In addition to using it sparingly, I would insist that a writer use jargon correctly, or not at all.
We live in an online world. If a journalist uses some term I'm not familiar with, I can Google/Wikipedia it. If I'm looking something up every other sentence, or the results I find don't match up with the article's usage, well...
I wouldn't be surprised to see something similar to this as the future of streaming. Though as AC points out, age may not be the best criteria.
Whatever they decide though, NetFlix (or whichever competitor) must provide a basic service on par with what we know and are accustomed to for $10/month or less. From there, any upgraded plans will have to add value for the money.
Honestly, what I'd really like to see are à la carte entries. Basic service for $8 per normal, but then (just an example, don't get too hung up) for $50/season you could stream Game of Thrones at the same time as people watching it via cable/HBO
Trilogies work because it's basically an extended version of the Three Act Structure which is older than dirt. The short version, for those not familiar with Three-Act-Structure:
Act 1 : Meet the characters, learn about some great task they must perform
Act 2 : Build up action, learn about the challenges to be surmounted in order to complete their task, gain new abilities and allies to help accomplish this task
Act 3 : Climax and Resolution. Accomplish the task, and get your medals.
Look at the original Star Wars trilogy or Lord of the Rings for perfect examples of the Three Act Structure both within each movie and as a whole. I'll run through Star Wars real quick, because it's a slow day at work;)
New Hope:
Act 1 : Meet Luke, Leia, Vader, the droids and Obi-wan. Luke receives his great task : Save the Princess!
Act 2 : Luke's family gets fried, Luke gets his saber, makes friends with Han and Chewie. Luke gets the abridged Jedi Training onboard the Falcon. We see the TRUE POWER of the Death Star. The gang captured and sneaks around the Death Star (for various definitions of sneaking) and eventually escape with the princess
Act 3 : Oh but she's not quite saved yet, Death Star is coming for ya! But now we have all the pieces, the allies, the training, a friendly Jedi ghost mentor, the plans from R2, and it's time for the big climactic battle, and when the day is won, we get a few minutes to relax for medals (except the wookie, no medals for the wookie...) and some incestuous flirting
You can make similar guides for the other two. Admittedly, Empire is a bit of a mess, but it's main purpose was to set up Jedi. A lot of cliffhangers and dangling plot threads
As for the trilogy as a whole...
Act 1 : New Hope. Meet all the main characters, learn who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Set up the overarching goal of defeating the Empire, Luke becoming a mega-Jedi, and generally bringing peace to the universe
Act 2 : Empire : Watch our gallant heroes struggle against the evil empire. Luke gets proper training from an awesome muppet. Han and Leia stop pestering each other, and meet Billy Dee Calrissian. Vader sets up a quest for the climax. Luke gains perspective on Vader (i.e. his new hand) which will come into play during the climax
Act 3 : Jedi : Resolution of all the things, in climactic fashion. Big fights in Jaba's palace, on Jaba's boat, in a forest with annoying Muppets and eventually IN SPACE! Once all is done, we get a nice little campfire resolution and fireworks.
NetFlix may not survive, but even if they die out I couldn't be happier for their contribution to the world.
You may not like their policies, business decisions or CEO, but NetFlix was a pioneer in their field. They were the first company to provide cheap, easy, unlimited streaming compatible with dozens of devices. That genie is out of the bottle now, and while there's a long battle ahead over licensing fees, royalties, etc... there has been a permanent shift in the way we watch movies.
NetFlix has also established a very nice base price-point. If Amazon, Apple, Google or any other competitor want to charge more than $8-10 a month, they'd better provide some added value.
You forgot: a cataclysmic tsunami AND one of the biggest earthquakes, ever. Currently #5 in recorded history according to Wikipedia.
And honestly, everything would have been copacetic even in the face of that monumental catastrophe, but the tsunami hit so far inland that it fried the GRID power connection that was automatically shutting down the reactors.
That would really depend on maintenance, and the longevity of the internal components of a nuclear reactor with which I'm not familiar. But think of it like a car. If it's good for 50k miles with only regular tuneups and fluid changes, shouldn't it be good for 100k miles, 200, 300, 500k miles with the same routine? There's just wear and tear from usage that needs to be accounted for. I'm familiar with those wear and tear needs on my car, and I'm comfortable with the results of a catastrophic failure of any particular component of my car. A nuclear reactor, not so much.
Also, I'd like to think that we've made some improvements in our nuclear power generation methods in the last 80 years. Have the old reactors been retrofitted to take advantage of those improvements? Is that part of the extension process that moves these from 40 to 60 to 80 years of service? Again with the car analogies, are these reactors model Ts, in a world of modern BMWs, Lexuses (Lexi?) Tesla, Corvettes, Camaros and Shelby GT500s?
Margot Kidder (aka Lois Lane) was 30 when the original Christoper Reeve Superman was released.
Kate Bosworth (aka the new Lois Lane) was 23 when Superman Returns was released.
If this wasn't a reboot, Supes has been abusing his earth spinning powers.
They mentioned that a bit, in the Avengers movie, with Iron Man using his Arc Reactor tech to provide 100% clean power Stark Tower. That's just the prototype though. It becomes a plot point later on, when Nick Fury talks about using the Tesseract to produce energy. Tony knows it's BS because "I'm pretty much the only name in clean energy right now." Basically saying that if they WERE just after clean energy for the world, they would have contacted him.
Also, in order to make a battalion of Iron Men (Iron Mans?) Tony would have to stop tinkering with it long enough to mass produce the thing. In just 3 movies, he's been through 7 different variants of the Armor, not counting War Machine
Mark I : The big ugly original
Mark II : First "real" iron man armor with flight. Eventually stolen to make War Machine.
Mark III : Red/Gold suit that fixed the icing issue and added weapons.
Mark IV : Didn't get a lot of screen time, but it's the first one with a completely removable helmet (him sitting in the donut) and there was an "awating upgrades" sign on it earlier. Also allows for a REAL suit to be worn underneath, instead of the jumpsuit
Mark V : Suitcase Armor!
Mark VI : New element for power, triangle chest window, laser wrist (one-time use)
Mark VII : Wrist-band deploying system, extra boosters on the shoulders so he can fly and shoot repulsors at the same time. Extra ammo backpack. Better wrist laser weapons.
Next up, he'll probably add something to help him survive in space with it... just a hunch
And once he finally settles on a design, he's going to have to train a battalion of people to use them... and lets not forget cost. Tony's rich an all, but how much does each one of those suits cost, and how much is reused between variants? Is it even feasible to produce 400+ of them?
Not sure if I understand your last point, about science... especially in a post where you reference Avengers. A movie with several very nice scientists genuinely doing good deeds to benefit mankind (except the one who got mind controlled by an evil demi-god, but hey) Remember Tony's clean energy thing I mentioned earlier? How about Bruce Banner playing doctor in Calcutta, trying to cure some unnamed but rampant disease. Then, upon being recruited, putting his knowledge toward helping find the bad guy. No world domination schemes, and quite specific instructions that he's *ONLY* there to help locate the MacGuffin and nothing else. Before Dr. Selvig got turned into Loki's personal flying monkey ("Hey, I get that reference!!") he was just studying stars and other stellar phenomenon. Nothing evil or immoral there.
One reason I don't see addressed below : Licensing rights.
Marvel Studios sold off the rights to the Spiderman movies to Sony back in the late 90s (before Marvel had their own movie production studio) with a "Use it or lose it" clause. Basically, Sony has to keep the franchise active, or control reverts back to Marvel. And Sony really doesn't want that, especially with what I'm going to outline below. So in the meantime, Sony grabs up some cheaper actors*, particularly in the lead role, a no-name director who won't give any lip, and churns out this quick flick to make sure they get to keep their rights.
Consider what Marvel Studios has been up to recently, and that's been in the public eye since Iron Man 1 back in '08. Also remember the minor spoiler cameo during the credits of Avengers. In the comics, that particular villain sparked a multi-series cross over, bringing together Avengers, a few XMen, Spiderman, 75% of the Fantastic Four. With all that in your mind, is there any doubt that Sony wants to make extra sure they keep complete control over Spiderman's movie rights? Marvel's probably going to want him back pretty soon, and Sony will require a LOT of money to negotiate the return of rights. They're certainly not going to let the rights lapse, and they're probably not going to spend a lot of money or effort on a franchise that they're planning on selling.
*I dig Emma Stone as much as the next guy, but a big-name star she isn't. Likewise Martin Sheen and Sally Field are a bit past their prime, and certainly aren't too expensive for background roles. Denis Leary is somewhat recognizable for the Fireman show, but the other 80% of his work in the past decade has been Ice Age and it's runty offshoots. It's like Sony was aiming for recognizable names, to help sell it, but not TOO recognizable, because we don't want to pay them too much.
I think this is a bit of a US centric view. Where I am, while people know Wonder Woman, not many actually like her. Jean Grey, Rogue, and Catwoman are far more popular. That said, you are right that they ought to update the character for a movie... after the flop that was the failed Wonder Woman TV series it probably won't be happening any time soon.
Possibly a bit US centric, as I'm in the US. Hmmm... I'll have to that on wifey : Sorry, hon. I gotta spend some time traveling abroad, to get a better world view on comic characters! I'm thinking a quick stop in Canada, a tour of Europe and round it out down undah! Wish me luck.
As for the other popular ladies, how popular were Jean Grey and Rogue before the XMen movies? Maybe a bit of notoriety from the cartoons back in the early 90s. Likewise Catwoman was brought to the big screen around the same time frame with whips and enough black leather to make the moral guardians crap their pants (still trying to forget Hally Berry's unfortunate contribution to that franchise) Now, we can debate who is more or less popular, suffice to say Wonder Woman is instantly recognizable, and a big screen appearance would almost guarantee a decent turnout.
Not just that, but DC absolutely FAILS at utilizing any of their IP not-named-Batman
Superman did well back in the Christopher Reeve days, but now it's being rebooted for the second time in short order. Green Lantern? Garbage movie. Wonder Woman? Probably the most popular female in all comics... no movie to speak of. Maybe it's all the BDSM from the source material. The Flash? Nope. Robin/Nightwing? Nope.
Sure, Marvel has more options, but DC isn't using the options it has. Before Robert Downey Jr got involved, was Iron Man any more popular than Flash? Was Black Widow a bigger name than Wonder Woman?
I see a pretty fair tradeoff in the current model.
Most "nerds" (i.e. the majority of the/. readership) will know how to root their devices and install just about whatever they want, however they want. This is roughly the same group of people that even know what ".src.tar.gz" even means.
For everyone else, there's the "cloud" or the ecosystems or whatever you want to call it. My grandma can install angry birds. The most tech illiterate person in the world can probably pick up an iphone, find the app store, search for something (i.e, "currency conversion" if you're into that sort of thing) and install/use that app with no fuss no muss.
I suspect at some point down the road, a universal standard will exist and an app developer won't have to maintain 3 or 4 different variants of the same app for each host... one day.
At least you have options with visible tradeoffs. You can get the free treatment at home, though the quality will suffer, or you can get expensive treatment abroad, and the quality will be higher, but so will the price tag and travel costs (not to mention the viability of traveling via plane if you're going into labor/labour)
Here in the US, the default option is expensive, poorly staffed, and the work is mediocre. Not much of an "Option A"
Hell, this is almost a step ABOVE Star Trek. Jordie still had to wear that funny hair-clip visor around. These guys are just wearing normal (normal-ish) glasses.
A buddy of mine is a type 1 diabetic; he was simply born with a faulty pancreas. For the majority of his life, he dealt with constant insulin injections, as typical for a diabetic. A few years back however, he was upgraded to an external pump. It looks just like an old beeper, and plugs into a semi-permanent* injection point under his shirt. Whenever he eats, he just has to push a few buttons on the pump and it steadily drips the correct amount of insulin into his blood stream
Of course, a pancreas isn't nearly as complex as an eye, so I'm glad to see science and medicine marching onward. Given that these advancements have happened in just a few short years, has me excited to see what will happen in this field within the next decade or so.
*semi-permanent: He stab himself once every few days, and there's a whole bracketing system roughly the size of a silver dollar that glues onto his skin and keeps the needle/tubing at the correct depth.
I could see something like this working... I have to get my car smog-checked before it's allowed to operate on public roads. Why not enforce some similar test for computers accessing public network infrastructure?
Given the magnitude of the laser, compared with the total energy consumed (1.85 MJ) the laser show lasted a few hundredths of a second at best. But saying instant of time sounds more impressive than the actual numbers. Though I suppose they could have said "about as long as my last marriage" and still been in the ballpark
If they make twice as many movies, you have to buy twice as many tickets. It also keeps the producers, actors, etc gainfully employed for twice as long.
Only those who get caught, get arrested and locked up in prison for the rest of their lives.
I'm not going to weigh the morality of what Manning did, but there were much better methods to get the information out, rather than bragging to a known informant
Slashdot Mirror
In addition to using it sparingly, I would insist that a writer use jargon correctly, or not at all.
We live in an online world. If a journalist uses some term I'm not familiar with, I can Google/Wikipedia it. If I'm looking something up every other sentence, or the results I find don't match up with the article's usage, well ...
I wouldn't be surprised to see something similar to this as the future of streaming. Though as AC points out, age may not be the best criteria.
Whatever they decide though, NetFlix (or whichever competitor) must provide a basic service on par with what we know and are accustomed to for $10/month or less. From there, any upgraded plans will have to add value for the money.
Honestly, what I'd really like to see are à la carte entries. Basic service for $8 per normal, but then (just an example, don't get too hung up) for $50/season you could stream Game of Thrones at the same time as people watching it via cable/HBO
Trilogies work because it's basically an extended version of the Three Act Structure which is older than dirt. The short version, for those not familiar with Three-Act-Structure:
Act 1 : Meet the characters, learn about some great task they must perform
Act 2 : Build up action, learn about the challenges to be surmounted in order to complete their task, gain new abilities and allies to help accomplish this task
Act 3 : Climax and Resolution. Accomplish the task, and get your medals.
Look at the original Star Wars trilogy or Lord of the Rings for perfect examples of the Three Act Structure both within each movie and as a whole. I'll run through Star Wars real quick, because it's a slow day at work ;)
New Hope:
Act 1 : Meet Luke, Leia, Vader, the droids and Obi-wan. Luke receives his great task : Save the Princess!
Act 2 : Luke's family gets fried, Luke gets his saber, makes friends with Han and Chewie. Luke gets the abridged Jedi Training onboard the Falcon. We see the TRUE POWER of the Death Star. The gang captured and sneaks around the Death Star (for various definitions of sneaking) and eventually escape with the princess
Act 3 : Oh but she's not quite saved yet, Death Star is coming for ya! But now we have all the pieces, the allies, the training, a friendly Jedi ghost mentor, the plans from R2, and it's time for the big climactic battle, and when the day is won, we get a few minutes to relax for medals (except the wookie, no medals for the wookie...) and some incestuous flirting
You can make similar guides for the other two. Admittedly, Empire is a bit of a mess, but it's main purpose was to set up Jedi. A lot of cliffhangers and dangling plot threads
As for the trilogy as a whole ...
Act 1 : New Hope. Meet all the main characters, learn who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Set up the overarching goal of defeating the Empire, Luke becoming a mega-Jedi, and generally bringing peace to the universe
Act 2 : Empire : Watch our gallant heroes struggle against the evil empire. Luke gets proper training from an awesome muppet. Han and Leia stop pestering each other, and meet Billy Dee Calrissian. Vader sets up a quest for the climax. Luke gains perspective on Vader (i.e. his new hand) which will come into play during the climax
Act 3 : Jedi : Resolution of all the things, in climactic fashion. Big fights in Jaba's palace, on Jaba's boat, in a forest with annoying Muppets and eventually IN SPACE! Once all is done, we get a nice little campfire resolution and fireworks.
NetFlix may not survive, but even if they die out I couldn't be happier for their contribution to the world.
You may not like their policies, business decisions or CEO, but NetFlix was a pioneer in their field. They were the first company to provide cheap, easy, unlimited streaming compatible with dozens of devices. That genie is out of the bottle now, and while there's a long battle ahead over licensing fees, royalties, etc ... there has been a permanent shift in the way we watch movies.
NetFlix has also established a very nice base price-point. If Amazon, Apple, Google or any other competitor want to charge more than $8-10 a month, they'd better provide some added value.
You forgot: a cataclysmic tsunami AND one of the biggest earthquakes, ever. Currently #5 in recorded history according to Wikipedia.
And honestly, everything would have been copacetic even in the face of that monumental catastrophe, but the tsunami hit so far inland that it fried the GRID power connection that was automatically shutting down the reactors.
Fourty tw- no, wait ...
That would really depend on maintenance, and the longevity of the internal components of a nuclear reactor with which I'm not familiar. But think of it like a car. If it's good for 50k miles with only regular tuneups and fluid changes, shouldn't it be good for 100k miles, 200, 300, 500k miles with the same routine? There's just wear and tear from usage that needs to be accounted for. I'm familiar with those wear and tear needs on my car, and I'm comfortable with the results of a catastrophic failure of any particular component of my car. A nuclear reactor, not so much.
Also, I'd like to think that we've made some improvements in our nuclear power generation methods in the last 80 years. Have the old reactors been retrofitted to take advantage of those improvements? Is that part of the extension process that moves these from 40 to 60 to 80 years of service? Again with the car analogies, are these reactors model Ts, in a world of modern BMWs, Lexuses (Lexi?) Tesla, Corvettes, Camaros and Shelby GT500s?
Margot Kidder (aka Lois Lane) was 30 when the original Christoper Reeve Superman was released.
Kate Bosworth (aka the new Lois Lane) was 23 when Superman Returns was released.
If this wasn't a reboot, Supes has been abusing his earth spinning powers.
They mentioned that a bit, in the Avengers movie, with Iron Man using his Arc Reactor tech to provide 100% clean power Stark Tower. That's just the prototype though. It becomes a plot point later on, when Nick Fury talks about using the Tesseract to produce energy. Tony knows it's BS because "I'm pretty much the only name in clean energy right now." Basically saying that if they WERE just after clean energy for the world, they would have contacted him.
Also, in order to make a battalion of Iron Men (Iron Mans?) Tony would have to stop tinkering with it long enough to mass produce the thing. In just 3 movies, he's been through 7 different variants of the Armor, not counting War Machine
Mark I : The big ugly original ... just a hunch
Mark II : First "real" iron man armor with flight. Eventually stolen to make War Machine.
Mark III : Red/Gold suit that fixed the icing issue and added weapons.
Mark IV : Didn't get a lot of screen time, but it's the first one with a completely removable helmet (him sitting in the donut) and there was an "awating upgrades" sign on it earlier. Also allows for a REAL suit to be worn underneath, instead of the jumpsuit
Mark V : Suitcase Armor!
Mark VI : New element for power, triangle chest window, laser wrist (one-time use)
Mark VII : Wrist-band deploying system, extra boosters on the shoulders so he can fly and shoot repulsors at the same time. Extra ammo backpack. Better wrist laser weapons.
Next up, he'll probably add something to help him survive in space with it
And once he finally settles on a design, he's going to have to train a battalion of people to use them... and lets not forget cost. Tony's rich an all, but how much does each one of those suits cost, and how much is reused between variants? Is it even feasible to produce 400+ of them?
Not sure if I understand your last point, about science... especially in a post where you reference Avengers. A movie with several very nice scientists genuinely doing good deeds to benefit mankind (except the one who got mind controlled by an evil demi-god, but hey) Remember Tony's clean energy thing I mentioned earlier? How about Bruce Banner playing doctor in Calcutta, trying to cure some unnamed but rampant disease. Then, upon being recruited, putting his knowledge toward helping find the bad guy. No world domination schemes, and quite specific instructions that he's *ONLY* there to help locate the MacGuffin and nothing else. Before Dr. Selvig got turned into Loki's personal flying monkey ("Hey, I get that reference!!") he was just studying stars and other stellar phenomenon. Nothing evil or immoral there.
One reason I don't see addressed below : Licensing rights.
Marvel Studios sold off the rights to the Spiderman movies to Sony back in the late 90s (before Marvel had their own movie production studio) with a "Use it or lose it" clause. Basically, Sony has to keep the franchise active, or control reverts back to Marvel. And Sony really doesn't want that, especially with what I'm going to outline below. So in the meantime, Sony grabs up some cheaper actors*, particularly in the lead role, a no-name director who won't give any lip, and churns out this quick flick to make sure they get to keep their rights.
Consider what Marvel Studios has been up to recently, and that's been in the public eye since Iron Man 1 back in '08. Also remember the minor spoiler cameo during the credits of Avengers. In the comics, that particular villain sparked a multi-series cross over, bringing together Avengers, a few XMen, Spiderman, 75% of the Fantastic Four. With all that in your mind, is there any doubt that Sony wants to make extra sure they keep complete control over Spiderman's movie rights? Marvel's probably going to want him back pretty soon, and Sony will require a LOT of money to negotiate the return of rights. They're certainly not going to let the rights lapse, and they're probably not going to spend a lot of money or effort on a franchise that they're planning on selling.
*I dig Emma Stone as much as the next guy, but a big-name star she isn't. Likewise Martin Sheen and Sally Field are a bit past their prime, and certainly aren't too expensive for background roles. Denis Leary is somewhat recognizable for the Fireman show, but the other 80% of his work in the past decade has been Ice Age and it's runty offshoots. It's like Sony was aiming for recognizable names, to help sell it, but not TOO recognizable, because we don't want to pay them too much.
Jus sayin
I think this is a bit of a US centric view. Where I am, while people know Wonder Woman, not many actually like her. Jean Grey, Rogue, and Catwoman are far more popular. That said, you are right that they ought to update the character for a movie... after the flop that was the failed Wonder Woman TV series it probably won't be happening any time soon.
Possibly a bit US centric, as I'm in the US. Hmmm... I'll have to that on wifey : Sorry, hon. I gotta spend some time traveling abroad, to get a better world view on comic characters! I'm thinking a quick stop in Canada, a tour of Europe and round it out down undah! Wish me luck.
As for the other popular ladies, how popular were Jean Grey and Rogue before the XMen movies? Maybe a bit of notoriety from the cartoons back in the early 90s. Likewise Catwoman was brought to the big screen around the same time frame with whips and enough black leather to make the moral guardians crap their pants (still trying to forget Hally Berry's unfortunate contribution to that franchise) Now, we can debate who is more or less popular, suffice to say Wonder Woman is instantly recognizable, and a big screen appearance would almost guarantee a decent turnout.
Not just that, but DC absolutely FAILS at utilizing any of their IP not-named-Batman
Superman did well back in the Christopher Reeve days, but now it's being rebooted for the second time in short order. Green Lantern? Garbage movie. Wonder Woman? Probably the most popular female in all comics... no movie to speak of. Maybe it's all the BDSM from the source material. The Flash? Nope. Robin/Nightwing? Nope.
Sure, Marvel has more options, but DC isn't using the options it has. Before Robert Downey Jr got involved, was Iron Man any more popular than Flash? Was Black Widow a bigger name than Wonder Woman?
I see a pretty fair tradeoff in the current model.
Most "nerds" (i.e. the majority of the /. readership) will know how to root their devices and install just about whatever they want, however they want. This is roughly the same group of people that even know what ".src.tar.gz" even means.
For everyone else, there's the "cloud" or the ecosystems or whatever you want to call it. My grandma can install angry birds. The most tech illiterate person in the world can probably pick up an iphone, find the app store, search for something (i.e, "currency conversion" if you're into that sort of thing) and install/use that app with no fuss no muss.
I suspect at some point down the road, a universal standard will exist and an app developer won't have to maintain 3 or 4 different variants of the same app for each host... one day.
At least you have options with visible tradeoffs. You can get the free treatment at home, though the quality will suffer, or you can get expensive treatment abroad, and the quality will be higher, but so will the price tag and travel costs (not to mention the viability of traveling via plane if you're going into labor/labour)
Here in the US, the default option is expensive, poorly staffed, and the work is mediocre. Not much of an "Option A"
Yes, an app MUST ask for permission ... but how many users read those popups?
"This app would like.." yes yes whatever, just shutup and let me fling birds at pigs!
Ignorance is no excuse for sloppy programming. If you're an App Developer, it's your responsibility to make a solid and secure app.
If you cannot make your app solid and secure (i.e. by eliminating random location checks) then the users deserve to know of your incompetence.
Hell, this is almost a step ABOVE Star Trek. Jordie still had to wear that funny hair-clip visor around. These guys are just wearing normal (normal-ish) glasses.
Eyes ain't the only thing being replaced by tech
A buddy of mine is a type 1 diabetic; he was simply born with a faulty pancreas. For the majority of his life, he dealt with constant insulin injections, as typical for a diabetic. A few years back however, he was upgraded to an external pump. It looks just like an old beeper, and plugs into a semi-permanent* injection point under his shirt. Whenever he eats, he just has to push a few buttons on the pump and it steadily drips the correct amount of insulin into his blood stream
Of course, a pancreas isn't nearly as complex as an eye, so I'm glad to see science and medicine marching onward. Given that these advancements have happened in just a few short years, has me excited to see what will happen in this field within the next decade or so.
*semi-permanent: He stab himself once every few days, and there's a whole bracketing system roughly the size of a silver dollar that glues onto his skin and keeps the needle/tubing at the correct depth.
I could see something like this working ... I have to get my car smog-checked before it's allowed to operate on public roads. Why not enforce some similar test for computers accessing public network infrastructure?
There will definitely be some thorny legal issues if a tech-based telepathy ever becomes reality.
Even though my buddies and I can hive-mind our decisions, it still takes us 15 minutes to decide on pizza toppings.
Or, to put it more plainly, knowing what we're all thinking won't necessarily help the individuals cast their mental "votes" any quicker.
Actually, yes.
Given the magnitude of the laser, compared with the total energy consumed (1.85 MJ) the laser show lasted a few hundredths of a second at best. But saying instant of time sounds more impressive than the actual numbers. Though I suppose they could have said "about as long as my last marriage" and still been in the ballpark
Enough energy to send a DeLorean back to 1985 over 400,000 times.
Money, my dear boy.
If they make twice as many movies, you have to buy twice as many tickets. It also keeps the producers, actors, etc gainfully employed for twice as long.
Only those who get caught, get arrested and locked up in prison for the rest of their lives.
I'm not going to weigh the morality of what Manning did, but there were much better methods to get the information out, rather than bragging to a known informant