Kucinich seems to be a better choice than Dean since he seems to be more open and has stronger convictions than Dean who seems to soften/change his stand when the clime is not right.
That is not a correct statement. Dean isn't slippery or waffley. What he does is reserves judgement until he has all the data he thinks is necessary, and then comes to a rational decision based on the input he's received. He then sticks to it until or unless new data comes up that might cause him to re-evaluate his position.
He thinks and reasons like a scientist, which makes sense because he's a Doctor (Medical, not PhD).
Slashdot readers seem to be swayed by Dean because he has tried to reach out to the techy community with technically savvy actions(gimmicks??) rather than because of his opinions
I can't speak for others, but this is simply not true of the people I know who support Dean. They don't really care that he's reaching out via the internet. What engages them is what he says and how he says it. It's his message, not a "gimmick" that attract and keep people. A gimmick might attract people, but it wouldn't keep them and it wouldn't make them cough up hard-earned cash in this economy.
Oh, he'll keep the Left, if nominated. After all, the choice is Bush, and Dean is so much better for the left than Bush is, the Left will come out en-mass to vote for Dean. I think a lot of them learned their lesson from the Nader fiasco in 2000. They won't be staying home. Some of them may not vote FOR Dean, but they will vote AGAINST Bush, and that helps Dean.
As for no credible defense policy, check out this:
And as for his message and positioning, he offers a very positive, optimistic view of the future, which counters the Bush Administration's tactic of using gloom and doom and scare tactics. I think his candidacy speech says a lot, and is well worth reading:
That's utterly ridiculous. Spend any time at all reading Dean's speeches or reviewing his stated positions, and you'll find he's not "left" at all. He's very fiscally conservative (balanced budgets) and believes in states rights (re: gun control), as well as being pro-death penalty (if only in a restricted sense). He's also no "dove", he just believes in RESPONSIBLE use of our military forces. He was for the war in Afghanistan, but against the unjustified and improperly planned and executed war in Iraq.
The media doesn't know what to do with him, and the right is trying to paint him as "horribly liberal" in an effort to discredit him. Why? I think even they realize that he has a powerful message (i.e. power belongs in the hands of the people, not the corporate and beltway interests) and positions on any number of issues that resonate well with the majority of people (equal rights for all, balanced budgets, international cooperation and engagement, health care).
Saying "Dean is perhaps the furthest to the left" shows that you know nothing about Dean, and are only regurgitating the ignorant pontifications of some right-wing pundits who also know little or nothing about Dean.
I strongly suggest you go to www.deanforamerica.com and read up on his past speeches (two to concentrate on would be his candidacy announcement speech, and the speech he gave to the Council on Foreign Relations) available at this url:
http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pa ge name=about_speech_archives
I've read up on Howard Dean, I've seen him speak in person, I've read the text of every speech he's made in the last year, and I fully and enthusiastically support him in his run for president 100%. I've given generously to his campaign (and that's something I've never ever done for any other candidate ever), and I've volunteered my time (another thing I've never done).
Dean would be about a thousand times better as president than Mr. Bush is. Mr. Bush is an utter disgrace to the office, and he needs to be thrown out ASAP. His latest round of lies that are being exposed as the justification for taking this nation to war ranks right up there with Watergate in my humble opinion, and as a far far more serious and criminal breech of ethics than lying about a blowjob.
Quite honestly, I'll vote for whomever the Dems nominate to run against Bush. But Howard Dean is the only candidate that I'd enthusiastically vote FOR. If anyone else runs, the vote would more accurately be described as against Bush.
It's also my considered opinion that only Dean has any chance of beating Bush in a general election. Dean has the message that resonates not just with the left, but with moderates and fiscal conservatives and rural constituencies as well. The press and the right try to paint him as a loony-left liberal, but he's nothing of the sort. He's a realist and not easily categorized or labeled. I guess you could say he's a fiscally conservative moderate who's relatively liberal on many social issues.
I've attended many Howard Dean "Meet-ups" so far this year, and while there are definitely left-wing people present, I was amazed at how many middle-of-the-road people were present, including some Republicans who are fed up with Bush, and see Dean as the only alternative they can bring themselves to support.
Heck, his Health Care plan is simple and straight forward, and even appeals to several Libertarians I know. Now that's a trick!
No Howard Dean supporter I'm aware of thinks Dean is a "far left evangelist". That's entirely a creation of the media, not of Dean, and not of his Campaign. The people supporting him, and showing up at the Meetups, know exactly what Dean's positions are, and know to ignore the clueless ranting of the pundits on TV.
He isn't waffling, he isn't being slippery, he's just speaking his mind, and attracting people with his message. It's the press that are confused, not his supporters. And he's the only candidate currently with any forward momentum as well.
That's because the Unix solution was to just export everything, even if you didn't want it or need it to be exposed. The Windows solution made more sense (only export those things that you want/need to export) but was more tedious.
That's hilarious. Do you honestly believe that? You can't have ever tried it, if you think that's an accurate statement.
Porting C source code between Unixes can be problematic, never mind between Windows and Unix, or other platforms. And that's staying on all 32-bits. Try going from 16-bit to 32, or from 64 to 32, or vice-versa. It's never trivial to port any non-trivial C source to another platform.
Java is a lot more portable at the source level than C.
4. Agreed. Which is why most people don't use Java for the UI. Most UIs are written in VB or Delphi, or web-based (in Flash, or HTML/Javascript).
I encourage you to take a look at IntelliJ IDEA. It blows the lid off the lie of 'show GUIs'. Other than it's start-up time (during which it's parsing your files, building caches, and other time-consuming tasks), it's quite fast. The whole thing is written in Java.
Exactly. I know several people who gave up emacs for it. One guy has always hated IDEs with a passion, but once he saw the refactorings and ability to easily browse the code, he made the switch and has never looked back. He still hates IDEs, but he loves IntelliJ IDEA:-)
Some additional info based on what you wrote here:
IntelliJ IDEA has the abbreviations feature you mention, and includes the ability to "surround selected text" with the abbreviation, and expand into complex structures (like for loops with bodies) that even substitute appropriate variable names and types for you (letting you edit them easily after the expansion). It's very powerful.
IntelliJ IDEA doesn't explicitly have the Alt-K/L feature, but it's code completion 'learns' and will put your lengthy java identifiers up top if it's the most likely choice. I do not know or understand the huristics it uses, but it's 'right' a surprising amount of the time, and when it's not, I just have to scroll down the list or type a few more characters:-)
And yes, IntelliJ IDEA has a fully functional TODO feature (you define the pattern to match, so if you prefer "To Do" or "todo" or a special comment form, just set it and IDEA does the rest).
The thing that really sets IDEA apart is the 'intentions' though. Place the cursor in your code, and IntelliJ IDEA can detect likely things you'd want to do. These include inverting if/else statements, defining undefined identifiers (and it figures out from context if it's a method or variable, etc), importing a new package, etc. The complete list of 'intentions' continually grows, and the next version opens up the "intention API" so you can plug in your own intentions (such as boolean refactorings of "if" conditions).
No, it is not free nor is it open source. You do, however, get what you pay for. The cost is a factor, though, so it may not be for you.
It's supremely configurable, very keyboard friendly, and has more and better features than its rivals, and runs faster with a better UI.
I personally have not used Eclipse, so I cannot make the judgement myself, but I've read threads debating the merits of the two, and IntelliJ's IDEA seems to come out ahead in the end.
Personally, I like the ease of use and intuitiveness. You don't need to work 'its way', but the more you use it, the more features you learn about, and many times the reward is big enough to warent changing long-time habits. One example:
Type out the word 'new' and the first few letters of the class you want. Then hit the 'code completion' key, and then hit 'introduce variable'. Wham. It completes the entire line, declaring the variable in line. You save a vast amount of typing. Or you can 'program by intention'... just start typing code. If you type a method name or variable that doesn't yet exist, just hit Alt-Enter and it'll let you create it. A simple 'back' button and you're back where you were to continue coding.
Code inspections find potential Null Pointer Exceptions and other common issues and errors; never worry about managing imports again; fold away code you don't want to see; automatically detects out of date or erronious javadocs and flags them; incredible refactoring support (rename variable, method, class; push method or varible up or down the inheritance hierarchy; introduce methods and variables; extract methods from inline code; inline methods; change method signatures; etc); real-time syntax checking and error/warning highlighting (see at a glance if you have any unused variables, private methods, typos, etc); awesome code completion; great code navigation (jump to implementation/declaration, forward/back); intelligently "find usages" of specific variables or methods; call and inheritence hierarchy trees;....
I could go on forever. Plus, if there's anything you think is missing, or don't like, you can easily write a plug-in to add it or modify the behavior. Many people have. IntelliJ even has a WIKI site for users to post their own plug-ins. They also have an excellent bug reporting system, and they're very responsive.
I have to be honest with you: I think the elves showing up at helm's deep was a change for the better. It was one of the most moving points of the film, imho, and really made the scene. Not all changes are good, and not all changes are necessary, but this one truly worked for the movie, and made the movie a better one. That is, of course, just my opinion, but of the liberties this movie takes with the book, this is the one that I stand behind most solidly as a great idea.
What, you didn't notice the testosterone surge as well? Heterosexist!:-)
The theater I saw it in (in Texas) was at least 10% gay, including my buddies from the gay rugby team... anytime Legolas or Aragorn was on screen, the testosterone surged...
Yeah, and I don't know what to say to people who hated Season 6. I loved it. I thought it was amazing and sublime. I thought it went places no network TV show had ever gone before.
It wasn't perfect. I hated the whole double-meat palace thing, personally. But over all, the season had some of my favorite moments. It was just a bet "unrelenting" at times. Still, I don't know how you could have handled the season any other way than to go as dark as it did.
And it completely shines in comparrison to season 7.
Season 5 is still my favorite though, I think. Glory, Glory!:-)
But presumably they wanted to *hide* Darth Vader's offspring from him... so why would they "hide" Luke right where Darth would expect to find him? On his home planet, with his relatives (by marriage)?
You need to finish fixing Episode II: remove that ludicrous "video game" sequence on Genosis with the droid factory. Ugh. And the Arena scene? Stolen directly from Gladiator, with one of the monsters being a complete rip off of a StarCraft Hydrolisk. Double ugh. And the whole "who ordered the clone army, and why is no one really questioning the jedi's just coming in and taking it over and using it to fight the Count..." is way too murky and unclear.
You can keep the underwater scene in Ep I if you make just one tiny change: right before Qui Gon says "There's always a bigger fish" when the big monster saves them by eating the smaller monster... have him close his eyes and reach out with the force to attract the bigger fish to their rescue. Suddenly that scene would work a lot better. Ditto for the very end... explain why there's only one federation ship more clearly, and then when the little rug-rat blows the thing up, make him more obviously use the force. The book made it much more clear about what happend, but in the movie it looked like it was nothing more than an 'accident'. Oh, and for Ep I you need to recast the kid... he was horrible.
More character development for Darth Maul is necessary as well. The only way we know he's evil is that we are told he is, and because he looks so evil. It would have been so much better to have him look more normal, but having him be SHOWN being evil.
Back to Episode II: show Aniken killing the sand people. They really wimped out on that. And you can't get rid of *all* his whining; you have to show that Luke inherits it:-)
And in both movies: get rid of the stereotypical ethnic accents and features. The best thing about the original movies were that the aliens were *alien*, and when they spoke, they spoke *alien* tongues (which were eather subtitled, or not, and we just had to infer their meanings). Ep I and II are filled with the worst characatures and stereotypes of middle-eastern/jews, rastafarians, and jackie-chan b-movie cliches imaginable. Totally distracting. And get rid of the references to our culture, like the 'doo-doo' references, and the stupid fake-looking two-headed pod-race announcer that you half-expected to say "SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!" Ugh.
I agree with all you say, I just don't think you went far enoug:-)
The "midwest" city I speak of is Columbus Ohio, which probably does have a higher percentage of gays than other smaller midwest cities. There is zero chance the employer went out of their way to reach out to gays, though. This was the early 90's as well. The executive management at this company was pretty oblivious regarding sexual orientation issues. The VP for human resources didn't even realize they employed *any* gay people.
Various different career tracks also seem to have differing percentages of gay people in them. As far as programming and software development, it seems about 'average' (between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20). With marketing types, the percentage of gays seems to skew lower. With customer service, the percentage seems to skew significantly higher.
Sorry, but Fox News is about the least 'fair and balanced' news source out there. If you think otherwise, you're not being a "pompus intellectually superior" person, you're just being rational and sane.
Sorry, but bombast, sensationalism, and spewing hate sells. That doesn't make it right, and it doesn't make it accurate news reporting. It's show business and it's about ratings and entertainment.
Besides, the fact that 'joe average' is rather uneducated isn't a shock to anyone with any awareness. But rather than pandering to the ignorance and prejudices of the masses, I'd rather more news outlets actually tried to inform and educate them. But again, where's the money in that? It's a vicious spiral down...
Salon has the advantage of showing various sides and other voices that the 'mass media' doesn't always carry. By providing more view points, a reader is able to more fully understand all the various sides and views on any given issue. I certainly don't agree with a lot of the stuff published on Salon (or Fox News), but knowing the other points of view helps round out my own opinions.
Alas, thinking in 'black and white' is simpler and takes a lot less effort than understanding all the complexities and shades of gray that exist in the real world, on every issue imaginable. Thus the popularity of Fox News and its ilk, which simply spoon-feed the "right answers" (pun intended) to the viewer.
Slashdot Mirror
Kucinich seems to be a better choice than Dean since he seems to be more open and has stronger convictions than Dean who seems to soften/change his stand when the clime is not right.
That is not a correct statement. Dean isn't slippery or waffley. What he does is reserves judgement until he has all the data he thinks is necessary, and then comes to a rational decision based on the input he's received. He then sticks to it until or unless new data comes up that might cause him to re-evaluate his position.
He thinks and reasons like a scientist, which makes sense because he's a Doctor (Medical, not PhD).
Slashdot readers seem to be swayed by Dean because he has tried to reach out to the techy community with technically savvy actions(gimmicks??) rather than because of his opinions
I can't speak for others, but this is simply not true of the people I know who support Dean. They don't really care that he's reaching out via the internet. What engages them is what he says and how he says it. It's his message, not a "gimmick" that attract and keep people. A gimmick might attract people, but it wouldn't keep them and it wouldn't make them cough up hard-earned cash in this economy.
Oh, he'll keep the Left, if nominated. After all, the choice is Bush, and Dean is so much better for the left than Bush is, the Left will come out en-mass to vote for Dean. I think a lot of them learned their lesson from the Nader fiasco in 2000. They won't be staying home. Some of them may not vote FOR Dean, but they will vote AGAINST Bush, and that helps Dean.
As for no credible defense policy, check out this:
Restoring American Leadership:
A New Direction for American Foreign Policy
And as for his message and positioning, he offers a very positive, optimistic view of the future, which counters the Bush Administration's tactic of using gloom and doom and scare tactics. I think his candidacy speech says a lot, and is well worth reading:
Great American Restoration
That's utterly ridiculous. Spend any time at all reading Dean's speeches or reviewing his stated positions, and you'll find he's not "left" at all. He's very fiscally conservative (balanced budgets) and believes in states rights (re: gun control), as well as being pro-death penalty (if only in a restricted sense). He's also no "dove", he just believes in RESPONSIBLE use of our military forces. He was for the war in Afghanistan, but against the unjustified and improperly planned and executed war in Iraq.
a ge name=about_speech_archives
The media doesn't know what to do with him, and the right is trying to paint him as "horribly liberal" in an effort to discredit him. Why? I think even they realize that he has a powerful message (i.e. power belongs in the hands of the people, not the corporate and beltway interests) and positions on any number of issues that resonate well with the majority of people (equal rights for all, balanced budgets, international cooperation and engagement, health care).
Saying "Dean is perhaps the furthest to the left" shows that you know nothing about Dean, and are only regurgitating the ignorant pontifications of some right-wing pundits who also know little or nothing about Dean.
I strongly suggest you go to www.deanforamerica.com and read up on his past speeches (two to concentrate on would be his candidacy announcement speech, and the speech he gave to the Council on Foreign Relations) available at this url:
http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?p
I've read up on Howard Dean, I've seen him speak in person, I've read the text of every speech he's made in the last year, and I fully and enthusiastically support him in his run for president 100%. I've given generously to his campaign (and that's something I've never ever done for any other candidate ever), and I've volunteered my time (another thing I've never done).
Dean would be about a thousand times better as president than Mr. Bush is. Mr. Bush is an utter disgrace to the office, and he needs to be thrown out ASAP. His latest round of lies that are being exposed as the justification for taking this nation to war ranks right up there with Watergate in my humble opinion, and as a far far more serious and criminal breech of ethics than lying about a blowjob.
Quite honestly, I'll vote for whomever the Dems nominate to run against Bush. But Howard Dean is the only candidate that I'd enthusiastically vote FOR. If anyone else runs, the vote would more accurately be described as against Bush.
It's also my considered opinion that only Dean has any chance of beating Bush in a general election. Dean has the message that resonates not just with the left, but with moderates and fiscal conservatives and rural constituencies as well. The press and the right try to paint him as a loony-left liberal, but he's nothing of the sort. He's a realist and not easily categorized or labeled. I guess you could say he's a fiscally conservative moderate who's relatively liberal on many social issues.
I've attended many Howard Dean "Meet-ups" so far this year, and while there are definitely left-wing people present, I was amazed at how many middle-of-the-road people were present, including some Republicans who are fed up with Bush, and see Dean as the only alternative they can bring themselves to support.
Heck, his Health Care plan is simple and straight forward, and even appeals to several Libertarians I know. Now that's a trick!
No Howard Dean supporter I'm aware of thinks Dean is a "far left evangelist". That's entirely a creation of the media, not of Dean, and not of his Campaign. The people supporting him, and showing up at the Meetups, know exactly what Dean's positions are, and know to ignore the clueless ranting of the pundits on TV.
He isn't waffling, he isn't being slippery, he's just speaking his mind, and attracting people with his message. It's the press that are confused, not his supporters. And he's the only candidate currently with any forward momentum as well.
Uh, not EVERY sci-fi geeks. Not only are some sci-fi geeks straight women, but many are even gay men. Don't be so heterosexist. :-)
You lie! Nothing is worse, or can be worse than Highlander 2.
:-)
I dunno. Did you ever see The Crow 2?
That's because the Unix solution was to just export everything, even if you didn't want it or need it to be exposed. The Windows solution made more sense (only export those things that you want/need to export) but was more tedious.
Of course C source code is portable.
That's hilarious. Do you honestly believe that? You can't have ever tried it, if you think that's an accurate statement.
Porting C source code between Unixes can be problematic, never mind between Windows and Unix, or other platforms. And that's staying on all 32-bits. Try going from 16-bit to 32, or from 64 to 32, or vice-versa. It's never trivial to port any non-trivial C source to another platform.
Java is a lot more portable at the source level than C.
4. Agreed. Which is why most people don't use Java for the UI. Most UIs are written in VB or Delphi, or web-based (in Flash, or HTML/Javascript).
I encourage you to take a look at IntelliJ IDEA. It blows the lid off the lie of 'show GUIs'. Other than it's start-up time (during which it's parsing your files, building caches, and other time-consuming tasks), it's quite fast. The whole thing is written in Java.
Exactly. I know several people who gave up emacs for it. One guy has always hated IDEs with a passion, but once he saw the refactorings and ability to easily browse the code, he made the switch and has never looked back. He still hates IDEs, but he loves IntelliJ IDEA :-)
Some additional info based on what you wrote here:
:-)
IntelliJ IDEA has the abbreviations feature you mention, and includes the ability to "surround selected text" with the abbreviation, and expand into complex structures (like for loops with bodies) that even substitute appropriate variable names and types for you (letting you edit them easily after the expansion). It's very powerful.
IntelliJ IDEA doesn't explicitly have the Alt-K/L feature, but it's code completion 'learns' and will put your lengthy java identifiers up top if it's the most likely choice. I do not know or understand the huristics it uses, but it's 'right' a surprising amount of the time, and when it's not, I just have to scroll down the list or type a few more characters
And yes, IntelliJ IDEA has a fully functional TODO feature (you define the pattern to match, so if you prefer "To Do" or "todo" or a special comment form, just set it and IDEA does the rest).
The thing that really sets IDEA apart is the 'intentions' though. Place the cursor in your code, and IntelliJ IDEA can detect likely things you'd want to do. These include inverting if/else statements, defining undefined identifiers (and it figures out from context if it's a method or variable, etc), importing a new package, etc. The complete list of 'intentions' continually grows, and the next version opens up the "intention API" so you can plug in your own intentions (such as boolean refactorings of "if" conditions).
Man, if only I could gain access to some localizers. Where's Pham Nuwen when you need him??
No, it is not free nor is it open source. You do, however, get what you pay for. The cost is a factor, though, so it may not be for you.
....
It's supremely configurable, very keyboard friendly, and has more and better features than its rivals, and runs faster with a better UI.
I personally have not used Eclipse, so I cannot make the judgement myself, but I've read threads debating the merits of the two, and IntelliJ's IDEA seems to come out ahead in the end.
Personally, I like the ease of use and intuitiveness. You don't need to work 'its way', but the more you use it, the more features you learn about, and many times the reward is big enough to warent changing long-time habits. One example:
Type out the word 'new' and the first few letters of the class you want. Then hit the 'code completion' key, and then hit 'introduce variable'. Wham. It completes the entire line, declaring the variable in line. You save a vast amount of typing. Or you can 'program by intention'... just start typing code. If you type a method name or variable that doesn't yet exist, just hit Alt-Enter and it'll let you create it. A simple 'back' button and you're back where you were to continue coding.
Code inspections find potential Null Pointer Exceptions and other common issues and errors; never worry about managing imports again; fold away code you don't want to see; automatically detects out of date or erronious javadocs and flags them; incredible refactoring support (rename variable, method, class; push method or varible up or down the inheritance hierarchy; introduce methods and variables; extract methods from inline code; inline methods; change method signatures; etc); real-time syntax checking and error/warning highlighting (see at a glance if you have any unused variables, private methods, typos, etc); awesome code completion; great code navigation (jump to implementation/declaration, forward/back); intelligently "find usages" of specific variables or methods; call and inheritence hierarchy trees;
I could go on forever. Plus, if there's anything you think is missing, or don't like, you can easily write a plug-in to add it or modify the behavior. Many people have. IntelliJ even has a WIKI site for users to post their own plug-ins. They also have an excellent bug reporting system, and they're very responsive.
IntelliJ IDEA just plain rocks. I don't know how I coded without it before. Anything else seems like coding with freakin' NOTEPAD.EXE (shudder)
For those of you that have no idea what IntelliJ IDEA is, check it out
I have to be honest with you: I think the elves showing up at helm's deep was a change for the better. It was one of the most moving points of the film, imho, and really made the scene. Not all changes are good, and not all changes are necessary, but this one truly worked for the movie, and made the movie a better one. That is, of course, just my opinion, but of the liberties this movie takes with the book, this is the one that I stand behind most solidly as a great idea.
What, you didn't notice the testosterone surge as well? Heterosexist! :-)
The theater I saw it in (in Texas) was at least 10% gay, including my buddies from the gay rugby team... anytime Legolas or Aragorn was on screen, the testosterone surged...
Yeah, and I don't know what to say to people who hated Season 6. I loved it. I thought it was amazing and sublime. I thought it went places no network TV show had ever gone before.
:-)
It wasn't perfect. I hated the whole double-meat palace thing, personally. But over all, the season had some of my favorite moments. It was just a bet "unrelenting" at times. Still, I don't know how you could have handled the season any other way than to go as dark as it did.
And it completely shines in comparrison to season 7.
Season 5 is still my favorite though, I think. Glory, Glory!
He had BETTER NOT meet obi-wan...there would be no rationalizing that.
To quote Doctor Funk in another post:
"In A new Hope, Obi-Wan sets up the Han meeting through Chewbacca. Their having a previous relationship lends merit to that little detail."
Three "millenium Falcon"-class ships were visible in a scene in AOTC.
And interesting note about the Obi-Wan/Chewbacca link. I had forgotten about that.
There probably won't be action sequences. Chewie will probably be depicted as a slave, and most likely manicled.
But presumably they wanted to *hide* Darth Vader's offspring from him... so why would they "hide" Luke right where Darth would expect to find him? On his home planet, with his relatives (by marriage)?
You need to finish fixing Episode II: remove that ludicrous "video game" sequence on Genosis with the droid factory. Ugh. And the Arena scene? Stolen directly from Gladiator, with one of the monsters being a complete rip off of a StarCraft Hydrolisk. Double ugh. And the whole "who ordered the clone army, and why is no one really questioning the jedi's just coming in and taking it over and using it to fight the Count..." is way too murky and unclear.
:-)
:-)
You can keep the underwater scene in Ep I if you make just one tiny change: right before Qui Gon says "There's always a bigger fish" when the big monster saves them by eating the smaller monster... have him close his eyes and reach out with the force to attract the bigger fish to their rescue. Suddenly that scene would work a lot better. Ditto for the very end... explain why there's only one federation ship more clearly, and then when the little rug-rat blows the thing up, make him more obviously use the force. The book made it much more clear about what happend, but in the movie it looked like it was nothing more than an 'accident'. Oh, and for Ep I you need to recast the kid... he was horrible.
More character development for Darth Maul is necessary as well. The only way we know he's evil is that we are told he is, and because he looks so evil. It would have been so much better to have him look more normal, but having him be SHOWN being evil.
Back to Episode II: show Aniken killing the sand people. They really wimped out on that. And you can't get rid of *all* his whining; you have to show that Luke inherits it
And in both movies: get rid of the stereotypical ethnic accents and features. The best thing about the original movies were that the aliens were *alien*, and when they spoke, they spoke *alien* tongues (which were eather subtitled, or not, and we just had to infer their meanings). Ep I and II are filled with the worst characatures and stereotypes of middle-eastern/jews, rastafarians, and jackie-chan b-movie cliches imaginable. Totally distracting. And get rid of the references to our culture, like the 'doo-doo' references, and the stupid fake-looking two-headed pod-race announcer that you half-expected to say "SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!" Ugh.
I agree with all you say, I just don't think you went far enoug
Isn't it Epson that has the new ink technology that is completely water-proof as well as sun/light-proof? Won't fade, won't smear?
Of course, it costs a little more...
The "midwest" city I speak of is Columbus Ohio, which probably does have a higher percentage of gays than other smaller midwest cities. There is zero chance the employer went out of their way to reach out to gays, though. This was the early 90's as well. The executive management at this company was pretty oblivious regarding sexual orientation issues. The VP for human resources didn't even realize they employed *any* gay people.
Various different career tracks also seem to have differing percentages of gay people in them. As far as programming and software development, it seems about 'average' (between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20). With marketing types, the percentage of gays seems to skew lower. With customer service, the percentage seems to skew significantly higher.
Go figure.
Sorry, but Fox News is about the least 'fair and balanced' news source out there. If you think otherwise, you're not being a "pompus intellectually superior" person, you're just being rational and sane.
Sorry, but bombast, sensationalism, and spewing hate sells. That doesn't make it right, and it doesn't make it accurate news reporting. It's show business and it's about ratings and entertainment.
Besides, the fact that 'joe average' is rather uneducated isn't a shock to anyone with any awareness. But rather than pandering to the ignorance and prejudices of the masses, I'd rather more news outlets actually tried to inform and educate them. But again, where's the money in that? It's a vicious spiral down...
Salon has the advantage of showing various sides and other voices that the 'mass media' doesn't always carry. By providing more view points, a reader is able to more fully understand all the various sides and views on any given issue. I certainly don't agree with a lot of the stuff published on Salon (or Fox News), but knowing the other points of view helps round out my own opinions.
Alas, thinking in 'black and white' is simpler and takes a lot less effort than understanding all the complexities and shades of gray that exist in the real world, on every issue imaginable. Thus the popularity of Fox News and its ilk, which simply spoon-feed the "right answers" (pun intended) to the viewer.