Yeah, and vigilantes have a long history of killing the innocents that happen to be near the Big Bad Man... Sure... it's just an internet connection... But the ethics are the same.
No, the ethics are worlds apart. Finding a reputable ISP to hook you up after your ISP gets cut off is trivial. Carrying on with your life by choosing more responsible people to be around is largely impossible after your dead. Here's a nickel, kid. Buy yourself a better analogy.
but that doesn't stop me from being sad when people talk about the latest heroes episodes:(
Sad about what? Nothing ever happens on that show. Or really, lots of things happen, they just don't seem to be going anywhere. It's an idiotic show that (unfortunately) entertainment hungry people watch anyway. The writers clearly have no series bible* to go by, because "powers" are useful/usable only when the story immediately requires it, and the very nature of the powers vacillates irrationally between genetic/biological and out-and-out magic, e.g. Dr Suresh is turning into The Fly (borderline plagiarism there) from some sort of mutation, but Pops Petrelli somehow has the ability to "steal" people's super powers from them? WTF? It's written by idiots who repeatedly paint themselves into corners and have to bullshit their way out in the most ridiculous ways. Hiro can control time and teleport, so any time this power would be too useful, they have him knocked unconscious by a blow to the head. Seriously, the guy should have brain damage by now, or at least have wised up and started wearing a motorcycle helmet everywhere. Peter Petrelli was basically immortal fucking Jesus walking the earth, so they had to first bring in "evil peter" from the alternate future to trap him in Frank Capra's body (using a power we never fucking heard of before) and then later they resort to a "reset" by having his father "steal" his powers somehow. Don't even get me started with Sylar. Figuring out how to fix a particular fucking watch makes you want to cut open heads and poke at brains? Then there's the whole time travel angle, which is the worst cop out there is in sci-fi writing. Painted into a corner? Time travel and change history! The whole show is just a confused patchwork of nonsense. What really pisses me off is that it could have been good.
At least it's not as bad as Fringe.
* a show's "bible" is a basic guide to the show's universe. It says who's who, what they did, what they do, what they don't do, etc. It keeps the stories and characters coherent and recognizable.
if one were to rub the worst half hour sitcom from one's daily tv viewing and substitute that for an equivalent amount of time getting aerobic exercise such as riding a bike, rowing, stair stepping, treadmilling, jogging, or using an elliptical trainer, one's happiness would take a quantum leap in the positive direction.
Skip the jogging, take it easy on the bike and the machines. "Light" aerobic exercise is healthier than "heavy". Better yet, stick to a half hour of moderately brisk walking. If it's not getting your heart rate up, carry some weight on your back. Running is something you reserve for when you're trying to escape tigers. Why resort to a method of getting your cardio up that beats the crap out of your joints when you can get the same exact effect another way?
The year 1914, for instance, is indicated as a significant year, the end of the seven gentile times.
Yeah, if you're an idiot maybe. According to Daniel armageddon comes 7 "times" after the destruction of Jerusalem (607BC), and a "time" is 360 days, so we're talking about 2,520 days, or a little less than 7 years. Oh, but if you're a moron, or if you're a Jehovah's Witness (but I repeat myself), you go to Numbers 14:34 and cherry-pick a line that says âoea day for a yearâ, and make it 2,520 years, and "ominously" arrive at 1914! What a fucking crock of shit. Take your "my magic man in the sky wrote this book" bullshit elsewhere.
Are you kidding? Yeah, it's been done using current technology, but to date there isn't one that isn't some clunky, oversized, borg-looking construction that requires an impractical amount of power. We need a "transitor" of the man-machine interface, something compact, efficient and reliable, and this looks like a step in the right direction.
The brain communicates chemically/electrically. A way to turn DNA strands into optical fiber isn't a step anywhere NEAR the direction of interfacing with the human brain.
the enterprise wasn't a war ship its a science vessel. what's the average age of scientists?
Probably higher than the average age of naval captains. How old are people when they finish their PhD's? You ever heard of a "scientist" without a PhD?
You do realize the average age of Military officers is mid 20's right?
When you average the ages of 1500 O-1 thru O-3's in their 20's and a dozen Colonels and Generals in their 50's, what else would the result be? It doesn't mean the "tweener" officers are commanding anything serious.
My boss who is since retired was a destroyer commander at 25.
Unlikely, unless he was a WW2 vet. Destroyers are commanded by people ranked Commander(O-5) or higher. It's exceedingly rare and a big deal when someone is promoted to Captain under the age of 40. Short of battlefield promotion in a big war like WW2, such a thing is unheard of.
The army has even had a general at 33.
Not in the last 60-odd years. George Custer was brevetted to general from lieutenant in the Civil War at the age of 23 by a pal of his who was a Major General, but that kind of bullshit happened a lot back then. The youngest promotion since WW2 to Brigadier General was 39, and the youngest currently on active duty was promoted at 44.
Face it. JJ Abrams is an idiot. He cast a bunch of kids as senior ships' officers when no such thing would ever reasonably happen in real life.
You do know the average age of people in the US military, right?
Our aircraft carriers and subs are all run by kids.
The kids that make up the crew of a carrier or sub are largely low ranking enlisted. The command staff of a naval vessel is all officers, generally of 0-4 grade and up. Tell me, how old is the guy playing Kirk supposed to be? THe actor playing him is twenty eight. How old is the captain of a sub or carrier? Bet your ass there isn't a single one under 35. It's ridiculous. They're making it Star Trek 90210.
30 minutes or so? If you're anything like the kind of smoker I was, that'd only leave you about 15 minutes before you'd need to go and stink yourself up again!
Psh. Back when I smoked, That 30 minutes would be long enough for me to have already smoked 1 or 2 more cigarettes.
I actually catch myself wishing it was still legal to smoke in office buildings, just to cover that horrible stench of oranges that can't be sensed a good four offices away...
I reckon everyone has a particular office stench they hate. Personally, I wish microwave popcorn was fucking illegal. The smell of that disgusting shit hangs around for HOURS.
"requires one particular fuel" (unlike a Stirling)
This is true, but somewhat misleading. In theory, yes, you can run a stirling on any fuel; but in practice, your burner system is going to have to be designed for a certain type of fuel. You can't just put diesel oil or propane into a system designed for gasoline. At best you could probably use kerosene or alcohol. You're certainly not going to be able to shovel coal into a stirling made to run on CNG!
It's not "subjecting others to your religion". It's denial, and it's an important part of voluntary human relations.
It's not that simple. There are PLENTY of cases where denial of service isn't a protected right. Try denying filling prescriptions to (say) women, or "mexicans", or Methodists and claim it as a denial based on religious belief, and you'll find yourself staring down the barrel of a nasty legal proceeding.
kinda like the old insult of saying someone has "an eighty-column mind" to indicate they were still in the punch-card mindset, we need something for dumbasses who hit enter at the end of a line like they're typing on a goddamn IBM Selectric. Hey 'tards! We have fully automated WORDWRAP now!
Actually, DST was all about factory and office workers. Farmers have never wanted DST and protested it vigorously. They don't work by the clock, they work by the sun, and no amount of fucking with the time is gonna give them a single second extra daylight. All it did was screw with their schedule. Cows need milking at the same solar time no matter what some government asshole says the clock should read; but the feed store, the milk processor, the grain silo, and the John Deere dealer, they all have to listen to the government asshole, so the farmer's schedule is screwed because come november, 7am sunrise is suddenly 6am sunrise (or 5am, in the case of DST during WW1) and none of those places are open yet.
Minor nitpick: It's either UFO: Enemy Unknown (Europe) or X-Com: UFO Defense (USA). Yes, I'm a fellow X-Com nerd and I still rate this game as a contender for Best Game Ever.
You're right! Before I bought the US version I played the European version extensively ("found" it via FTP...), so in the back of my mind it's always "UFO: Enemy Unknown" first...
By the way, you might want to look into UFO: Cydonias Fall. They apparently attempt a straight 3D remake of the first X-Com game.
It looks great, and I wish I could say I was hopeful.... but reading the forums, they appear to all be university students and a lot of the recent news is about how busy they are not working on the game....
We need to move to a new model where the local government (local mind you, not state or federal) needs to own the physical lines and ISPs can purchase access to those lines.
Heck, I'd settle for letting private corps do it all, but make them choose one or the other. Regulate it such that they can either A) install, maintain, and operate the physical fiber, or B) buy bandwidth from the former to provide [Internet|Phone|TV|*] service to connected individuals. The problem we have now is that the telcos have been allowed to do both by default because in the analog olden days of Plain Old Telephone Service, the physical circuit was intrinsically tied to the communication service. Someone needs to drag the telcos out behind the barn and put a bullet in their collective brain, as they still seem to be living in the 1890's.
Nah, a "jewel in the rough" is more like a dirty looking tradesman that turns out to look fantastic in a tux and can quote Chaucer to the upper crust folks at the charity benefit. "A gem among the rocks" is probably more what you're looking for.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, and vigilantes have a long history of killing the innocents that happen to be near the Big Bad Man... Sure... it's just an internet connection... But the ethics are the same.
No, the ethics are worlds apart. Finding a reputable ISP to hook you up after your ISP gets cut off is trivial. Carrying on with your life by choosing more responsible people to be around is largely impossible after your dead. Here's a nickel, kid. Buy yourself a better analogy.
but that doesn't stop me from being sad when people talk about the latest heroes episodes :(
Sad about what? Nothing ever happens on that show. Or really, lots of things happen, they just don't seem to be going anywhere. It's an idiotic show that (unfortunately) entertainment hungry people watch anyway. The writers clearly have no series bible* to go by, because "powers" are useful/usable only when the story immediately requires it, and the very nature of the powers vacillates irrationally between genetic/biological and out-and-out magic, e.g. Dr Suresh is turning into The Fly (borderline plagiarism there) from some sort of mutation, but Pops Petrelli somehow has the ability to "steal" people's super powers from them? WTF? It's written by idiots who repeatedly paint themselves into corners and have to bullshit their way out in the most ridiculous ways. Hiro can control time and teleport, so any time this power would be too useful, they have him knocked unconscious by a blow to the head. Seriously, the guy should have brain damage by now, or at least have wised up and started wearing a motorcycle helmet everywhere. Peter Petrelli was basically immortal fucking Jesus walking the earth, so they had to first bring in "evil peter" from the alternate future to trap him in Frank Capra's body (using a power we never fucking heard of before) and then later they resort to a "reset" by having his father "steal" his powers somehow. Don't even get me started with Sylar. Figuring out how to fix a particular fucking watch makes you want to cut open heads and poke at brains? Then there's the whole time travel angle, which is the worst cop out there is in sci-fi writing. Painted into a corner? Time travel and change history! The whole show is just a confused patchwork of nonsense. What really pisses me off is that it could have been good.
At least it's not as bad as Fringe.
* a show's "bible" is a basic guide to the show's universe. It says who's who, what they did, what they do, what they don't do, etc. It keeps the stories and characters coherent and recognizable.
if one were to rub the worst half hour sitcom from one's daily tv viewing and substitute that for an equivalent amount of time getting aerobic exercise such as riding a bike, rowing, stair stepping, treadmilling, jogging, or using an elliptical trainer, one's happiness would take a quantum leap in the positive direction.
Skip the jogging, take it easy on the bike and the machines. "Light" aerobic exercise is healthier than "heavy". Better yet, stick to a half hour of moderately brisk walking. If it's not getting your heart rate up, carry some weight on your back. Running is something you reserve for when you're trying to escape tigers. Why resort to a method of getting your cardio up that beats the crap out of your joints when you can get the same exact effect another way?
The year 1914, for instance, is indicated as a significant year, the end of the seven gentile times.
Yeah, if you're an idiot maybe. According to Daniel armageddon comes 7 "times" after the destruction of Jerusalem (607BC), and a "time" is 360 days, so we're talking about 2,520 days, or a little less than 7 years. Oh, but if you're a moron, or if you're a Jehovah's Witness (but I repeat myself), you go to Numbers 14:34 and cherry-pick a line that says âoea day for a yearâ, and make it 2,520 years, and "ominously" arrive at 1914! What a fucking crock of shit. Take your "my magic man in the sky wrote this book" bullshit elsewhere.
Are you kidding? Yeah, it's been done using current technology, but to date there isn't one that isn't some clunky, oversized, borg-looking construction that requires an impractical amount of power. We need a "transitor" of the man-machine interface, something compact, efficient and reliable, and this looks like a step in the right direction.
The brain communicates chemically/electrically. A way to turn DNA strands into optical fiber isn't a step anywhere NEAR the direction of interfacing with the human brain.
the enterprise wasn't a war ship its a science vessel. what's the average age of scientists?
Probably higher than the average age of naval captains. How old are people when they finish their PhD's? You ever heard of a "scientist" without a PhD?
You do realize the average age of Military officers is mid 20's right?
When you average the ages of 1500 O-1 thru O-3's in their 20's and a dozen Colonels and Generals in their 50's, what else would the result be? It doesn't mean the "tweener" officers are commanding anything serious.
My boss who is since retired was a destroyer commander at 25.
Unlikely, unless he was a WW2 vet. Destroyers are commanded by people ranked Commander(O-5) or higher. It's exceedingly rare and a big deal when someone is promoted to Captain under the age of 40. Short of battlefield promotion in a big war like WW2, such a thing is unheard of.
The army has even had a general at 33.
Not in the last 60-odd years. George Custer was brevetted to general from lieutenant in the Civil War at the age of 23 by a pal of his who was a Major General, but that kind of bullshit happened a lot back then. The youngest promotion since WW2 to Brigadier General was 39, and the youngest currently on active duty was promoted at 44.
Face it. JJ Abrams is an idiot. He cast a bunch of kids as senior ships' officers when no such thing would ever reasonably happen in real life.
You do know the average age of people in the US military, right?
Our aircraft carriers and subs are all run by kids.
The kids that make up the crew of a carrier or sub are largely low ranking enlisted. The command staff of a naval vessel is all officers, generally of 0-4 grade and up. Tell me, how old is the guy playing Kirk supposed to be? THe actor playing him is twenty eight. How old is the captain of a sub or carrier? Bet your ass there isn't a single one under 35. It's ridiculous. They're making it Star Trek 90210.
Pager batteries last a month, and flash a low-battery warning accusingly for a week or more.
Psh. Nobody ever sees that warning. What happens is the URGENT - LOW BATTERY beep starts after 6 weeks, usually at 2am.
OK, now come up with a solution to the "pathetic vibrate mode" problem. Inadequate ring volume was only HALF his complaint.
30 minutes or so? If you're anything like the kind of smoker I was, that'd only leave you about 15 minutes before you'd need to go and stink yourself up again!
Psh. Back when I smoked, That 30 minutes would be long enough for me to have already smoked 1 or 2 more cigarettes.
I actually catch myself wishing it was still legal to smoke in office buildings, just to cover that horrible stench of oranges that can't be sensed a good four offices away...
I reckon everyone has a particular office stench they hate. Personally, I wish microwave popcorn was fucking illegal. The smell of that disgusting shit hangs around for HOURS.
"requires one particular fuel" (unlike a Stirling)
This is true, but somewhat misleading. In theory, yes, you can run a stirling on any fuel; but in practice, your burner system is going to have to be designed for a certain type of fuel. You can't just put diesel oil or propane into a system designed for gasoline. At best you could probably use kerosene or alcohol. You're certainly not going to be able to shovel coal into a stirling made to run on CNG!
"having a car requiring a large gap in traffic to make a left turn safely" != "fear"
idiot
It's not "subjecting others to your religion". It's denial, and it's an important part of voluntary human relations.
It's not that simple. There are PLENTY of cases where denial of service isn't a protected right. Try denying filling prescriptions to (say) women, or "mexicans", or Methodists and claim it as a denial based on religious belief, and you'll find yourself staring down the barrel of a nasty legal proceeding.
kinda like the old insult of saying someone has "an eighty-column mind" to indicate they were still in the punch-card mindset, we need something for dumbasses who hit enter at the end of a line like they're typing on a goddamn IBM Selectric. Hey 'tards! We have fully automated WORDWRAP now!
DST doesn't make the sun stay out any longer.
Farmers don't need the extra daylight, either.
Actually, DST was all about factory and office workers. Farmers have never wanted DST and protested it vigorously. They don't work by the clock, they work by the sun, and no amount of fucking with the time is gonna give them a single second extra daylight. All it did was screw with their schedule. Cows need milking at the same solar time no matter what some government asshole says the clock should read; but the feed store, the milk processor, the grain silo, and the John Deere dealer, they all have to listen to the government asshole, so the farmer's schedule is screwed because come november, 7am sunrise is suddenly 6am sunrise (or 5am, in the case of DST during WW1) and none of those places are open yet.
They fuck with our clocks, operating systems, and minds with no rational plan.
That statement pretty much fits anything government does.
Daylight Saving Time. Saving, singular, not Savings, plural.
As you were.
Also it's not a "safety deposit box". It is a box, where you deposit things, kept in a safe. It's a safe deposit box.
Minor nitpick: It's either UFO: Enemy Unknown (Europe) or X-Com: UFO Defense (USA). Yes, I'm a fellow X-Com nerd and I still rate this game as a contender for Best Game Ever.
You're right! Before I bought the US version I played the European version extensively ("found" it via FTP...), so in the back of my mind it's always "UFO: Enemy Unknown" first...
By the way, you might want to look into UFO: Cydonias Fall. They apparently attempt a straight 3D remake of the first X-Com game.
It looks great, and I wish I could say I was hopeful.... but reading the forums, they appear to all be university students and a lot of the recent news is about how busy they are not working on the game....
We need to move to a new model where the local government (local mind you, not state or federal) needs to own the physical lines and ISPs can purchase access to those lines.
Heck, I'd settle for letting private corps do it all, but make them choose one or the other. Regulate it such that they can either A) install, maintain, and operate the physical fiber, or B) buy bandwidth from the former to provide [Internet|Phone|TV|*] service to connected individuals. The problem we have now is that the telcos have been allowed to do both by default because in the analog olden days of Plain Old Telephone Service, the physical circuit was intrinsically tied to the communication service. Someone needs to drag the telcos out behind the barn and put a bullet in their collective brain, as they still seem to be living in the 1890's.
Take Gaundi for instance...
Gandhi?
..he is a jewel in the rough.
Nah, a "jewel in the rough" is more like a dirty looking tradesman that turns out to look fantastic in a tux and can quote Chaucer to the upper crust folks at the charity benefit. "A gem among the rocks" is probably more what you're looking for.
60-70e (about $100)
the Euro is only 1.27 to the dollar. 60e-70e is only $75-$89