As a casual Star Wars fan, I've tried to stay upbeat about the sale of Star Wars to Disney. After all, as my friends and I keep telling each other, "It can't actually be worse than the prequels, right?" But I've watched announcement after announcement with trepidation. J.J. Abrams directing? Clone Wars unceremoniously canceled and the people making it let go? Now the universally-loathed EA is to be in charge of the gaming wing of the franchise? (I'm expecting Disney to cancel Dark Horse's comics license as soon as they legally can, if not sooner.) Star Wars has had a great many ups and downs over the years, but there have been some amazing stories along the way. I fear that the Mouse is going to steamroller that whole universe into bland commercialism for the rest of my life.
I'll agree that's likely the cause of some of the criticism directed at GG, but dismissing all of it that way is foolish.
Personally, once it releases, I'd love to see how he reacts to it being used to capture every single moment of his public life being and having it posted on the web. While I'm sure he'd say that wouldn't be a problem right now, I'll bet his reaction would be different should it actually happen.
Let them do it, then a week after release spend an hour or two with a glass of wine reading about how it crashed and burned while laughing until tears run down my cheeks.
I have to disagree. I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate touchpads with the fire of a galaxy's worth of supernovas. The cursed trackpads cut my productivity almost in half when I've been stuck using one. I prefer a pointer stick or touchscreen. When I'm forced to use a computer with a touchpad, I disable the damned thing ASAP and use a USB trackball or mouse instead. I'll use an actual joystick before I'll waste my time on messing with a never-to-be sufficiently POS trackpad.
As of 6:30 Eastern, I still haven't seen anything more definitive than an "anonymous official" that there were additional devices. There was an unrelated electrical fire at the JFK Library, and Boston PD blew up something suspicious, but neither of those is equivalent to an additional bomb.
Starting to look as though it was likely a deliberate attack. Either way, bets on whether the Boston PD will try to use this tragedy to justify their prior over-reactions?
True, but you would need a vast, vast amount of turbines to have any significant effect. If the turbines do turn out to cause a problem it is very easy to undo too, you just turn them off or take them down. It isn't like pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.
You could have claimed the same thing about oil over a century ago. Once something becomes a wide-spread and integral part of the world-wide economy, it's not going to be easy to change, even if it does turn out to have harmful effects. Particularly if those effects are incremental and widely distributed.
When you have a nation that vote themselves more stuff at the expense of the productive members of society, that nation is on a paved path to ruin.
Absolutely. We need to get rid of the non-productive, extractive, rentier "capitalists" ASAP, or America is doomed. Stop letting a small group of well-connected financiers loot the country through control fraud, regulatory capture, bribery (pre- or post-facto), and wealth transfer mechanisms like Quantitive Easing 4ever.
Ah, but as long as the New York Times makes sure to jump whenever the government says, "frog" they'll be left alone. What could possibly be wrong with that arrangement?
Whispering in his ear? Please, that's so 19th Century. In the modern world, lobbyists have wireless access directly to their Congresscritters' brains via the Capitol Area Network. (Amount of bandwidth available to individual lobbyists is directly proportional to size and legality of past, present and future bribes.)
Of course the commissaries at Google probably pay a tax on the foodstuffs when they buy the bulk ingredients.
That's the same thing I was thinking. Not sure why this guy thinks taxpayers are paying for google employee lunches.
The restaurant I buy my lunch from also pays taxes on their ingredients. That doesn't mean I get to use a tax-exempt part of my salary to buy lunches with.
Professor McMahon seems to be wrong - he's not actually paying for the Google employees' lunches - but I am glad to see this issue getting brought up. Letting employees of big corporations skate around taxes by providing non-salary benefits is wrong on several levels. First is the blatant unfairness: why do Google employees get tax-free lunches when, someone else (say, for example, me) has to pay for my lunch with post-tax income. Also, I don't think we want to encourage people to become even more dependent on their corporate masters.
Sorry, but there's nothing useful in either place AND they're both at the bottom of another god damned gravity well. Orbital stations for spaced based solar would at least be *useful*. Satellite based internet would be useful. Is there something wrong with useful? Why is it that when we talk about space exploration, it always descends into some dick-waving "me there first" macho-chimpanzee rant.
We know how to get into space. We know there are useful and profitable things to do there. Can we just get on with it please?
The moon is useless and if there's life on Mars, it's not going anywhere. We can wait.
Life on Mars (if there is any) will be threatened with extinction (and/or contamination) as soon as any group of would-be terraformers can afford a Mars launch with a payload of bacteria, spores, molds, and fungus. As time goes on, the threshold of resources such a launch will require is likely only going to go down. We can wait, but every year we do, the odds go up that someone else won't.
Has anyone checked if he's recently taken out a large life insurance policy on himself? Perhaps one that pays out in case of assassination but not suicide?
Yeah, be afraid of the terrifying organization with an annual budget under $5 billion. And meanwhile, completely ignore the mega-corporations that would like to enslave everyone on the planet who's not a shareholder, that send that much lobbying U.S. government every year.
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As a casual Star Wars fan, I've tried to stay upbeat about the sale of Star Wars to Disney. After all, as my friends and I keep telling each other, "It can't actually be worse than the prequels, right?" But I've watched announcement after announcement with trepidation. J.J. Abrams directing? Clone Wars unceremoniously canceled and the people making it let go? Now the universally-loathed EA is to be in charge of the gaming wing of the franchise? (I'm expecting Disney to cancel Dark Horse's comics license as soon as they legally can, if not sooner.) Star Wars has had a great many ups and downs over the years, but there have been some amazing stories along the way. I fear that the Mouse is going to steamroller that whole universe into bland commercialism for the rest of my life.
Because that's not how the gaming industry uses the term "always online".
I'll agree that's likely the cause of some of the criticism directed at GG, but dismissing all of it that way is foolish. Personally, once it releases, I'd love to see how he reacts to it being used to capture every single moment of his public life being and having it posted on the web. While I'm sure he'd say that wouldn't be a problem right now, I'll bet his reaction would be different should it actually happen.
Let them do it, then a week after release spend an hour or two with a glass of wine reading about how it crashed and burned while laughing until tears run down my cheeks.
I have to disagree. I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate touchpads with the fire of a galaxy's worth of supernovas. The cursed trackpads cut my productivity almost in half when I've been stuck using one. I prefer a pointer stick or touchscreen. When I'm forced to use a computer with a touchpad, I disable the damned thing ASAP and use a USB trackball or mouse instead. I'll use an actual joystick before I'll waste my time on messing with a never-to-be sufficiently POS trackpad.
As of 6:30 Eastern, I still haven't seen anything more definitive than an "anonymous official" that there were additional devices. There was an unrelated electrical fire at the JFK Library, and Boston PD blew up something suspicious, but neither of those is equivalent to an additional bomb.
I thought his real name was Shark Divebomber?
Starting to look as though it was likely a deliberate attack. Either way, bets on whether the Boston PD will try to use this tragedy to justify their prior over-reactions?
Given the recent threats the U.S. has been trading with North Korea, remember that it's also Kim Il-Sung's birthday...
True, but you would need a vast, vast amount of turbines to have any significant effect. If the turbines do turn out to cause a problem it is very easy to undo too, you just turn them off or take them down. It isn't like pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.
You could have claimed the same thing about oil over a century ago. Once something becomes a wide-spread and integral part of the world-wide economy, it's not going to be easy to change, even if it does turn out to have harmful effects. Particularly if those effects are incremental and widely distributed.
When you have a nation that vote themselves more stuff at the expense of the productive members of society, that nation is on a paved path to ruin.
Absolutely. We need to get rid of the non-productive, extractive, rentier "capitalists" ASAP, or America is doomed. Stop letting a small group of well-connected financiers loot the country through control fraud, regulatory capture, bribery (pre- or post-facto), and wealth transfer mechanisms like Quantitive Easing 4ever.
Fun Fact: Romney got 47% of the vote.
Does having "our closest ally" constantly threaten to nuke Iran count?
Ah, but as long as the New York Times makes sure to jump whenever the government says, "frog" they'll be left alone. What could possibly be wrong with that arrangement?
U.S. government tax receipts are, as percent of GDP, among the lowest in the first world. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/08/1834981/the-us-collects-less-in-taxes-than-all-but-two-industrialized-countries/
Not if they're Republican's being quoted on Faux.
So which one of them does General Failure belong to. And why is he reading my disk?
Whispering in his ear? Please, that's so 19th Century. In the modern world, lobbyists have wireless access directly to their Congresscritters' brains via the Capitol Area Network. (Amount of bandwidth available to individual lobbyists is directly proportional to size and legality of past, present and future bribes.)
That's the same thing I was thinking. Not sure why this guy thinks taxpayers are paying for google employee lunches.
The restaurant I buy my lunch from also pays taxes on their ingredients. That doesn't mean I get to use a tax-exempt part of my salary to buy lunches with.
Professor McMahon seems to be wrong - he's not actually paying for the Google employees' lunches - but I am glad to see this issue getting brought up. Letting employees of big corporations skate around taxes by providing non-salary benefits is wrong on several levels. First is the blatant unfairness: why do Google employees get tax-free lunches when, someone else (say, for example, me) has to pay for my lunch with post-tax income. Also, I don't think we want to encourage people to become even more dependent on their corporate masters.
Sorry, but there's nothing useful in either place AND they're both at the bottom of another god damned gravity well. Orbital stations for spaced based solar would at least be *useful*. Satellite based internet would be useful. Is there something wrong with useful? Why is it that when we talk about space exploration, it always descends into some dick-waving "me there first" macho-chimpanzee rant.
We know how to get into space. We know there are useful and profitable things to do there. Can we just get on with it please?
The moon is useless and if there's life on Mars, it's not going anywhere. We can wait.
Life on Mars (if there is any) will be threatened with extinction (and/or contamination) as soon as any group of would-be terraformers can afford a Mars launch with a payload of bacteria, spores, molds, and fungus. As time goes on, the threshold of resources such a launch will require is likely only going to go down. We can wait, but every year we do, the odds go up that someone else won't.
Has anyone checked if he's recently taken out a large life insurance policy on himself? Perhaps one that pays out in case of assassination but not suicide?
of the strength of America's fundamentalist undercurrent.
Yeah, be afraid of the terrifying organization with an annual budget under $5 billion. And meanwhile, completely ignore the mega-corporations that would like to enslave everyone on the planet who's not a shareholder, that send that much lobbying U.S. government every year.
Mod parent funny, please.
He's being jailed for pointing out that the emperor wasn't wearing any clothes. Welcome to 21st Century America.