I'm an actor, and I agree with Taco that she did quite well for a crappy script. But I don't agree on the matter of her accent. My British friends tell me it was impeccable, that she must have spent time in England picking it up. I felt that I agreed. Two pats to Angelina.:)
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
www.darkchapter.net Free Speech Forum
I don't know about the rest of you, but after the first three episodes of Family Guy the show crashed and burned. It got incredibly boring and not-funny.
On the other hand, the only reason I stopped watching the Lone Gunmen is that it switched timeslots, to a time when I couldn't watch. I loved the show--finally geeks as heroes. And that includes the first episode, which I thought was great.
I also recommend Farscape, on Scifi. If that gets the ax, I'll kill myself. But luckily it's not looking like it's moving in an ax direction.
I don't know about the other stuff but I think CD burning software for Windows is a great idea and necessary. True, Linux provides software by varying companies, but then that software is all free. And I'm sure someone can come up with a more professional alternative to all of Microsoft's programs. Better free, though--I can't afford Adaptec's EasyCDCreator.
What happens if they see someone pointing, with a cellphone in the other hand, and think they're directing terrorist activity, as in the case of 2600's Shapeshifter? There isn't even audio on these cameras, naturally. So how do they know that the people they're seeing pointing at a bank aren't just stretching?
All I know is I pay 92.77/month for 1500down/384up, and I love the service. It's through Covad, with an ISP which I absolutely am in love with (speakeasy.net), but the local phone service is Verizon. Dunno, though, because I live in a historic area built fewer than 100 years ago; thus my guess is that the phone wiring is pretty antiquated, and yet I still get 1.5Mbps. What's going on?
One problem is this, though. It takes hours to find what you're looking for, in most cases. You search for C++ and it finds nothing, because it uses the plus sign for something else. You search for breast cancer and it gives you free XXX hot porno sex sex sex only 500 dollars. Why don't they improve this, one might ask. Easy: You see those little banners at the top of the screen? Every time you load a page, new ones show up, and therefore they get more advertising in when you load their pages more. Thus, if it's harder to find things, it's your loss, not theirs. Indeed, they gain, as they get more advertising done.
I've been told by my college counselors that people who go to MIT actually hate it there. They've been known to approach tour groups and tell them not to go to school there.
It seems to me that these "experts" hired by the plaintiff or defendant are paid based on the expectation that they will argue in favor of their employer, not on the expectation that they will be fair. These experts are also commonly known as "expert witnesses." They are not necessarily biased at all; the closest comparison I can think of is that these experts are taking on a role in a play or scene, and telling their story based on how their character feels about the situation.
There are most certainly biased expert witnesses, but then again, are not normal witnesses biased?
When you all criticize them for being biased, consider this. The court system was designed so that they would argue in favor of their employer, not so much so that they would argue completely objectively. The reason, though, that expert witnesses appear biased so often is this. When you swear to tell the truth before you take the stand, you are swearing to tell the truth as you believe it to be; you are not swearing to tell facts. So often expert witnesses are not nearly as knowledgeable as they pretend to be, and therefore make statements that are technically incorrect but are in their opinions the truth. This is what allows people to say that hackers are people who break in to websites; it is the truth as those people know it, even if it is pure fiction.
If you were to hire a better, more knowledgeable expert witness than the people opposing you, you have a better chance of coming off triumphant. If both expert witnesses suck, but your expert witness sucks more, it will make the other "team's" witness appear biased, greedy, and stupid.
I must say that I don't really like this balance thing too much. I always say different games for different moods.
Examples for you.
Thief II: The Metal Age had a good enough plot for a trilogy of books, for example (sorry, folks, I never played the Dark Project), and the game play was incredibly. It is perhaps the best game I've ever played, with an excellent engine, excellent level design, and excellent everything.
The Wheel of Time obviously had a great setting, or it wouldn't have been made. The story was good, though in the end I think we'll find that it isn't quite consistent with the books by Robert Jordan. And some of the gameplay was only moderate, though I must say the idea of mixing strategy and FPS is excellent. The level design was incredible, though not quite on the same scale as Thief II.
Quake is my other favorite, though. You just can't beat it, though it has no storyline of any kind. On the other hand, it doesn't try to have a storyline. You can't fail unless you try. The level design is great, the engine is incredible. Who could complain (other than those silly people who think M-rated games encourage violence and sex--personally, I think years of masturbating alone encourages sex).
A mixture's great. And great everything is even better. But sometimes you look for different things in each game. Each of the three games I've mentioned is excellent in different ways that seem similar.
I knew I had the flu, but it wasn't that bad, so I thought I'd manage. Especially since I'd be sitting with three pretty girls...well, two pretty girls and one ugly one. And I was fine until the last two minutes of the movie. And then they showed the gruesome part (no, I won't spoil it). Perhaps I'd normally have been able to take it--but this was too much. I actually blacked out in my seat--it took cold water to wake me up.
Beware this movie. It's disgusting. I personally didn't like it much, but my three friends claimed they loved it. Maybe it's a girl thing (them being the girls, and I the guy)...
The winners write the history books. During the railroad age right here in the good old US of A, when settlers won skirmishes against Native Americans, they were called battles. When Native Americans won against the settlers, they were called massacres. When settlers used tactics, it was called strategy. When Native Americans used tactics, it was treachery.
If things happen as described in the article, history books will show that Napster was in the wrong and everything the court, MPAA, and RIAA did was correct and for the good of the nation. Our kids will grow up believing that, no matter what we tell them. It's just like the Pledge of Allegiance, when kids are forced to say it; Hitler used the same tactics in Nazi Germany to turn children against their parents.
Unfortunately the non-dairy kind always has some remnant of baby-cow-food. Thus making it inevitable. If you look very closely at the label of something like Non-Dairy Coffee Creamer you'll see it: "whey" or "casein" or "milk flavor;" something along those lines.
so this sounds like quite a milestone. Now if only they would engineer some nacho cheese flavor into those rice cakes...
Oh yeah, that would be great. Especially for all of us out here who are geeks as a direct result of childhood irritable bowel syndrome and an inability to digest milk products.
Here's my story. Sixth grade...start getting the good ol' green apple quickstep really bad for no reason. By eighth grade I had no social life because I was afraid to go out with anyone I didn't know very well because of how embarassing it could be if I disappeared in to the bathroom for a good twenty minutes. It wasn't until ninth grade that I discovered that in actuality it never would have gotten that bad if it hadn't been for milk.
No, it doesn't sound bad. But look at it this way. Everything with the least amount of a milk product in it, even something like butter flavor (in Kellog's Rice Krispie Treats), or milk protein, or whey...and that means virtually everything prepared in a food chain restaurant or a factory...was causing me to have painful, embarassing diarrhea. And since I hadn't known what was causing it, and had no way of predicting when it would happen, I was constantly anxious about it; this anxiety increased tenfold when I was doing stuff with friends, or doing something public. Or, in class. Anxiety triggers irritable bowel syndrome. And irritable bowel syndrome triggers anxiety. So it got worse and worse until I finally went to see a gastroenterologist (and it turns out that no, it's not an allergy, just a bad reaction--a very bad one). Luckily, things have gotten better now that I'm a junior in high school, and I can have a social life. But still no milk. Stupid *explitive deleted* pizza... And never will I be able to lick whipped cream off of my lover.
Well, anyway. I imagine that if they were ever able to make rice milk flavored, many, many people would die before it was over, and there would be far fewer nerds sitting at home reading slashdot because they couldn't have a social life due to an undiscovered case of irritable bowel syndrome combined with a milk allergy.
The essay argues that if someone has written a book, and owns the ideas in the book, and someone wants to make a film of it, it is a violation of the filmer's property rights to use copyrights to forbid him or her to film it.
While this much is true, it must be remembered that if the filmer then goes and makes a shitload of money off of his or her new film, the author of the book deserves some small amount of that.
On the other hand, it's too bad the filmmaker doesn't just give some of it to the author (in other words, why doesn't he or she be nice?), so that copyrights don't even have to exist?
I suppose that's a bit too close to communism. But isn't the Internet fairly communist, other than the bandwidth issue? Everyone's equal in a chat room, unless there's a moderator. Everyone on a Gnutella network is equal. IRC is probably the last residue of capitalism to be on the Internet, or will be at some point.
A friend of mine walked in to CompUSA the other day and asked for a Playstation 2, and whaddya know, they had some. He's very happy now, though his bank balance is 300 dollars lower.
I can't believe they're leaving out Tom Bombadil. Bombadil is necessary.
This may sound a bit funny coming from an agnostic semi-Wiccan like myself...But here I go. Tolkien was good buddies with C.S. Lewis, and a very religious Christian. Therefore The Lord of the Rings was written with heavy religious significance. Just like Star Wars it is meant to portray the struggle of good vs. evil. The character of Bombadil shows that there is a greater good; he can see through evil's best attempt at making things suck, if that makes sense.
I sure hope they decide to put him back.
Anyway I heard rumors of one more change: right after leaving Lothlorien, instead of merely following the Fellowship, Gollum attacks and attempts to take the ring. Perhaps he succeeds; I can not quite remember the rumor's exact wording.
I live not five minutes away from that Borders, at Bailey's Crossroads. Right down bloody King Street. If only I'd known. He's not by chance making any surprise stops? Lemme know if he is, any of you. Please. The day of. I'll check my mail. Believe me.
On the other hand, I have a stepsister going to college in Greensboro. Maybe I could go...visit her.;)
Slashdot Mirror
That is funny. Hehehehe.
I'm an actor, and I agree with Taco that she did quite well for a crappy script. But I don't agree on the matter of her accent. My British friends tell me it was impeccable, that she must have spent time in England picking it up. I felt that I agreed. Two pats to Angelina. :)
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
www.darkchapter.net Free Speech Forum
It seems to me that AOL already used IE.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
Where does this go in the OSA Model? Damn CCNA...
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
I don't know about the rest of you, but after the first three episodes of Family Guy the show crashed and burned. It got incredibly boring and not-funny.
On the other hand, the only reason I stopped watching the Lone Gunmen is that it switched timeslots, to a time when I couldn't watch. I loved the show--finally geeks as heroes. And that includes the first episode, which I thought was great.
I also recommend Farscape, on Scifi. If that gets the ax, I'll kill myself. But luckily it's not looking like it's moving in an ax direction.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
I don't know about the other stuff but I think CD burning software for Windows is a great idea and necessary. True, Linux provides software by varying companies, but then that software is all free. And I'm sure someone can come up with a more professional alternative to all of Microsoft's programs. Better free, though--I can't afford Adaptec's EasyCDCreator.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
Perhaps this slashdot post has caused the Chinese government to ban the visiting of www.slashdot.org throughout China.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
What happens if they see someone pointing, with a cellphone in the other hand, and think they're directing terrorist activity, as in the case of 2600's Shapeshifter? There isn't even audio on these cameras, naturally. So how do they know that the people they're seeing pointing at a bank aren't just stretching?
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
Is Watching You.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
Perhaps it's not the universe that's expanding; perhaps we, and everything inside of it are shrinking.
It's all relative.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
All I know is I pay 92.77/month for 1500down/384up, and I love the service. It's through Covad, with an ISP which I absolutely am in love with (speakeasy.net), but the local phone service is Verizon. Dunno, though, because I live in a historic area built fewer than 100 years ago; thus my guess is that the phone wiring is pretty antiquated, and yet I still get 1.5Mbps. What's going on?
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
Add more spidering servers to look through stuff.
One problem is this, though. It takes hours to find what you're looking for, in most cases. You search for C++ and it finds nothing, because it uses the plus sign for something else. You search for breast cancer and it gives you free XXX hot porno sex sex sex only 500 dollars.
Why don't they improve this, one might ask.
Easy: You see those little banners at the top of the screen? Every time you load a page, new ones show up, and therefore they get more advertising in when you load their pages more. Thus, if it's harder to find things, it's your loss, not theirs. Indeed, they gain, as they get more advertising done.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
I've been told by my college counselors that people who go to MIT actually hate it there. They've been known to approach tour groups and tell them not to go to school there.
Is there any truth in this?
aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
It seems to me that these "experts" hired by the plaintiff or defendant are paid based on the expectation that they will argue in favor of their employer, not on the expectation that they will be fair. These experts are also commonly known as "expert witnesses." They are not necessarily biased at all; the closest comparison I can think of is that these experts are taking on a role in a play or scene, and telling their story based on how their character feels about the situation.
There are most certainly biased expert witnesses, but then again, are not normal witnesses biased?
When you all criticize them for being biased, consider this. The court system was designed so that they would argue in favor of their employer, not so much so that they would argue completely objectively. The reason, though, that expert witnesses appear biased so often is this. When you swear to tell the truth before you take the stand, you are swearing to tell the truth as you believe it to be; you are not swearing to tell facts. So often expert witnesses are not nearly as knowledgeable as they pretend to be, and therefore make statements that are technically incorrect but are in their opinions the truth. This is what allows people to say that hackers are people who break in to websites; it is the truth as those people know it, even if it is pure fiction.
If you were to hire a better, more knowledgeable expert witness than the people opposing you, you have a better chance of coming off triumphant. If both expert witnesses suck, but your expert witness sucks more, it will make the other "team's" witness appear biased, greedy, and stupid.
Sorry if this reading is too dense.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
I must say that I don't really like this balance thing too much. I always say different games for different moods.
Examples for you.
Thief II: The Metal Age had a good enough plot for a trilogy of books, for example (sorry, folks, I never played the Dark Project), and the game play was incredibly. It is perhaps the best game I've ever played, with an excellent engine, excellent level design, and excellent everything.
The Wheel of Time obviously had a great setting, or it wouldn't have been made. The story was good, though in the end I think we'll find that it isn't quite consistent with the books by Robert Jordan. And some of the gameplay was only moderate, though I must say the idea of mixing strategy and FPS is excellent. The level design was incredible, though not quite on the same scale as Thief II.
Quake is my other favorite, though. You just can't beat it, though it has no storyline of any kind. On the other hand, it doesn't try to have a storyline. You can't fail unless you try. The level design is great, the engine is incredible. Who could complain (other than those silly people who think M-rated games encourage violence and sex--personally, I think years of masturbating alone encourages sex).
A mixture's great. And great everything is even better. But sometimes you look for different things in each game. Each of the three games I've mentioned is excellent in different ways that seem similar.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
I knew I had the flu, but it wasn't that bad, so I thought I'd manage. Especially since I'd be sitting with three pretty girls...well, two pretty girls and one ugly one. And I was fine until the last two minutes of the movie. And then they showed the gruesome part (no, I won't spoil it). Perhaps I'd normally have been able to take it--but this was too much. I actually blacked out in my seat--it took cold water to wake me up.
Beware this movie. It's disgusting. I personally didn't like it much, but my three friends claimed they loved it. Maybe it's a girl thing (them being the girls, and I the guy)...
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
They're not caps, they're numbers, silly. 2001-03-20 02:54:37 My birthday.
The winners write the history books. During the railroad age right here in the good old US of A, when settlers won skirmishes against Native Americans, they were called battles. When Native Americans won against the settlers, they were called massacres. When settlers used tactics, it was called strategy. When Native Americans used tactics, it was treachery.
If things happen as described in the article, history books will show that Napster was in the wrong and everything the court, MPAA, and RIAA did was correct and for the good of the nation. Our kids will grow up believing that, no matter what we tell them. It's just like the Pledge of Allegiance, when kids are forced to say it; Hitler used the same tactics in Nazi Germany to turn children against their parents.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
Unfortunately the non-dairy kind always has some remnant of baby-cow-food. Thus making it inevitable. If you look very closely at the label of something like Non-Dairy Coffee Creamer you'll see it: "whey" or "casein" or "milk flavor;" something along those lines.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
so this sounds like quite a milestone. Now if only they would engineer some nacho cheese flavor into those rice cakes...
Oh yeah, that would be great. Especially for all of us out here who are geeks as a direct result of childhood irritable bowel syndrome and an inability to digest milk products.
Here's my story. Sixth grade...start getting the good ol' green apple quickstep really bad for no reason. By eighth grade I had no social life because I was afraid to go out with anyone I didn't know very well because of how embarassing it could be if I disappeared in to the bathroom for a good twenty minutes. It wasn't until ninth grade that I discovered that in actuality it never would have gotten that bad if it hadn't been for milk.
No, it doesn't sound bad. But look at it this way. Everything with the least amount of a milk product in it, even something like butter flavor (in Kellog's Rice Krispie Treats), or milk protein, or whey...and that means virtually everything prepared in a food chain restaurant or a factory...was causing me to have painful, embarassing diarrhea. And since I hadn't known what was causing it, and had no way of predicting when it would happen, I was constantly anxious about it; this anxiety increased tenfold when I was doing stuff with friends, or doing something public. Or, in class. Anxiety triggers irritable bowel syndrome. And irritable bowel syndrome triggers anxiety. So it got worse and worse until I finally went to see a gastroenterologist (and it turns out that no, it's not an allergy, just a bad reaction--a very bad one). Luckily, things have gotten better now that I'm a junior in high school, and I can have a social life. But still no milk. Stupid *explitive deleted* pizza... And never will I be able to lick whipped cream off of my lover.
Well, anyway. I imagine that if they were ever able to make rice milk flavored, many, many people would die before it was over, and there would be far fewer nerds sitting at home reading slashdot because they couldn't have a social life due to an undiscovered case of irritable bowel syndrome combined with a milk allergy.
Just my 8192 cents.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
The essay argues that if someone has written a book, and owns the ideas in the book, and someone wants to make a film of it, it is a violation of the filmer's property rights to use copyrights to forbid him or her to film it.
While this much is true, it must be remembered that if the filmer then goes and makes a shitload of money off of his or her new film, the author of the book deserves some small amount of that.
On the other hand, it's too bad the filmmaker doesn't just give some of it to the author (in other words, why doesn't he or she be nice?), so that copyrights don't even have to exist?
I suppose that's a bit too close to communism. But isn't the Internet fairly communist, other than the bandwidth issue? Everyone's equal in a chat room, unless there's a moderator. Everyone on a Gnutella network is equal. IRC is probably the last residue of capitalism to be on the Internet, or will be at some point.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
Brings to mind a really awful show on Scifi entitled Lexx...
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
A friend of mine walked in to CompUSA the other day and asked for a Playstation 2, and whaddya know, they had some. He's very happy now, though his bank balance is 300 dollars lower.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
I can't believe they're leaving out Tom Bombadil. Bombadil is necessary.
This may sound a bit funny coming from an agnostic semi-Wiccan like myself...But here I go. Tolkien was good buddies with C.S. Lewis, and a very religious Christian. Therefore The Lord of the Rings was written with heavy religious significance. Just like Star Wars it is meant to portray the struggle of good vs. evil. The character of Bombadil shows that there is a greater good; he can see through evil's best attempt at making things suck, if that makes sense.
I sure hope they decide to put him back.
Anyway I heard rumors of one more change: right after leaving Lothlorien, instead of merely following the Fellowship, Gollum attacks and attempts to take the ring. Perhaps he succeeds; I can not quite remember the rumor's exact wording.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
I live not five minutes away from that Borders, at Bailey's Crossroads. Right down bloody King Street. If only I'd known. He's not by chance making any surprise stops? Lemme know if he is, any of you. Please. The day of. I'll check my mail. Believe me.
;)
On the other hand, I have a stepsister going to college in Greensboro. Maybe I could go...visit her.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net