There's more choices than that. There's always several third-party candidates in every election with very different principles, and there's always the choice of refusing to vote. A clear majority always votes for one of the two main party candidates. And from what I read in forums and hear people talking about, most people actually agree with one or the other party: they really do think we should have invaded Iraq to stop Al-Qaeda, they really do think we need a bigger military, etc. When they're mad about something, they blame it on the other party (whichever of the big two they haven't sided with). When their chosen party changes direction (like Obama doing far more drone strikes than Bush ever did), they change their opinion to suit.
Sorry, I don't buy it. There are other options: you can vote for various third parties, or you can not vote at all. It's not like your analogy at all. But if you look at the polling numbers, a majority of Americans DO turn out to vote, AND they vote for one of the two main parties. No, it's not an overwhelming majority (obviously there's a fair number of people who are disaffected by the process), but it is a clear majority nonetheless.
The expenditures by PACs and corporations are irrelevant. They can't buy votes directly; they can only influence voters. If the voters are so stupid they believe what they're told on Fox News or with some ads, that's their own fault. It's the voters who cast the actual votes. You can make an argument in some cases about fraud (e.g., voting machines not recording votes accurately etc.), but that only affects a tiny portion of the election (usually key swing state locations); in the vast majority of precincts, the vote is accurate, and the results we see are a reflection of the will of the people. Plus, it's not like election irregularities are preventing some 3rd party from gaining power; these things only sway the result between the Dems and Reps.
You're right about your vote not counting if you're in a swing state, but again that's because the majority of voters in that state are committed to one of the main parties.
In short, the average American DOES have a say in the Presidential election: they invariably want one of the main two (nearly identical) candidates, and that's who gets elected.
That's not completely true. If the citizen's views veer sharply in one direction or another, the parties will move to compensate. It's happened before; we used to have a Whig party, and it disappeared. More recently, we used to have a Socialist party (back in the 40s-60s) which was gaining power, so the Democrats adopted key parts of their platform and the Socialists mostly disappeared. It's not like the voters will only vote for whoever the party throws up; the two party system does eventually move towards what the people want, but it's a long feedback cycle. Moreover, the party candidates are not chosen by some elite cabal in each party; they're chosen in "primary" elections by the people themselves. Just look at our current election; Romney wasn't chosen by some secret illuminati in the GOP, he was chosen by everyday voters in the primaries over his competition. Similarly, Obama was chosen by the Democrat voters in that primary, who apparently are happy with him despite the drone strikes and other not-so-left things he's done, evidenced by the fact that there were other alternatives on the ballot but the Democrat voters had no interest in them and voted exclusively for Obama.
So the way I see it, the American people have gotten the government they want and deserve. Sure, a bunch of disaffected people complain on places like here about the lack of good choices, but I don't think most Americans care; they're happy with the choices they have. Might you argue that the voters are stupid sheep who've accepted their opinions from the politicians and media? Sure, but they're still responsible for their decisions, even if they've been brainwashed into those opinions by watching Fox News or MSNBC or CNN.
No, he should be the first to be detained, or better yet assassinated if possible. He's an obstacle to greater US involvement in the region. Imagine if all Pakistani politicians were like him: there'd be no legitimate-looking reason for the US to be involved there. But if they can promote nutty extremism and instability in the region, then there's a legitimate-looking excuse to have lots of US military involvement there, which means lots of money being funneled to US defense contractors like the ones who build the drones and their armaments.
The US government is elected by the US citizens. Corporations have no control over that whatsoever; all they can do is spend money to influence politicians and citizens' views in elections (through PACs and the ads they create), but ultimately it's the People who make the decisions on their voting ballots. So if you're looking for someone to blame about the state of the US government, look at the citizens who elect it.
Actually, no. While some others make a good point about Flickr, it's perfectly understandable why a bunch of poor bastards are using IE, especially version 6: it's because their dumb employers are forcing them to on their work computers, usually because they stupidly bought into some crappy "enterprise" web application that only works in IE6.
"Slow" being the operative word, if Yahoo is anything like AOL. AOL is still around, somehow, though I have no fucking clue how. I'm guessing it'll be able to hang on and generate revenue until its users all die of old age (which probably won't be that long).
(i) expandable storage is life or death for a phone, (ii) a replaceable battery is very very attractive,
There's some caveats here. The iPhone has never had these features, and it's always sold like hotcakes. Obviously, HTC looked at Apple, did a "monkey see monkey do", and decided they could reduce costs on this phone by copying Apple. What they failed to realize is that Apple's market is very different from their own, and that Android shoppers, unlike most Apple ones, actually care about these features. You're not going to get anywhere trying to sell Apple clones; people who like Apple stuff are going to buy the real thing. The key to success is differentiation; be the things that Apple isn't, and serve a different market of people who don't want Apple stuff and want something different and better in many ways. I love the fact that my HTC Sensation 4G has both a replaceable battery and expandable SDHC storage, and I don't care if it adds a measly 1mm to the phone's thickness.
I got a Lenovo G470 not long ago, and it seems fine for any kind of general office work. I wouldn't use it to design PCBs, but for regular business work, it's fine. The keyboard is as good as most laptops on the market today, and just as good if not better than those wacky Apple laptop keyboards, though it definitely doesn't measure up to the keyboard on my Thinkpad.
You're right that cost is a major factor. But the problem with your analogy here is that this new breed of tablets, especially anything from Apple, is not more economical than the alternatives. I can easily buy a laptop for $250-300 now, cheaper than an iPad and which includes a full keyboard. I'm not seeing dirt-cheap tablets available to replace these low-end laptops, so for now they really seem to be overpriced toys, especially when you consider that most productivity applications are designed for PC form factors (mouse with 2+ buttons, keyboards, etc., and not touch) and OSes.
I'm sorry, but no. Unless Starfleet Command has pinned the rank of Captain on your collar, you're not a Starfleet Captain. If you're going to list people who have assumed the position on their own, then you might as well list every other "captain" shown on the series, including every captain of alien vessels, garbage scows, Moriarty, etc.
Getting command doesn't equal being "captain". Captain is a rank that has to be conferred by Starfleet; you don't just automatically get it because the people above you are dead or missing. You only get command of the ship temporarily, in order of rank, until a higher-ranking officer can relieve you.
Pike wasn't in TNG that I recall. I was just listing the ones I remembered from TNG, and I'm sure I missed a few, such as the captain of the supply ship that experienced rapid aging after visiting a research station doing genetic engineering which caused an epidemic which Dr. Pulaski had to solve (and somehow, this genetic engineering of children was perfectly OK even though other episodes, namely in DS9, said that genetic engineering was strictly forbidden). There was also the captain of the USS Hood that had to briefly rendezvous with the Enterprise in some episode.
I'm sure there were a bunch of other Starfleet captains in TOS too.
I'm sorry, being put in command of the Enterprise briefly does not make one a "captain". That's a rank that has to be officially assigned. Lots of crewmembers were put in command of the ship at some time; the Captain has to sleep sometime, after all, and sometime's he's away at some archaeological conference.
However, Spock was himself a captain (by rank, not mutiny), in the movies, though he never had full command of a ship.
Particle of the Week was indeed very annoying, but Red Matter was even worse (because of its vastly more potent effects; the PotWs were usually just used to detect things, not cause planets to implode into singularities). And I think we also have higher expectations of feature films than to resort to lame plot devices like this. The PotWs should have been something the writers learned from, so that they don't repeat that mistake.
Personally, I hope not. IMO, Star Trek went down the tubes after Gene Roddenberry died, and even before then, Berman and Braga were screwing it up. The JJ Abrams reboot wasn't all that great IMO either (though I'll admit the bridge design was pretty cool).
I just don't have any faith that anyone would be able to make a new Star Trek series that measured up to TOS or TNG.
Actually, I do have one idea: put it all in the hands of the guys doing Star Trek: Phase II; their episodes have been mostly excellent. But they're not Hollywood insiders so that'd never happen.
They forgot a bunch of captains. Off the top of my head, just from TNG: Captain Montgomery Scott ("Relics", probably only captain by rank) Captain Jellico (I think that's the name; he took over the Enterprise in one episode, was an asshole, and the crew hated him) two briefly-seen captains who Picard calls "Starfleet's finest" in "Conspiracy" the female captain of the Enterprise-C in "Yesterday's Enterprise" the captain of the USS Yamato
Can you name a StarTrek captain that didn't seem arrogant to you?
Yes, and I can even think of one who was a female: the captain of the USS Enterprise-C. She was only in the one episode (TNG: "Yesterday's Enterprise"), and got killed in some accident before they could send the ship back through the rift to the past, but she seemed like she would have been an interesting character to watch more of. She didn't have that horribly annoying voice that Janeway did, proving a female starship captain doesn't need to be annoying.
There was also some black female captain in TNG "Conspiracy", named by Picard as one of "Starfleet's finest". She was only in one scene, where they met in a cave, but was also a strong female character without being annoying as hell.
Forgive me for my ignorance here, but isn't this the domain solely of structural engineers (a subset of civil engineering)? I wouldn't think seismologists would know anything about buildings, though they'd be able to contribute data about the forces involved in real earthquakes so that structural engineers can design buildings and bridges to handle those forces.
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There's more choices than that. There's always several third-party candidates in every election with very different principles, and there's always the choice of refusing to vote. A clear majority always votes for one of the two main party candidates. And from what I read in forums and hear people talking about, most people actually agree with one or the other party: they really do think we should have invaded Iraq to stop Al-Qaeda, they really do think we need a bigger military, etc. When they're mad about something, they blame it on the other party (whichever of the big two they haven't sided with). When their chosen party changes direction (like Obama doing far more drone strikes than Bush ever did), they change their opinion to suit.
Keep telling yourself that. Voter turnout is ALWAYS higher than 50%. That means a clear majority approves of the two parties and their policies.
Sorry, I don't buy it. There are other options: you can vote for various third parties, or you can not vote at all. It's not like your analogy at all. But if you look at the polling numbers, a majority of Americans DO turn out to vote, AND they vote for one of the two main parties. No, it's not an overwhelming majority (obviously there's a fair number of people who are disaffected by the process), but it is a clear majority nonetheless.
The expenditures by PACs and corporations are irrelevant. They can't buy votes directly; they can only influence voters. If the voters are so stupid they believe what they're told on Fox News or with some ads, that's their own fault. It's the voters who cast the actual votes. You can make an argument in some cases about fraud (e.g., voting machines not recording votes accurately etc.), but that only affects a tiny portion of the election (usually key swing state locations); in the vast majority of precincts, the vote is accurate, and the results we see are a reflection of the will of the people. Plus, it's not like election irregularities are preventing some 3rd party from gaining power; these things only sway the result between the Dems and Reps.
You're right about your vote not counting if you're in a swing state, but again that's because the majority of voters in that state are committed to one of the main parties.
In short, the average American DOES have a say in the Presidential election: they invariably want one of the main two (nearly identical) candidates, and that's who gets elected.
That's not completely true. If the citizen's views veer sharply in one direction or another, the parties will move to compensate. It's happened before; we used to have a Whig party, and it disappeared. More recently, we used to have a Socialist party (back in the 40s-60s) which was gaining power, so the Democrats adopted key parts of their platform and the Socialists mostly disappeared. It's not like the voters will only vote for whoever the party throws up; the two party system does eventually move towards what the people want, but it's a long feedback cycle. Moreover, the party candidates are not chosen by some elite cabal in each party; they're chosen in "primary" elections by the people themselves. Just look at our current election; Romney wasn't chosen by some secret illuminati in the GOP, he was chosen by everyday voters in the primaries over his competition. Similarly, Obama was chosen by the Democrat voters in that primary, who apparently are happy with him despite the drone strikes and other not-so-left things he's done, evidenced by the fact that there were other alternatives on the ballot but the Democrat voters had no interest in them and voted exclusively for Obama.
So the way I see it, the American people have gotten the government they want and deserve. Sure, a bunch of disaffected people complain on places like here about the lack of good choices, but I don't think most Americans care; they're happy with the choices they have. Might you argue that the voters are stupid sheep who've accepted their opinions from the politicians and media? Sure, but they're still responsible for their decisions, even if they've been brainwashed into those opinions by watching Fox News or MSNBC or CNN.
No, he should be the first to be detained, or better yet assassinated if possible. He's an obstacle to greater US involvement in the region. Imagine if all Pakistani politicians were like him: there'd be no legitimate-looking reason for the US to be involved there. But if they can promote nutty extremism and instability in the region, then there's a legitimate-looking excuse to have lots of US military involvement there, which means lots of money being funneled to US defense contractors like the ones who build the drones and their armaments.
I thought it was Paks. Oh wait, that's a sci-fi book...
This is my policy since PATRIOT act. Even more so since NDAA...
Yep, both of which Obama signed. So much for hope and change.
And only an idiot would think Romney would do anything differently.
And people here keep telling me there's some kind of difference between the two.
The US government is elected by the US citizens. Corporations have no control over that whatsoever; all they can do is spend money to influence politicians and citizens' views in elections (through PACs and the ads they create), but ultimately it's the People who make the decisions on their voting ballots. So if you're looking for someone to blame about the state of the US government, look at the citizens who elect it.
Actually, no. While some others make a good point about Flickr, it's perfectly understandable why a bunch of poor bastards are using IE, especially version 6: it's because their dumb employers are forcing them to on their work computers, usually because they stupidly bought into some crappy "enterprise" web application that only works in IE6.
"Slow" being the operative word, if Yahoo is anything like AOL. AOL is still around, somehow, though I have no fucking clue how. I'm guessing it'll be able to hang on and generate revenue until its users all die of old age (which probably won't be that long).
What's even more shocking is that there's people still using Yahoo.
(i) expandable storage is life or death for a phone, (ii) a replaceable battery is very very attractive,
There's some caveats here. The iPhone has never had these features, and it's always sold like hotcakes. Obviously, HTC looked at Apple, did a "monkey see monkey do", and decided they could reduce costs on this phone by copying Apple. What they failed to realize is that Apple's market is very different from their own, and that Android shoppers, unlike most Apple ones, actually care about these features. You're not going to get anywhere trying to sell Apple clones; people who like Apple stuff are going to buy the real thing. The key to success is differentiation; be the things that Apple isn't, and serve a different market of people who don't want Apple stuff and want something different and better in many ways. I love the fact that my HTC Sensation 4G has both a replaceable battery and expandable SDHC storage, and I don't care if it adds a measly 1mm to the phone's thickness.
I got a Lenovo G470 not long ago, and it seems fine for any kind of general office work. I wouldn't use it to design PCBs, but for regular business work, it's fine. The keyboard is as good as most laptops on the market today, and just as good if not better than those wacky Apple laptop keyboards, though it definitely doesn't measure up to the keyboard on my Thinkpad.
You're right that cost is a major factor. But the problem with your analogy here is that this new breed of tablets, especially anything from Apple, is not more economical than the alternatives. I can easily buy a laptop for $250-300 now, cheaper than an iPad and which includes a full keyboard. I'm not seeing dirt-cheap tablets available to replace these low-end laptops, so for now they really seem to be overpriced toys, especially when you consider that most productivity applications are designed for PC form factors (mouse with 2+ buttons, keyboards, etc., and not touch) and OSes.
I'm sorry, but no. Unless Starfleet Command has pinned the rank of Captain on your collar, you're not a Starfleet Captain. If you're going to list people who have assumed the position on their own, then you might as well list every other "captain" shown on the series, including every captain of alien vessels, garbage scows, Moriarty, etc.
Getting command doesn't equal being "captain". Captain is a rank that has to be conferred by Starfleet; you don't just automatically get it because the people above you are dead or missing. You only get command of the ship temporarily, in order of rank, until a higher-ranking officer can relieve you.
I'm quite sure contractors don't do any calculus.
Pike wasn't in TNG that I recall. I was just listing the ones I remembered from TNG, and I'm sure I missed a few, such as the captain of the supply ship that experienced rapid aging after visiting a research station doing genetic engineering which caused an epidemic which Dr. Pulaski had to solve (and somehow, this genetic engineering of children was perfectly OK even though other episodes, namely in DS9, said that genetic engineering was strictly forbidden). There was also the captain of the USS Hood that had to briefly rendezvous with the Enterprise in some episode.
I'm sure there were a bunch of other Starfleet captains in TOS too.
I'm sorry, being put in command of the Enterprise briefly does not make one a "captain". That's a rank that has to be officially assigned. Lots of crewmembers were put in command of the ship at some time; the Captain has to sleep sometime, after all, and sometime's he's away at some archaeological conference.
However, Spock was himself a captain (by rank, not mutiny), in the movies, though he never had full command of a ship.
Wrong; Star Trek V was the absolute worst. TMP was second. Generations was third. Insurrection was kinda lame, definitely not one of the best.
Particle of the Week was indeed very annoying, but Red Matter was even worse (because of its vastly more potent effects; the PotWs were usually just used to detect things, not cause planets to implode into singularities). And I think we also have higher expectations of feature films than to resort to lame plot devices like this. The PotWs should have been something the writers learned from, so that they don't repeat that mistake.
Any news of another series on any horizon...?
Personally, I hope not. IMO, Star Trek went down the tubes after Gene Roddenberry died, and even before then, Berman and Braga were screwing it up. The JJ Abrams reboot wasn't all that great IMO either (though I'll admit the bridge design was pretty cool).
I just don't have any faith that anyone would be able to make a new Star Trek series that measured up to TOS or TNG.
Actually, I do have one idea: put it all in the hands of the guys doing Star Trek: Phase II; their episodes have been mostly excellent. But they're not Hollywood insiders so that'd never happen.
They forgot a bunch of captains. Off the top of my head, just from TNG:
Captain Montgomery Scott ("Relics", probably only captain by rank)
Captain Jellico (I think that's the name; he took over the Enterprise in one episode, was an asshole, and the crew hated him)
two briefly-seen captains who Picard calls "Starfleet's finest" in "Conspiracy"
the female captain of the Enterprise-C in "Yesterday's Enterprise"
the captain of the USS Yamato
Can you name a StarTrek captain that didn't seem arrogant to you?
Yes, and I can even think of one who was a female: the captain of the USS Enterprise-C. She was only in the one episode (TNG: "Yesterday's Enterprise"), and got killed in some accident before they could send the ship back through the rift to the past, but she seemed like she would have been an interesting character to watch more of. She didn't have that horribly annoying voice that Janeway did, proving a female starship captain doesn't need to be annoying.
There was also some black female captain in TNG "Conspiracy", named by Picard as one of "Starfleet's finest". She was only in one scene, where they met in a cave, but was also a strong female character without being annoying as hell.
Forgive me for my ignorance here, but isn't this the domain solely of structural engineers (a subset of civil engineering)? I wouldn't think seismologists would know anything about buildings, though they'd be able to contribute data about the forces involved in real earthquakes so that structural engineers can design buildings and bridges to handle those forces.