I just don't understand why there isn't SOME kind of market for the sorts of things I like. Am I crazy to think that, gosh! Some people actually like science fiction stuff? Is there not a market to be served here?
The problem is one of scope. Sci Fi shouldn't be trying to compete against the super-stations with zillions of dollars to throw at programming. Since Sci Fi is OWNED by those superstations, I don't understand what "competition" could even exist! Sci Fi should be competing against other ways I want to spend my time. Right now, I'd far rather read a book than bother myself to even find out what crap they're broadcasting at the moment. If I thought there was a non-zero chance that they were showing something I might like to watch, I might just turn on the TV and find out.
Yeah, I might be a member of a small demographic, but I can't be the ONLY real science fiction fan out there.
If it's not going to be Battlestar Galactica, why call it Battlestar Galactica? If they're not going to follow the original themes and characters and (at least to some degree) production design, why not do a new franchise?
That just doesn't make sense to me. If people want to watch gritty police dramas, they'll watch gritty police dramas. Why is every cable channel competing for the EXACT SAME VIEWERSHIP? Why can't there be some, I dunno, DIVERSITY in the offerings? Why can't Sci Fi do something different?
[Jedi mind trick]THERE WAS no Highlander 2[/Jedi mind trick]
Trust me. If you pretend it didn't happen, your world will be a shinier, happier place. Put the memory of this movie there with the one when Uncle Lester touched you in your bathing suit place.
Yeah, I tried with Europe but then the Balkans became, uh, Balkanized, and the USSR shed coutries like a lab getting out of the water, so I just stopped.
Some day, somebody's going to have to explain to me how rote memorization is useful brain exercise.
I guess you slept through that whole constitution lesson in your civics class.
The EXPLICIT PURPOSE of the Bill of Rights is to "castrate" the government. That's what it is FOR. The reason is, every government throughout history has ALWAYS used its power to abuse and repress its citizenz. The Bill of Rights was a hedge against that.
I have nothing to hide, but I have PLENTY to fear. I am not afraid of terrorists being in my backyard, but I certainly am nervous about law enforcemnt nosing around. Law enforcemnent is much better funded, and (historically) they have a much worse record.
Thanks. I/hate/ sour grape people. Armstrong may be many things (among them, a pretty obnoxious human being) but, at the end of the day, he's one of the all-time great bicycle racers.
My only argument with you is that there are stupid people in EVERY country. We just get all the bad press.
Hey, do you think that means the press is the problem? What a startling realization! Good thing I'll forget it before next week's barrage o' infotainment.
America is big. European countries are small. America is an extraordinarily powerful nation. Hungary is not.
For better or for worse, the average Hungarian is impacted by America far, far more than the average American is impacted by Hungary.
And re: your comments on the educational system, I still contend that I can find stupid people the world over. I simply don't care to make the (poorly founded) supposition that all countries where I can find ignorant people have largely ignorant populations. It's sloppy thinking, which is one thing that makes it such good news.
That fun little exercise we'll leave to the class.
Am I the only person who's a little worried about beaming lots of power to devices?
I read a story about a fellow who liked to eat his lunch in front of a microwave horn on an aerial somewhere, and woke up dead.
I know that military fire-control radars (many in the microwave band) can kill small animals easily.
Can somebody provide me with some data on safe power-density figures for microwave radiation? (Assuming a relatively unidirectional beam, evenly distributed on a torso-sized target, just for grins)
I call shenanigans. At least since World War II, the company was International Business Machines, although nowadays they probably won't acknowledge the acronym means anything.
Gosh. You mean people are not good at memorizing fairly long lists of rarely-useful information? What a stunning revelation. I wonder if people in other countries are so afflicted?
I wouldn't put more than about a beer on it, but I'm good for all 50 states, and at least half of the state capitals...but I wouldn't say that makes me smarter than anybody else.
Now, if you want me to name all (ALL!) the countries in Europe (don't forget Lichtienstein or Vatican City), I will throw in the towel. I don't bother to keep track of who's rebelling against who this year.
That is a fascinating assertion. Do you have a citation I can read?
Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest, but I'd be curious to read the rest of the story.
Oh man! I'm American, and I'm exercising courtesy, critical thinking, and healthy skepticism all in the same post! On/.! Is the earth stopping on its axis, or did I just fart?
At the beginning of this conversation, nobody said anything about 90%. Nobody said anything about statistics. Somebody just repeated a stupid fucking sound bite that they think makes them sound important. "Gee, Americans sure are dumb."
I hate stereotypes. I hate it when people make assumptions based on the most ridiculous, artificial divisions between people. It's sloppy thinking, and it's endemic to the human condition. However, I think it is incumbent on ALL of us as sentient beings to aggressively combat this tendency to make poorly-founded assumptions (never mind assertions!) whenever they find it.
So I exercised my right to free expression. Am I allowed to do that in your universe without needing psychoactive substances?
Slashdot Mirror
I just don't understand why there isn't SOME kind of market for the sorts of things I like. Am I crazy to think that, gosh! Some people actually like science fiction stuff? Is there not a market to be served here?
The problem is one of scope. Sci Fi shouldn't be trying to compete against the super-stations with zillions of dollars to throw at programming. Since Sci Fi is OWNED by those superstations, I don't understand what "competition" could even exist! Sci Fi should be competing against other ways I want to spend my time. Right now, I'd far rather read a book than bother myself to even find out what crap they're broadcasting at the moment. If I thought there was a non-zero chance that they were showing something I might like to watch, I might just turn on the TV and find out.
Yeah, I might be a member of a small demographic, but I can't be the ONLY real science fiction fan out there.
If it's not going to be Battlestar Galactica, why call it Battlestar Galactica? If they're not going to follow the original themes and characters and (at least to some degree) production design, why not do a new franchise?
That just doesn't make sense to me. If people want to watch gritty police dramas, they'll watch gritty police dramas. Why is every cable channel competing for the EXACT SAME VIEWERSHIP? Why can't there be some, I dunno, DIVERSITY in the offerings? Why can't Sci Fi do something different?
What does "irregardless" mean?
You don't understand.
[Jedi mind trick]THERE WAS no Highlander 2[/Jedi mind trick]
Trust me. If you pretend it didn't happen, your world will be a shinier, happier place. Put the memory of this movie there with the one when Uncle Lester touched you in your bathing suit place.
Yeah. Even the "Renegade Edition" was a really phenomenal crap-fest. In the running with Battlefield Earth for "Worst way to waste two hours EVAR!"
What a horrible, horrible, horrible movie. What the HELL was Sean Connery thinking!?
Yeah, I tried with Europe but then the Balkans became, uh, Balkanized, and the USSR shed coutries like a lab getting out of the water, so I just stopped.
Some day, somebody's going to have to explain to me how rote memorization is useful brain exercise.
I guess you slept through that whole constitution lesson in your civics class.
The EXPLICIT PURPOSE of the Bill of Rights is to "castrate" the government. That's what it is FOR. The reason is, every government throughout history has ALWAYS used its power to abuse and repress its citizenz. The Bill of Rights was a hedge against that.
I have nothing to hide, but I have PLENTY to fear. I am not afraid of terrorists being in my backyard, but I certainly am nervous about law enforcemnt nosing around. Law enforcemnent is much better funded, and (historically) they have a much worse record.
Well, you're not going to get the "spend 200 bucks on this stupid console." According to the article, you'll get to spend $400.
And $9.95/mo to your ISP for bandwidth.
And whatever prices the game companies decide to charge.
Gosh, this deal just gets better and better! I can't wait!
Ummm, do you want a cookie or something?
Snopes rules. Thanks for the dope slap. : )
Thanks. I /hate/ sour grape people. Armstrong may be many things (among them, a pretty obnoxious human being) but, at the end of the day, he's one of the all-time great bicycle racers.
Hell, he made Jan Ullrich cry. : )
Hmmm...some anonymous person making unfounded accusations about an American athlete doing well in an international competition...
Vous etes Francais, n'est-ce pas?
French or not, you're an idiot.
I'd call that data "indicative", not "authoritative". All it REALLY means is there are a lot of bad spellers out there.
Now, re: Cyrillic, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Of course, I never claimed to be able to. The world is chock full of things I don't know.
My only argument with you is that there are stupid people in EVERY country. We just get all the bad press.
Hey, do you think that means the press is the problem? What a startling realization! Good thing I'll forget it before next week's barrage o' infotainment.
No, I am arguing that that is a false dichotomy.
America is big. European countries are small. America is an extraordinarily powerful nation. Hungary is not.
For better or for worse, the average Hungarian is impacted by America far, far more than the average American is impacted by Hungary.
And re: your comments on the educational system, I still contend that I can find stupid people the world over. I simply don't care to make the (poorly founded) supposition that all countries where I can find ignorant people have largely ignorant populations. It's sloppy thinking, which is one thing that makes it such good news.
That fun little exercise we'll leave to the class.
Am I the only person who's a little worried about beaming lots of power to devices?
I read a story about a fellow who liked to eat his lunch in front of a microwave horn on an aerial somewhere, and woke up dead.
I know that military fire-control radars (many in the microwave band) can kill small animals easily.
Can somebody provide me with some data on safe power-density figures for microwave radiation? (Assuming a relatively unidirectional beam, evenly distributed on a torso-sized target, just for grins)
Way to go get the right answer. Gold star. : )
AND, our postal service's bicycle team 0wn3d Europe today.
USPS is pretty kick-ass. Especially now that they're independent and profitable.
I call shenanigans. At least since World War II, the company was International Business Machines, although nowadays they probably won't acknowledge the acronym means anything.
Kinda like MCI.
Yeah, a friend of me and I were discussing this after I took the quiz, and he found this graph. Interesting.
Looks like my buddhism guess was pretty stupid in any case. I vastly overestimated its penetration (or its reporting) in China.
Guess I'm an ignant American after all. : )
Gosh. You mean people are not good at memorizing fairly long lists of rarely-useful information? What a stunning revelation. I wonder if people in other countries are so afflicted?
I wouldn't put more than about a beer on it, but I'm good for all 50 states, and at least half of the state capitals...but I wouldn't say that makes me smarter than anybody else.
Now, if you want me to name all (ALL!) the countries in Europe (don't forget Lichtienstein or Vatican City), I will throw in the towel. I don't bother to keep track of who's rebelling against who this year.
That is a fascinating assertion. Do you have a citation I can read?
/.! Is the earth stopping on its axis, or did I just fart?
Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest, but I'd be curious to read the rest of the story.
Oh man! I'm American, and I'm exercising courtesy, critical thinking, and healthy skepticism all in the same post! On
On the other hand, some Americans can spell Tblisi.
(Disclaimer: if you can point to an authoritative, alternative Romanization of that city name that has a double-s, I will retract my spelling flame.)
At the beginning of this conversation, nobody said anything about 90%. Nobody said anything about statistics. Somebody just repeated a stupid fucking sound bite that they think makes them sound important. "Gee, Americans sure are dumb."
I hate stereotypes. I hate it when people make assumptions based on the most ridiculous, artificial divisions between people. It's sloppy thinking, and it's endemic to the human condition. However, I think it is incumbent on ALL of us as sentient beings to aggressively combat this tendency to make poorly-founded assumptions (never mind assertions!) whenever they find it.
So I exercised my right to free expression. Am I allowed to do that in your universe without needing psychoactive substances?
Just take your soma, citizen.