Superheroes have been less and less dominant in comics for 20+ years, walk into any comic shop and you'll see many more genres these days on shelves once dominated solely by the super-powered set.
Superheroes have also turned into Soaps. How many of them are now being explored for personality issues, character flaws, self doubt, etc.? To be fair, in the mid-50s, before the Comics Code, there were some pretty deep stories in some of the EC comics, one I recall featured bodies of dead soldiers floating down a river in Korea. But these were soldiers and reality inspired publications, where Superman, Batman, et al are about as unreal as you can get.
So its TV-Con now, with a highlight being yet more discussion of a short lived, long dead show that still manages to be at least as interesting as anything that has been made since.
All in all, about 80 television programs are represented at Comic-Con.
It's becoming Media-Con and people are letting it. Which is why I have no interest in attending. I'd rather go to a show closer to home which Hollywood isn't trying to take over. It's called Comic-Con and should seriously consider getting back to the business of Comics.
Sucks, if they threaten your meal ticket, but this whole trend has been going on since Sears & Roebucks sent out their first catatlog.
In 1897 and for years after the Sears catalog had a large grocery section --- a much better selection than the small country store could offer and very attractively priced.
No perishable goods like fresh fruits or meats, of course.
On almost every page Sears pushed the notion of buying in bulk or "clubbing" your orders with neighbors to gain the most favorable shipping rates.
A couple years ago I was mooching around a Nevada silver mine site (Rhyolite, it pretty much wrapped up about 1912) and found the tops to several rusting tins (which made great subjects for photographs) My favorite, I am not making this up, was something from Fred Fear in New York City -- Google tells me it could have been Maple Syrup or Clam Juice -- quite a luxury, possibly delivered 2,500 miles west, courtesy of Sears & Robuck's
There were some other amusing tops, like one for Genuine Hog Fat -- Yum!
Driving to brick-and-mortar stores is an expensive time-waster. The more online choices I have the better.
The only issues which drive me to Amazon for things is availibility and price. As I have to cool my heals for up to a week for delivery and then drive to the PO to pick up the box (don't want them left outside my door while I'm gone, they'll be gone!) I'm still stuck with a drive, usually one I have to bend my schedule around, at that, as the PO isn't open until 9 or on Sundays on weekends. UPS is even worse to deal with.
I'm a sucker for going to farmers markets, picking out produce which was harvested yesterday and usually picked when it's ripe, not a month ago when it was still "green". For canned or frozen goods something like delivery could make sense (though I'm usually pretty erratic in my schedule for delivery) but I still get a lot of those things at Trader Joe's because Joe's suppliers use far less chemicals in the making of their products (I really don't like looking at something like a burrito, which should be beans, cheese, flour, oil and water, but reads like The Brothers Karamazov.)
Course, it' doesn't rain 11 months out of the year where I live, either, so I don't mind being out and about and hitting farmers stands on the way home from work, like some manic pinball.
Amazon's strength was books, then consumer eletronics, then food, then eveything else. While they have free delivery (for over $25 spent on most items) there's a certain amount of waiting and if the item is DOA (like one cracked DVD I received) you have to exercise some patience. Meanwhile good ol' brick and mortar lets you have the goodies in your hot little hands now and often work out better on returns.
Wouldn't have helped anyway. A patent troll doesn't do anything useful, so they can't possibly be violating any patents themselves.
The patent troll's mode of business is suing and hoping you settle, rather then go to trial, but if they win a trial then the troll uses that as precedent to go after more companies. They're completely amoral parasites on the courts and business, but do keep a number of attorneys gainfully employed.
Ironically, I once worked for a company, developing cutting edge network technology and internet applications. I dropped the suggestion to a VP that what we were doing was all new terrain and we could patent some of the complex processes and end products we were developing. The VP simply stated, we're a development company, not an intellectual property company, so no patents were going to be considered, even defensively.
I envy the place you worked at, man. Sounds like they had their priorities straight, getting a good product out.
Sucks that the reward for hard work like that is typically to have a patent troll ruin your business.
Certainly. Back then all this sort of tit-for-tat fighting over ridiculous "intellectual property" was pretty unusual. If someone was suing it was often because they have put millions of dollars into building a fab to make something engineers had spent years developing, not some bloody FOR and NEXT loop.
Alas, were tha company still around they'd probably be fighting to defend the technology we developed because some other twit filed a patent and was trying to extort money from something which is largely prior art, if not obvious.
who worked for a company that got sued by a patent troll for some really insane email to fax patent from the 1990s that would NEVER have been a commercial product, I concur.
Make it, sell it, or the patent is tossed. Give them 3 years.
Ironically, I once worked for a company, developing cutting edge network technology and internet applications. I dropped the suggestion to a VP that what we were doing was all new terrain and we could patent some of the complex processes and end products we were developing. The VP simply stated, we're a development company, not an intellectual property company, so no patents were going to be considered, even defensively.
That's the way the world was for some people back 12 years ago.
Instead of buying computers built to last a year so you'll buy them over and over again, people are buying computers that actually have durability.
Hence, less buys.
Consumers are buying what they need. When you need a PC to do work (or play games) you buy one, when all you want to do is text, surf, share junk on fazebook, etc. you get a smartphone or tablet. Simples.
Slashdot's title gives the idea that Microsoft is using Windows Update to disable gadgets while in fact they are not. The article, however, is correct so this is just Slashdot trying to be sensationalist.
What Microsoft is giving is 'Fix It' executable on their website. These are entirely optional and are proactively downloaded and enabled by users. They also contain the full info of what they do.
As for the "vulnerability", well, duh. You download executable code, you might get pwnd. Even Chrome warns you that addons can pwn your system.
Some of us are the beneficiaries of updates pushed out to us by IT departments where they take whatever Microsoft puts up, without much reading, because they don't know who they might step on.
They benefited from the problem. But to be fair, they're only billionaires due to the negligence of IBM in the matter of PC-DOS/MS-DOS licencing and Microsoft being picked by Fortune 500 companies as the defacto standard. After that it was money pouring in while Microsoft continued to do things wrong, over and over and over, plus engage in some dirty practices of bundling and driving companies out of business to secure market share in arenas outside traditional business needs.
Before being all sloppy and mushy about how they give out their money, do consider how they use it to leverage more money being thrown into projects and how some desired (by the Gates) are not wholly apparent, for good or bad (depending upon your perspective.)
Perhaps it could work, but the technology and mechanics would have to be pretty darn reliable or people would arrive as pâté
We're having a dickens of a time getting our Bullet Train going in California, which has finally been green-lighted to sell bonds and collect some federal funding.
This thing of "We do something illegal, you fine us, everyone's happy" must stop. Somebody must serve some nice jail time (not much, say 6-12 months) and then maybe such fucked up practices would diminish. This is like me breaking into someone's house, pissing and shitting all over the place, then paying a 5 dollar fine for doing so. Would that stop me in the future? Hell no.
Geez, you and your rational views. Don't you know the corporate veil protects all within? I mean, just because Corporations are People.. seriously, they're about as accountable for their crimes as an indigent doing to your house, what you describe. You're hosed, you won't get anywhere prosecuting them. The bank crisis made this painfully clear - so many little crimes done by committee, what can you do, put the committee in jail? Fines are about the only way to punish and usually only punishes those left behind, because the people who committed the actions are now off somewhere with their big bonuses.
I like the way they fine you in Germany.. it's based upon your ability to pay. It makes you really feel the pain. A rich guy gets drunk and drives across your lawn, he can be fined hundreds of thousands, because it's based upon his income or wealth, not some set, piddly amount. So we implement such a system and then pull back in the people who made these decisions and make them pay.. prevents making a mess and escaping, while others are left to clean up after you. Also encourages leaving your former place of business in good order, going concern looked after sorta thing.
Why stop at Apple? Everyone is out-innovating MSFT. They got lazy, back in the 90's and have to root out the rot in their company before they will be nimble enough to do anything. Best bet would be to spin off a tightly focused innovation group and pull in resources as needed from where ever they come from.
Slashdot Mirror
people still use email clients!?
I certainly do. Best way for me to manage my multiple email accounts with multiple servers.
This thing has a Vista-rushed-to-market feel about it.
What is this? 1988?
Superheroes have been less and less dominant in comics for 20+ years, walk into any comic shop and you'll see many more genres these days on shelves once dominated solely by the super-powered set.
Superheroes have also turned into Soaps. How many of them are now being explored for personality issues, character flaws, self doubt, etc.? To be fair, in the mid-50s, before the Comics Code, there were some pretty deep stories in some of the EC comics, one I recall featured bodies of dead soldiers floating down a river in Korea. But these were soldiers and reality inspired publications, where Superman, Batman, et al are about as unreal as you can get.
Reboot .. Retcon .. Reimagining .. it's all about the money.
So its TV-Con now, with a highlight being yet more discussion of a short lived, long dead show that still manages to be at least as interesting as anything that has been made since.
All in all, about 80 television programs are represented at Comic-Con.
It's becoming Media-Con and people are letting it. Which is why I have no interest in attending. I'd rather go to a show closer to home which Hollywood isn't trying to take over. It's called Comic -Con and should seriously consider getting back to the business of Comics.
It's awl-write.
I'll get me coat.
This is why I won't buy stock in fazebook.
Sucks, if they threaten your meal ticket, but this whole trend has been going on since Sears & Roebucks sent out their first catatlog.
In 1897 and for years after the Sears catalog had a large grocery section --- a much better selection than the small country store could offer and very attractively priced.
No perishable goods like fresh fruits or meats, of course.
On almost every page Sears pushed the notion of buying in bulk or "clubbing" your orders with neighbors to gain the most favorable shipping rates.
A couple years ago I was mooching around a Nevada silver mine site (Rhyolite, it pretty much wrapped up about 1912) and found the tops to several rusting tins (which made great subjects for photographs) My favorite, I am not making this up, was something from Fred Fear in New York City -- Google tells me it could have been Maple Syrup or Clam Juice -- quite a luxury, possibly delivered 2,500 miles west, courtesy of Sears & Robuck's
There were some other amusing tops, like one for Genuine Hog Fat -- Yum!
Driving to brick-and-mortar stores is an expensive time-waster. The more online choices I have the better.
The only issues which drive me to Amazon for things is availibility and price. As I have to cool my heals for up to a week for delivery and then drive to the PO to pick up the box (don't want them left outside my door while I'm gone, they'll be gone!) I'm still stuck with a drive, usually one I have to bend my schedule around, at that, as the PO isn't open until 9 or on Sundays on weekends. UPS is even worse to deal with.
I'm a sucker for going to farmers markets, picking out produce which was harvested yesterday and usually picked when it's ripe, not a month ago when it was still "green". For canned or frozen goods something like delivery could make sense (though I'm usually pretty erratic in my schedule for delivery) but I still get a lot of those things at Trader Joe's because Joe's suppliers use far less chemicals in the making of their products (I really don't like looking at something like a burrito, which should be beans, cheese, flour, oil and water, but reads like The Brothers Karamazov.)
Course, it' doesn't rain 11 months out of the year where I live, either, so I don't mind being out and about and hitting farmers stands on the way home from work, like some manic pinball.
Amazon's strength was books, then consumer eletronics, then food, then eveything else. While they have free delivery (for over $25 spent on most items) there's a certain amount of waiting and if the item is DOA (like one cracked DVD I received) you have to exercise some patience. Meanwhile good ol' brick and mortar lets you have the goodies in your hot little hands now and often work out better on returns.
Still, if brick and mortar specialize then can still do well for themselves. Just give up the bulk order stuff Amazon handles in volume.
Sucks, if they threaten your meal ticket, but this whole trend has been going on since Sears & Roebucks sent out their first catatlog.
Wouldn't have helped anyway. A patent troll doesn't do anything useful, so they can't possibly be violating any patents themselves.
The patent troll's mode of business is suing and hoping you settle, rather then go to trial, but if they win a trial then the troll uses that as precedent to go after more companies. They're completely amoral parasites on the courts and business, but do keep a number of attorneys gainfully employed.
Ironically, I once worked for a company, developing cutting edge network technology and internet applications. I dropped the suggestion to a VP that what we were doing was all new terrain and we could patent some of the complex processes and end products we were developing. The VP simply stated, we're a development company, not an intellectual property company, so no patents were going to be considered, even defensively.
I envy the place you worked at, man. Sounds like they had their priorities straight, getting a good product out.
Sucks that the reward for hard work like that is typically to have a patent troll ruin your business.
Certainly. Back then all this sort of tit-for-tat fighting over ridiculous "intellectual property" was pretty unusual. If someone was suing it was often because they have put millions of dollars into building a fab to make something engineers had spent years developing, not some bloody FOR and NEXT loop.
Alas, were tha company still around they'd probably be fighting to defend the technology we developed because some other twit filed a patent and was trying to extort money from something which is largely prior art, if not obvious.
who worked for a company that got sued by a patent troll for some really insane email to fax patent from the 1990s that would NEVER have been a commercial product, I concur.
Make it, sell it, or the patent is tossed. Give them 3 years.
Ironically, I once worked for a company, developing cutting edge network technology and internet applications. I dropped the suggestion to a VP that what we were doing was all new terrain and we could patent some of the complex processes and end products we were developing. The VP simply stated, we're a development company, not an intellectual property company, so no patents were going to be considered, even defensively.
That's the way the world was for some people back 12 years ago.
Instead of buying computers built to last a year so you'll buy them over and over again, people are buying computers that actually have durability.
Hence, less buys.
Consumers are buying what they need. When you need a PC to do work (or play games) you buy one, when all you want to do is text, surf, share junk on fazebook, etc. you get a smartphone or tablet. Simples.
Slashdot's title gives the idea that Microsoft is using Windows Update to disable gadgets while in fact they are not. The article, however, is correct so this is just Slashdot trying to be sensationalist.
What Microsoft is giving is 'Fix It' executable on their website. These are entirely optional and are proactively downloaded and enabled by users. They also contain the full info of what they do.
As for the "vulnerability", well, duh. You download executable code, you might get pwnd. Even Chrome warns you that addons can pwn your system.
Some of us are the beneficiaries of updates pushed out to us by IT departments where they take whatever Microsoft puts up, without much reading, because they don't know who they might step on.
But your point is well taken.
They benefited from the problem. But to be fair, they're only billionaires due to the negligence of IBM in the matter of PC-DOS/MS-DOS licencing and Microsoft being picked by Fortune 500 companies as the defacto standard. After that it was money pouring in while Microsoft continued to do things wrong, over and over and over, plus engage in some dirty practices of bundling and driving companies out of business to secure market share in arenas outside traditional business needs.
Before being all sloppy and mushy about how they give out their money, do consider how they use it to leverage more money being thrown into projects and how some desired (by the Gates) are not wholly apparent, for good or bad (depending upon your perspective.)
Perhaps it could work, but the technology and mechanics would have to be pretty darn reliable or people would arrive as pâté
We're having a dickens of a time getting our Bullet Train going in California, which has finally been green-lighted to sell bonds and collect some federal funding.
"You can only go to the CoS sites, the rest of the sites don't exist and if they did they are evil and corrupting."
Is for C64 and Apple ][ emulators.
This thing of "We do something illegal, you fine us, everyone's happy" must stop. Somebody must serve some nice jail time (not much, say 6-12 months) and then maybe such fucked up practices would diminish.
This is like me breaking into someone's house, pissing and shitting all over the place, then paying a 5 dollar fine for doing so. Would that stop me in the future? Hell no.
Geez, you and your rational views. Don't you know the corporate veil protects all within? I mean, just because Corporations are People .. seriously, they're about as accountable for their crimes as an indigent doing to your house, what you describe. You're hosed, you won't get anywhere prosecuting them. The bank crisis made this painfully clear - so many little crimes done by committee, what can you do, put the committee in jail? Fines are about the only way to punish and usually only punishes those left behind, because the people who committed the actions are now off somewhere with their big bonuses.
I like the way they fine you in Germany .. it's based upon your ability to pay. It makes you really feel the pain. A rich guy gets drunk and drives across your lawn, he can be fined hundreds of thousands, because it's based upon his income or wealth, not some set, piddly amount. So we implement such a system and then pull back in the people who made these decisions and make them pay .. prevents making a mess and escaping, while others are left to clean up after you. Also encourages leaving your former place of business in good order, going concern looked after sorta thing.
The watchers are being watched while being watched. Watch-ception.
Eyes wide open source, of course!
Watches the watchmen.
But who watches those who watch the watchmen, eh?
I was thinking more about the five stages of grief (Kübler-Ross model), the first of which is denial:
1) Denial
2) Anger
3) Bargaining
4) Depression
5) Acceptance
I'd put old Steve Balls somewhere between #1 and #2.
Does this mean he's past the chair throwing stage? Tough times ahead for Herman Miller.
Sorry, Apple has a patent on innovation.
Why stop at Apple? Everyone is out-innovating MSFT. They got lazy, back in the 90's and have to root out the rot in their company before they will be nimble enough to do anything. Best bet would be to spin off a tightly focused innovation group and pull in resources as needed from where ever they come from.
anarchists != Anonymous.
Where in TFA does it mention anonymous?
They're not even real anarchists, anarchists want to deconstruct government, not science. These are actually bat-sh!t loonies.