials and no scheduling. Easily worth 40 bucks.
Triv
audible.com's web-site annoys the hell out of me - every link on the site is a java command, basically meaning you can't open a link in a new window - you're stuck on a linear surf-path. So what happens when you want to compare two products? You need to open another window and renavigate to what you're looking for from the front of the site.
Interestingly, the only part of the site that DOESN'T do this is the customer service portion? Why? Chances are because that part of the site is outsourced to a third-party customer service company. Smooth guys, real smooth.
Triv
it fixed it, as far as I can tell. Your iSub is now free to majorly annoy your upstairs neighbors.:)
Triv
This misapplication of outmoded laws is a direct result of the media and justice systems being run by the Washington fat cats and the Jewish media moguls in New York and Hollywood.
Sigh. If you want to read some good journalism on the "Jewish Conspiracy" check out this book by Jon Ronson. It's called "Them: Adventures with Extremists." You can read an interview with the author here. He basically investigates cults of all forms and sees what's true and what's not. Spoiler: A lot of it's true but not at all in the way you think. It's a great read. Until then, knock that unsubstantiated, mildly racist shit off, will you?
Triv
Ooh! I think (tho I'm not sure - I'll know when I get home from work) that this update fixes the pesky "iSub powers down after inactivity and never wakes up without a plug-unplug of the USB cord or a restart" problem. I can't wait. :)
:)
I'm also tickled pink about openGL 1.4 - does this fix the problem with games like DiabloII (or Baldur's gate II) that refuse to run acceptably with 3D-acceleration turned on? Please say yes.
Triv
It did not relate the the product of the company, and it likely hurt the company's ability to retain employees.
:)
Oh YEAH? How do you know his company doesn't make bobble-head dolls?
Triv
quick opinions on the franchise, take by take:
ST:TMP was bloated and slooooooow.
ST:II rocked. best large-ship combat EVER.
ST:III's first half wasn't too bad, then slid downhill. Scotty disabling the excelsior was priceless.
ST:IV. Ho hum. Cute, but...not my style.
ST:V never happened, although the scene w/ Kirk et al in the brig was memorable.
ST:VI was my second favorite of the Originals. Tight.
ST:GEN was awful and had no basis in logic or physics. sheesh.
ST:FC was pretty awsome. The borg still creep me out after all these years.
ST:INS was alright, but really fluffy.
We'll see about this one.
On a side note, WHY did the trailer for Nemesis (and for generations, for that matter) have to show the enterprise ramming the romulan (I'm assuming) ship? I wanted that to be a surprise, damnit.
Triv
...or is apple.slashdot.org mirroring macslash more and more recently? The interesting thing is that macslash usually beats slashdot to it, but the interesting discussions happen here. :)
Triv
The last movie of a "generation" is always bad.
I dunno dude, I thought ST:VI was one of the tightest in the franchise - Kirk's immense hatred of the Klingons for killing his son played out really well in that flick, the special effects were good and the zero-g scene was pretty flippin' awsome. ('Course, ST:II holds the special place in my heart.)
All I'm sayin' is you can't really generalize from the one particular. I'll wait and see what happens when I hit the theater tonight.
Triv
that's funny, The New York Times gave it a pretty good review this morning. When I read it on my way to work I was ready to cringe.
:)
I'm goin' tonight.
Triv
continuity is key. For example: I'm about 1/3 of the way through Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, and it's awsome. At one point in the game you get whisked away to an island to rescue a party member and have to find your way back - it takes about 20-30 days in game time to return.
:)
Problem is, once you get back a. all the quests you had going are kinda hard to pick up again (mostly because your journal gets wiped each chapter. I can't begin to describe how annoying that is) and b. everybody treats you like you haven't left.
It's a real downer. I almost want to start over and finish EVERYTHING in athkala before I head for that damn island.
Triv
From the patent:
;)
(b) a lower enclosure disposed below and in a tandem arrangement with said upper enclosure, said lower enclosure including a lower annular sidewall having a substantially inverted conical configuration and open upper and lower ends and defining a lower interior chamber, said lower annular sidewall of said lower enclosure being mounted at said open upper end thereof to said upper annular sidewall at said open lower end of said upper enclosure such that said lower annular sidewall and lower interior chamber of said lower enclosure are substantially continuous and in flow communication with said upper annular sidewall and upper interior chamber of said upper enclosure...
Ok, one, that's one sentence, and two, the word "said" appears there 11 times. I felt like I was listening to "Einstein on the beach" again.
But apart from that, it (and the rest of the patents) describes the thing, and it's not a tornado gun like most of y'all are hypothesizing. It's...well, it's basically a wind-powered coffee grinder - no blades, just wind. So you can forget about pointing it at someone and watching their molecules randomly rearrange themselves, k?
Triv
Do any similar 'non-commercial' radio station designations exist in the USA?
:)
College radio.
For example, one of the Brooklyn colleges (might be fordham, but I could be wrong) has an AWSOME radio station. New stuff, old stuff. Generally light, almost always good. Accoustic flavor to it. They even air the college basketball games (not that I care really, but I love sports stuff for background sound).
My dial at home's always tuned to it - I'll let you know the channel when I'm not at work.
Triv
Gotta go with Douglas Adams' universe. I'm probably not as well versed in sci-fi as some people here (I gave up reading it a few years ago) but it seems to me that his universe is the most realistic - all the power belongs to the media, nobody cares about anything, stupidity and bloody-mindedness are the norm and no one really has any idea as to what's going on. :)
:)
I also liked the universe Asimov created in the "Stars like Dust" trilogy. I'm annoyed that it's out of print - I wanted to give it to someone for christmas.
My all-time favs tho are sci-fi stories that happen here, like Adams' Dirk Gently series or the Illuminatus Trilogy. I find them easier to immerse yourself in. People seem to forget that Sci-fi doesn't automatically assume spaceships and all that.
Triv
... I'm sure OS X is on MS's mind as well.
:)
Yeah, but prolly not to anywhere near the same extent - proprietary hardware, remember? Added to which, Mac OS X isn't offering windows application interoperability.
On MS's mind, sure. In their sights...not nearly.
Triv
My mom's hilarious. She calls me with problems on her Toshiba laptop, even though the last three cmputers I've owned have been macs and she bought me two of them. Sigh. :)
Triv
'Evil Sting,' as you put it, was played by Malcolm McDowell. Ever see "Clockwork Orange?" Main character; that's him. He's evil.
Triv
First, let me say that I truly appreciate the humor...but it got me thinking. :)
;)
[deep breath]: I WANT TO BE ABLE TO THINK. I don't want information, ads or not, pumped at me 24/7. I don't want to be able to check my stocks or get the sports scores at the grocery store, I WANT TO BUY FOOD FOR DINNER AND GO HOME. I want to be able to live in my head for ten minutes while I pick up ground beef and hamburger helper. I don't want the CONVENIENCE, I don't want to SAVE TIME. Goddamnit, I can think for myself and I really don't care what coca-cola thinks I should be drinking with dinner tonight. There is a certain pleasure to cruising down a supermarket aisle, humming to myself and thinking about stuff. Shit like this is why I don't watch TV.
So in short: LEAVE ME ALONE!
[phew]
Triv
Every wonder why products in a supermarket (say, tomato sauce) aren't in any real kind of order? Because manufacturers pay MORE to have the supermarkets place their products at eye-level. This is the same thing - tell you what's on sale and you're more likely to buy it. It's one of the major tenets of advertising - "if people can't see your product it won't sell," the corollary being "if people see product x more than product y, they'll be more likely to buy product x."
:)
Personally, I'd find this experiment interesting from a tech perspective but I'd rather not use it. But then again I'm not in their core shopping demographic - I rarely spend more than 20 bucks at a time on groceries.
Triv
...very...very...slowly.
:)
It's like that Firesign Theatre bit:
[Connery voice]: It's coming. Slowly. Very...slowly. To a theater...near you.
GLACIER.
Triv
This quote cracked me up:
The article's here.
Triv
You want to archive, you got it. If audible goes out of business the files you've downloaded will still work. If you cancel your subscription your files will still work. If you get a new computer AND audible tanks you might have a problem - there'd be no server to validate your login with, right? So what do you do?
:) but it's definitely possible.
;)
Easy. You burn the files to CD and rip them as MP3s. You need to be careful that it doesn't sound like shit (it took a few tries for me to do it. I wasn't pirating or anything, I just wanted to see if it could be done. And it can
Any other problems?
Triv