Not really, search something on Google that doesn't have a specific Wikipedia page and you end up with a huge mountain of shit with the most tenuous connections you could think of.
Do an image search for something specific and look how quickly you start getting pictures returned that have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with what you were searching for. Usually within the first page of results, definitely by the second, random shit starts creeping in. Their web search is generally not much better; if it's not within the first few results you either need to rephrase what you're looking for or start using the search tools and special operators to eliminate some of the chaff. Otherwise you're clicking 'next page' until your fingers fall off...
I don't necessarily blame Google for this; there are 8.23 billion indexed pages out there, after all, and some sites are a clusterfuck of disparate information anyway, which must make proper indexing a real pain in the ass.
I wish I could by default not get any search result that was a blog, though. That would be a big help. I'm almost never trying to find some asshole's blog when I'm doing a Google search, and Lord knows there are a lot of assholes out there with blogs polluting the shit out of search results (especially all the dummy pages with 946 'keywords' and no other content, I mean, what the fuck)...
Wikipedia is a starting point for research. It isn't the final word on anything.
I would hope that most people would understand that simple fact, but the sheer number of people that try to cite Wikipedia as a reference demonstrates that said hope is misplaced.
Wikipedia is crack for a Cliff Clavin-esque information junkie like me, but I would never stake my reputation on anything I read there unless I had at least 3 independent sources confirming it, although I admit, the articles concerning math and science I generally accept as truth (whereas the articles concerning celebrities or infamous historical figures I generally do not) because I figure if I have a hard time making it through a given article that the citation's are going to be ancient Egyptian to me. The simple English Wikipedia is obviously better in that regard, but it's too simple. Consider their article for Chaos theory...barely a stub.
Still, I'm glad I live in a time with access to such a vast repository of human knowledge, even with the bias issues. I'm old enough to remember what this was like...
However, probably many of the same people would not object to shutting off a command/control site for malware that was bringing down millions of PCs at a staggering economic cost, or to isolating a group who really were trading child porn.
The problem isn't the "censorship" per se (at least, not in my opinion), it's the ridiculous lack of probable cause and due process surrounding this shit. The Jotform takedown was a perfect example of how all of our fears regarding SOPA were completely justifiable. There should be public hearings before the government is able to declare something a "danger" and knock it off the 'net. The way it's handled now is totally against the spirit of the law and the concept of innocence until proven guilt. Outside of Freedom of Speech (which this SOPA shit directly undermined), and the guarantee of security of our person and property (which the TSA is doing everything it can to eliminate), that's probably one of the most sacred foundations of our entire fucking existence as a nation.
Kind of undermines all of our posturing about security and freedom while we're bombing villages in the middle east back into the stone age when we're playing the same fucking games we bitch about with our own citizens here at home. What I want to know is if the people condoning this bullshit are evil or just plain ignorant...it would save me the time trying to logically converse with them, at the very least.
Correct. It would have been much more accurate to say "[...] and if I try and set them straight they will argue the point with me from their double-wide in Texas."
Just throwing in my vote for Microsoft Security Essentials and built in firewall, as well. As long as you couple it with a decent adblock/script blocking program on your browser of choice, and use a modicum of common sense, you should be fine...
Even more hysterical is that said drug-testing is often inversely proportional to the level of responsibility and ability for said applicant to fuck shit up royally.
The kid restocking the fucking bandages and shit at the local hospital has to submit a hair test to make sure he's not a junkie, but nurses tending to the sick just breeze right through the application process as long as they've got their certifications. I guess people just can't be drug addicts anymore once they get a degree or something.
I think they were hoping that smart TV's were going to take off, but most people I know don't want all that bullshit built into their TV and would prefer a separate box and those sales are pretty lackluster from what I've read also. That leaves the 4K displays.
Replace patent abuse with burglary, the USPTO with a stupid homeowner that didn't lock the door, and Apple with the burglar, and you have the same thing.
Most rational places don't see leaving your door unlocked as an invitation to be burgled, nor infer any culpability whatsoever to the homeowner (nor diminish the burglar's in any way) if they are burgled because of it.
At some point we're going to need to stop explaining away this behavior that's clearly at odds with the spirit of the law, if not the letter. I seriously doubt that Apple's use of patent law as a club to beat every competitor to death is in any way in following the spirit of patent law at all.
Part of language is examining and understanding it's evolution. How the hell are we going to do that if the only example we have of the dialect is whatever popular culture managed to survive in the cultural consciousness? There are important references for real historical research locked inside those stories, as well. For instance, The 1700 Cascadia Earthquake, which they're recently examining through study of oral histories passed down among the Quilleute and Hoh Indian tribes. If no one bothered to speak this language anymore, how could we have ever made these discoveries? These stories provided an important record of the effect of that earthquake here (the resultant Tsunami is well documented in Japanese records from the period) This was only within the last 20 years, examining languages that will likely be fully dead within a century.
I don't think there is any harm in preserving our history, I don't care how mundane it is. Something as stupid as a grocery list today could provide valuable insight into our daily lives 2000 years from now in much the same way graffiti provides insight into Roman culture 2000 years ago.
It's important to preserve all the languages we can outside of being able to use it as a form of communication...it enables us to study the evolution of language, which is obviously always changing. It enables us to still be able to fully examine the works of those languages in their native tongue, there are dozens of different translations of The Iliad, for instance, that we would not have if not for people studying Ancient Greek in depth. Those stories are immensely important scholastically, historically, culturally...there are new historical discoveries all the time through the refinement of analysis of ancient works that can only come through the study of those tongues.
Even if we do eventually end up speaking one language, it's sure as shit not going to be anytime soon. Honestly, the way things are going now, I could see us entering a second Dark Ages within the next couple hundred years as population growth spirals out of control and we run out of resources, leading to a massive die-off and a breakdown of long distance communication. Pretty much the same thing that happened when Rome fell: the roads sunk into disrepair and nobody left their backyards anymore.
Who knows? Maybe the next Age of Enlightenment will finally be the one that sticks?
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?... Has it ever occurred to your, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?... The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking-not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.
I know, and it's fucking maddening that nobody outside of the nerd universe knows how much time the MAFIAA organizations spend deliberately fucking them over.
This is why I think the true answer is a blended system, where the basic necessities are available to everyone, but there is still incentive to go out and work for more than "the bare minimum". Pure capitalism has no mechanism within it to combat wealth inequality, whereas pure socialism has no mechanism to combat laziness and a lack of motivation, but mix the two, and you can eliminate the squalor that fosters crime and recidivism while still allowing people to move forward.
Although it's a common meme these days among conservatives, most people are not content with the bare minimum of sustenance, and will work to improve their station in life, but they're not going to improve jack shit if the only jobs available to them are minimum-wage McJobs.
You know, until you posted that link, I'd never heard the acronym BMF used to denote anything other than 'bad motherfucker'. Learn something new everyday...
I'd be really glad if someone would want to introduce me properly to this universe, but sadly, nobody has done it so far...
I'd say just start from the beginning and watch them in order, but don't get hung up watching a particular episode if it's not grabbing you. Most fans will admit that there are some seriously shitty episodes, but with TOS and TNG anyway, most of the episodes are stand-alone stories that don't require familiarity with the previous episodes, although this changes starting with DS9, VOY, and then eventually you've got Enterprise where the entire 3rd season is essentially one enormous story-arc.
I think it's just another example of the character growth that went on on TNG, the early seasons do not seem like they're about the same characters as the later ones almost across the board. Q was no exception; like the Ferengi, it seems like they wrote him to be menacing but the character came off more like a prankster, and once they embraced that, I think they really put out some good stuff.
The episode Tapestry stands out as a good Q episode that really gave a better overall impression of the character (which, seeing as it's a sixth season episode, makes sense).
Agreed. It's the only series that's really put forth the possibility that the Federation as a whole wasn't necessarily the "good guys" that knew what was best for everyone. Avery Brooks might actually be my favorite Captain, even above Picard. Definitely a BMF.
I'm with you, Q was one of the most entertaining characters on the show. I'd rather watch a Q episode than a goddamned Dr. Crusher episode, that's for sure. I mean, Sub Rosa...what a piece of shit.
Good choice. I think a good episode that really captures the overall "feel" of The Next Generation (and Star Trek as a whole) is The Measure of a Man. Patrick Stewart has gone on record as saying that his performance in that episode is one of the favorites of his entire career, which is saying a lot coming from such an accomplished Shakespearean actor as himself. One of my personal favorites.
Also, The Inner Light. Another amazingly powerful episode that is a must see for Star Trek fans and non-fans alike.
Really, most episodes from season 3-onwards of TNG were good. For a lighter choice, try Data's Day. Data's expression while he's slow-dancing with the holographic partner is priceless.
I second Enterprise. It seems to me the only Trek series, after the first one obviously, that wasn't just catering to established fans and really wanted to attract a new audience. The show gets a bad rap, but it really wasn't any worse than most of the shit you see on TV today, and because it's a prequel series it doesn't really require much familiarity with the established canon, as the viewer gets to "discover" the various races that made up the prior series.
The ending of the series leaves a lot to be desired. The series finale is such a piece of crap, it's almost insulting. You've been warned.
Slashdot Mirror
Not really, search something on Google that doesn't have a specific Wikipedia page and you end up with a huge mountain of shit with the most tenuous connections you could think of.
Do an image search for something specific and look how quickly you start getting pictures returned that have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with what you were searching for. Usually within the first page of results, definitely by the second, random shit starts creeping in. Their web search is generally not much better; if it's not within the first few results you either need to rephrase what you're looking for or start using the search tools and special operators to eliminate some of the chaff. Otherwise you're clicking 'next page' until your fingers fall off...
I don't necessarily blame Google for this; there are 8.23 billion indexed pages out there, after all, and some sites are a clusterfuck of disparate information anyway, which must make proper indexing a real pain in the ass.
I wish I could by default not get any search result that was a blog, though. That would be a big help. I'm almost never trying to find some asshole's blog when I'm doing a Google search, and Lord knows there are a lot of assholes out there with blogs polluting the shit out of search results (especially all the dummy pages with 946 'keywords' and no other content, I mean, what the fuck)...
Wikipedia is a starting point for research. It isn't the final word on anything.
I would hope that most people would understand that simple fact, but the sheer number of people that try to cite Wikipedia as a reference demonstrates that said hope is misplaced.
Wikipedia is crack for a Cliff Clavin-esque information junkie like me, but I would never stake my reputation on anything I read there unless I had at least 3 independent sources confirming it, although I admit, the articles concerning math and science I generally accept as truth (whereas the articles concerning celebrities or infamous historical figures I generally do not) because I figure if I have a hard time making it through a given article that the citation's are going to be ancient Egyptian to me. The simple English Wikipedia is obviously better in that regard, but it's too simple. Consider their article for Chaos theory...barely a stub.
Still, I'm glad I live in a time with access to such a vast repository of human knowledge, even with the bias issues. I'm old enough to remember what this was like...
However, probably many of the same people would not object to shutting off a command/control site for malware that was bringing down millions of PCs at a staggering economic cost, or to isolating a group who really were trading child porn.
The problem isn't the "censorship" per se (at least, not in my opinion), it's the ridiculous lack of probable cause and due process surrounding this shit. The Jotform takedown was a perfect example of how all of our fears regarding SOPA were completely justifiable. There should be public hearings before the government is able to declare something a "danger" and knock it off the 'net. The way it's handled now is totally against the spirit of the law and the concept of innocence until proven guilt. Outside of Freedom of Speech (which this SOPA shit directly undermined), and the guarantee of security of our person and property (which the TSA is doing everything it can to eliminate), that's probably one of the most sacred foundations of our entire fucking existence as a nation.
Kind of undermines all of our posturing about security and freedom while we're bombing villages in the middle east back into the stone age when we're playing the same fucking games we bitch about with our own citizens here at home. What I want to know is if the people condoning this bullshit are evil or just plain ignorant...it would save me the time trying to logically converse with them, at the very least.
Correct. It would have been much more accurate to say "[...] and if I try and set them straight they will argue the point with me from their double-wide in Texas."
Just throwing in my vote for Microsoft Security Essentials and built in firewall, as well. As long as you couple it with a decent adblock/script blocking program on your browser of choice, and use a modicum of common sense, you should be fine...
Even more hysterical is that said drug-testing is often inversely proportional to the level of responsibility and ability for said applicant to fuck shit up royally.
The kid restocking the fucking bandages and shit at the local hospital has to submit a hair test to make sure he's not a junkie, but nurses tending to the sick just breeze right through the application process as long as they've got their certifications. I guess people just can't be drug addicts anymore once they get a degree or something.
Doubt it. Sales of LCD TVs dropped for the first time. And average selling price is too low for anyone to be making serious coin.
Pretty much. And since 3D is widely recognized to be a big disappointment, that means they're going to be desperate to come up with something that's going to get us to all run out and replace our perfectly good flatscreens.
I think they were hoping that smart TV's were going to take off, but most people I know don't want all that bullshit built into their TV and would prefer a separate box and those sales are pretty lackluster from what I've read also. That leaves the 4K displays.
Replace patent abuse with burglary, the USPTO with a stupid homeowner that didn't lock the door, and Apple with the burglar, and you have the same thing.
Most rational places don't see leaving your door unlocked as an invitation to be burgled, nor infer any culpability whatsoever to the homeowner (nor diminish the burglar's in any way) if they are burgled because of it.
At some point we're going to need to stop explaining away this behavior that's clearly at odds with the spirit of the law, if not the letter. I seriously doubt that Apple's use of patent law as a club to beat every competitor to death is in any way in following the spirit of patent law at all.
Part of language is examining and understanding it's evolution. How the hell are we going to do that if the only example we have of the dialect is whatever popular culture managed to survive in the cultural consciousness? There are important references for real historical research locked inside those stories, as well. For instance, The 1700 Cascadia Earthquake, which they're recently examining through study of oral histories passed down among the Quilleute and Hoh Indian tribes. If no one bothered to speak this language anymore, how could we have ever made these discoveries? These stories provided an important record of the effect of that earthquake here (the resultant Tsunami is well documented in Japanese records from the period) This was only within the last 20 years, examining languages that will likely be fully dead within a century.
I don't think there is any harm in preserving our history, I don't care how mundane it is. Something as stupid as a grocery list today could provide valuable insight into our daily lives 2000 years from now in much the same way graffiti provides insight into Roman culture 2000 years ago.
It's important to preserve all the languages we can outside of being able to use it as a form of communication...it enables us to study the evolution of language, which is obviously always changing. It enables us to still be able to fully examine the works of those languages in their native tongue, there are dozens of different translations of The Iliad, for instance, that we would not have if not for people studying Ancient Greek in depth. Those stories are immensely important scholastically, historically, culturally...there are new historical discoveries all the time through the refinement of analysis of ancient works that can only come through the study of those tongues.
Even if we do eventually end up speaking one language, it's sure as shit not going to be anytime soon. Honestly, the way things are going now, I could see us entering a second Dark Ages within the next couple hundred years as population growth spirals out of control and we run out of resources, leading to a massive die-off and a breakdown of long distance communication. Pretty much the same thing that happened when Rome fell: the roads sunk into disrepair and nobody left their backyards anymore.
Who knows? Maybe the next Age of Enlightenment will finally be the one that sticks?
Doubleplusungood.
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?... Has it ever occurred to your, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?... The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking-not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.
I know, and it's fucking maddening that nobody outside of the nerd universe knows how much time the MAFIAA organizations spend deliberately fucking them over.
This is why I think the true answer is a blended system, where the basic necessities are available to everyone, but there is still incentive to go out and work for more than "the bare minimum". Pure capitalism has no mechanism within it to combat wealth inequality, whereas pure socialism has no mechanism to combat laziness and a lack of motivation, but mix the two, and you can eliminate the squalor that fosters crime and recidivism while still allowing people to move forward.
Although it's a common meme these days among conservatives, most people are not content with the bare minimum of sustenance, and will work to improve their station in life, but they're not going to improve jack shit if the only jobs available to them are minimum-wage McJobs.
You know, until you posted that link, I'd never heard the acronym BMF used to denote anything other than 'bad motherfucker'. Learn something new everyday...
I'd be really glad if someone would want to introduce me properly to this universe, but sadly, nobody has done it so far...
I'd say just start from the beginning and watch them in order, but don't get hung up watching a particular episode if it's not grabbing you. Most fans will admit that there are some seriously shitty episodes, but with TOS and TNG anyway, most of the episodes are stand-alone stories that don't require familiarity with the previous episodes, although this changes starting with DS9, VOY, and then eventually you've got Enterprise where the entire 3rd season is essentially one enormous story-arc.
Besides, it's all subjective anyway.
I think it's just another example of the character growth that went on on TNG, the early seasons do not seem like they're about the same characters as the later ones almost across the board. Q was no exception; like the Ferengi, it seems like they wrote him to be menacing but the character came off more like a prankster, and once they embraced that, I think they really put out some good stuff.
The episode Tapestry stands out as a good Q episode that really gave a better overall impression of the character (which, seeing as it's a sixth season episode, makes sense).
I did in other comments, no need to keep repeating myself.
Agreed. It's the only series that's really put forth the possibility that the Federation as a whole wasn't necessarily the "good guys" that knew what was best for everyone. Avery Brooks might actually be my favorite Captain, even above Picard. Definitely a BMF.
Agreed. The Inner Light was just a beautiful episode.
Meanwhile, the bad 1990s hairdos in TNG have not aged well yet.
OMFG the perms, I'd forgotten how much they loved their damn perms in the early seasons (I generally skip TNG seasons one and two when rewatching).
I'm with you, Q was one of the most entertaining characters on the show. I'd rather watch a Q episode than a goddamned Dr. Crusher episode, that's for sure. I mean, Sub Rosa...what a piece of shit.
Or find a girlfriend that like Star Trek...
It's fucking hard to get through the campiness of TOS, though.
I mean, Space Hippies. That's pretty much the best way to make someone never want to watch a Trek show again.
Good choice. I think a good episode that really captures the overall "feel" of The Next Generation (and Star Trek as a whole) is The Measure of a Man . Patrick Stewart has gone on record as saying that his performance in that episode is one of the favorites of his entire career, which is saying a lot coming from such an accomplished Shakespearean actor as himself. One of my personal favorites.
Also, The Inner Light . Another amazingly powerful episode that is a must see for Star Trek fans and non-fans alike.
Really, most episodes from season 3-onwards of TNG were good. For a lighter choice, try Data's Day . Data's expression while he's slow-dancing with the holographic partner is priceless.
I second Enterprise. It seems to me the only Trek series, after the first one obviously, that wasn't just catering to established fans and really wanted to attract a new audience. The show gets a bad rap, but it really wasn't any worse than most of the shit you see on TV today, and because it's a prequel series it doesn't really require much familiarity with the established canon, as the viewer gets to "discover" the various races that made up the prior series.
The ending of the series leaves a lot to be desired. The series finale is such a piece of crap, it's almost insulting. You've been warned.