Please read this entirely before modding me down as a troll - I'm not. I live in Chile, so I know about this.
A *minority* of the mapuche polulation follows a certain Aucan Huilcaman, a professional agitator (yes, I mean it), whose activity for the last +-10 years has been to create a state of "social upheaval" (real or otherwise) for the benefit of his agenda. ANY subject that might be construed as possibly discriminating or damaging the Mapuche people in any way, he's rallied against it, even if the facts don't suit him... just like this case has.
Here comes the fun part: until less than 50 years ago, the mapuche language ("mapudungun" or "mapuzungun", depending on the transliteration) did NOT have a written form; not even an alphabet. There's been several attempts at creating one, and now there are FIVE different "candidates", each supported by a subset of the Mapuche people. Only two of those have been in "talks" to merge their alphabets together. So far, there hasn't been any progress in creating a unified mapuzungun alphabet, although the Ministerio de Educación here does favor one of the candidates and uses it (drawing criticism from the faction that favor the others, plus from the radical factions that don't want ANY involvement from the "foreign" government).
That said, PART of the "scandal" here is that Microsoft has taken advice from the Government. Aucan Huilcaman, the agitator I mentioned before is complaining that<ul> <li>The Mapuche language is ours, so bugger off. <li>The Government has no business choosing an alphabet for our language. <li>Microsoft has no right to take decisions about mapuche culture based on government's advice - it should ask us[1]. </UL>
I agree this is an incredibly idiotic stand, but Huilcaman uses every oportunity to bash the "foreign invaders" he gets... even if he's completely off base, like in this case. It works in part because many of his followers don't have an education and are easily fooled.
That's pretty much the way we do it in my country (Chile). We may be a lame unimportant country, but we can actually give the USA lessons on the proper way to do an election... IMNAAHO.
That's because it's the ONLY good SF around. Seriously, all the rest of the stuff out there today either sucks (Stargate) or is horrendous (Andromeda).
Having only bad SF on TV had been the status quo for at least three years, until BSG came along. This is why it's been hyped this much (not that it doesn't deserve it).
[yes, I live in Chile]... when it comes to astronomy (hell, science in general), our local media (TV and newspapers) does pretty slim coverage. I end up reading about these developments in foreign news sites (slashdot, BBC, space.com, etc.) 3-6 days before than appearing here, if at all.:-(
A long time ago, I decided to give up on soft drinks entirely. No more Coca-cola, Sprite, Canada Dry Ginger Ale, et cetera. Instead, I would drink only water.
And you know what? Now I'm able to tell which kind of regular water I'm drinking (any of the 8 brands of mineral/bottled water that are sold where I live, and even tap water from either of the two companies that serve our city). My friends are unable to do so, and the ones that don't believe me have lost money betting they could cheat me on a blind test.
This increased sensory capability has led me as well to discover that premium-grade bottled orange juice (or better yet, self-made) is as delicious a drink as I need. And milk tastes quite good as well. Who needs soft drinks? Not me.
As for "succulent", I rely on cookies, chocolate, ice cream, et cetera... I'm overwwight anyway.:-(
What's actually happening is that is simply *ceasing* being the primary mass-market product - amateur digital is taking over THAT segment of the global market, and that's that. Granted, it's the biggest chunk, but not the only one.
Sensors can grow as much as you like, BUT... there's still plenty of stuff where film wins over digital, regardless of film area or sensor size:
Low-end digicams perform HORRENDOUSLY in low light situations. Higher-end ones perform better, but any midquality P&S film camera beats those.
Slides still rule the universe. A projected Velvia slide is glorious, while a digital image from any camera with less than 15MP looks hideously pixelated at the same size.
TONAL RANGE. Digital sensors still capture less than film, and thus film pictures, slides or negatives, look better. My dad whines all the time he can never get all the hues of red from a single rose with his digicam, and that's why. On the other side, even the humble Fuji Superia gets them - not to mention slide film (Provia, Velvia, etc.). Unlike the "megapixels race", this factor isn't improving much...
Price. I can get a Canon A-1 plus a 35-105mm lens, and a couple rolls of Velvia for some 600 bucks. To get *similar* results, I'd need to get a higher end SLR, where body alone will cost 2000 bucks, and that's being extremely generous.
Film isn't dead. Film isn't going to die. Furthermore, 35mm film isn't dead. 35mm film isn't going to die. It's just lost its dominant position in the mass-market. However, dedicated amateurs still use it.
English dominates much of the technical jargon, although sometimes is adapted into spanish forms. For example: "pen drive", "diskette", "deprecado" [from "deprecated"], "bootear" [from "to boot"], etcetera. Some words, on the other hand, have a clear corresponding word in spanish, so no one says, for example, "hard disk" for "disco duro" or "case" for "gabinete".
If you have a more than a passing grasp of spanish, you shouldn't have problems learning the technical jargon.
On the other hand, if you're coming to Chile, the local (general use) language WILL be most difficult to manage. The stuff we speak can't be called spanish anymore.
How long gone? Any chance that archive.org has it, or were there permission and copyright issues?
There was a strict copyright on the scripts and novels on that site (they had to read online with a JavaScript-based viewer). I haven't looked, but I seriously doubt it's on archive.org.
Which lead me to fear this film will be more Crusader than Babylon5, and I for one did not really find the whole Crusader spinn-off that great.
It became to much of a Star Trek clone.....(One ship travelling through space encountering weird aliens...)
Wheres the fun in that? B5 was all about grand campaign and universe-spanning alliances.
The thing about Crusade was that only the first 13 episodes were filmed, which are usually where you introduce the viewers to the series, basic premise, characters, etcetera. The show didn't have a chance to get started.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Two scripts were written by JMS but not filmed - episodes 14 and the season finale. They were published at a long gone website and I had a chance to read them.
In episode 14, the ship finds the ship that attacked the Captain's ship long ago (when Galen rescues it), and the Excalibur manages to toast it. In the season finale, they find another one of those, track it down as it flees to its base, where they are confronted by defending fighters, which are... get this... starfuries! Yup, that ship was built by humans using Shadow tech.
JMS hinted that the plague thing was just the way to introduce the series, and that a cure would be found early (possibly as early as season 2!), but Excalibur would become a FUGITIVE ship in the meantime...
No, not like trek.:-)
Whatever you do, DON'T use the weekend.
on
Tech Team Traditions?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
To add to all the insightful comments about NEVER doing mandated things, let me add my experience:
In my previous job (a bank), the upper management would "reward" an entire appartment with a weekend seminar in a hotel 3 hours away from our city. When it was our turn, we were ordered to show up at the workplace at saturday 8:00AM, where a minibus would pick us up, take us to the hotel, spend the night there, and the minivan would drop us back *at workplace* (not at our homes) sunday 8:00PM. Only workers, no couples, no family. We were told we could NOT refuse. I kid you not.
This "seminar" turned out to be one of those crappy "Let's build teamwork!" courses... all the while we were complaining about how they had KILLED our weekend for what was, essentially, work. The married ones couldn't see their families, the single ones didn't have our free time.
To make things worse, the rooms we were assigned to had FOUR beds, which meant we all had to share the room (AND restroom) with three other guys. The two women in my department got it much easier, as they were assigned a two-bed rom (they were relieved, as they were afraid they'd actually have to share a room with two other guys).
In the hotel's defense, the lunches they gave us was very good.
The kicker? Right before we left, our boss took a picture of the entire department, posing in the hotel entrance. Two weeks later, the internal monthly newsletter had it page 3, along with a store telling that "The XXXX Department had a blast at the YYYY Hotel! [...] The bank has a long standing tradition of rewarding good work and [...]".
The people at the Human Resources department weren't really jerks - they were out of touch with reality and actually believed employees viewed these "weekend seminars" as an actual prize.
Harlan Ellison hasn't written anything significant since Babylon 5
Actually, Harlan worked there as creative consultant, not as a writer. Sure, he does share story (not script!) credits in a couple episodes, but I still think it's too much to call him a writer in B5.
I'm not joking at all: get a calligraphy book for kids, and USE IT.
Handwriting is a skill that these days (these centuries is more like it) is taught in elementary school to kids. You'll have a really hard time finding a book that teaches calligraphy aimed to adults for that very reason.
So, get one of those kids books, and use it. Don't forget to practice, practice and practice. It's the way children learn... and ADULTS TOO.
Re:News for nerds.
on
Longest Snake
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Stuff that...matters?
Of course it does. This is gonna be a big point in favor for the Python-lovers against the Perl-afficionados: "The largest python ever weighed 447 kilograms - has there EVER been a perl weighing ever 4.47 kg? No? Of course not! Therefore, Python rules. Oh, and by the way, Python eats parrots for snacks!!!!".
The FD line is the manual-focus one, as you wanted. Those bodies/lenses are built to last, have great quality, and aren't expensive.
First, get a good body - A-1 is my personal favorite, although you may get an AE-1 or a T-70 instead. Ignore the T-90 and F1 for the time being (T-90 has too many features; F1 is intended for serious professionals).
Then, get two lenses:
1) a fixed 50mm f1.4 lens (THE all-around lens, light and fast, highly corrected, AND cheap)
2) a zoom lens. The 75-200 lens is a good entry choice (good optics, slow but pretty light).
Finally, a good flash. Speedlite 199-A is my choice.
You'll need a case to carry all of this (buy it AFTER getting the above-mentioned hardware), and some filters (a polarizer, a warming filter and a skylight filter are the most basic ones).
AND, you'll need to make choices about film - there's a LOT of different film types, each one with its own strength and weakness. For all-around negative film, I love Fuji Superia REALA 100. For slides, Fuji Provia (black and white I don't know enough yet).
You may buy all this stuff at KEH - they're a bit more expensive than getting the stuff from e-bay, but you can rest assured that they'll deliver items in the quality they stated and you won't have surprises.
My IBM PS/2 keyboard is the oldest piece of hardware I use - it's survived THREE computers for a total of eleven years now, and it's as good as ever.
I also have a Pro-Audio Spectrum 16 soundcard stored away on its box, waiting for an oportunity to be used again (it was a great card back in 1993!). I'd actually give it away to whoever promised me would use it...
Slashdot Mirror
This isn't the first time I read some news involving Chile here on slashdot before there's any local news coverage, if at all (two previous ones were the one about the mapuches complaining about a Mapudungun version of Windows and the one about the mistery corpse beached in the southern region).
It's sad that our journalism sucks so much.
<AOL>
We are legion.
</AOL>
Please read this entirely before modding me down as a troll - I'm not. I live in Chile, so I know about this.
A *minority* of the mapuche polulation follows a certain Aucan Huilcaman, a professional agitator (yes, I mean it), whose activity for the last +-10 years has been to create a state of "social upheaval" (real or otherwise) for the benefit of his agenda. ANY subject that might be construed as possibly discriminating or damaging the Mapuche people in any way, he's rallied against it, even if the facts don't suit him... just like this case has.
Here comes the fun part: until less than 50 years ago, the mapuche language ("mapudungun" or "mapuzungun", depending on the transliteration) did NOT have a written form; not even an alphabet. There's been several attempts at creating one, and now there are FIVE different "candidates", each supported by a subset of the Mapuche people. Only two of those have been in "talks" to merge their alphabets together. So far, there hasn't been any progress in creating a unified mapuzungun alphabet, although the Ministerio de Educación here does favor one of the candidates and uses it (drawing criticism from the faction that favor the others, plus from the radical factions that don't want ANY involvement from the "foreign" government).
That said, PART of the "scandal" here is that Microsoft has taken advice from the Government. Aucan Huilcaman, the agitator I mentioned before is complaining that<ul>
<li>The Mapuche language is ours, so bugger off.
<li>The Government has no business choosing an alphabet for our language.
<li>Microsoft has no right to take decisions about mapuche culture based on government's advice - it should ask us[1].
</UL>
I agree this is an incredibly idiotic stand, but Huilcaman uses every oportunity to bash the "foreign invaders" he gets... even if he's completely off base, like in this case. It works in part because many of his followers don't have an education and are easily fooled.
[1] "Us" being HIS radical faction, that is.
Either if you see it as hell.net or as hell.NET, it's just so much spookier than hell dot com.
That's pretty much the way we do it in my country (Chile). We may be a lame unimportant country, but we can actually give the USA lessons on the proper way to do an election... IMNAAHO.
That's because it's the ONLY good SF around. Seriously, all the rest of the stuff out there today either sucks (Stargate) or is horrendous (Andromeda).
Having only bad SF on TV had been the status quo for at least three years, until BSG came along. This is why it's been hyped this much (not that it doesn't deserve it).
[yes, I live in Chile] ... when it comes to astronomy (hell, science in general), our local media (TV and newspapers) does pretty slim coverage. I end up reading about these developments in foreign news sites (slashdot, BBC, space.com, etc.) 3-6 days before than appearing here, if at all. :-(
A long time ago, I decided to give up on soft drinks entirely. No more Coca-cola, Sprite, Canada Dry Ginger Ale, et cetera. Instead, I would drink only water.
:-(
And you know what? Now I'm able to tell which kind of regular water I'm drinking (any of the 8 brands of mineral/bottled water that are sold where I live, and even tap water from either of the two companies that serve our city). My friends are unable to do so, and the ones that don't believe me have lost money betting they could cheat me on a blind test.
This increased sensory capability has led me as well to discover that premium-grade bottled orange juice (or better yet, self-made) is as delicious a drink as I need. And milk tastes quite good as well. Who needs soft drinks? Not me.
As for "succulent", I rely on cookies, chocolate, ice cream, et cetera... I'm overwwight anyway.
... one trillion years AND AN HOUR years old.
Mind you, this article was posted an hour ago.
Unccl oveguqnl, Urzbf! V ubcr lbh svaq vg svggvat gung V pbatenghyngr
lbhe guvegl lrnef ol rapbqvat guvf va ebg-guvegrr... re... arire zvaq.
Sensors can grow as much as you like, BUT... there's still plenty of stuff where film wins over digital, regardless of film area or sensor size:
Film isn't dead. Film isn't going to die. Furthermore, 35mm film isn't dead. 35mm film isn't going to die. It's just lost its dominant position in the mass-market. However, dedicated amateurs still use it.
IMNAAHO.
As a chilean, I can vouch for him. Peruvians speak better spanish than chileans, by far.
I did, and the stupid filtering policies in our company's proxy wouldn't let me enter a "nudity" site.
Oh, well... it's not the best name for the domain, is it?
My good old IBM Model M keyboard is naturally immune to this new virus, so I don't care about it.
Back in the day, IBM provided us with the best keyboard ever, and I couldn't be happier.
I love my keyboard.
English dominates much of the technical jargon,
although sometimes is adapted into spanish forms. For example: "pen drive", "diskette", "deprecado" [from "deprecated"], "bootear" [from "to boot"], etcetera. Some words, on the other hand, have a clear corresponding word in spanish, so no one says, for example, "hard disk" for "disco duro" or "case" for "gabinete".
If you have a more than a passing grasp of spanish, you shouldn't have problems learning the technical jargon.
On the other hand, if you're coming to Chile, the local (general use) language WILL be most difficult to manage. The stuff we speak can't be called spanish anymore.
How long gone? Any chance that archive.org has it, or were there permission and copyright issues?
There was a strict copyright on the scripts and novels on that site (they had to read online with a JavaScript-based viewer). I haven't looked, but I seriously doubt it's on archive.org.
Which lead me to fear this film will be more Crusader than Babylon5, and I for one did not really find the whole Crusader spinn-off that great.
It became to much of a Star Trek clone.....(One ship travelling through space encountering weird aliens...)
Wheres the fun in that? B5 was all about grand campaign and universe-spanning alliances.
The thing about Crusade was that only the first 13 episodes were filmed, which are usually where you
introduce the viewers to the series, basic premise, characters, etcetera. The show didn't have a chance to get started.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Two scripts were written by JMS but not filmed - episodes 14 and the season finale. They were published at a long gone website and I had a chance to read them.
In episode 14, the ship finds the ship that attacked the Captain's ship long ago (when Galen
rescues it), and the Excalibur manages to toast it. In the season finale, they find another one of those, track it down as it flees to its base, where they are confronted by defending fighters, which are... get this... starfuries! Yup, that ship was built by humans using Shadow tech.
JMS hinted that the plague thing was just the way to introduce the series, and that a cure would be found early (possibly as early as season 2!), but Excalibur would become a FUGITIVE ship in the meantime...
No, not like trek.
To add to all the insightful comments about NEVER doing mandated things, let me add my experience:
In my previous job (a bank), the upper management would "reward" an entire appartment with a weekend seminar in a hotel 3 hours away from our city. When it was our turn, we were ordered to show up at the workplace at saturday 8:00AM, where a minibus would pick us up, take us to the hotel, spend the night there, and the minivan would drop us back *at workplace* (not at our homes) sunday 8:00PM. Only workers, no couples, no family. We were told we could NOT refuse. I kid you not.
This "seminar" turned out to be one of those crappy "Let's build teamwork!" courses... all the while we were complaining about how they had KILLED our weekend for what was, essentially, work. The married ones couldn't see their families, the single ones didn't have our free time.
To make things worse, the rooms we were assigned to had FOUR beds, which meant we all had to share the room (AND restroom) with three other guys. The two women in my department got it much easier, as they were assigned a two-bed rom (they were relieved, as they were afraid they'd actually have to share a room with two other guys).
In the hotel's defense, the lunches they gave us was very good.
The kicker? Right before we left, our boss took a picture of the entire department, posing in the hotel entrance. Two weeks later, the internal monthly newsletter had it page 3, along with a store telling that "The XXXX Department had a blast at the YYYY Hotel! [...] The bank has a long standing tradition of rewarding good work and [...]".
The people at the Human Resources department weren't really jerks - they were out of touch with reality and actually believed employees viewed these "weekend seminars" as an actual prize.
Freeciv is an open-source implementation of the classic Civilization I/II games. Go to http://www.freeciv.org to check it out.
Actually, Harlan worked there as creative consultant, not as a writer. Sure, he does share story (not script!) credits in a couple episodes, but I still think it's too much to call him a writer in B5.
Straczynski, on the other hand...
I'm not joking at all: get a calligraphy book for kids, and USE IT.
Handwriting is a skill that these days (these centuries is more like it) is taught in elementary school to kids. You'll have a really hard time finding a book that teaches calligraphy aimed to adults for that very reason.
So, get one of those kids books, and use it. Don't forget to practice, practice and practice. It's the way children learn... and ADULTS TOO.
Stuff that...matters?
Of course it does. This is gonna be a big point in favor for the Python-lovers against the Perl-afficionados: "The largest python ever weighed 447 kilograms - has there EVER been a perl weighing ever 4.47 kg? No? Of course not! Therefore, Python rules. Oh, and by the way, Python eats parrots for snacks!!!!".
Of course it's stuff that matters.
(we need to get out more)
The FD line is the manual-focus one, as you wanted. Those bodies/lenses are built to last, have great quality, and aren't expensive.
First, get a good body - A-1 is my personal favorite, although you may get an AE-1 or a T-70 instead. Ignore the T-90 and F1 for the time being (T-90 has too many features; F1 is intended for serious professionals).
Then, get two lenses:
1) a fixed 50mm f1.4 lens (THE all-around lens, light and fast, highly corrected, AND cheap)
2) a zoom lens. The 75-200 lens is a good entry choice (good optics, slow but pretty light).
Finally, a good flash. Speedlite 199-A is my choice.
You'll need a case to carry all of this (buy it AFTER getting the above-mentioned hardware), and some filters (a polarizer, a warming filter and a skylight filter are the most basic ones).
AND, you'll need to make choices about film - there's a LOT of different film types, each one with its own strength and weakness. For all-around negative film, I love Fuji Superia REALA 100. For slides, Fuji Provia (black and white I don't know enough yet).
You may buy all this stuff at KEH - they're a bit more expensive than getting the stuff from e-bay, but you can rest assured that they'll deliver items in the quality they stated and you won't have surprises.
Mod me down as redundant if necessary, but I HAVE to say it: I LOVE the idea, and I love the logo.
My IBM PS/2 keyboard is the oldest piece of hardware I use - it's survived THREE computers for a total of eleven years now, and it's as good as ever.
I also have a Pro-Audio Spectrum 16 soundcard stored away on its box, waiting for an oportunity to be used again (it was a great card back in 1993!). I'd actually give it away to whoever promised me would use it...