With the exception of the a-bomb and the integrated circuit, even the west has been coasting on the inventiveness of the 19th century. Almost everything is an extension of the creations of that period. Even relativity and airplanes had their start back then. It's not just the Middle East, it's the entire world that's falling behind in development.
I sometimes work from home, assuming it'll be layed back and I can goof off like you said, but I always end up being most productive there. Not just because it's quiet, but I don't feel rushed to get to lunch or go home at the end of the day. In fact, I end up working longer (no commute or getting ready for work), and I get more work done each hour when I'm there. I'm sure many people might abuse this, but even when I plan to abuse it, I find I get much more done than when I'm counting the minutes in my cube. I now work from home one a day each week, just so I can get my stuff done. There are way too many distractions in the office and I have to "reset" each time I'm distracted. Also, I have little interest in "killing time" at home. For instance, I'd never be posting to Slashdot from my home computer. It wouldn't even occur to me.
I see these arguments made over and over. But things really haven't changed so much in the movie going experience. Granted cell phones and laser pointers are new, but they simple aren't that much of a problem. I HATE when a cell phone goes off in a theater, but I think most people are relaying a single incident, that happened to them a year or two ago, when they bring this up.
MPPA ratings? They use to have nudity in PG films. PG-13 is still relatively new. And they never use to enfore the rated R restrictions, so nothing go "ruined" for you on that front. If anything, it should have gotten better for you.
As for commercials, don't show up so early. I could be wrong on this, but I don't ever recall (living on both coasts and now a mountain state) commercials going a half an hour past the movie start time. I only ever hear about that on Slashdot. In fact, I'd say the commercials always stop at the movie start time, followed by some previews for ~8 minutes. I see very few commercials at the theater unless it's a huge movie that requires me to get there real early. Unless you're talking about in-movie advertising?
Applause and loud people are nothing new. I still have the sound of that one guy in my head screaming, "Freddy gonna kill you bitch. He gonna kill you," and that's from '84. If anything I find people are more likely to tell the talkers to shut up now, than in the past.
Agreed on the liquor license. That'd make a big difference for me and then theaters can stop whining about not being able to make enough money.
I just really don't think it's the theater or the movie going experience. If anything, it's better now. The floors are cleaner than the 70s and 80s and the seating is much better. I have holders for my drinks and, thanks to stadium seating, I can now always see over the head of the person in front of me (a HUGE leap in the movie going experience). It's not the experience that's gotten worse, it's that the movies suck a lot more. They're nothing but gimmicks anymore (ie. CGI, big stars, remakes, etc).
I use to always watch at least two or three good movies a year. Now I hardly bother going anymore. I'm lucky if I get a good one every three years. It's not perception, they do actually suck. Just about everything that comes out now is a remake or a sequel of something crappy to begin with. I'm not arguing that there wasn't a lot of crap in the past, it's just that there aren't any good movies now. I'll still go once in a while but I haven't had a WOW moment since the 90s. They need to make writing the highest-paid job in Hollywood. I couldn't care less about the movie stars.
No, FDR just had his McCollum memo which explained how it would be best to goad the Japanese into attacking as a back-door approach to getting the US into the war with Germany.
Perhaps not, but those planes were flying around for an hour and a half. If we can get F-16s tailing Payne Stewart's Lear jet within 19 minutes of losing radio contact over bum-fuck nowhere, then we can surely intercept commercial jets flying over the Northeast corridor, after one of them had already hit the WTC. Ya think?
I don't know if, from a strategic viewpoint, if risking losing those assets at Pearl Harbor, was such a good idea. The fact is that the US did recover, and was able to win that war, after losing those assets (the ships, planes, and men) at Pearl Harbor.
All of our newer, more advanced ships were in the Atlantic. Our older ships were all ordered to just sit around in Pearl Harbor.. waiting... for something.
All of our Pacific fleet was bottled up in Pearl Harbor at a time when we were on alert over the Japanese. That's called putting your eggs in one basket and it certainly made Pearl Harbor the most strategically obvious target. We couldn't defend the Philillipines without Pearl Harbor. They wanted to wipe out our fleet to buy themselves some time. Obviously the Japanese thought it was the most strategic target, despite being a riskier one.
As for Kimmel and Short, they were recently cleared of any wrongdoing.
On the declaration of war, when was the last time we ever declared one? Yet we've been fighting them my entire life. We had the Japanese military codes broken. We knew what was coming. We worked hard to maneuver them into it. What's your explanation for why they bombed Pearl Harbor? Did they just hate us for our freedom? Do you think they really thought they could take us? They were backed into a corner and they fell for the provacations.
I think there's truth to this. Despite not having the time on stressful busy days, I find myself web surfing, just as an escape. The problem is, sometimes I get caught up in it and don't go back to work quickly enough. If I were working shorter days, I'd focus nonstop on what I needed to do and then rest up (or surf) when I get home.
Freakin' books need to written on this so that managers can wise up. When I have a single task, I proceed at lightning speed. When I'm expected to work a half-a-dozen apps at once, with a bunch of questions from co-workers thrown in, I quickly start to shut down. I'm lucky if I get five lines of code in a day because I'm never permitted to stay with the same task for more than a few minutes. If I only have one task, then I can get thousands of lines of code done in a day. It's not the perception of lost productivity, it's quite real. The irony is that I now hate my job because I'm too busy to actually do work anymore.
That's great for people who work from home. But if you work in an office, you can't shut your cubicle door. If I don't respond electronically, someone will come a' knockin'.
I'm on the verge of quitting precisely because I think my managers really need to hear the word enough. But luckily high-tech, gives me the ability to work from home. So I take at least on day a week to work from home, just so that I can actually get stuff done. It's known around the office as the "cone of silience." It's understood here that it's necessary to enter that cone once in a while to push out the rest of the world and focus on primary tasks. Granted I can still get bombarded with calls and IMs but so much eats my time at the office that at least 1/3 of my work goes completely ignored these days. Most people I work with don't even read their e-mail anymore because it's such a low priority compared to everything else. More sometimes means less. I wish corporate culture would come to understand this.
I think the fact that it was on Friday had more to do with it's failure than the ordering of the episodes. I knew it wouldn't last a full season when it came out, because of this.
It was precisely the fact that the show was so libertarian that made me love it. I wouldn't call it nothing new because I can't think of another show with that theme.
Yeah, give up on it. I'm sure, I'm not the only fan who absolutely despised the movie. It was such a slap in the face, that I can't imagine why a fan would buy it. There will be enough of us, that DVD sales won't do too good either. And who cares about trying to bring back the series when Whedon killed off half the cast and made the other half unrecognizable? Still, it was a great show.
I'm glad you made this point since I've seen few other Firefly fans make it (probably haven't been looking too hard). I loved the show but hated the movie because of the completely pointless deaths. That and Jane wouldn't be following Mal into reaver territory. I had been talking up people to see the movie and got several into the show via DVD. After I saw the movie, I told everyone not to bother. I found myself saying "this sucks" out loud in the theater at least twice, and I never talk in theaters. I so hated it and it ruined my fond memories for the show.
It's a shame, because this'll be chalked up a futher "evidence" that TV isn't as rich as movies and can't make the transition. Why can't these idiots just make a really good episode, but for the big screen, instead of trying to reimagine their work? Even without the deaths, the movie wasn't as good as your average episode. That said, I think it failed because the marketing sucked. They should have focused on the humor, instead they made it out to look like Riddick, or some other crap C grade sci-fi schlock.
Only about 50% of the people even vote any more. So it's actually much less that vote in any particular president. Either way, that sounds like democracy to me. That's why the US was founded as a constitutional republic, so that small groups of organized whack-jobs couldn't vote away the rights of others, even if they have a majority. Granted, we don't resemble that at all anymore, but it use to be well understood that democracy is just an unfocused form of tyranny. How about a system where I have the right to veto any law that I don't want to follow (short of hurting others or stealing from them)? Now that's actual freedom!
I think it's more complex than that. I just finished reading the last Bean book (horrible, worst Card book to date), and although he may be Christian, he's just your typical liberal war monger. And this is not a flamebait, every 20th century war was brought to us by liberal presidents, trying to "improve" the world. He thinks that wars are unavoidable and unbiquitous, and that we can only get passed that phase when we force everyone to bow to the same leader. A typical globalist who doesn't have to work for his food anymore. He's only a pacifist if he gets his way. Even Hitler was a pacifist by those standards.
His writing shares the same weakness as Ayn Rand, in that all the characters speak with the same voice, regardless of how different they are. And because they're all "geniuses", they implictly understand that people will only be happy and at peace, once the world agrees to surrender their sovereignty to an unaccountable beauracracy. Every character in his book, even the ones who pretend otherwise, are completely obsessed with power and controlling other people (which means Card is). People like this, like the Bushes of the world, constantly preach about peace while they practice/write about nothing but war. Card is very far from being a pacifist, whether he knows that or not is up for debate.
Sarcasm is lost on some. Microsoft is always claiming to be such great innovaters. I wasn't quoting the article, I was quoting their coporate philosophy.
Slashdot Mirror
With the exception of the a-bomb and the integrated circuit, even the west has been coasting on the inventiveness of the 19th century. Almost everything is an extension of the creations of that period. Even relativity and airplanes had their start back then. It's not just the Middle East, it's the entire world that's falling behind in development.
These morons are the face of Islam these days and that's sad.
Let see, what can we do with this sentence? I know, madlibs:
These morons are the face of ? these days and that's sad.
It really works with everything.
I sometimes work from home, assuming it'll be layed back and I can goof off like you said, but I always end up being most productive there. Not just because it's quiet, but I don't feel rushed to get to lunch or go home at the end of the day. In fact, I end up working longer (no commute or getting ready for work), and I get more work done each hour when I'm there. I'm sure many people might abuse this, but even when I plan to abuse it, I find I get much more done than when I'm counting the minutes in my cube. I now work from home one a day each week, just so I can get my stuff done. There are way too many distractions in the office and I have to "reset" each time I'm distracted. Also, I have little interest in "killing time" at home. For instance, I'd never be posting to Slashdot from my home computer. It wouldn't even occur to me.
I see these arguments made over and over. But things really haven't changed so much in the movie going experience. Granted cell phones and laser pointers are new, but they simple aren't that much of a problem. I HATE when a cell phone goes off in a theater, but I think most people are relaying a single incident, that happened to them a year or two ago, when they bring this up.
MPPA ratings? They use to have nudity in PG films. PG-13 is still relatively new. And they never use to enfore the rated R restrictions, so nothing go "ruined" for you on that front. If anything, it should have gotten better for you.
As for commercials, don't show up so early. I could be wrong on this, but I don't ever recall (living on both coasts and now a mountain state) commercials going a half an hour past the movie start time. I only ever hear about that on Slashdot. In fact, I'd say the commercials always stop at the movie start time, followed by some previews for ~8 minutes. I see very few commercials at the theater unless it's a huge movie that requires me to get there real early. Unless you're talking about in-movie advertising?
Applause and loud people are nothing new. I still have the sound of that one guy in my head screaming, "Freddy gonna kill you bitch. He gonna kill you," and that's from '84. If anything I find people are more likely to tell the talkers to shut up now, than in the past.
Agreed on the liquor license. That'd make a big difference for me and then theaters can stop whining about not being able to make enough money.
I just really don't think it's the theater or the movie going experience. If anything, it's better now. The floors are cleaner than the 70s and 80s and the seating is much better. I have holders for my drinks and, thanks to stadium seating, I can now always see over the head of the person in front of me (a HUGE leap in the movie going experience). It's not the experience that's gotten worse, it's that the movies suck a lot more. They're nothing but gimmicks anymore (ie. CGI, big stars, remakes, etc).
I use to always watch at least two or three good movies a year. Now I hardly bother going anymore. I'm lucky if I get a good one every three years. It's not perception, they do actually suck. Just about everything that comes out now is a remake or a sequel of something crappy to begin with. I'm not arguing that there wasn't a lot of crap in the past, it's just that there aren't any good movies now. I'll still go once in a while but I haven't had a WOW moment since the 90s. They need to make writing the highest-paid job in Hollywood. I couldn't care less about the movie stars.
Not to mention that these are only the east coast ports. The communist Chinese already own our west coast ports.
And of course all of the 9/11 airports whose security was managed by this Israeli company.
No, FDR just had his McCollum memo which explained how it would be best to goad the Japanese into attacking as a back-door approach to getting the US into the war with Germany.
Let's assume they're all incompetant. If so, about half the fuck-ups would go our way. When have they ever done anything right?
Perhaps not, but those planes were flying around for an hour and a half. If we can get F-16s tailing Payne Stewart's Lear jet within 19 minutes of losing radio contact over bum-fuck nowhere, then we can surely intercept commercial jets flying over the Northeast corridor, after one of them had already hit the WTC. Ya think?
The last Democrat who was worth a damn was Truman.
You mean the jackass who gave us the Korean war and the endless middle east conflict that ultimately led to 9/11?
I don't know if, from a strategic viewpoint, if risking losing those assets at Pearl Harbor, was such a good idea. The fact is that the US did recover, and was able to win that war, after losing those assets (the ships, planes, and men) at Pearl Harbor.
All of our newer, more advanced ships were in the Atlantic. Our older ships were all ordered to just sit around in Pearl Harbor.. waiting... for something.
All of our Pacific fleet was bottled up in Pearl Harbor at a time when we were on alert over the Japanese. That's called putting your eggs in one basket and it certainly made Pearl Harbor the most strategically obvious target. We couldn't defend the Philillipines without Pearl Harbor. They wanted to wipe out our fleet to buy themselves some time. Obviously the Japanese thought it was the most strategic target, despite being a riskier one.
As for Kimmel and Short, they were recently cleared of any wrongdoing.
On the declaration of war, when was the last time we ever declared one? Yet we've been fighting them my entire life. We had the Japanese military codes broken. We knew what was coming. We worked hard to maneuver them into it. What's your explanation for why they bombed Pearl Harbor? Did they just hate us for our freedom? Do you think they really thought they could take us? They were backed into a corner and they fell for the provacations.
I think there's truth to this. Despite not having the time on stressful busy days, I find myself web surfing, just as an escape. The problem is, sometimes I get caught up in it and don't go back to work quickly enough. If I were working shorter days, I'd focus nonstop on what I needed to do and then rest up (or surf) when I get home.
Freakin' books need to written on this so that managers can wise up. When I have a single task, I proceed at lightning speed. When I'm expected to work a half-a-dozen apps at once, with a bunch of questions from co-workers thrown in, I quickly start to shut down. I'm lucky if I get five lines of code in a day because I'm never permitted to stay with the same task for more than a few minutes. If I only have one task, then I can get thousands of lines of code done in a day. It's not the perception of lost productivity, it's quite real. The irony is that I now hate my job because I'm too busy to actually do work anymore.
That's great for people who work from home. But if you work in an office, you can't shut your cubicle door. If I don't respond electronically, someone will come a' knockin'.
I'm on the verge of quitting precisely because I think my managers really need to hear the word enough. But luckily high-tech, gives me the ability to work from home. So I take at least on day a week to work from home, just so that I can actually get stuff done. It's known around the office as the "cone of silience." It's understood here that it's necessary to enter that cone once in a while to push out the rest of the world and focus on primary tasks. Granted I can still get bombarded with calls and IMs but so much eats my time at the office that at least 1/3 of my work goes completely ignored these days. Most people I work with don't even read their e-mail anymore because it's such a low priority compared to everything else. More sometimes means less. I wish corporate culture would come to understand this.
You simply do not see large Israeli demonstrations with Jews screaming bloodthirsty chants to kill Muslims.
It may not be so simple since I've seen plenty of that over the years.
I think the fact that it was on Friday had more to do with it's failure than the ordering of the episodes. I knew it wouldn't last a full season when it came out, because of this.
It was precisely the fact that the show was so libertarian that made me love it. I wouldn't call it nothing new because I can't think of another show with that theme.
Yeah, give up on it. I'm sure, I'm not the only fan who absolutely despised the movie. It was such a slap in the face, that I can't imagine why a fan would buy it. There will be enough of us, that DVD sales won't do too good either. And who cares about trying to bring back the series when Whedon killed off half the cast and made the other half unrecognizable? Still, it was a great show.
I'm glad you made this point since I've seen few other Firefly fans make it (probably haven't been looking too hard). I loved the show but hated the movie because of the completely pointless deaths. That and Jane wouldn't be following Mal into reaver territory. I had been talking up people to see the movie and got several into the show via DVD. After I saw the movie, I told everyone not to bother. I found myself saying "this sucks" out loud in the theater at least twice, and I never talk in theaters. I so hated it and it ruined my fond memories for the show.
It's a shame, because this'll be chalked up a futher "evidence" that TV isn't as rich as movies and can't make the transition. Why can't these idiots just make a really good episode, but for the big screen, instead of trying to reimagine their work? Even without the deaths, the movie wasn't as good as your average episode. That said, I think it failed because the marketing sucked. They should have focused on the humor, instead they made it out to look like Riddick, or some other crap C grade sci-fi schlock.
50% of the people vote in 1 person
Only about 50% of the people even vote any more. So it's actually much less that vote in any particular president. Either way, that sounds like democracy to me. That's why the US was founded as a constitutional republic, so that small groups of organized whack-jobs couldn't vote away the rights of others, even if they have a majority. Granted, we don't resemble that at all anymore, but it use to be well understood that democracy is just an unfocused form of tyranny. How about a system where I have the right to veto any law that I don't want to follow (short of hurting others or stealing from them)? Now that's actual freedom!
Hell, I think the Heechee saga would do best as a "based on" TV show. Endless potential for plotlines!
I think it's more complex than that. I just finished reading the last Bean book (horrible, worst Card book to date), and although he may be Christian, he's just your typical liberal war monger. And this is not a flamebait, every 20th century war was brought to us by liberal presidents, trying to "improve" the world. He thinks that wars are unavoidable and unbiquitous, and that we can only get passed that phase when we force everyone to bow to the same leader. A typical globalist who doesn't have to work for his food anymore. He's only a pacifist if he gets his way. Even Hitler was a pacifist by those standards.
His writing shares the same weakness as Ayn Rand, in that all the characters speak with the same voice, regardless of how different they are. And because they're all "geniuses", they implictly understand that people will only be happy and at peace, once the world agrees to surrender their sovereignty to an unaccountable beauracracy. Every character in his book, even the ones who pretend otherwise, are completely obsessed with power and controlling other people (which means Card is). People like this, like the Bushes of the world, constantly preach about peace while they practice/write about nothing but war. Card is very far from being a pacifist, whether he knows that or not is up for debate.
Sarcasm is lost on some. Microsoft is always claiming to be such great innovaters. I wasn't quoting the article, I was quoting their coporate philosophy.