I do! They had armbands to trigger beaming back to their ship - lose an armband, you're screwed. And their ship looked like...well...it looked like three inflated condoms stuck to another inflated condom with toothpicks. Bright yellow. Ugh.:)
The only episode I remember involved a shuttle with two people aboard that needed to be 80 kilos lighter to survive some disaster, and the computer calmly reminding one of the guys that the other one weighs just over the weight necessary. So he tries to shove him out an airlock. The other guys hides. But then the first guy finds an amazingly dense cube that's keeping them there and is trying to convince the hiding guy to help him push the damn thing to the airlock. It was really cool.
just so you know, I have an LCD iMac (which DOES have a fan built into the top of the dome) but it's virtually silent. I usually can't tell it's on at all (apart from the power light:P) without holding my hand up to the vents to feel the airflow.
My external 80gb firewire harddrive sounds like a jet engine in comparison.
The point being that just because it has a fan doesn't mean it has to be loud - a good part of it is design.
If I want silence, I'm lucky enough for my external drive to only house my mp3's and it's got a power switch for when I'm not listening to tunes.:)
ANyone here know the Billy Joel song "Miami 2017: Seen the Lights Go Out On Broadway"? For the two weeks following the attack I walked around the city (mostly around 5th ave and 59th - I was working in the GM building) singing that song. It was...cathartic. Sums up my opinion on the whole thing quite nicely. The lyrics are reprinted below without any permission whatsoever.
Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)
I've seen the lights go out on Broadway
I saw the Empire State laid low.
And life went on beyond the Palisades,
They all bought Cadillacs
And left there long ago.
We held a concert out in Brooklyn
To watch the Island bridges blow.
They turned our power down,
And drove us underground
But we went right on with the show
I've seen the lights go out on Broadway
I saw the ruins at my feet,
You know we almost didn't notice it
We'd see it all the time on Forty-Second Street.
They burned the churches up in Harlem
Like in that Spanish Civil War
The flames were everywhere,
But no one really cared
It always burned up there before
I saw the lights go out on Broadway
I watched the mighty skyline fall.
The boats were waiting at the Battery,
The union went on strike
They never sailed at all.
They sent a carrier out from Norfolk
And picked the Yankees up for free.
They said that Queens could stay,
They blew the Bronx away
And sank Manhattan out to sea
You know those lights were bright on Broadway
But that was so many years ago
Before we all lived here in Florida
Before the Mafia took over Mexico.
There are not many who remember
They say a handful still survive
To tell the world about the way the lights went out,
And keep the memory alive
...which, as far as I can tell, you can't do on OS X - you're stuck with the whole damn thing, and no matter how much I try to convince it that I LIKE Mail.app, it refuses to let mailto: links open it instead of its own client. 'Course, there's prolly some fantastically easy way around this I'm missing...:)
most people need these events to help them cope with the loss. If you think the emotional impact only affected people of NY, you are wrong.
Yes, driving with your lights on makes one feel better. Fine. But it doesn't do anything apart from that. The attacks weren't a singular event, they were a part of a timeline. There were causes of it and radical changes because of it. Some of those changes were for the better, some were for the worse. Doesn't it make more sense to deal with the negative effects (like the PATRIOT act) rather than worrying about an event you can't do anything about anymore?
It isn't about to towers falling, its about suddenlly relizing how vunerable we are, and how fast the worlds can change.
Correction: how vulnerable we were. If there's one thing we got out of this it's the loss of the eighties, Iran-Contra era attitude of "We've been hijacked so we'll be docile because someone on the ground will save us". It was a singular, catastrophic and bloodthirsty act and, because of the way many attitudes have changed in the aftermath, it's unlikely to happen again. And if it does, we'll adapt again. It's like testing car safety - we can't possibly plug every security hole until we know the hole exists, and we can't know some of the holes exist until someone exploits them. And I don't think there's anything wrong with change. 5,000 people are dead, and I grieved for them. But I can't go on grieving for them. The event, as horrific as it was, is over.
You odn't wan't to pray? fine.
You don't want to remeber? fine.
but most people need to remember and talk about to to heal properly.
Firstly, I specifically said "we'll never forget, but we don't need to be reminded." I don't want to forget, but I don't want it to be forced on me as a driving force behind my life either. And secondly: no. Most people need to get on with their lives, get back into a routine and let things return to normal. That does not include President Bush reading the names of all 5,000 victims at Ground Zero. I said it before - most New Yorkers are over it. It'll always be in the backs of our heads of course, it was a traumatic few weeks. But the healing is not accomplished by thinking of all the people who are praying for us. It's done by living. The seems to me that the rest of the country is hanging onto this a helluva lot harder than we are - as I said originally, it's become a defining moment for anyone who wasn't even remotely close to here. I mean, if we were here and we're fine what's your hangup?
so, how has the US PATRIOT ACT directly affected you? Its a fair question, because you seem to think that the attack on the towers isn't worth talking about because it has had no direct impact on you after the first to weeks. Which, as we both know, is untrue.
That's kinda the point. You're right, the PATRIOT ACT hasn't affected me, and guess what: I don't want it to. I didn't have a say in whether my hometown got bombed or not, but I sure as hell have a say in whether my constitutional rights mean anything. I don't exactly live the good life, but I throw $20 a month to each of the ACLU and EFF. And as to talking about the attacks - there's nothing wrong with that, but don't kid yourself. There's nothing wrong with talking - if one doesn't talk, one forgets - I'm just sick of people empathising with me, sharing my pain and loss when I have no pain and haven't suffered loss, and assuming because I live here I need help, emotional or otherwise. New yorkers are a particular hardy group, so for the last time, we're fine. It's the rest of the country I'm worried about.;)
Alright, this might annoy some people, but I'll go for it because I'm frankly sick of all this.
I live in New York. Last week I got an email from an old acquaintence ("Old aquaintance" translates to "sends me chain letters and won't stop") asking everyone on the list to pray for the dead and those who have lost. She also suggested that everyone drive with their headlights on today (Twin beams of light! Get it?!?). I normally ignore her, but on this one I snapped. Like a good portion of people in New York (I assume), the attacks affected me for two weeks. It was horrible to see the city shut down for a week - it seemed impossible. But life went on. I didn't lose anyone. I didn't didn't lose my job.
But people refused to let go - the media and politicians, specifically, as well as Americans who now use this as a way of explaining who we are as a nation. It's not denial on my part or anything - the actual attacks haven't affected me in any way, emotional or otherwise, in a little under a year.
The things that have affected me are things like the US PATRIOT act, Bush's rampant power-grab. So I emailed my friend back and told her to give $50 to the ACLU or the EFF. You want to help, fine, but prayer does absolutely nothing, and driving with your lights on is stupid. It's...painless. You're not pinching your budget, you're not donating time. Do something substantial.
I think our attitude (ok, mine) is summed up perfectly as this: We don't ever want to forget, but we don't want to be constantly reminded either.
It's not online yet but there's a wonderful article voicing this opinion much better than I can in this month's Harper's. I suggest you pick up a copy.
"Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality: Solving the Quantum Mysteries" by John Gribbin. Very readable and occasionally funny. Bit of a steep learning curve but you don't really notice it if you've got a few physics classes under your belt.
"The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory" by Brian Greene. excellent read (although I'm only halfway through - there might be plot twists that I don't know about.;)
Oh, and I'd also pick up a copy of "Copenhagen" by Michael Frayn. No, on second thoughts, I'd pick up a copy on CD. It's a play, and should be seen...but since that's not available, you're better off listening to it instead.:)
setting up an account on mp3.com couldn't hurt. other than p2p networks it's where most people (Meaning, "I") go for random new music downloads. Legal, too.:)
one of the games I grew up with on my gradfather's computer was the Sierra Hoyle card games collection - hearts, old maid, etc. It was great - you could play as (and against) characters from other Sierra games. I had a blast playing as Roger Wilco from the Space Quest series and against Rosilla (?) from King's Quest because I knew all the references. It was a riot. The characters had primitive expressions too. They growled (especially the bulldog), they pouted, they grinned. It was quite a trip.
The worst, the absolute worst, is an afternoon rushhour on a crowded NYC commuter bus. People get on, and the phones come out. Dozens of them, inches from your head. It's like sitting in a moving bee-hive. I've started to walk home to avoid it.
One terriffic anecdote tho - I was coming home one night and the woman sitting in front of me was talking to her friend sitting beside her, and the conversation was making a lot of people on the bus try not to laugh. It doesn't matter what it was about, the point is that her cel went off and she started to tell whoever called the same stupid story. The greatest thing was her ringtone - "If I Only Had A Brain." She really couldn't understand why she was getting such strange looks.
Apple seems to have the most geek-friendly attitude towards digital music and fair use - they ask not to steal music and (as far as iTunes / iPods are concerned) obscure the methods to do so without completely preventing it. As a practicing musician myself I understand the necessity of copyright and all its baggage and am enthralled with Apple's stand - I also grew up writing / scoring all my stuff on a variety of macs. I'm therefore wholeheartedly biased and would like another professional opinion.
So I guess the question is: How do you feel about Apple's stance on fair use?
Ok, so I can see the advantages, what with the machines taking credit cards, etc, but it seems kinda silly to me. You still need to be there to load the friggin' thing up after all, so you might as well pay with cash, and personally I'm not so anal with my laundry that there's a specific point in the cycle I need to add soap. laundry+soap=clean, I don't need to add such a pesky variable as soaptime.
If the whole point is to reduce work then they need to eliminate the trip itself - once you're physically there, anything else you need to do (soap, paying) doesn't change the fact that I've hauled 30 pounds of laundry three blocks, waited around for an hour and hauled it back. Besides, they don't need to be connected to the 'net proper to take creditcards - a plain vanilla phone line to the creditcard company's server will do just fine.
I'm not saying this isn't a cool hack, the epitome of geek, but I'm not going to be really impressed until a robot picks up my laundry, washes it, debits my creditcard and returns it, preferably folded.
The key word in my original post was 'relatively.' Yes, PATH has lots of advertizing, but compared to a similar train on the NYC subway their ads are less prominant and, IMO, nowhere near as slick. That was all I meant.:)
ads in subways are a sweetspot in the ad industry - think about it, you've got people captivated for minutes at a time with nothing to look at (books, mags, music aside)except the ads on the walls. The industry took this to a new level a few years ago by selling ad space by the half car (which makes sense - if you're sitting you can't see what's behind you) so you'll get an entire car-length of nike, microsoft or dewars. This is just an explosion of that.
Keep in mind also, that this was demoed on the PATH line between New York and New Jersey which, until recently, was relatively ad-free. It changed a year or so ago with the installation of closed-circuit TV monitors that show powerpoint-style ads and subway information (next train in x mintues, etc.) The article says that the PATH lost 50 million last year despite raising fares by 50%. They're desperate for cash.
Personally, i'll deal with the ads if I still get to get to jersey for a buck and change. It's a helluva lot cheaper than the commuter busses, that's for sure.
From my years as a book jockey I can tell you a few things about ISBN's.
1. ISBN's almost always start with zero or one, although that's changing as more companies get into the game. Texkbooks and reference books usually start with 9, for example.
2. The first 5 digits id the top level manufacturer. This was handy because imprints that were owned by another company still had the first 5 digits of their parent company's code - pocket books, for instance, is owned by simon and schuster.(although many pub's had more than one manufacturer code).
3. The second 5 digits are a product code.
4. The last two digits are a checksum to make sure the ISBN is valid. There's a formula something like "add the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th digits and divide by the 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th digits. the checksum is the remainder." I don't know exactly what the formula is, but I'm dying to know, it's been bugging me for years.
Fun fact: Hardcover, trade paper and Mass Market editions of the same book have different ISBNs, but different editions/printings of the same book usually have the same isbn. While conserving available codes, it's quite annoying when someone's looking for a specific edition.
I live in New York City. Here you'd be lucky to see the north star on a normal night. Ground lights and buildings obstructing your view do not for good shower viewing make.
However, a good portion of my friends live in central Jersey. During the last major shower a few of us were lying on the hood of a car in the middle of nowhere, freezing our collective asses of, watching the sky falling. Granted, it wasn't as clear as it could've been, but the contrast between there and NYC was amazing.
I don't care how popular you say it is, or isn't, I'll buy pretty much anything that's actually written by Tom Clancy, just put it somewhere that I'll notice it.
that's depressing. I'll buy the books by said author if they're well reviewed. What are you, some kind of lemming? And besides, the bestseller rack is where roughly half of B&N's customers head as soon as they hit the door. Why? Because they take out full page adds in the local papers flaunting the list, so it being visible isn't a problem.
Now that that little spout of venting's over with:
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if N copies of every book by a certain author sell in month 1, for the past 5 books, that the next book is also going to be a bestseller, whether or not it's any good.
Granted, but the term's contradictory and vague. Public perseption of what a bestseller is, is a book that sells amazingly well. That's not the B&N definition. Their definition is how many books have been ordered from the distributors, not sold, nation-wide. Hence a book being hailed as a bestseller without selling a single copy.
Pop quiz: What's the largest book distributor in the country? Ingram. Who owns ingram? Barnes & Noble. I don't care what you say, I worked at the largest B&N in the country for three years and I know how it works. the list is a publicity stunt and a sham. Nothing wrong with it, it's just not what most people think it is.
Next time you want to start a conversation, it's probably better if you don't attack whoever you're talking to. I speak from experience - you're welcome to your opinion, but don't you dare tell me what I did and didn't learn. Take your condescension somewhere else, I won't tolerate it.
it makes you wonder if there is any correlation to talent or if the General reading public is truly a good representation to judge what is quality literature.
I posted this somewhere on slashdot before, but I'll reiterate: I used to work as a supervisor at Barnes & Noble. Believe me when I tell you that their bestseller list is nothing but marketing and hype.
The best example I can give you of this (apart from the Oprah list you already mentioned) is something Barnes & Noble calls "Out of the Box Bestsellers" - essentially meaning that, based on the popularity of an author and "how many copies have been pre-ordered from the distributors" (IE: how popular B&N wants to make it) a book will hit their bestsellers list BEFORE it's EVER sold a copy. Amy Tan's "Bonesetter's Daughter" was like that. Let's see...Tom Clancy, Rowling and Mary Higgins Clark were all like that as well.
The reader comes away from non-fiction with something besides an altered emotional state.
I would say in addition to an altered emotional state, but that's semantics. Pure history is just stories, like fiction, they just happened to be REALLY true instead of a creation of an over-active imagination. If you're talking about a technical manual, THAT'S pure information, and I agree that an emotional stake is limited.
And, I would argue that if a writer of a historical novel had to sacrifice one of historical accuracy and literary quality, the former should be the first to go
Absolutely. Look at the film treatment of "A Beautiful Mind". For the sake of narrative the screenwriter decided to leave out the troubling fact that Nash's wife left him for 20-odd years only to return to him later. I feel the story is stronger (if less 'true') with that omission.
Just because crappy romance novels are badly written and appeal to the lowest common denominator of human emotions doesn't mean that better fiction is after a different target.
No, but there is a fundamental and critical difference - when appealing to the lowest common denominator all emotion is stripped of its complexity to be relatable by all. It doesn't make you think, which I believe is the most fundamental achievement of good fiction over emotional involvement (pulling the heartstrings is easy) - one walks away from a good novel thinking 'hmmmm...' instead of simply reading to pass the time.
Also, by attempting to appeal to everyone you have to, bluntly, communicate to the stupidest person in the audience. Good novels require a sense of history, a knowledge of its precursors and a willingness to work to enjoy it. Just look at the difference between Brittish sitcoms and American (I'm generalizing here). 'Blackadder' (as I posted somewhere else on slashdot recently) requires a pretty good knowledge of history to understand - it appeals to the educated on the show's highest level. 'Friends', on the other hand, is ALL about embarassing situations and pratfalls. There is no higher level.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you almost completely. I'm just fleshing some things out for ya.:)
Go in its pure form is played on a 19x19 board as supposed to an 8x8 board
Not to be anal, but you're comparing squares to intersections. Chess is played in the squares of a board 8 squares by 8 squares. Go is played on the intersections of a board 19 points by 19 points.
You can play a fast game of go on the intersections of a standard chess board - your typical lunch break 9X9 games. Saves the trouble of carting two boards around provided you don't mind the colored squares.:)
Slashdot Mirror
yeah yeah, replying to my own post. Just wanted to add that my childhood memory apparently ain't so great. The pic's in the upper right corner. :P
Triv
I do! They had armbands to trigger beaming back to their ship - lose an armband, you're screwed. And their ship looked like...well...it looked like three inflated condoms stuck to another inflated condom with toothpicks. Bright yellow. Ugh. :)
:)
The only episode I remember involved a shuttle with two people aboard that needed to be 80 kilos lighter to survive some disaster, and the computer calmly reminding one of the guys that the other one weighs just over the weight necessary. So he tries to shove him out an airlock. The other guys hides. But then the first guy finds an amazingly dense cube that's keeping them there and is trying to convince the hiding guy to help him push the damn thing to the airlock. It was really cool.
I'd LOVE this one on DVD.
just so you know, I have an LCD iMac (which DOES have a fan built into the top of the dome) but it's virtually silent. I usually can't tell it's on at all (apart from the power light :P) without holding my hand up to the vents to feel the airflow.
:)
My external 80gb firewire harddrive sounds like a jet engine in comparison.
The point being that just because it has a fan doesn't mean it has to be loud - a good part of it is design.
If I want silence, I'm lucky enough for my external drive to only house my mp3's and it's got a power switch for when I'm not listening to tunes.
Triv
heh. THink you got it bad? She goes to my old highschool. :)
TRiv
From the article:
:(
RIAA® members create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 90% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States.
That might be FUD, but damn. I knew it was bad, but I had no idea it was THAT bad.
Triv
ANyone here know the Billy Joel song "Miami 2017: Seen the Lights Go Out On Broadway"? For the two weeks following the attack I walked around the city (mostly around 5th ave and 59th - I was working in the GM building) singing that song. It was...cathartic. Sums up my opinion on the whole thing quite nicely. The lyrics are reprinted below without any permission whatsoever.
Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)
I've seen the lights go out on Broadway
I saw the Empire State laid low.
And life went on beyond the Palisades,
They all bought Cadillacs
And left there long ago.
We held a concert out in Brooklyn
To watch the Island bridges blow.
They turned our power down,
And drove us underground
But we went right on with the show
I've seen the lights go out on Broadway
I saw the ruins at my feet,
You know we almost didn't notice it
We'd see it all the time on Forty-Second Street.
They burned the churches up in Harlem
Like in that Spanish Civil War
The flames were everywhere,
But no one really cared
It always burned up there before
I saw the lights go out on Broadway
I watched the mighty skyline fall.
The boats were waiting at the Battery,
The union went on strike
They never sailed at all.
They sent a carrier out from Norfolk
And picked the Yankees up for free.
They said that Queens could stay,
They blew the Bronx away
And sank Manhattan out to sea
You know those lights were bright on Broadway
But that was so many years ago
Before we all lived here in Florida
Before the Mafia took over Mexico.
There are not many who remember
They say a handful still survive
To tell the world about the way the lights went out,
And keep the memory alive
Triv
...which, as far as I can tell, you can't do on OS X - you're stuck with the whole damn thing, and no matter how much I try to convince it that I LIKE Mail.app, it refuses to let mailto: links open it instead of its own client. 'Course, there's prolly some fantastically easy way around this I'm missing...:)
Triv
most people need these events to help them cope with the loss. If you think the emotional impact only affected people of NY, you are wrong.
;)
Yes, driving with your lights on makes one feel better. Fine. But it doesn't do anything apart from that. The attacks weren't a singular event, they were a part of a timeline. There were causes of it and radical changes because of it. Some of those changes were for the better, some were for the worse. Doesn't it make more sense to deal with the negative effects (like the PATRIOT act) rather than worrying about an event you can't do anything about anymore?
It isn't about to towers falling, its about suddenlly relizing how vunerable we are, and how fast the worlds can change.
Correction: how vulnerable we were. If there's one thing we got out of this it's the loss of the eighties, Iran-Contra era attitude of "We've been hijacked so we'll be docile because someone on the ground will save us". It was a singular, catastrophic and bloodthirsty act and, because of the way many attitudes have changed in the aftermath, it's unlikely to happen again. And if it does, we'll adapt again. It's like testing car safety - we can't possibly plug every security hole until we know the hole exists, and we can't know some of the holes exist until someone exploits them. And I don't think there's anything wrong with change. 5,000 people are dead, and I grieved for them. But I can't go on grieving for them. The event, as horrific as it was, is over.
You odn't wan't to pray? fine. You don't want to remeber? fine. but most people need to remember and talk about to to heal properly.
Firstly, I specifically said "we'll never forget, but we don't need to be reminded." I don't want to forget, but I don't want it to be forced on me as a driving force behind my life either. And secondly: no. Most people need to get on with their lives, get back into a routine and let things return to normal. That does not include President Bush reading the names of all 5,000 victims at Ground Zero. I said it before - most New Yorkers are over it. It'll always be in the backs of our heads of course, it was a traumatic few weeks. But the healing is not accomplished by thinking of all the people who are praying for us. It's done by living. The seems to me that the rest of the country is hanging onto this a helluva lot harder than we are - as I said originally, it's become a defining moment for anyone who wasn't even remotely close to here. I mean, if we were here and we're fine what's your hangup?
so, how has the US PATRIOT ACT directly affected you? Its a fair question, because you seem to think that the attack on the towers isn't worth talking about because it has had no direct impact on you after the first to weeks. Which, as we both know, is untrue.
That's kinda the point. You're right, the PATRIOT ACT hasn't affected me, and guess what: I don't want it to. I didn't have a say in whether my hometown got bombed or not, but I sure as hell have a say in whether my constitutional rights mean anything. I don't exactly live the good life, but I throw $20 a month to each of the ACLU and EFF. And as to talking about the attacks - there's nothing wrong with that, but don't kid yourself. There's nothing wrong with talking - if one doesn't talk, one forgets - I'm just sick of people empathising with me, sharing my pain and loss when I have no pain and haven't suffered loss, and assuming because I live here I need help, emotional or otherwise. New yorkers are a particular hardy group, so for the last time, we're fine. It's the rest of the country I'm worried about.
Triv
Alright, this might annoy some people, but I'll go for it because I'm frankly sick of all this.
I live in New York. Last week I got an email from an old acquaintence ("Old aquaintance" translates to "sends me chain letters and won't stop") asking everyone on the list to pray for the dead and those who have lost. She also suggested that everyone drive with their headlights on today (Twin beams of light! Get it?!?). I normally ignore her, but on this one I snapped. Like a good portion of people in New York (I assume), the attacks affected me for two weeks. It was horrible to see the city shut down for a week - it seemed impossible. But life went on. I didn't lose anyone. I didn't didn't lose my job.
But people refused to let go - the media and politicians, specifically, as well as Americans who now use this as a way of explaining who we are as a nation. It's not denial on my part or anything - the actual attacks haven't affected me in any way, emotional or otherwise, in a little under a year.
The things that have affected me are things like the US PATRIOT act, Bush's rampant power-grab. So I emailed my friend back and told her to give $50 to the ACLU or the EFF. You want to help, fine, but prayer does absolutely nothing, and driving with your lights on is stupid. It's...painless. You're not pinching your budget, you're not donating time. Do something substantial.
I think our attitude (ok, mine) is summed up perfectly as this: We don't ever want to forget, but we don't want to be constantly reminded either.
It's not online yet but there's a wonderful article voicing this opinion much better than I can in this month's Harper's. I suggest you pick up a copy.
Triv
Let's see...
;)
:)
"Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality: Solving the Quantum Mysteries" by John Gribbin. Very readable and occasionally funny. Bit of a steep learning curve but you don't really notice it if you've got a few physics classes under your belt.
"The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory" by Brian Greene. excellent read (although I'm only halfway through - there might be plot twists that I don't know about.
Oh, and I'd also pick up a copy of "Copenhagen" by Michael Frayn. No, on second thoughts, I'd pick up a copy on CD. It's a play, and should be seen...but since that's not available, you're better off listening to it instead.
Triv
setting up an account on mp3.com couldn't hurt. other than p2p networks it's where most people (Meaning, "I") go for random new music downloads. Legal, too. :)
Triv
one of the games I grew up with on my gradfather's computer was the Sierra Hoyle card games collection - hearts, old maid, etc. It was great - you could play as (and against) characters from other Sierra games. I had a blast playing as Roger Wilco from the Space Quest series and against Rosilla (?) from King's Quest because I knew all the references. It was a riot. The characters had primitive expressions too. They growled (especially the bulldog), they pouted, they grinned. It was quite a trip.
Triv
The worst, the absolute worst, is an afternoon rushhour on a crowded NYC commuter bus. People get on, and the phones come out. Dozens of them, inches from your head. It's like sitting in a moving bee-hive. I've started to walk home to avoid it.
One terriffic anecdote tho - I was coming home one night and the woman sitting in front of me was talking to her friend sitting beside her, and the conversation was making a lot of people on the bus try not to laugh. It doesn't matter what it was about, the point is that her cel went off and she started to tell whoever called the same stupid story. The greatest thing was her ringtone - "If I Only Had A Brain." She really couldn't understand why she was getting such strange looks.
Triv
the label then forces them to change their image / play crappy music written by some 2-bit composer
:)
Mmm...binary music. Can't beat the rhythmic complexity of OnOffOffOffOnOffOffOffOff.
Triv
Apple seems to have the most geek-friendly attitude towards digital music and fair use - they ask not to steal music and (as far as iTunes / iPods are concerned) obscure the methods to do so without completely preventing it. As a practicing musician myself I understand the necessity of copyright and all its baggage and am enthralled with Apple's stand - I also grew up writing / scoring all my stuff on a variety of macs. I'm therefore wholeheartedly biased and would like another professional opinion.
So I guess the question is: How do you feel about Apple's stance on fair use?
Triv
(Note: I didn't RTFA. You've been warned)
Ok, so I can see the advantages, what with the machines taking credit cards, etc, but it seems kinda silly to me. You still need to be there to load the friggin' thing up after all, so you might as well pay with cash, and personally I'm not so anal with my laundry that there's a specific point in the cycle I need to add soap. laundry+soap=clean, I don't need to add such a pesky variable as soaptime.
If the whole point is to reduce work then they need to eliminate the trip itself - once you're physically there, anything else you need to do (soap, paying) doesn't change the fact that I've hauled 30 pounds of laundry three blocks, waited around for an hour and hauled it back. Besides, they don't need to be connected to the 'net proper to take creditcards - a plain vanilla phone line to the creditcard company's server will do just fine.
I'm not saying this isn't a cool hack, the epitome of geek, but I'm not going to be really impressed until a robot picks up my laundry, washes it, debits my creditcard and returns it, preferably folded.
Triv
The key word in my original post was 'relatively.' Yes, PATH has lots of advertizing, but compared to a similar train on the NYC subway their ads are less prominant and, IMO, nowhere near as slick. That was all I meant. :)
Triv
ads in subways are a sweetspot in the ad industry - think about it, you've got people captivated for minutes at a time with nothing to look at (books, mags, music aside)except the ads on the walls. The industry took this to a new level a few years ago by selling ad space by the half car (which makes sense - if you're sitting you can't see what's behind you) so you'll get an entire car-length of nike, microsoft or dewars. This is just an explosion of that.
Keep in mind also, that this was demoed on the PATH line between New York and New Jersey which, until recently, was relatively ad-free. It changed a year or so ago with the installation of closed-circuit TV monitors that show powerpoint-style ads and subway information (next train in x mintues, etc.) The article says that the PATH lost 50 million last year despite raising fares by 50%. They're desperate for cash.
Personally, i'll deal with the ads if I still get to get to jersey for a buck and change. It's a helluva lot cheaper than the commuter busses, that's for sure.
Triv
From my years as a book jockey I can tell you a few things about ISBN's.
1. ISBN's almost always start with zero or one, although that's changing as more companies get into the game. Texkbooks and reference books usually start with 9, for example.
2. The first 5 digits id the top level manufacturer. This was handy because imprints that were owned by another company still had the first 5 digits of their parent company's code - pocket books, for instance, is owned by simon and schuster.(although many pub's had more than one manufacturer code).
3. The second 5 digits are a product code.
4. The last two digits are a checksum to make sure the ISBN is valid. There's a formula something like "add the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th digits and divide by the 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th digits. the checksum is the remainder." I don't know exactly what the formula is, but I'm dying to know, it's been bugging me for years.
Fun fact: Hardcover, trade paper and Mass Market editions of the same book have different ISBNs, but different editions/printings of the same book usually have the same isbn. While conserving available codes, it's quite annoying when someone's looking for a specific edition.
Triv
I live in New York City. Here you'd be lucky to see the north star on a normal night. Ground lights and buildings obstructing your view do not for good shower viewing make.
However, a good portion of my friends live in central Jersey. During the last major shower a few of us were lying on the hood of a car in the middle of nowhere, freezing our collective asses of, watching the sky falling. Granted, it wasn't as clear as it could've been, but the contrast between there and NYC was amazing.
Triv
I don't care how popular you say it is, or isn't, I'll buy pretty much anything that's actually written by Tom Clancy, just put it somewhere that I'll notice it.
that's depressing. I'll buy the books by said author if they're well reviewed. What are you, some kind of lemming? And besides, the bestseller rack is where roughly half of B&N's customers head as soon as they hit the door. Why? Because they take out full page adds in the local papers flaunting the list, so it being visible isn't a problem.
Now that that little spout of venting's over with:
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if N copies of every book by a certain author sell in month 1, for the past 5 books, that the next book is also going to be a bestseller, whether or not it's any good.
Granted, but the term's contradictory and vague. Public perseption of what a bestseller is, is a book that sells amazingly well. That's not the B&N definition. Their definition is how many books have been ordered from the distributors, not sold, nation-wide. Hence a book being hailed as a bestseller without selling a single copy.
Pop quiz: What's the largest book distributor in the country? Ingram. Who owns ingram? Barnes & Noble. I don't care what you say, I worked at the largest B&N in the country for three years and I know how it works. the list is a publicity stunt and a sham. Nothing wrong with it, it's just not what most people think it is.
Next time you want to start a conversation, it's probably better if you don't attack whoever you're talking to. I speak from experience - you're welcome to your opinion, but don't you dare tell me what I did and didn't learn. Take your condescension somewhere else, I won't tolerate it.
Triv
it makes you wonder if there is any correlation to talent or if the General reading public is truly a good representation to judge what is quality literature.
I posted this somewhere on slashdot before, but I'll reiterate: I used to work as a supervisor at Barnes & Noble. Believe me when I tell you that their bestseller list is nothing but marketing and hype.
The best example I can give you of this (apart from the Oprah list you already mentioned) is something Barnes & Noble calls "Out of the Box Bestsellers" - essentially meaning that, based on the popularity of an author and "how many copies have been pre-ordered from the distributors" (IE: how popular B&N wants to make it) a book will hit their bestsellers list BEFORE it's EVER sold a copy. Amy Tan's "Bonesetter's Daughter" was like that. Let's see...Tom Clancy, Rowling and Mary Higgins Clark were all like that as well.
Triv
The aquafiles rebate is for Amazon. Nice try tho. :)
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Round two, eh? :)
:)
The reader comes away from non-fiction with something besides an altered emotional state.
I would say in addition to an altered emotional state, but that's semantics. Pure history is just stories, like fiction, they just happened to be REALLY true instead of a creation of an over-active imagination. If you're talking about a technical manual, THAT'S pure information, and I agree that an emotional stake is limited.
And, I would argue that if a writer of a historical novel had to sacrifice one of historical accuracy and literary quality, the former should be the first to go
Absolutely. Look at the film treatment of "A Beautiful Mind". For the sake of narrative the screenwriter decided to leave out the troubling fact that Nash's wife left him for 20-odd years only to return to him later. I feel the story is stronger (if less 'true') with that omission.
Just because crappy romance novels are badly written and appeal to the lowest common denominator of human emotions doesn't mean that better fiction is after a different target.
No, but there is a fundamental and critical difference - when appealing to the lowest common denominator all emotion is stripped of its complexity to be relatable by all. It doesn't make you think, which I believe is the most fundamental achievement of good fiction over emotional involvement (pulling the heartstrings is easy) - one walks away from a good novel thinking 'hmmmm...' instead of simply reading to pass the time.
Also, by attempting to appeal to everyone you have to, bluntly, communicate to the stupidest person in the audience. Good novels require a sense of history, a knowledge of its precursors and a willingness to work to enjoy it. Just look at the difference between Brittish sitcoms and American (I'm generalizing here). 'Blackadder' (as I posted somewhere else on slashdot recently) requires a pretty good knowledge of history to understand - it appeals to the educated on the show's highest level. 'Friends', on the other hand, is ALL about embarassing situations and pratfalls. There is no higher level.
Don't get me wrong, I agree with you almost completely. I'm just fleshing some things out for ya.
Triv
Go in its pure form is played on a 19x19 board as supposed to an 8x8 board
:)
Not to be anal, but you're comparing squares to intersections. Chess is played in the squares of a board 8 squares by 8 squares. Go is played on the intersections of a board 19 points by 19 points.
You can play a fast game of go on the intersections of a standard chess board - your typical lunch break 9X9 games. Saves the trouble of carting two boards around provided you don't mind the colored squares.
Triv