Honestly, how are our children supposed to learn critical math computation skills without a system that makes insane conversions that are too complex to do off of the top of your head? Why pretty soon, Americans might have to stop walking around with floating point calculators and reference cards. Hell, that's just un-American.
It's a damn conspiracy, I tell you.
Europe types. Trying to take the easy way out. That's why the Germans almost got ya. Easy makes you lose your edge. It's the giant, insane, chalkboard-for-a-loaf-of-bread calculations keep your mind sharp. Ya think 1100-point-whatever kilogram bombs saved ya in "the big one?" Well, DO YA?!? NO! It was 500 POUND bombs! Ya damn English would've never got involved with those people if ya would've stayed the course like the good 'ol USA! They would have been shooting into the channel if you would have kept the old maps, Mr. Smarty Pants!
Always makin' things easy. Lazy bastards.
Before you know it, they'll probably try to dangle some new fangled thermometer in our face that is "easy to understand." I've seen that snake oil. I ain't buyin' it. I saw the other day in the news that they're creepin' in the back door with this "Kelvin" thing. Yet another damn thermometer! This has got to stop!
Damn bastards. Heard they were trying to make their money consistent too.
I thought for a second that no one was going to make some silly, ridiculous, unreasonably based Anti-American statement about US hegemony when talking about something as innocuous as internet updating.
Had Sakamura decided to charge even one cent to each user of TRON, he would easily be a dollar billionaire by now, possibly even rivalling Gates, reputed to be the world's richest man with a fortune estimated at $43 billion by Forbes magazine.
And then Disney would be 43 BILLION richer when they took his money for copyright infringement... just for fun.
Even with all of that money, they still wouldn't have put enough members into the dev team effort into making Tron 2.0 worth anything more than your average movie license game.
Handy tip: if you don't have anything new to bring to the table since light cycles were done on the coin-op game, then do something new. JUST A HINT.... Half-Life 2 will be sitting on the shelf next to you very soon.
This new version (without seeing a single episode) is completely devoid of what real fans of the show liked.
Really? Well, I was 6 when the real show came out. Maybe I'd just like to kick it a little bit with some new Galactica. I certainly am a fan (matter of fact I have my tiny little Galactica kids jacket framed in my home) and I would like to say no one alienated me. You just said that you and everyone else has not seen the new Galactica... yet you run it into the ground. Seems like you are obviously in on what is happening with it, which like everyone else here with an opinion means YOU HAVE NO FRIGGIN' IDEA.
Dune was fine. "Children" was actually good. They were all exceptional for low budget. So there you go.
Just because Starbuck is a chick doesn't mean it won't be good. Hell, that actually sounds like fun to me. After all, we're not talking Shakespeare here. We're talking fun. I don't think of Battlestar as a tome to the ages. I think of it as low budget fun that had spaceships that turned left all the time in space.
Screw the mythos. The only mythos I remember in Battlestar was that they all war helmets that looked like pharaohs... and that they did a kind of "wandering people" thing. More Moses to me.
So what if they change it? It was silly stuff to begin with. I doubt there will be any protests in the streets about this one.
Remember what happened the last time that we gave people in that regions unlimited resources and guns? Let's just go out of our way to make sure that we don't do that again.
Any winner in an armed conflict is rarely going to institute anything but Marshall Law, especially in that region. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss (but with new politics), meaning they have to eliminate all of the old political opponents to make the system work... as quietly as possible.
Giving the opposing side rifles would sound a little like this to me:
"YOU WILL HAVE PUBLIC RULE HERE NOW OR I WILL SHOOT EVERYONE!" (Kalashnikov firing)
Good luck Tehran. Democracy didn't come overnight here, we can't send you guns and expect that you will have anything in charge of you other than a gun-toting government from that.
They have to do it themselves. We have to sit by and watch, there is nothing we should do other than that. The intense hatred of anything US backed would simply do what it has always done in that region... make the people we back look like flunkies for the infidels.
Anyway, much love to the Iranian people. We're rooting for you and your own future. Decided by you.
Really people. If the sci fi channel had the real money to pump into something, they would. *Cough* Farscape! *cough*
Complaining that the sets look cheap on a non-mainstay cable channel isn't the reality of television now. Farscape was the most expensive made for cable show ever. It really needed a lot of viewers. I was one of them, but obviously the economics don't support it. Period. So it died. I cannot help that. I was watching. But at least Sci-fi is trying to do something original. It is at least aggressive about growing its audience. That is why I watch them. They try. And they make original TV. So there. Can you say that about many other channels? Does lifetime have a budget for their made-for-tv crapfests that last seventy million hours? NO. Sci-fi is working on it. It may not be the best, but they are working on it.
Now that Galactica (a mediocre at best TV show, but one that makes us remember our past, I even had a jacket as a kid) comes back for a little cable money, you all start screaming that it is crap long before it airs. Months before it airs. Look, they just cannot afford to make the best shows with the best actors. YOU NEED TO BUY MORE ADVERTISING AND THEN THEY CAN AFFORD TO GROW THE BRAND. Sorry, as much as I am a sci-fi nut, we are a niche market. We will always get a "niche price" on things. Pray that you are not the Oxygen channel and that you have the Isaac Mizrahi show as your original programming.
Look, complaining about the Sci-Fi channel will not change the fact that they are broke and trying to change that. Giving you something to watch... even if it is a remake, is not cheap. They at least have the balls to venture on TV. They are spending money, employing light riggers, paying actors, and getting TV made when you have no room to bitch or get stuck with the same reruns you've seen since '95.
Stop bitching about anyone making new programming, because if the execs smell backlash, then we are getting NOTHING NEW, and they are putting all of their money into TRADING SPACES. Got it?
You missed a point... a very big point.
on
Working Hard?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Your existence is very probably it seems, the result of the carrying on of blind natural forces which operate without purpose and without interest in or care for what is produced.
You obviously don't have children. That is such an uneducated statement about parents I choose to not even respond to it.
If you are going to quote "forces which operate without purpose and without interest," may I suggest the poor in the USA. They don't care about their kids, and it shows. The rest of us (especially immigrants that grew up in crappy countries where you had to bribe to get government employees to approve necessity paperwork, police forces are on a for hire basis, or where flush toilets are a luxury, or where you slept at night fearing the next of an endless string of insurgency groups wanted to kill you because of your ethnicity, shall I go on?) are busting our collective asses to get it all done and get to work.
I am a news photographer in Nashville, TN. A city that has the highest per capita earnings in the USA for a city over one million. People live well out here. Still, every time I go to "the ghetto" I see people out sitting on their porches and talking all day during the week. THEY ARE NOT WORKING. I am working. This is my sixth day in a row. I have five deadlines. They are doing NOTHING. Don't give me crap about not enough jobs around in America. No one just up and deserves 45,000 and a company car.
I hate it when politicians call the ghetto "working class neighborhoods." That is predicated on the idea that they are working. They are not. They are just sucking up to lazy ass voters.
I understand the new labor laws stink. But, entitlement is not what America is about. And yes, you're right about the schools. Who is to blame for this? WE ARE. We care more about roads than schools. We care about convenience store zoning more than schools. WE ELECTED THESE BASTARDS. Now we have to lay in the filth they give us.
Do not call people "the working poor." Just because they are poor doesn't mean they are busting their ass to get a job, or want one. Some carry two jobs. I understand those are the breaks. I have carried two jobs while at a university myself. I got out, though.
Those people need to get off of their asses. And don't tell me that they "don't know how to work," or have never been taught that work is important.
That talk is just as much an insult to me as it is to them. You're calling them too naturally stupid, and me too naturally entitled.
Psychosexual Geneva Syndrome -- women who are raped fall in love with their rapists and live happily ever after.
Actually, when a person such as Patty Hearst gets captured and works for their captors or holds a deep emotional bond, it is called Stockholm Syndrome.
Not trying to be a jerk or a Nazi... but you were really close to being on the money on that one... I just read a lot on it once. Thought it was fascinating.
Whatever happened to the millions of cases the FBI solved, or prevented crimes, or caught murderers?
I deal with them all the time as a newsman. That is their friggin' job. They are the federal police and they catch criminals. They work on high profile cases. That is what they do. Slapping them on the back for a job well done? Then you really are going to wear your arm out slapping everyone else in America on the back as well for doing their job right, and keeping society running. I love those guys, but sucking up to their good points just slows down the process... besides it is a special person that can be in the FBI, they choose them for loyalty and determination.
If you want to thank anyone in law enforcement, thank the beat cops in major cities, they are the ones that have to shake the tree daily and find the street punks that are the most dangerous to the public at large. FBI can be patient and call in all the people they want, due to the nature of the criminals they are pursuing. Beat cops are the ones that most likely get shot. Some FBI agents I know have their gun in their desk. That is a big difference in law enforcement style.
Look, the FBI are good guys. But allowing them jurisdiction on a corporate and civil matter is preposterous. It is corporatism. It is where this country is going. Copyright infringement is not outright theft, but it is not allowable either. It is prosecutable, but the FBI sure as hell does not need to be involved in it. They have much bigger fish to fry these days than worrying about file sharing on the internet.
Bingo. If an artist puts out an album full of quality songs, then they don't have to worry about people only downloading a song or two from their latest release.
That would be predicated on the concept that those that get recording contracts these days actually can make a friggin' album. Most of the time it is Kelly Clarkson, or Jessica Simpson, or someone horrible like Third Eye Blind or Three Doors Down that I see at my front kiosk at BestBuy or wherever. Whoooooo cares?
Considering, with few exceptions, only people like J-Lo and R. Kelly get contracts for major distribution, why are we surprised that the whole world only wants at best one track from these people? The RIAA needs to sell albums? Hire songwriters and musical acts. Putting Ja Rule and J-Lo singing the same lyric back to each other for four minutes in front of a drum machine is an insult to music.
However, R. Kelly's Feeling on Your Booty was a song so musical that I pulled Mozart's Magic Flute out and put him in to make space in my classics collection.
I am probably ADD (not needing of drugs though, got a real tight lock on my behavior through self-training)... or as I prefer it, a hyperactive, overly masculine thinking, intellectual, hyper-focus male. ADDs aren't smarter... they are just more temporarily focused and almost psychotically driven to do something NOW. NOW! NOW! NOW! Anything that requires work beyond now? Well, that quickly looks impossible to them according to their history with long projects. They know what is going to happen. Self-fulfilling prophecy.
(Just a sidebar, does anyone know any gay ADDs? Is anyone gay and ADD? I think I have not met a one, I think it is tied in with masculinity, because I have not seen a lot of ADD females as well. I think it is a testosterone and something else combo, I just think it is also completely natural. I came out of the womb as a "ball of fire" as my mother put it.)
Listen up. This job may save your life. Put food on the table and get a little respect with some women out there.
I am a news photographer. Sometimes it is creative, sometimes it is not. It is always NOW, NOW! NOW! NOW! It is the best job for ADDs. I knew for the longest time that this is what I should do. Non-ADDs have a tough time coping with it. The pressure is huuuge. I scares the hell out of non-risk takers. If you're ADD? You're Sgt. York charging the pillbox. You're Gen. Patton slapping the lieutenant. Donald Trump buying out everyone. You can't help it. So don't be ashamed. Use it, people. Use it well. All of those school teachers hated you because you upset their plans. That is why they pilled your ass. Well, get off the pills and get hunting.
So why do I love it? It is a perfect match.
I hunt people. You have no idea how gratifying that is. I needed that my whole life. I chase them all over the streets of Nashville, TN. Me and my truck ("my office") runs like a hound with aggressive abandon through the tall trees of a city. I HUNT. I HUNT AGAIN. I HUNT SOME MORE. I hunt for four deadlines a day. No time to argue. No time to confuse or worry. Someone else does the paperwork. I hunt and stay as creative as possible. They worry about the details. My job is to stay aggressive, and push.
It is pressure (and not surprisingly, ADDers and ADD-similars LOVE PRESSURE) and it is creativity and speed. You should see the personalities in my newsroom. It is an ADD convention. All non-ADDs just can't compete. We do in a half-hour what many people do all day.
So Poppa, here is my advice. I know he'll be successful in whatever he decides to do. I don't consider grades to be an indicator of his future success.
He will be. You just have to give him more "woods time." Men never become huge successes selling the world their weaknesses. Making him conform or be well-rounded turns him into a well-rounded conformist. He would have conformed if it was possible at a young age. Don't confuse the boy. Give him expectations that he cannot be, because he can do things others cannot. He will be "hunting" soon enough and happier than most if you give him the tools. Often, "the tools" are just laying down the law IN ABSOLUTE TERMS about physically aggressive behavior (this includes the tightest possible moral upbringing... because little schoolyard tussles will literally make them go "buck wild" on the other kid that just started by simply shoving or calling names) and just letting him "just do" on everything else.
School tortured me. I was almost a straight A student. Nonetheless, it tortured the living hell out of me. College did the same. When I got out I went straight to the news business. I had to hunt. It was either that or be a US Marshall and track fugitives. Maybe try to join the CIA. Something like that. I had to push. No doubt.
He'll be more than fine if you give him morals and camping trips where he can build and do everything himself.
My guess is that the Oracle has a plan for Neo that is outside the scope of the Matrix's purpose for the One.
That's right people, IMHO it is all about the ORACLE. All of this other crap is hokey. She is the one that set all of this up. She is the one that sees things for what they are... and after all... SHE IS THE ONE THAT WAS DESIGNED AS THE HUMAN ADVOCATE, the one that was sent to "find a permanent solution to all of this." And one of the things that the movie harps on is effect and purpose. Well, we know what she was designed for. TO BE OUR OVERMOTHER. Well, she is fulfilling her purpose. She loves her kids and wants the best for them... and that ain't the Matrix.
As she has said before, "We all got to get along, Kiddo. And we all have a purpose." She knows human nature better than we do. She knows what is best, she just has to push her "children" to do what is best and get out of a bad situation. She goads you to do it. She even tells you that she is telling you what you need to hear. She laughs about it. Then offers you something you cannot resist like cookies or candy. To make you happy. She wants all her kids to be happy. Just like every mother. But she is behind it all.
The second theme of the Matrix movies is that no one can tell you your purpose no matter how many roadblocks they put up, real or not. You have a purpose and it will come out. Mom just shows you the door.
The Oracle is setting up a system that both machines and humans can get along together in. She is the one that set up Zion long ago much to the chagrin of her "ex-husband" the Architecht. She is the one that goads them along. She is the one that carries on caring for people while the system beats them down. That is her job. And her job is to find a solution. She found it. The "best solution" is not the Matrix. It has something to do with Neo's instant evolution at the end of the movie. That was a way for people to control them in the real world. Neo just made an evolution. OR SAY, "revolutions."
My guess is that it has something to do with humans and AIs getting on equal ground with each other, creating a new symbiotic relationship instead of parasitic. But then again, that is my idea.
Just keep in mind that it was the Oracle that is a machine that thinks like a human, and that Neo is a human that thinks like a machine. They are different sides of the same coin. And that is why she uses him to effect change.
See why she likes him?
"Now have some candy...... I juuust love candy. Want some?"
However, that's gonna change. At the moment it's still quite complex to modify games to any real extent. I'm not saying it's gonna get easier per se, but it is gonna get easier to get more done.
Then that slack taken up will be used to innovate even more, making the individual difficulty about as much as a person can handle, yet again. New slack? New expectations.
With increased ability comes increased workload. The curve will never really settle in any kind of programming, because if you are a student of history, ALL human systems have a tendency to increase in complexity and capability. In all of history, the more you can do, the more you WILL DO.
Your argument is the same argument you can say about technology that they told my mother in newsreels before movies in the 1950's. It never worked before. (Radio Voice) "With your Westinghouse push button kitchen of the future, You'll have so much time for kids and family!"
She found out that more time or ability just means, once again, increased expectations. Now we all work a 50+ work week. So much for the promised 1950's utopia.
The promises of any future where something is easier or going to help you immmensely or free you up is hard to swallow. That thinking is pie in the sky... mostly predicated on the concept that the future is going to stay the same... that the expectations are going to stay the same, and that technology will not change our culture or behavior.
It will change... however, I guarantee you that human ambition will stay at its roughly breakneck pace, as it has all the way through history.
For one thing, they appear to be using Microsoft Chat over the internet to communicate reconnaissance information. Whether such communication is secure is something I'd really like the govt. to think about, if not it could be putting soldiers at risk.
You're kidding, right? The DOD created the internet concept to make a more secure network. They have crap to keep things secret that we could only dream of.
Given that one "internet" concept alone, and the fact that Echelon probably exsists and the US Govt has probably been using it for decades, and that military planes explode in impact specifically to destroy technology......then I'd juuust assume that the US Govt would be up on communication secrecy.
Cmon. Secrecy has been *the* number one asset of the military for centuries. Its not a new concept.
After all, the Chinese got inside our spyplanes and didn't get jack squat out of it. That should let you know how paranoid we are about our information. So to say, "be careful that is not secure," to the US Military is like saying, "be careful, that stove is hot," to a five star chef.
Re:A physical key? Wow, that's impressive.
on
DVRs for Cop Cars
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· Score: 1
Listen dude, I am a newsman. I work with police all the time (and when I say all the time I mean daily).
You have no understanding. I look constantly for corruption. I live to ferret it out. I am a professional that loves to ferret it out.
That being said, there simply is no police conspiracy. There are some bad cops. They are not evil, they are simply people who have a temper in a job that you need Buddha-like self control in a pinch. Any of these "overarching police conspiracies" or "one rotten apple spoils the bunch" or "they could get away with it" ideas that any of you imply is simply asinine:
Try thinking about it from a criminal perspective. The officer has no contact before and after the shift, nor has the key. So he gets a copy of the key. He stops at the local K-mart where there is another car out of sight. They swap recorders. He does the bad deed. He gets the recorder from a friend whom he gave a copy of the key. The recorder in the friend's car has a "problem", but since he's not under investigation, it's never relevant.
You really need to be a lawyer. This lying and speculation shit about things you don't understand is really top drawer. That previous paragraph is pure paranoiac gold. By the way, we live in the world of facts, not speculation. If you want speculation to turn into serious action in your society, may I humbly accept pre-war Iraq.
You've got to be kidding, right? A beat cop can fake a video? Where is your ILM for beat cops? Call George Lucas! The FOP conspiracy needs to fake some fucking fake video over here!
I don't usually tell someone to stick it over the internet, because there is no point, but you really need to realize and defer to others when you just fucking DO NOT KNOW the innards of a subject like others.
Why would I care? Because I know the subject intimately. What you are telling me is that I don't know shit about my occupation for the last 6 years. I shoot video and talk to cops all day. SO TRYING TO SCHOOL ME ON VIDEO AS HOW IT CAN BE ALTERED AND USED BY COPS IS LIKE TELLING TORVALDS HE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT MAKING OPERATING SYSTEMS.
In the end, if you don't know, then shut your fucking opinionated mouth.
You don't know. Not knowing is not a sign of weakness. Not knowing specifics of a subject is common. However, when I don't know about a subject and I am in the presence of one that does, I generally SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LISTEN.
You should learn that lesson.
Simply put, you do not know the facts...
on
DVRs for Cop Cars
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· Score: 1
Officer A switches tivos with officer B; Officer A checks out drive 1 while signing for drive 2. Officer B checks out drive 2 while signing for drive 1. Officer A goes out to do something bad. Officer B drives a rush our traffic route so there are no tickets to hand out. That night they check in their drives, but Officer A has wiped his. Later Officer A is accused of a crime and has video to prove that he was somewhere else at the time. The fact that Officer B's drive crashed that day is not compelling evidence of anything.
That is the most beautiful piece of speculation that I have ever heard. You should be a trial lawyer, considering the fact that you are sounding so convincing without NEEDING ANY FACTS.
That is not how the system works at all. The officer before his shift has no contact with his recording device or media. The shift Sergent or executive officer places the recording media in the machine in a locked box in the rear of the vehicle... the officer has no contact before and after the shift, nor has the key. This is standard behavior for these devices all across the country. Also, considering that the officer almost always has a mic on his uniform for the entire shift, I would find it extremelty difficult to switch with another... and recreate the exact locations in the same time and order.
So beating the system is ludicrous. There are too many safeguards to stop without leaving a trail.
Tobey can come back to play Spiderman (which is what everyone would prefer when attitudes aren't flying) he's now going to have to pass a physical and consider a paycut.
Cmon people. A "paycut" is what people take at a factory to avoid losing their house and make child support payments.
This just changes his status from "exceedingly rich" to only "incredibly wealthy." Poor guy.
But before Tobey can come back to play Spiderman (which is what everyone would prefer when attitudes aren't flying) he's now going to have to pass a physical and consider a paycut.
Yeah, I heard that he may have to take several million instead of his usual way too many millions.
Well, I for one would think that the design of the little robots in AI research would be rather important to the data that comes out.
After all, form and thought often follows function. The reverse is true as well.
I would think that they would need to build lots of robots. Most of the robots I have seen in AI experiments seem to be similar to Robocup robots, and have basically one option in the world, move an appendage, or move physically. To really model AI in terms we can understand the robots would need several options to explore. My opinion is that in order to give an AI system options to "learn," it needs capabilities. To make those capabilities would require IMHO some real soldering.
Slashdot Mirror
Just roll out IPv6 along with the metric system.
Honestly, how are our children supposed to learn critical math computation skills without a system that makes insane conversions that are too complex to do off of the top of your head? Why pretty soon, Americans might have to stop walking around with floating point calculators and reference cards. Hell, that's just un-American.
It's a damn conspiracy, I tell you.
Europe types. Trying to take the easy way out. That's why the Germans almost got ya. Easy makes you lose your edge. It's the giant, insane, chalkboard-for-a-loaf-of-bread calculations keep your mind sharp. Ya think 1100-point-whatever kilogram bombs saved ya in "the big one?" Well, DO YA?!? NO! It was 500 POUND bombs! Ya damn English would've never got involved with those people if ya would've stayed the course like the good 'ol USA! They would have been shooting into the channel if you would have kept the old maps, Mr. Smarty Pants!
Always makin' things easy. Lazy bastards.
Before you know it, they'll probably try to dangle some new fangled thermometer in our face that is "easy to understand." I've seen that snake oil. I ain't buyin' it. I saw the other day in the news that they're creepin' in the back door with this "Kelvin" thing. Yet another damn thermometer! This has got to stop!
Damn bastards. Heard they were trying to make their money consistent too.
More IP addresses? Just move all the numbers to base 14.
Easy as pie. And no messy bandwidth changes.
Run out of sites then? Base 27.
I thought for a second that no one was going to make some silly, ridiculous, unreasonably based Anti-American statement about US hegemony when talking about something as innocuous as internet updating.
THANKS, SIR HAXALOT!
That was a close one.
Yes, IN AMERICA, we have a responsibility to ensure that dead business models are here to stay.
First stop, we need to prop up all of those blacksmiths that have been out of work for generations!
There are much more efficient ways of bothering people and make enourmous amounts of money doing it...
Simply sign a contract with Bad Boy records.
About Nintendo from this article...
Partly because their work is innovative, polished and marketable, but also because a pervasive stench of evil hovers over the company
Pervasive stench of evil? If anyone has a pervasive stench of evil in the games and software industry, that would be Microsoft.
However, admittedly, releasing a GBA without a light is vicious, just not full-blown evil.
Had Sakamura decided to charge even one cent to each user of TRON, he would easily be a dollar billionaire by now, possibly even rivalling Gates, reputed to be the world's richest man with a fortune estimated at $43 billion by Forbes magazine.
And then Disney would be 43 BILLION richer when they took his money for copyright infringement... just for fun.
Even with all of that money, they still wouldn't have put enough members into the dev team effort into making Tron 2.0 worth anything more than your average movie license game.
Handy tip: if you don't have anything new to bring to the table since light cycles were done on the coin-op game, then do something new. JUST A HINT.... Half-Life 2 will be sitting on the shelf next to you very soon.
This new version (without seeing a single episode) is completely devoid of what real fans of the show liked.
Really? Well, I was 6 when the real show came out. Maybe I'd just like to kick it a little bit with some new Galactica. I certainly am a fan (matter of fact I have my tiny little Galactica kids jacket framed in my home) and I would like to say no one alienated me. You just said that you and everyone else has not seen the new Galactica... yet you run it into the ground. Seems like you are obviously in on what is happening with it, which like everyone else here with an opinion means YOU HAVE NO FRIGGIN' IDEA.
Dune was fine. "Children" was actually good. They were all exceptional for low budget. So there you go.
Just because Starbuck is a chick doesn't mean it won't be good. Hell, that actually sounds like fun to me. After all, we're not talking Shakespeare here. We're talking fun. I don't think of Battlestar as a tome to the ages. I think of it as low budget fun that had spaceships that turned left all the time in space.
Screw the mythos. The only mythos I remember in Battlestar was that they all war helmets that looked like pharaohs... and that they did a kind of "wandering people" thing. More Moses to me.
So what if they change it? It was silly stuff to begin with. I doubt there will be any protests in the streets about this one.
Looks like fun... not the meaning of life.
Sanctions, yes. Arms? Hell no.
Remember what happened the last time that we gave people in that regions unlimited resources and guns? Let's just go out of our way to make sure that we don't do that again.
Any winner in an armed conflict is rarely going to institute anything but Marshall Law, especially in that region. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss (but with new politics), meaning they have to eliminate all of the old political opponents to make the system work... as quietly as possible.
Giving the opposing side rifles would sound a little like this to me:
"YOU WILL HAVE PUBLIC RULE HERE NOW OR I WILL SHOOT EVERYONE!" (Kalashnikov firing)
Good luck Tehran. Democracy didn't come overnight here, we can't send you guns and expect that you will have anything in charge of you other than a gun-toting government from that.
They have to do it themselves. We have to sit by and watch, there is nothing we should do other than that. The intense hatred of anything US backed would simply do what it has always done in that region... make the people we back look like flunkies for the infidels.
Anyway, much love to the Iranian people. We're rooting for you and your own future. Decided by you.
Really people. If the sci fi channel had the real money to pump into something, they would. *Cough* Farscape! *cough*
Complaining that the sets look cheap on a non-mainstay cable channel isn't the reality of television now. Farscape was the most expensive made for cable show ever. It really needed a lot of viewers. I was one of them, but obviously the economics don't support it. Period. So it died. I cannot help that. I was watching. But at least Sci-fi is trying to do something original. It is at least aggressive about growing its audience. That is why I watch them. They try. And they make original TV. So there. Can you say that about many other channels? Does lifetime have a budget for their made-for-tv crapfests that last seventy million hours? NO. Sci-fi is working on it. It may not be the best, but they are working on it.
Now that Galactica (a mediocre at best TV show, but one that makes us remember our past, I even had a jacket as a kid) comes back for a little cable money, you all start screaming that it is crap long before it airs. Months before it airs. Look, they just cannot afford to make the best shows with the best actors. YOU NEED TO BUY MORE ADVERTISING AND THEN THEY CAN AFFORD TO GROW THE BRAND. Sorry, as much as I am a sci-fi nut, we are a niche market. We will always get a "niche price" on things. Pray that you are not the Oxygen channel and that you have the Isaac Mizrahi show as your original programming.
Look, complaining about the Sci-Fi channel will not change the fact that they are broke and trying to change that. Giving you something to watch... even if it is a remake, is not cheap. They at least have the balls to venture on TV. They are spending money, employing light riggers, paying actors, and getting TV made when you have no room to bitch or get stuck with the same reruns you've seen since '95.
Stop bitching about anyone making new programming, because if the execs smell backlash, then we are getting NOTHING NEW, and they are putting all of their money into TRADING SPACES. Got it?
Your existence is very probably it seems, the result of the carrying on of blind natural forces which operate without purpose and without interest in or care for what is produced.
You obviously don't have children. That is such an uneducated statement about parents I choose to not even respond to it.
If you are going to quote "forces which operate without purpose and without interest," may I suggest the poor in the USA. They don't care about their kids, and it shows. The rest of us (especially immigrants that grew up in crappy countries where you had to bribe to get government employees to approve necessity paperwork, police forces are on a for hire basis, or where flush toilets are a luxury, or where you slept at night fearing the next of an endless string of insurgency groups wanted to kill you because of your ethnicity, shall I go on?) are busting our collective asses to get it all done and get to work.
I am a news photographer in Nashville, TN. A city that has the highest per capita earnings in the USA for a city over one million. People live well out here. Still, every time I go to "the ghetto" I see people out sitting on their porches and talking all day during the week. THEY ARE NOT WORKING. I am working. This is my sixth day in a row. I have five deadlines. They are doing NOTHING. Don't give me crap about not enough jobs around in America. No one just up and deserves 45,000 and a company car.
I hate it when politicians call the ghetto "working class neighborhoods." That is predicated on the idea that they are working. They are not. They are just sucking up to lazy ass voters.
I understand the new labor laws stink. But, entitlement is not what America is about. And yes, you're right about the schools. Who is to blame for this? WE ARE. We care more about roads than schools. We care about convenience store zoning more than schools. WE ELECTED THESE BASTARDS. Now we have to lay in the filth they give us.
Do not call people "the working poor." Just because they are poor doesn't mean they are busting their ass to get a job, or want one. Some carry two jobs. I understand those are the breaks. I have carried two jobs while at a university myself. I got out, though.
Those people need to get off of their asses.
And don't tell me that they "don't know how to work," or have never been taught that work is important.
That talk is just as much an insult to me as it is to them. You're calling them too naturally stupid, and me too naturally entitled.
Psychosexual Geneva Syndrome -- women who are raped fall in love with their rapists and live happily ever after.
Actually, when a person such as Patty Hearst gets captured and works for their captors or holds a deep emotional bond, it is called Stockholm Syndrome.
Not trying to be a jerk or a Nazi... but you were really close to being on the money on that one... I just read a lot on it once. Thought it was fascinating.
Whatever happened to the millions of cases the FBI solved, or prevented crimes, or caught murderers?
I deal with them all the time as a newsman. That is their friggin' job. They are the federal police and they catch criminals. They work on high profile cases. That is what they do. Slapping them on the back for a job well done? Then you really are going to wear your arm out slapping everyone else in America on the back as well for doing their job right, and keeping society running. I love those guys, but sucking up to their good points just slows down the process... besides it is a special person that can be in the FBI, they choose them for loyalty and determination.
If you want to thank anyone in law enforcement, thank the beat cops in major cities, they are the ones that have to shake the tree daily and find the street punks that are the most dangerous to the public at large. FBI can be patient and call in all the people they want, due to the nature of the criminals they are pursuing. Beat cops are the ones that most likely get shot. Some FBI agents I know have their gun in their desk. That is a big difference in law enforcement style.
Look, the FBI are good guys. But allowing them jurisdiction on a corporate and civil matter is preposterous. It is corporatism. It is where this country is going. Copyright infringement is not outright theft, but it is not allowable either. It is prosecutable, but the FBI sure as hell does not need to be involved in it. They have much bigger fish to fry these days than worrying about file sharing on the internet.
Bingo. If an artist puts out an album full of quality songs, then they don't have to worry about people only downloading a song or two from their latest release.
That would be predicated on the concept that those that get recording contracts these days actually can make a friggin' album. Most of the time it is Kelly Clarkson, or Jessica Simpson, or someone horrible like Third Eye Blind or Three Doors Down that I see at my front kiosk at BestBuy or wherever. Whoooooo cares?
Considering, with few exceptions, only people like J-Lo and R. Kelly get contracts for major distribution, why are we surprised that the whole world only wants at best one track from these people? The RIAA needs to sell albums? Hire songwriters and musical acts. Putting Ja Rule and J-Lo singing the same lyric back to each other for four minutes in front of a drum machine is an insult to music.
However, R. Kelly's Feeling on Your Booty was a song so musical that I pulled Mozart's Magic Flute out and put him in to make space in my classics collection.
I am probably ADD (not needing of drugs though, got a real tight lock on my behavior through self-training)... or as I prefer it, a hyperactive, overly masculine thinking, intellectual, hyper-focus male. ADDs aren't smarter... they are just more temporarily focused and almost psychotically driven to do something NOW. NOW! NOW! NOW! Anything that requires work beyond now? Well, that quickly looks impossible to them according to their history with long projects. They know what is going to happen. Self-fulfilling prophecy.
(Just a sidebar, does anyone know any gay ADDs? Is anyone gay and ADD? I think I have not met a one, I think it is tied in with masculinity, because I have not seen a lot of ADD females as well. I think it is a testosterone and something else combo, I just think it is also completely natural. I came out of the womb as a "ball of fire" as my mother put it.)
Listen up. This job may save your life. Put food on the table and get a little respect with some women out there.
I am a news photographer. Sometimes it is creative, sometimes it is not. It is always NOW, NOW! NOW! NOW! It is the best job for ADDs. I knew for the longest time that this is what I should do. Non-ADDs have a tough time coping with it. The pressure is huuuge. I scares the hell out of non-risk takers. If you're ADD? You're Sgt. York charging the pillbox. You're Gen. Patton slapping the lieutenant. Donald Trump buying out everyone. You can't help it. So don't be ashamed. Use it, people. Use it well. All of those school teachers hated you because you upset their plans. That is why they pilled your ass. Well, get off the pills and get hunting.
So why do I love it? It is a perfect match.
I hunt people. You have no idea how gratifying that is. I needed that my whole life. I chase them all over the streets of Nashville, TN. Me and my truck ("my office") runs like a hound with aggressive abandon through the tall trees of a city. I HUNT. I HUNT AGAIN. I HUNT SOME MORE. I hunt for four deadlines a day. No time to argue. No time to confuse or worry. Someone else does the paperwork. I hunt and stay as creative as possible. They worry about the details. My job is to stay aggressive, and push.
It is pressure (and not surprisingly, ADDers and ADD-similars LOVE PRESSURE) and it is creativity and speed. You should see the personalities in my newsroom. It is an ADD convention. All non-ADDs just can't compete. We do in a half-hour what many people do all day.
So Poppa, here is my advice.
I know he'll be successful in whatever he decides to do. I don't consider grades to be an indicator of his future success.
He will be. You just have to give him more "woods time." Men never become huge successes selling the world their weaknesses. Making him conform or be well-rounded turns him into a well-rounded conformist. He would have conformed if it was possible at a young age. Don't confuse the boy. Give him expectations that he cannot be, because he can do things others cannot. He will be "hunting" soon enough and happier than most if you give him the tools. Often, "the tools" are just laying down the law IN ABSOLUTE TERMS about physically aggressive behavior (this includes the tightest possible moral upbringing... because little schoolyard tussles will literally make them go "buck wild" on the other kid that just started by simply shoving or calling names) and just letting him "just do" on everything else.
School tortured me. I was almost a straight A student. Nonetheless, it tortured the living hell out of me. College did the same. When I got out I went straight to the news business. I had to hunt. It was either that or be a US Marshall and track fugitives. Maybe try to join the CIA. Something like that. I had to push. No doubt.
He'll be more than fine if you give him morals and camping trips where he can build and do everything himself.
Spam needs to say the name of the business that it is representing...
The last time I checked in the USA paying for or hiring out an illegal act is still illegal.
You can't say something like "he was the hitman, I just hired him out, he did all the killing!"
My guess is that the Oracle has a plan for Neo that is outside the scope of the Matrix's purpose for the One.
That's right people, IMHO it is all about the ORACLE. All of this other crap is hokey. She is the one that set all of this up. She is the one that sees things for what they are... and after all... SHE IS THE ONE THAT WAS DESIGNED AS THE HUMAN ADVOCATE, the one that was sent to "find a permanent solution to all of this." And one of the things that the movie harps on is effect and purpose. Well, we know what she was designed for. TO BE OUR OVERMOTHER. Well, she is fulfilling her purpose. She loves her kids and wants the best for them... and that ain't the Matrix.
As she has said before, "We all got to get along, Kiddo. And we all have a purpose." She knows human nature better than we do. She knows what is best, she just has to push her "children" to do what is best and get out of a bad situation. She goads you to do it. She even tells you that she is telling you what you need to hear. She laughs about it. Then offers you something you cannot resist like cookies or candy. To make you happy. She wants all her kids to be happy. Just like every mother. But she is behind it all.
The second theme of the Matrix movies is that no one can tell you your purpose no matter how many roadblocks they put up, real or not. You have a purpose and it will come out. Mom just shows you the door.
The Oracle is setting up a system that both machines and humans can get along together in. She is the one that set up Zion long ago much to the chagrin of her "ex-husband" the Architecht. She is the one that goads them along. She is the one that carries on caring for people while the system beats them down. That is her job. And her job is to find a solution. She found it. The "best solution" is not the Matrix. It has something to do with Neo's instant evolution at the end of the movie. That was a way for people to control them in the real world. Neo just made an evolution. OR SAY, "revolutions."
My guess is that it has something to do with humans and AIs getting on equal ground with each other, creating a new symbiotic relationship instead of parasitic. But then again, that is my idea.
Just keep in mind that it was the Oracle that is a machine that thinks like a human, and that Neo is a human that thinks like a machine. They are different sides of the same coin. And that is why she uses him to effect change.
See why she likes him?
"Now have some candy...
Microsoft must "improve business consistency" so that customers are not hit with unexpected - and unwanted - changes.
To be honest, my opinion of Microsoft's constant money grubbing behavior made me think what he said was this on the first pass.
Microsoft must "improve business consistency" so that customers are not hit with unexpected - and unwanted - charges.
Which is what they are planning in the future.
However, that's gonna change. At the moment it's still quite complex to modify games to any real extent. I'm not saying it's gonna get easier per se, but it is gonna get easier to get more done.
Then that slack taken up will be used to innovate even more, making the individual difficulty about as much as a person can handle, yet again. New slack? New expectations.
With increased ability comes increased workload. The curve will never really settle in any kind of programming, because if you are a student of history, ALL human systems have a tendency to increase in complexity and capability. In all of history, the more you can do, the more you WILL DO.
Your argument is the same argument you can say about technology that they told my mother in newsreels before movies in the 1950's. It never worked before. (Radio Voice) "With your Westinghouse push button kitchen of the future, You'll have so much time for kids and family!"
She found out that more time or ability just means, once again, increased expectations. Now we all work a 50+ work week. So much for the promised 1950's utopia.
The promises of any future where something is easier or going to help you immmensely or free you up is hard to swallow. That thinking is pie in the sky... mostly predicated on the concept that the future is going to stay the same... that the expectations are going to stay the same, and that technology will not change our culture or behavior.
It will change... however, I guarantee you that human ambition will stay at its roughly breakneck pace, as it has all the way through history.
For one thing, they appear to be using Microsoft Chat over the internet to communicate reconnaissance information. Whether such communication is secure is something I'd really like the govt. to think about, if not it could be putting soldiers at risk.
You're kidding, right? The DOD created the internet concept to make a more secure network. They have crap to keep things secret that we could only dream of.
Given that one "internet" concept alone, and the fact that Echelon probably exsists and the US Govt has probably been using it for decades, and that military planes explode in impact specifically to destroy technology...
Cmon. Secrecy has been *the* number one asset of the military for centuries. Its not a new concept.
After all, the Chinese got inside our spyplanes and didn't get jack squat out of it. That should let you know how paranoid we are about our information. So to say, "be careful that is not secure," to the US Military is like saying, "be careful, that stove is hot," to a five star chef.
Listen dude, I am a newsman. I work with police all the time (and when I say all the time I mean daily).
You have no understanding. I look constantly for corruption. I live to ferret it out. I am a professional that loves to ferret it out.
That being said, there simply is no police conspiracy. There are some bad cops. They are not evil, they are simply people who have a temper in a job that you need Buddha-like self control in a pinch. Any of these "overarching police conspiracies" or "one rotten apple spoils the bunch" or "they could get away with it" ideas that any of you imply is simply asinine:
Try thinking about it from a criminal perspective. The officer has no contact before and after the shift, nor has the key. So he gets a copy of the key. He stops at the local K-mart where there is another car out of sight. They swap recorders. He does the bad deed. He gets the recorder from a friend whom he gave a copy of the key. The recorder in the friend's car has a "problem", but since he's not under investigation, it's never relevant.
You really need to be a lawyer. This lying and speculation shit about things you don't understand is really top drawer. That previous paragraph is pure paranoiac gold. By the way, we live in the world of facts, not speculation. If you want speculation to turn into serious action in your society, may I humbly accept pre-war Iraq.
You've got to be kidding, right? A beat cop can fake a video? Where is your ILM for beat cops? Call George Lucas! The FOP conspiracy needs to fake some fucking fake video over here!
I don't usually tell someone to stick it over the internet, because there is no point, but you really need to realize and defer to others when you just fucking DO NOT KNOW the innards of a subject like others.
Why would I care? Because I know the subject intimately. What you are telling me is that I don't know shit about my occupation for the last 6 years. I shoot video and talk to cops all day. SO TRYING TO SCHOOL ME ON VIDEO AS HOW IT CAN BE ALTERED AND USED BY COPS IS LIKE TELLING TORVALDS HE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT MAKING OPERATING SYSTEMS.
In the end, if you don't know, then shut your fucking opinionated mouth.
You don't know. Not knowing is not a sign of weakness. Not knowing specifics of a subject is common. However, when I don't know about a subject and I am in the presence of one that does, I generally SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LISTEN.
You should learn that lesson.
Officer A switches tivos with officer B; Officer A checks out drive 1 while signing for drive 2. Officer B checks out drive 2 while signing for drive 1. Officer A goes out to do something bad. Officer B drives a rush our traffic route so there are no tickets to hand out. That night they check in their drives, but Officer A has wiped his. Later Officer A is accused of a crime and has video to prove that he was somewhere else at the time. The fact that Officer B's drive crashed that day is not compelling evidence of anything.
That is the most beautiful piece of speculation that I have ever heard. You should be a trial lawyer, considering the fact that you are sounding so convincing without NEEDING ANY FACTS.
That is not how the system works at all. The officer before his shift has no contact with his recording device or media. The shift Sergent or executive officer places the recording media in the machine in a locked box in the rear of the vehicle... the officer has no contact before and after the shift, nor has the key. This is standard behavior for these devices all across the country. Also, considering that the officer almost always has a mic on his uniform for the entire shift, I would find it extremelty difficult to switch with another... and recreate the exact locations in the same time and order.
So beating the system is ludicrous. There are too many safeguards to stop without leaving a trail.
Tobey can come back to play Spiderman (which is what everyone would prefer when attitudes aren't flying) he's now going to have to pass a physical and consider a paycut.
Cmon people. A "paycut" is what people take at a factory to avoid losing their house and make child support payments.
This just changes his status from "exceedingly rich" to only "incredibly wealthy." Poor guy.
A paycut is what they offer the lighting grips.
But before Tobey can come back to play Spiderman (which is what everyone would prefer when attitudes aren't flying) he's now going to have to pass a physical and consider a paycut.
Yeah, I heard that he may have to take several million instead of his usual way too many millions.
Geez. I liked it too. But it is a movie.
Well, I for one would think that the design of the little robots in AI research would be rather important to the data that comes out.
After all, form and thought often follows function. The reverse is true as well.
I would think that they would need to build lots of robots. Most of the robots I have seen in AI experiments seem to be similar to Robocup robots, and have basically one option in the world, move an appendage, or move physically. To really model AI in terms we can understand the robots would need several options to explore. My opinion is that in order to give an AI system options to "learn," it needs capabilities. To make those capabilities would require IMHO some real soldering.