What's the alternative? A sound of some kind can be very useful when taking a picture - making it unique is also useful, and it doesn't really matter if kids these days don't know the etymology. Ditto saving - it's pretty much an entirely abstract concept these days, but it still needs an icon.
I've noticed a disturbing sharp turn to anachronism in the tech field lately.
There's been no "turn" - there's just nowhere else to go.
They wanted to reproduce, but to have children who'd be able to reproduce with each other better, they decided she needed to have kids with both her husband and the other dude. I don't remember the conversations about the future generations though.
I seem to remember the adults watching the kids (more-or-less grown up at this point) and having conversations to the point of I-figure-he'll-end-up-boinking-her, and so on, and no-one being the slighest bit squicked about it. Come to think of it, I seem to remember the whole menage-a-trois thing being covered like it was no big deal too. I know they were billions of miles from home on alien spaceship but it was hardly realistic characterisation. (I think one of the guys disappeared for a year or two at one point though, which might have made it an easier decision).
That fact that you've observed it doesn't increase or decrease how bad the suicide is, so why should it be traumatic?
Because humans aren't the rational beings you seem to think they ought to be. Death disturbs us in any form - even (crazy though this may seem) when it happens to other people - it's a terrifying concept. I mean, we invented religion, of all things, so we wouldn't have to worry about it. Even I, an atheist, am crossing my fingers that I'll wake up afterwards, somehow resurrected - preferably by a planetful of nubile women who need help procreating, but I'll take what I can get.
Some people are just psychologically strong enough not to be bothered.
Some people aren't bothered by cutting other people into little pieces for their own amusement. Not really sure I'd call that a "strength," either.
No, mate, the viewer might just be better in sync with how the world really is. You have no clue. Most people have no clue
If "most people have no clue" then how can that be how "the world" really is? Surely, by definition of "most", more than 50% of "the world" isn't like that at all?
expect the reality to hit you in the head more and more often.
What reality? That horrible things happen? I actually knew that already. But most people's personal reality in the civilized world is going about most of their days more-or-less happily with little more to worry about than whether there's enough milk for the morning. Yeah, shitty things happen, and if you want to obsess over them (as the news channels seem to do) - and if it comforts you to believe that you're not one of the "sheeple" - go ahead.
It's too much of a stretch for you to believe that watching someone getting shot in the head in full knowledge that it's a special effect, then watching the same thing in the full knowledge than a human life has just ended and having an identical (non-)emotional reaction isn't normal?
I always assumed Lee (check out the criticism section) was responsible for the hideous dialogue, as I've never seen it that bad in anything Clarke has written by himself.
The worst part, which sticks with me to this day (spoilers) is in one of the Ramas where the main characters spend a couple of pages casually discussing how they should incestuously hook up their own children with each other and no-one bats a freakin' eyelid.
But Fox couldn't have known that it was about to air a suicide.
Yes, they absolutely could, and did. A five-second delay was added when the guy got out of his car (why then and not before, and why it wasn't a one-minute delay, I don't know) but for reasons unknown it was, apparently, the in-studio monitors that got the delayed feed instead of the viewers.
Want to avoid this in future? Put a one-minute delay in - at least then it will be obvious if you've mis-switched it. My impression of American news hints that this happens often enough that it wouldn't be unreasonable to have a special circuit added for this sort of thing. Then you've also got the added advantage of not struggling to narrate events as they happen - the gallery can clue you in on what's coming up, and you can even advise sensitive viewers to look away if something surprising but non-fatal happens.
Of course, you could always try not appealing to lowest-common-denominator literal car-crash television in the first place.
<satire>PS Imagine how much worse the outrage would be if the guy had waved his wang at the helicopter.</satire>
Also it was a shame he wasn't a bit better at characters, but worse still that he always seemed to partner up with writers who were a lot worse at writing characters than he was. *shakes fist and screams Gentry Lee's name*
I can't type "shop" into the Windows 7 Start Menu and have it open Photoshop, although it does manage to offer me "Microsoft Visual C++ Express 2010" when I type "vi" in the hope of running Virtualdub. Having selected Virtualdub, it still puts VC++ at the top of the list next time I type "vi". Launchy, on the other hand, has already learned that "VC" means Visual C++, "V" means Vuze, and "vi" or "dub" means Virtualdub.
I personally don't use Launchy to open Firefox - "f" shows me Filezilla. I have to type "fir" before Firefox even shows in Launchy's list, but once I've done that once, it then shows up in the list when I type "fi". If I then launch that, it will show up in the list when I type just "f", and after that it becomes the first choice for "f". But I don't want that, so I just type "f", select Filezilla before pressing enter, and I'm back to how I like it.
Launchy's also a lot quicker than the Start Menu - on my machine anyway - because it's not trying to search through my Messenger conversations or stuff like that (or, potentially embarrassingly as I have just discovered, my recently opened files!)
Launchy is also, thanks to its plugin support, a very convenient calculator.
True, but then there aren't many Clarkes around (in fact there are none really, which is sad in itself). He always seemed to make it look he began with his premise and considered the challenges are pitfalls that might occur, rather than working backwards from the shiny explosion and shoe-horning in some science. Also, not a great deal of realism required once you get to "man flies into black box and comes out as space baby."
Bottle, Pyramid, and Tornado are all ported. Just not Django.
Ah, I remember when you stood a decent chance of guessing what something did from its name. And all this was cherry orchards, far as the eye could see.
Again though, why would the B5 guys have worked any of that out? They don't have to worry about fuel efficiency, maximum output, or jerk/jolt, even if they did go to lengths to do all the physics right. Just make the wings a cool-looking shape, stick enough thrusters on each to make all the cool moves possible and you're done.
I would recommend Launchy for a different experience. I don't have to go near "All Programs," and only rarely need to open the Start Menu at all these days. Most beautifully, it rapidly learns your shortcuts so even if you install something that's a better match for what you've typed, you still get the program you expected.
That might be hard, since part of the "blind" process should involve people not knowing which font they're looking at. The other part would be the experimenters not knowing if they're working with a dyslexic or a member of the control group, but a dyslexic is quite likely to be slower with either font (albeit quicker with the new one).
There are probably some objective ways of sorting it out - maybe some FMRI while you show words in either font will tell you how quickly the words are being understood by the subject.
Look at the title and the tone of the post - it's typical of the attitude of a lot of posts around here. If an idea can't help them, it's useless. If they can't understand how something will work, it must be rubbish.
According to J Michael Straczyski, some guys at NASA actually contacted the B5 crew to see about the designs of the Star Fury, because that was the most realistic and maneuverable fighter-sized ship they'd seen in fiction.
Sounds like the kind of thing one should take with a pinch of salt. How would NASA know any more than JMS (or vice versa) what a realistic space fighter would look like? And why would they contact them about the "design" when all they had is a 3D model? I doubt anyone bothered to work out the plumbing.
Slashdot Mirror
LTE (telecommunication), Long Term Evolution, a telephony and mobile broadband communication standard
two of Law Enforcement's twelve asks are "unlawful"
Can't you call them "requests" like a normal person?
I've noticed a disturbing sharp turn to anachronism in the tech field lately.
There's been no "turn" - there's just nowhere else to go.
Sockpuppet not at all, actually.
As a result, you're "shocked" when you accidentally see a bit of true world.
If you want to talk about vague expressions, what is this "true world" you keep talking about? You sound like a conspiracy theorist.
They wanted to reproduce, but to have children who'd be able to reproduce with each other better, they decided she needed to have kids with both her husband and the other dude. I don't remember the conversations about the future generations though.
I seem to remember the adults watching the kids (more-or-less grown up at this point) and having conversations to the point of I-figure-he'll-end-up-boinking-her, and so on, and no-one being the slighest bit squicked about it. Come to think of it, I seem to remember the whole menage-a-trois thing being covered like it was no big deal too. I know they were billions of miles from home on alien spaceship but it was hardly realistic characterisation. (I think one of the guys disappeared for a year or two at one point though, which might have made it an easier decision).
Riker got to nail their boss's hot daughter.
Yeah, I saw that one recently. She was hot.
That fact that you've observed it doesn't increase or decrease how bad the suicide is, so why should it be traumatic?
Because humans aren't the rational beings you seem to think they ought to be. Death disturbs us in any form - even (crazy though this may seem) when it happens to other people - it's a terrifying concept. I mean, we invented religion, of all things, so we wouldn't have to worry about it. Even I, an atheist, am crossing my fingers that I'll wake up afterwards, somehow resurrected - preferably by a planetful of nubile women who need help procreating, but I'll take what I can get.
Some people are just psychologically strong enough not to be bothered.
Some people aren't bothered by cutting other people into little pieces for their own amusement. Not really sure I'd call that a "strength," either.
I wouldn't call that incest.
When I say "main characters" (i.e. the parents) I'm referring to a grand total of three people - two male, one female.
No, mate, the viewer might just be better in sync with how the world really is. You have no clue. Most people have no clue
If "most people have no clue" then how can that be how "the world" really is? Surely, by definition of "most", more than 50% of "the world" isn't like that at all?
expect the reality to hit you in the head more and more often.
What reality? That horrible things happen? I actually knew that already. But most people's personal reality in the civilized world is going about most of their days more-or-less happily with little more to worry about than whether there's enough milk for the morning. Yeah, shitty things happen, and if you want to obsess over them (as the news channels seem to do) - and if it comforts you to believe that you're not one of the "sheeple" - go ahead.
What about "the popularity of Justin Bieber"?
That's because just about everyone thinks suicide is evil, selfish, wrong, etc.
Really? I don't. I just think it's sad.
It's too much of a stretch for you to believe that watching someone getting shot in the head in full knowledge that it's a special effect, then watching the same thing in the full knowledge than a human life has just ended and having an identical (non-)emotional reaction isn't normal?
What a world.
I always assumed Lee (check out the criticism section) was responsible for the hideous dialogue, as I've never seen it that bad in anything Clarke has written by himself.
The worst part, which sticks with me to this day (spoilers) is in one of the Ramas where the main characters spend a couple of pages casually discussing how they should incestuously hook up their own children with each other and no-one bats a freakin' eyelid.
But Fox couldn't have known that it was about to air a suicide.
Yes, they absolutely could, and did. A five-second delay was added when the guy got out of his car (why then and not before, and why it wasn't a one-minute delay, I don't know) but for reasons unknown it was, apparently, the in-studio monitors that got the delayed feed instead of the viewers.
Want to avoid this in future? Put a one-minute delay in - at least then it will be obvious if you've mis-switched it. My impression of American news hints that this happens often enough that it wouldn't be unreasonable to have a special circuit added for this sort of thing. Then you've also got the added advantage of not struggling to narrate events as they happen - the gallery can clue you in on what's coming up, and you can even advise sensitive viewers to look away if something surprising but non-fatal happens.
Of course, you could always try not appealing to lowest-common-denominator literal car-crash television in the first place.
<satire>PS Imagine how much worse the outrage would be if the guy had waved his wang at the helicopter.</satire>
strictly from a visual perspective
Unless the viewer is a psychopath (in the clinical sense) that is never how it works.
Grow a pair
Grow up.
Also it was a shame he wasn't a bit better at characters, but worse still that he always seemed to partner up with writers who were a lot worse at writing characters than he was. *shakes fist and screams Gentry Lee's name*
I can't type "shop" into the Windows 7 Start Menu and have it open Photoshop, although it does manage to offer me "Microsoft Visual C++ Express 2010" when I type "vi" in the hope of running Virtualdub. Having selected Virtualdub, it still puts VC++ at the top of the list next time I type "vi". Launchy, on the other hand, has already learned that "VC" means Visual C++, "V" means Vuze, and "vi" or "dub" means Virtualdub.
I personally don't use Launchy to open Firefox - "f" shows me Filezilla. I have to type "fir" before Firefox even shows in Launchy's list, but once I've done that once, it then shows up in the list when I type "fi". If I then launch that, it will show up in the list when I type just "f", and after that it becomes the first choice for "f". But I don't want that, so I just type "f", select Filezilla before pressing enter, and I'm back to how I like it.
Launchy's also a lot quicker than the Start Menu - on my machine anyway - because it's not trying to search through my Messenger conversations or stuff like that (or, potentially embarrassingly as I have just discovered, my recently opened files!)
Launchy is also, thanks to its plugin support, a very convenient calculator.
True, but then there aren't many Clarkes around (in fact there are none really, which is sad in itself). He always seemed to make it look he began with his premise and considered the challenges are pitfalls that might occur, rather than working backwards from the shiny explosion and shoe-horning in some science. Also, not a great deal of realism required once you get to "man flies into black box and comes out as space baby."
Bottle, Pyramid, and Tornado are all ported. Just not Django.
Ah, I remember when you stood a decent chance of guessing what something did from its name. And all this was cherry orchards, far as the eye could see.
Again though, why would the B5 guys have worked any of that out? They don't have to worry about fuel efficiency, maximum output, or jerk/jolt, even if they did go to lengths to do all the physics right. Just make the wings a cool-looking shape, stick enough thrusters on each to make all the cool moves possible and you're done.
I would recommend Launchy for a different experience. I don't have to go near "All Programs," and only rarely need to open the Start Menu at all these days. Most beautifully, it rapidly learns your shortcuts so even if you install something that's a better match for what you've typed, you still get the program you expected.
That might be hard, since part of the "blind" process should involve people not knowing which font they're looking at. The other part would be the experimenters not knowing if they're working with a dyslexic or a member of the control group, but a dyslexic is quite likely to be slower with either font (albeit quicker with the new one).
There are probably some objective ways of sorting it out - maybe some FMRI while you show words in either font will tell you how quickly the words are being understood by the subject.
He more or less did say "it didn't work for me",
Look at the title and the tone of the post - it's typical of the attitude of a lot of posts around here. If an idea can't help them, it's useless. If they can't understand how something will work, it must be rubbish.
According to J Michael Straczyski, some guys at NASA actually contacted the B5 crew to see about the designs of the Star Fury, because that was the most realistic and maneuverable fighter-sized ship they'd seen in fiction.
Sounds like the kind of thing one should take with a pinch of salt. How would NASA know any more than JMS (or vice versa) what a realistic space fighter would look like? And why would they contact them about the "design" when all they had is a 3D model? I doubt anyone bothered to work out the plumbing.
Realism is highly overrated when it comes to fiction.