my fellow atheists, but this seems to be the case! I realize most of the comments aren't 100% serious, poking fun at the Bible belt. But Google Fiber can't even launch in many secular places like San Francisco, for the same reasons we see a move to stop Google Fiber from expanding there. This is all about the telecom/broadband providers trying to stifle a radically cheaper product than what the competition offers or wants to offer. And Google totally kills their bundle model with this offering.
...anyone who has taken a laptop or cellphone on a cold mountain camping trip. But then I read the comments above by those much more learned than me, and I realize I probably don't know what I'm talking about!
It's like ABC, NBC, and CBS. Right now NBC is fail, and in the past it's been CBS and ABC. So right now, Wii U is sucking in sales. In the previous generation of consoles, it was PS3. Nintendo has been the loser and the winner in previous console wars, and their handheld business remains strong. They might slog along through this round, but they'll be back on top again, and one of the other big names will be the laughing stock.
I didn't know that French was the international language prior to WWII! I think that in trying to preserve it, The French and Quebec governments haven't helped, or worse, may have hastened the doom of their culture. English thrives mainly because it an ever fluid and ever-changing language.
I just caught the unintended irony of your statement "I would much prefer to sample a little culture from places like France, than to be forced to watch another idiot action movie out of Hollyweird." It's ironic because no one is forcing you to watch any Hollywood movie. And in fact, if you can post on Slashdot, you have access to nearly every French movie ever made. And yet, you support a system wherein people *are* forced-- forced to pay for the production of films, whether or not they want to see them, or whether they are any good. It would seem as though you have a desire to tell others what they can and cannot watch, even though you don't appear to be watching that content yourself.
There was arguably a time when the arts relied on the state for funding; it used to be extremely difficult to produce and distribute art and performance. But now, thanks to advances in technology, anyone has the ability to handle every aspect, from creation to promotion. Furthermore, you exaggerate to an extreme. A film doesn't have to gross blockbuster profits in order to be made, or even to be profitable. At this point, artists and performers no longer need the government to collect taxes in order for culture to flourish. Now that media is universally democratized in the West, any film or TV show that can't be made is due to a lack of industriousness on the creator's side, or a lack of interest on the public's side.
When people lay down in front of a bus to focus awareness on government misdeeds, disease, crimes against humanity, etc, protesting can be very effective. Through raising awareness, it shocks the complacent and the ignorant into action.
In this situation, what can they possibly hope to accomplish? That the employees will leave due to guilt? That 50 employees will be so moved by a brief inconvenience that thousands will flee the city? And furthermore, just how old are these protesters? I ask because I've lived here 35 years and this has always been a ridiculously expensive place.
It reminds me of the building of the transcontinental railroad. Occasionally a small group of Indians would damage a section of track. The effect was nil.
...is that you don't know what you have, and you must hire so many people to deal with it that you have no idea who is looking at what, and you can't even figure out who is stealing what. Madness.
Everything I've learned tells me you're going in the wrong direction. You'll stick them on something that they're going to hate. Get the old folks Macs. Sucks because they're more expensive, but in my experience the technologically challenged should generally be on them.
First of all, how is it that one doctor's opinion is considered proof that "diet drugs work"? I think the author needs to re-evaluate their understanding of scientific method and the criteria by which they assert facts.
Even if FDA has been given enough data to pass it's standards with four new drugs, this doesn't translate into an unfortunate situation where diet drugs "work" but aren't being prescribed.
Endemic to the problem of a diet drug is the issue where the patient seeks to find a magical way to eat bad things in a world where people can easily eat bad things all the time and are encouraged to do so. Alternatively the patient seeks to remove the urge. So a drug either alters the metabolism or suppresses the appetite. I've no doubt these new drugs make advances over their harsher or more deadly predecessors, but taking them fails to address the root of the problem.
Physicians understand this. When you go in to your doctor looking for a magical prescription for something like this, they ask you a few questions as they are required to do, urge you to consider that merely changing your lifestyle is actual solution to the problem, then resignedly give you the magic pill. The drug is supposed to be the last resort, but everyone from the manufacturer to the patient conspire to use it as a blanket solution.
And then you may get the effect you desire, and you also get the expense and side effects of the drug, and you've ultimately done yourself a disservice that will descrease your quality of life or possibly even kill you eventually.
Every doctor will tell every patient that they need to eat a better variety of foods, less unhealthy foods, and smaller portions. But then society and in most cases, the individual, proceed to ignore the true solution and encourage the opposite.
Almost everyone has more computing power than they need at this point. So they want tablets. There will have to be a must-have software item requiring newer computers before that will change.
Also, don't know about you guys, but I have to laugh at anyone predicting what computers will be doing in 4 years.
...inside its own petri dish. Most countries have a terribly broken society and government, preventing that infusion of capital from being properly injected.
Actually I should have read OP first, not just headline. I definitely don't think there is that much subcontext to the film. At best, maybe it seems more timely because Western society has become more militarized.
I have always thought this film under-appreciated, and I'm not the stereotypical ranting and raving science fiction junkie. It's a fun sci-fi action romp, and Verhoeven really kind of nailed the blending of television and internet just ahead of the curve. But it's also a fun satirization of Heinlein's work: beautiful, young geniuses piloting starships in a society re-engineered to disqualify the underachievers. An important minor role by Neill Patrick Harris is the cherry on the ice cream sundae. I was truly disappointed that the film didn't achieve greater success and spawn sequels (IMO those crap direct-to-video sequels don't count). I consider this film to be as good or better than his bigger box office draws.
At some point, doesn't the world just have to say "Sorry, government of France, this is how the internet works and we can't take parts of it out just because someone in France is offended by it"?
Hijacking the thread at this point, but English is a fluid and living language. We've nigh-universally agreed that homophobic is the term we use to describe people who have a problem with homosexuals. So you might as well be standing on a crate in the town square, railing against society for using worlds like television, because they are a mixture of Greek and Latin. It's universally accepted and you're wasting time and energy complaining about it.
How is it "often a very important skill"? The universe is full of art and to enjoy it is mere pleasure, usually, not "often very important". People see a foaming-at-the-mouth cunt and don't want to rush to the cinema to fork out 20 bucks to celebrate his work. Audiences are fickle and easily alienated, and artists either take that very seriously or don't give a fuck. Card seems to be in the latter category, and I am glad his 15 minutes have peaked. He may now go back to generating pulp for the Sci-Fi section of the bookstore for his readers.
Slashdot Mirror
my fellow atheists, but this seems to be the case! I realize most of the comments aren't 100% serious, poking fun at the Bible belt. But Google Fiber can't even launch in many secular places like San Francisco, for the same reasons we see a move to stop Google Fiber from expanding there. This is all about the telecom/broadband providers trying to stifle a radically cheaper product than what the competition offers or wants to offer. And Google totally kills their bundle model with this offering.
...anyone who has taken a laptop or cellphone on a cold mountain camping trip. But then I read the comments above by those much more learned than me, and I realize I probably don't know what I'm talking about!
I'm sure the Holocaust survivors can offer this guy sympathy.
All those ultra-greedy, conflicting interests dividing up one multi-billion dollar pie? That'll be the day.
That's BBC. CBC is American TV without the content.
It's like ABC, NBC, and CBS. Right now NBC is fail, and in the past it's been CBS and ABC. So right now, Wii U is sucking in sales. In the previous generation of consoles, it was PS3. Nintendo has been the loser and the winner in previous console wars, and their handheld business remains strong. They might slog along through this round, but they'll be back on top again, and one of the other big names will be the laughing stock.
I didn't know that French was the international language prior to WWII! I think that in trying to preserve it, The French and Quebec governments haven't helped, or worse, may have hastened the doom of their culture. English thrives mainly because it an ever fluid and ever-changing language.
I just caught the unintended irony of your statement "I would much prefer to sample a little culture from places like France, than to be forced to watch another idiot action movie out of Hollyweird." It's ironic because no one is forcing you to watch any Hollywood movie. And in fact, if you can post on Slashdot, you have access to nearly every French movie ever made. And yet, you support a system wherein people *are* forced-- forced to pay for the production of films, whether or not they want to see them, or whether they are any good. It would seem as though you have a desire to tell others what they can and cannot watch, even though you don't appear to be watching that content yourself.
There was arguably a time when the arts relied on the state for funding; it used to be extremely difficult to produce and distribute art and performance. But now, thanks to advances in technology, anyone has the ability to handle every aspect, from creation to promotion. Furthermore, you exaggerate to an extreme. A film doesn't have to gross blockbuster profits in order to be made, or even to be profitable. At this point, artists and performers no longer need the government to collect taxes in order for culture to flourish. Now that media is universally democratized in the West, any film or TV show that can't be made is due to a lack of industriousness on the creator's side, or a lack of interest on the public's side.
When people lay down in front of a bus to focus awareness on government misdeeds, disease, crimes against humanity, etc, protesting can be very effective. Through raising awareness, it shocks the complacent and the ignorant into action. In this situation, what can they possibly hope to accomplish? That the employees will leave due to guilt? That 50 employees will be so moved by a brief inconvenience that thousands will flee the city? And furthermore, just how old are these protesters? I ask because I've lived here 35 years and this has always been a ridiculously expensive place. It reminds me of the building of the transcontinental railroad. Occasionally a small group of Indians would damage a section of track. The effect was nil.
...is that you don't know what you have, and you must hire so many people to deal with it that you have no idea who is looking at what, and you can't even figure out who is stealing what. Madness.
Everything I've learned tells me you're going in the wrong direction. You'll stick them on something that they're going to hate. Get the old folks Macs. Sucks because they're more expensive, but in my experience the technologically challenged should generally be on them.
Really, guys. My thoughts on human liberty extend far beyond the arbitrary barriers I was born inside.
You can move a LOT of exceptions through the hole you created with the words "generally unregulated".
First of all, how is it that one doctor's opinion is considered proof that "diet drugs work"? I think the author needs to re-evaluate their understanding of scientific method and the criteria by which they assert facts. Even if FDA has been given enough data to pass it's standards with four new drugs, this doesn't translate into an unfortunate situation where diet drugs "work" but aren't being prescribed. Endemic to the problem of a diet drug is the issue where the patient seeks to find a magical way to eat bad things in a world where people can easily eat bad things all the time and are encouraged to do so. Alternatively the patient seeks to remove the urge. So a drug either alters the metabolism or suppresses the appetite. I've no doubt these new drugs make advances over their harsher or more deadly predecessors, but taking them fails to address the root of the problem. Physicians understand this. When you go in to your doctor looking for a magical prescription for something like this, they ask you a few questions as they are required to do, urge you to consider that merely changing your lifestyle is actual solution to the problem, then resignedly give you the magic pill. The drug is supposed to be the last resort, but everyone from the manufacturer to the patient conspire to use it as a blanket solution. And then you may get the effect you desire, and you also get the expense and side effects of the drug, and you've ultimately done yourself a disservice that will descrease your quality of life or possibly even kill you eventually. Every doctor will tell every patient that they need to eat a better variety of foods, less unhealthy foods, and smaller portions. But then society and in most cases, the individual, proceed to ignore the true solution and encourage the opposite.
Almost everyone has more computing power than they need at this point. So they want tablets. There will have to be a must-have software item requiring newer computers before that will change. Also, don't know about you guys, but I have to laugh at anyone predicting what computers will be doing in 4 years.
...inside its own petri dish. Most countries have a terribly broken society and government, preventing that infusion of capital from being properly injected.
I also do not care for Bullock. But I now have to conclude it's due to the roles she's been cast in, because she won me over in Gravity.
Oh, and add "hyper-sexualized" to that description.
Actually I should have read OP first, not just headline. I definitely don't think there is that much subcontext to the film. At best, maybe it seems more timely because Western society has become more militarized.
The "stiff acting by brainless models" was poking fun at Heinein's work: the girls in his books are always perfect 10's with MENSA IQ's.
I have always thought this film under-appreciated, and I'm not the stereotypical ranting and raving science fiction junkie. It's a fun sci-fi action romp, and Verhoeven really kind of nailed the blending of television and internet just ahead of the curve. But it's also a fun satirization of Heinlein's work: beautiful, young geniuses piloting starships in a society re-engineered to disqualify the underachievers. An important minor role by Neill Patrick Harris is the cherry on the ice cream sundae. I was truly disappointed that the film didn't achieve greater success and spawn sequels (IMO those crap direct-to-video sequels don't count). I consider this film to be as good or better than his bigger box office draws.
I'd also bet that among all these insane number of awarded contracts, none was to a bug testing firm.
At some point, doesn't the world just have to say "Sorry, government of France, this is how the internet works and we can't take parts of it out just because someone in France is offended by it"?
Hijacking the thread at this point, but English is a fluid and living language. We've nigh-universally agreed that homophobic is the term we use to describe people who have a problem with homosexuals. So you might as well be standing on a crate in the town square, railing against society for using worlds like television, because they are a mixture of Greek and Latin. It's universally accepted and you're wasting time and energy complaining about it. How is it "often a very important skill"? The universe is full of art and to enjoy it is mere pleasure, usually, not "often very important". People see a foaming-at-the-mouth cunt and don't want to rush to the cinema to fork out 20 bucks to celebrate his work. Audiences are fickle and easily alienated, and artists either take that very seriously or don't give a fuck. Card seems to be in the latter category, and I am glad his 15 minutes have peaked. He may now go back to generating pulp for the Sci-Fi section of the bookstore for his readers.