It looks more like a cross between Nausicaa's glider and an early MiG jet fighter. The only thing that makes it Mehve-like is the "superstructure" and the intake port, but the wings are all wrong.
Don't mind me, I'm just being pedantic. =)
(And yes, "authenticity" is being sacrificed for functionality. I get it. Really.)
Apparently I am the sucker born every minute. I actually bought this for a whole 20 seconds while I clicked over to the Enlightenment website and stared at it in confusion.
And yes, in fact I did hear that the word gullible isn't in the dictionary. Thanks for pointing that out. Yeah.
The RDBS/RDS technology takes a slice out of the available broadcast bandwidth of the radio station. In our case (Entercom Portland) we're doing the digital readout broadcasts but we've got it dialed to use as little bandwidth as possible to give the actual broadcast programming the room it needs.
Many receivers, even the fancy-pants tuners in our own equipment room, routinely skip letters (and entire words) from the text because we've pared the RDS feed so close to the bone... but there's no interest in expanding that capability since it would mean making the station sound worse. Let's see: Make the broadcast that provides our revenue sound better? Or expand the technology that scrolls goofy text bits on somebody's car radio? Tough call.
Correction: There is interest in expanding the RDS capability, but only from the sales side of the building. *grumble* "What? Something else we can sell? Fantastic!"
I loved that show. Cheesy, but it was certainly several notches above some of the other crap I loved back then, such as Thundercats.
I have the opening and both closing themes as crappy-sounding MP3s downloaded from some Galaxy Rangers fansite. If nothing else, this proves that I'm not just an anime fanboy... not that this really indicates any sort of broadened horizons, mind you.
Well, I now have an X-Prize contestant to root for...
Well, I agree with you on the first point. But the second point: well, because of the widespread voter apathy in this country, you only have to get a small populatin of the people to actually give enough of a shit about an issue to get a victory. It makes it easier. So if you give a damn, vote!
(I did, thanks. *grin*) Thank you for putting a hopeful and more positive perspective on voter apathy. I wish I'd thought of that, but... hell, being up at 3am did allow me to not-quite-first-post this article but it also robbed me of many normally-functional brain cells. I won't bore the crowd with why I was up at that hour.
Of course, you have to stir the right chunk of apathetic voters, but the basic principle seems sound... to someone with absolutely no political background like myself, mind you.;-)
My take on it? Snowball's chance in hell. Not her fault, or Dave Winer's, just how it's going to play out. The piece is worth reading anyway, both for some choice rhetoric and a few bits of background info for those of us who aren't Radioland devotees or political pundits.
All of those nationwide supporters aren't going to help unless they all have close friends and relatives in the district of contention, now are they? Combine that with the widespread voter apathy in this country and... feh.
(Side note: The recent mail-in elections here in Oregon barely stirred the needle above "Total Apathy," even with parents who had very vested interests in the school funding measures! "Oh, the measures won't pass anyway, so I didn't bother." You said WHAT?!? Grrrr.)
OK Since I'm currently in Japan, currently speak Japanese, and am an insane anime fan (please don't slashdot my homepage) I can sort of speak on this subject with at least some sense that I know what I'm talking about.
[shameless plug] He's also one helluva AMV creator. Dig through animemusicvideos.org for ErMaC videos.[/shameless plug]
I will agree that learning Japanese will benefit your enjoyment and understanding of Japanese, especially of Japanese culture. You can tell who these people are when they laugh at the scene in TenchiMuyo OVA ep1 where Aeka sneezes right after Ryoko talks (those who've seen it know what I'm talking about). Cultural nuances like that will fall on deaf... eyes, unless you provide liner notes or something. Also there are plenty of things in Japanese which just do not translate. There is no good way to translate the fact that certain people in Scyed talk in Keigo all the time. There is no good way to translate the pun in Puni Puni Poemi involving 80 gram breasts (and it's a brilliant pun).
I invite you to try, now that you've made us all curious, ErMaC. =)
Oddly enough, I picked up on there being something about Aeka's sneeze in episode 2 and made reference to it in my [shameful plug] Tenchi Muyo Thumbnail Theater. [/shameful plug] "Aeka: *sneeze* Are my ears burning, or is it just hot in here?" I guess if you watch enough anime and are looking for cultural stuff, you'll pick up a few things.
I don't know about nytimes.com, but winamp-skins.com uses a.js file linked from the HEAD tag to launch its popup... and Mozilla's pref setting doesn't stop it. Grr. I poked around at bugzilla but couldn't find anything referring to this behaviour. I'm still deciding if I should take a stab at writing a bug report.
That should read, "Danny Elfman hasn't sounded good since Batman." Snip "this" out of the original sentence.
The music was a non-starter for us. It was a lifeless pastiche of everything else Elfman's ever done, and I dare you to pick out a memorable melodic line. I dare you to remember any given series of notes.
Blargh. It was awful. Luckily, it was so lifeless that it never got in the way of the movie, so in that respect the music (kind of) succeeded.
The "nuclear family" consisting of my wife, my 9 year old son, my 8 year old daughter and myself, all went for a sneak-preview night (the day before opening day, big deal). The kids loved it unconditionally. My son told me during one of the better Peter/MJ scenes that "we have to buy this when it comes out."
I put up a review on my site, for what little that's worth.
Anyway how can they enforce this on some 14 year old shoutcasting through his cable connection?
That's not the target of this particular move. The target is radio broadcasters and, essentially, anyone else who might have a real chance at competing with the RIAA members' own services. Low-listenership Shout/Icecasting isn't going to take a big bite out of their revenue pie like replicated terrestrial broadcasters (hypothetically) could.
Visit saveinternetradio.org, a site by the folks behind the Radio And Internet Newsletter, or RAIN. We in the radio broadcast industry are doing everything we can to make it clear that the CARP recommendations, based almost line-by-line on what the RIAA asked for, would effectively eliminate radio broadcasters from the internet streaming arena. Oddly enough, RIAA member companies are in the process of rolling out their own for-pay services... coincidence, right?
1) Having to tell my friends that I can only play 2 hours during their all day LAN party because I have to help the wife take care of our newborn.
But when they're not newborns anymore and can basically mind themselves for the most part, then you can set up a LAN gaming system in the spare bedroom for the benefit of you and your beloved. It's quality time, as long as you pick games you can agree on. In our case... Diablo II, Heroes III, Age 2: TC...
Time is on your side.
Oh, and CONGRATS TO THE HAPPY COUPLE!!!
It's only as bad as you let it become
on
Browsing Alone
·
· Score: 1
I'll try to keep this brief, as it's just another reiteration of something I've heard others put in better words than I can muster.
For one thing, perspective is the most important tool we have to evaluate the danger of any given so-called "social change." You can't know how it's going to turn out until it's over, so there's the perspective of time. You can't make blanket claims about Everyone by contemplating your navel and/or extrapolating some anecdotal evidence from a few test cases, so there's the perspective of focus. I'm sure that the smarter readers among you can take this idea further along than I.
Throwing aside perspective for a moment, I've come to be aware of the potential danger of becoming socially detached at a personal level. I'm not speaking for anyone but myself and my children now. What do I do about it? I make sure that there is balance in our daily routine, variety in our lives. Yes, there are times when one or another of us will be alone on the computer, oblivious to society. Sometimes it's me. That's a good thing, being able to get away, to enjoy privacy, and it's not always staring into a glowing box either. (There's these books and what-not, too.) At other times we're out and about in the Big Bad World, learning and seeing and doing and meeting. Even when we're engaged in computer-related activities, it's often in a social way: We play lots of different multiplayer games on the ol' home LAN.
All you can really do is look out for yourself and anyone you may be responsible for. Teach. Observe. Be aware. Hell, that actually takes care of any number of potential crises, now doesn't it?
Re:blogging and the death of the commons
on
Browsing Alone
·
· Score: 1
But there is a place for debate, and there is a place for putting down one's thoughts without having to worry about some twit with a giant-killer complex spoiling it all.
Precisely! Looking back, every website I've claimed as my own was essentially for this very reason. In a way, it's an accepted form of talking to yourself. Why do I talk to myself? Because I have thoughts and ideas all the time, and articulating not only helps to refine them but there's also that slim chance someone will hear you and give a rat's ass.
Case in point: May of 2001, I lost my assistant in a major round of corporate layoffs. I posted several entries over the course of two weeks about how I felt, how my former assistant was doing, and so on. Cut to August, and I'm getting email from other newly-unemployed techies thanking me for the things I said in my journal. Apparently what I had to say about corporate America, the loss of a good coworker, employment prospects in Oregon and finding yourself without anyone to share the joy in geekery with all struck chords with random readers who Googled into my site.
Mind you, I don't post to my journal hoping for some sort of reward mechanism to kick in. I post because I have to say something, somewhere, in my own voice. I can't do it at work, and can't always do it at home. So what's to do? In a previous age I'd probably end up one of those loons downtown with the cardboard signs reading "The End Is Near, REPENT!" or something equally absurd.
This page has a sizeable list of contributed observations... neat little details that helped "make" the movie for various viewers. It's a fun read if only to see just how hard Jackson & Co. worked on this thing.
And when the DVD comes out, there'll be a revised version of the list, I'm sure. Yeah, I'll pick me up a copy...
I don't know, I think there are few prouder moments as a father than watching your offspring display a healthy disrespect for mass media.
My son, aged 9 presently, is also well-MSTied. He'll watch one MST episode and quote jokes from another. For instance during Mole People he stated, "All and, all the time." I stared at him blankly and he patiently explained that it's a joke from the opening credits of Space Children. A gentleman by the name of Alland was involved in the creation of both cinematic gems.
Pretty much the only problem now is getting him to curb his wits during inopportune situations...
The "silly chemistry trick" I remember best is an example of blowing the lid off of a paint can:
Take standard paint can. Make small hole in center of lid, make another small hole in the side at the very bottom of the can. Use hose to pump the can full of that wonderful gas that all high-school chem labs are equipped with.
Tell students that this is a nifty kind of implement by which one can read at night, and demonstrate by lighting the gas escaping via the uppermost hole.
Set "camp night-light" aside, begin regularly scheduled lecture. Chuckle when the lid flies off of the paint can with a loud BANG and by some miracle lands in the trash receptacle by the classroom door.
I don't remember a whole lot else from my high school chemistry classes (well, lots of discussions about moles... go figure) but that incident will remain vivid in my memory for many years to come.
(Oh, and I'm assuming that I don't have to explain to you bright folks what made the BANG. Nope, didn't think so. Good.)
--
I am Grey. I stand between the water and the bread crumbs.
Slashdot Mirror
It looks more like a cross between Nausicaa's glider and an early MiG jet fighter. The only thing that makes it Mehve-like is the "superstructure" and the intake port, but the wings are all wrong.
Don't mind me, I'm just being pedantic. =)
(And yes, "authenticity" is being sacrificed for functionality. I get it. Really.)
(Hey, who's the cute chick in the yellow dress over there...?)
Grrrrrr. Yes, I've been a good boy about hitting WU, but apparently that's not good enough...
And yes, in fact I did hear that the word gullible isn't in the dictionary. Thanks for pointing that out. Yeah.
Grr. I know better, right? RIGHT?
ObSimpsons moment?
"Hey wait, Xena can't fly!"
"I told you, I'm not Xena. I'm Lucy Lawless."
*eyeroll* Of course. Gally would be a perfect fit for a Cameron movie, since he already tried out the concept in the "Dark Angel" TV series.
More or less.
The RDBS/RDS technology takes a slice out of the available broadcast bandwidth of the radio station. In our case (Entercom Portland) we're doing the digital readout broadcasts but we've got it dialed to use as little bandwidth as possible to give the actual broadcast programming the room it needs.
Many receivers, even the fancy-pants tuners in our own equipment room, routinely skip letters (and entire words) from the text because we've pared the RDS feed so close to the bone... but there's no interest in expanding that capability since it would mean making the station sound worse. Let's see: Make the broadcast that provides our revenue sound better? Or expand the technology that scrolls goofy text bits on somebody's car radio? Tough call.
Correction: There is interest in expanding the RDS capability, but only from the sales side of the building. *grumble* "What? Something else we can sell? Fantastic!"
I loved that show. Cheesy, but it was certainly several notches above some of the other crap I loved back then, such as Thundercats.
I have the opening and both closing themes as crappy-sounding MP3s downloaded from some Galaxy Rangers fansite. If nothing else, this proves that I'm not just an anime fanboy... not that this really indicates any sort of broadened horizons, mind you.
Well, I now have an X-Prize contestant to root for...
Of course, you have to stir the right chunk of apathetic voters, but the basic principle seems sound... to someone with absolutely no political background like myself, mind you. ;-)
My take on it? Snowball's chance in hell. Not her fault, or Dave Winer's, just how it's going to play out. The piece is worth reading anyway, both for some choice rhetoric and a few bits of background info for those of us who aren't Radioland devotees or political pundits.
All of those nationwide supporters aren't going to help unless they all have close friends and relatives in the district of contention, now are they? Combine that with the widespread voter apathy in this country and... feh.
(Side note: The recent mail-in elections here in Oregon barely stirred the needle above "Total Apathy," even with parents who had very vested interests in the school funding measures! "Oh, the measures won't pass anyway, so I didn't bother." You said WHAT?!? Grrrr.)
[shameless plug] He's also one helluva AMV creator. Dig through animemusicvideos.org for ErMaC videos.[/shameless plug]
I invite you to try, now that you've made us all curious, ErMaC. =)
Oddly enough, I picked up on there being something about Aeka's sneeze in episode 2 and made reference to it in my [shameful plug] Tenchi Muyo Thumbnail Theater. [/shameful plug] "Aeka: *sneeze* Are my ears burning, or is it just hot in here?" I guess if you watch enough anime and are looking for cultural stuff, you'll pick up a few things.
I don't know about nytimes.com, but winamp-skins.com uses a .js file linked from the HEAD tag to launch its popup... and Mozilla's pref setting doesn't stop it. Grr. I poked around at bugzilla but couldn't find anything referring to this behaviour. I'm still deciding if I should take a stab at writing a bug report.
That should read, "Danny Elfman hasn't sounded good since Batman." Snip "this" out of the original sentence.
The music was a non-starter for us. It was a lifeless pastiche of everything else Elfman's ever done, and I dare you to pick out a memorable melodic line. I dare you to remember any given series of notes.
Blargh. It was awful. Luckily, it was so lifeless that it never got in the way of the movie, so in that respect the music (kind of) succeeded.
I put up a review on my site, for what little that's worth.
Visit saveinternetradio.org, a site by the folks behind the Radio And Internet Newsletter, or RAIN. We in the radio broadcast industry are doing everything we can to make it clear that the CARP recommendations, based almost line-by-line on what the RIAA asked for, would effectively eliminate radio broadcasters from the internet streaming arena. Oddly enough, RIAA member companies are in the process of rolling out their own for-pay services... coincidence, right?
1) Having to tell my friends that I can only play 2 hours during their all day LAN party because I have to help the wife take care of our newborn.
But when they're not newborns anymore and can basically mind themselves for the most part, then you can set up a LAN gaming system in the spare bedroom for the benefit of you and your beloved. It's quality time, as long as you pick games you can agree on. In our case... Diablo II, Heroes III, Age 2: TC...
Time is on your side.
Oh, and CONGRATS TO THE HAPPY COUPLE!!!
For one thing, perspective is the most important tool we have to evaluate the danger of any given so-called "social change." You can't know how it's going to turn out until it's over, so there's the perspective of time. You can't make blanket claims about Everyone by contemplating your navel and/or extrapolating some anecdotal evidence from a few test cases, so there's the perspective of focus. I'm sure that the smarter readers among you can take this idea further along than I.
Throwing aside perspective for a moment, I've come to be aware of the potential danger of becoming socially detached at a personal level. I'm not speaking for anyone but myself and my children now. What do I do about it? I make sure that there is balance in our daily routine, variety in our lives. Yes, there are times when one or another of us will be alone on the computer, oblivious to society. Sometimes it's me. That's a good thing, being able to get away, to enjoy privacy, and it's not always staring into a glowing box either. (There's these books and what-not, too.) At other times we're out and about in the Big Bad World, learning and seeing and doing and meeting. Even when we're engaged in computer-related activities, it's often in a social way: We play lots of different multiplayer games on the ol' home LAN.
All you can really do is look out for yourself and anyone you may be responsible for. Teach. Observe. Be aware. Hell, that actually takes care of any number of potential crises, now doesn't it?
Precisely! Looking back, every website I've claimed as my own was essentially for this very reason. In a way, it's an accepted form of talking to yourself. Why do I talk to myself? Because I have thoughts and ideas all the time, and articulating not only helps to refine them but there's also that slim chance someone will hear you and give a rat's ass.
Case in point: May of 2001, I lost my assistant in a major round of corporate layoffs. I posted several entries over the course of two weeks about how I felt, how my former assistant was doing, and so on. Cut to August, and I'm getting email from other newly-unemployed techies thanking me for the things I said in my journal. Apparently what I had to say about corporate America, the loss of a good coworker, employment prospects in Oregon and finding yourself without anyone to share the joy in geekery with all struck chords with random readers who Googled into my site.
Mind you, I don't post to my journal hoping for some sort of reward mechanism to kick in. I post because I have to say something, somewhere, in my own voice. I can't do it at work, and can't always do it at home. So what's to do? In a previous age I'd probably end up one of those loons downtown with the cardboard signs reading "The End Is Near, REPENT!" or something equally absurd.
And when the DVD comes out, there'll be a revised version of the list, I'm sure. Yeah, I'll pick me up a copy...
I'll put Jack Frost up against Day the Earth Froze any day. There are only so many times that the word "sanpo" can be funny.
"Movie? Hello? We can wait as long as you can."
"You just got yourself a big sledload of whoop-ass."
"I thought Jerry Garcia was Father Mushroom!"
"So, if you speculate about doing good it's better than actually doing it?"
"It's raining cinematic payoff!"
"And so they became professional Faberge egg imitators."
(after Nastinka pleads with the sun not to rise) "And you are...?"
Two words: "Hunchbacked fairy."
"Jack Frost opened fire on a stand of willows today..."
"So he bought a flocking gun, big deal!"
"Um, I'm NINE?!"
"Could you please turn that tape off, dad?"
*ting!* "Retsin." *ting!* "Again, retsin." *ting!* "Retsin."
"Don't touch me old man, I get more than you and I'm neutered."
I could go on and on...
Riding with Death has a truckload of great bits. One that comes readily to mind is, "So I sing you to sleep, after the truckin'..."
Any phrase with the words "mellow" and "Ben Murphy" in it.
"What time is it? D'oh! Did it again!"
For some reason, the Robert Denby stuff cracks me up.
Oh, and let's not forget that annoying cracker-behind-the-wheel sidekick who shows up in both episodes of the... er... movie. Deep hurting.
I don't know, I think there are few prouder moments as a father than watching your offspring display a healthy disrespect for mass media.
My son, aged 9 presently, is also well-MSTied. He'll watch one MST episode and quote jokes from another. For instance during Mole People he stated, "All and, all the time." I stared at him blankly and he patiently explained that it's a joke from the opening credits of Space Children. A gentleman by the name of Alland was involved in the creation of both cinematic gems.
Pretty much the only problem now is getting him to curb his wits during inopportune situations...
I'm so proud of him!
Take standard paint can. Make small hole in center of lid, make another small hole in the side at the very bottom of the can. Use hose to pump the can full of that wonderful gas that all high-school chem labs are equipped with.
Tell students that this is a nifty kind of implement by which one can read at night, and demonstrate by lighting the gas escaping via the uppermost hole.
Set "camp night-light" aside, begin regularly scheduled lecture. Chuckle when the lid flies off of the paint can with a loud BANG and by some miracle lands in the trash receptacle by the classroom door.
I don't remember a whole lot else from my high school chemistry classes (well, lots of discussions about moles... go figure) but that incident will remain vivid in my memory for many years to come.
(Oh, and I'm assuming that I don't have to explain to you bright folks what made the BANG. Nope, didn't think so. Good.)
--
I am Grey. I stand between the water and the bread crumbs.