No? That's odd. The old joke has always been that you could spot Canadian TV or Movies because of the microphones always falling into view. That, and actors bumping into them.
You can also tell when they're playing baseball in Toronto when they have to dogsled the relief pitcher to the mound...
Once upon a time, shoe stores used to have X-ray machines with which one could look at their feet through it. Eventually these were banned, because they were supposed to be used only by licenced radiologists (and how many of those work at shoe stores?) and many were faulty, giving up to 100 times the recommended dosage!
Some of you might find the idea of a shoe store having an X-ray machine as far fetched, but this is true! I know because my mother played with one a lot when she was a teenager, thinking it was good fun. According to her parents, there was a time where she used it almost every day on her way to public school in England.
She died of cancer when I was five.
To answer some questions...
on
Hope For H2G2
·
· Score: 3
For those of you who are asking what H2G2 is, and don't have time to explore the site in detail, this is a basic breakdown:
H2G2 is meant to be a "real" Hitchhiker's Guide. While it can be used on your computer (as well as palmtops, naturally), it can be accessed with internet-friendly cell phones as well.
The ultimate goal is to not only have a large database with useful/humerous/unique information available, but to have each member of a community also be a contributor.
For example. You're in France, you want to go to the Louvre, but you're not sure where it is. H2G2 can tell you where to find it. Now you go in, start looking at some paintings, and are moved by one in particular. You can then send a review or recomendation to the site for that particular art work, which others can then access.
Now you leave the art museum and get a bite to eat. There is a cafe right next door, you pay twice as much for a simple sandwhich and coffee as you're supposed to, and the quality of each is poor. If you had checked on H2G2 before, you would have found this cafe already had several warnings from previous unfortunate tourists caught in the same trap, and could have avoided it.
Needless to say, there are "official" reports and a slush pile which is "believe at your own risk". Everyone's reports would go to the slush pile until confirmed (however that would be done), and made "official".
I don't know about you, but growing up waaay back in the 20th century, this kind of stuff was just science fiction. The most advanced promise I saw for vision was on the old TV show "That's Incredible", in which they showed how they could make a blind person "see" brail by stimulating the brain directly. It's not a long just to go from that to, say, miniature video cameras to give full video to the blind.
But this isn't restoring sight, it's enhansing it! I've worn glasses most of my life, and the idea of being able to see 20/10 or better is awesome! I just hope it comes in the next ten years...
The new Fallout game, Brotherhood of Steel, is a game that can be turn based or real time, depending on how you want to play. It's also squad based like X-Com.
Last summer I biked across Canada on a recumbent bicycle (a weird, comfortable, geeky bike if there ever was one). Somewhere in B.C., I stopped by a yard sale where someone was selling their old paperbacks. Seeing as I had plenty of time to kill during the trip, I ended buying an original copy of Mission of Gravity.
I must admit, the reading was enjoyable and straight forward. Not taxing, not overly technical, but very science oriented nevertheless. Still, it lacked a certain character driven quality, and kinda felt like things were just going through the motions.
I'm sorry, but your comment holds no weight. There are movies with a PG rating that can be profound and deaply moving.
My case in point is "The Straight Story", directed by (believe it or not) David Lynch. It's PG, and is a touching true story of a 73 year old man who travels from Iowa to Wiscon to visit his estranged brother. This was PG, I remind you once again, and it was nominated for a Golden Globe award and Oscar.
I empathise with what you're TRYING to say, which is, I think that a rating like PG restricts the ability of the director to make the movie the way they see fit. Often times movies are made with a rating in mind, so the writer and director can't do what is best for the story sometimes.
What I think is a more fair statement to make is that movies with an R rating have much more freedom of expression, making it easier for a better story to be developed. It's not that a PG movie CAN'T be moving or profound, it's just not as easy.
... if I had been in high school now instead of a decade ago.
Back in high school, I was a total social outcast. And it wasn't until after I left that I found out people concidered me "most likely to return to high school with an AK-47".
I was shocked! I had no idea people thought of me in that respect! But when you wear dark clothing, keep to yourself, and face daily ridicule from "the cool kids", I guess some people worry that you're going to snap.
If I was in high school now, my locker would probably have been repeatedly searched, I'd be even more of an outcast (because people would actualy BELIEVE I return with an AK-47 instead of just joking about it), and who knows how that would have affected my development in those years?
I concider myself a well-adjusted individual. Back in public school I used to have a temper, but taking Martial Arts took care of that. Today I pretty much have a WTF attitude and nothing gets me seriously down, depressed, or angry.
Would I have still turned out this way if I been treated like anathema by everyone instead of (mostly) ignored? I can't help but think that this kind of attitude might lead to MORE social disfunction, a self-fulfilling prophecy!
I've been reading a lot of comments, but they generally go into one of two groups:
1) Hey, it's funny, it's a prank, have a sense of humour!
2) It's not funny, it held up traffic, some people have to work, taxpayers money spent, lame prank anyways, ect...
I don't know if it's even really nessesary to respond to the second one, most of us just shake our heads to these... well perhaps "anal retensive" is the only word that fits?
Anyways, if you start viewing pranks in the latter fashion, pretty soon you won't be having ANY fun! Generally the people who are offending by this are well-meaning (important to mention that, because they are) citizens who see the costs (traffic jams, late for work, taxpayer money, ect) outweighing the benefits (humour, shaking up the ordinary, a challenging goal, ect)
Yes, traffic was jammed. Yes, people got to work late (and I'm sure the economy suffered greatly for it or something). Yes, it took time and taxpayers money to remove the bug. But is it really THAT big a deal? Furthermore, what about the laugh it gave thousands of people who saw it live, and perhaps millions of others who got a chuckle out of it on TV later?
I think it's important to empathise with those that view this prank as harmful, and not simply tell them to get the stick out of their butt (but they should, nevertheless).
All in all, though, it's worth a laugh (or chuckle)
Yes, I am Canadian. I spell humour with a U...
---
... we eventually wetwire computers to our brains, where we can store (or upload/download) whatever information we want. Then as we rely more and more on the computer part of our brains to remember information we might really see some long term deterimental effects...
... not to mention the creepyness of us all going Borg:)
The problem I have with the whole issue is how we're inevitably drawn to the conclusion that anything animated is intended for kids.
In Japan, animation is a medium, not a genre. Within that medium you can find shows intended for young children, tweens, teens, young adults, and full adults. But as soon as you talk about animation here, it's always about kids.
Disney's grip (and the subsequent box-office pressure that forces all other North American animation studios to conform to the Disney standards) has all but spoiled a wonderful medium for anyone who's over 13.
What makes animation so special and important to me is consistancy. Even the best special effects in movies tend to look like special effects. The T-Rex in Jurassic Park looked GREAT, but you could still tell it wasn't REAL. You see a real person and a CG monster, and you feel somehow out of place. Animation, however, doesn't have that. Once you accept the style, suspend your disbelief, you can get away with anything, and it has a more profound effect on the imagination that way.
I suppose my favorite case in point is my childhood exposure to Robotech (aka Macross). The animation blew (but then, so did Transformers and G.I. Joe, which were my other after-school alternatives), but it still captured my imagination like nothing else. Add to that a rich ongoing storyline (compared to said shows), dealing with serious issues like love and death, not giving easy answers to (or avoiding) those issues and you have the show which, more than any other, shaped my childhood.
The problem comes when cartoons deal with violence in such a way that there are no apparent consequences. When everyone ejects at the last minute before a plane crashes, where thousands of bullets are fired and nobody gets hurt, where bad guys and good guys are cardboard cut-outs meant to sell action figures than to be related to, THEN you have a problem.
Heck, that's been a fantasy of mine since I was a teenager and realized things were only going to get worse:)
Problems (which will hopefully soon be solved):
While brain transplants have been successfuly done (monkeys back in the 70s or 80s), they still can't connect the brain with the spinal column. Hence, paralysis.
Also, growing the clone to adulthood in a relatively short period of time. Unless you want to plan ahead and let it grow for 15-18 years (keeping in mind the costs involved to keep it alive).
And unless you have no moral qualms about letting the clone live its life until it was 15-18 and then essentially killing it by replacing its brain with yours, you'd also have to find a way to grow it without a brain from the get-go.
And even though your body is new, your brain isn't. Imagine being an 18 year old and suddenly come down with Alzeimers!
Of course, these are just some idle thoughts I had. I bet there are lots of other problems you might have as a result...
I hear people always saying how they are afraid that cloning and genetic engineering is going to "create a monster"... that we open ourselves to all sorts of nightmare scenarios. I can't say I buy that, personally.
A friend of mine, retired engineer, made a really good analogy for me on the matter. He compared the situation to the story of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley...
Most people assume that the moral of the story is "don't mess in God's Domain", but if you read the book you realize that isn't the case at all. The moral is, simply put, if you make a monster, you damn well better take care of it. The only reason the monster goes homicidal is because it is rejected and neglected and hated by everyone.
So it is with cloning and genetic engineering. The monster exists. If we shun it, force it underground and make it illegal, the result could be disasterous. People are going to use it anyways and advance research in the field along limited goal-oriented lines (after all, it will be underground and privately funded). If the community as a whole is not keeping up, we may be ill-prepared for what comes up from the underground.
In Austrailia (I believe) the search for a new form of birth control ended up creating a new virus instead! It's easy to imagine a similar incident occuring in the field of genetics somehow. Why should allow ourselves to be ill prepared for it?
Anyways, that's my two cents... you're probably expecting a penny in change:)
----
With something like this on the horizon, it's starting to feel like we're living in "the future" that we imagined when we were kids... of course, that varies from person to person, but I speak as a late-twenty-something:)
Making the Diskworld "News that Matters"
on
The Truth
·
· Score: 1
Well, if you insist, there's always "The Science of Diskworld", which isn't about silly hypothetical gobbledy-gook like other "The Science of (insert SF franchise here)" books.
The Science of Diskworld cleverly uses the wizards of Unseen University as a tool to explore OUR reality and understand real science in an amuzing way. They end up creating a "roundworld" (our world) and study it from thier unique perspective. The chapters alternate between the wizards perspective, and an essay dealing with the real science behind what the previous chapter was exploring.
Overall, a really good book. And I think that can up the subject to a point of "legitamacy", making this "news that matters", perhaps.:)
Slashdot Mirror
No? That's odd. The old joke has always been that you could spot Canadian TV or Movies because of the microphones always falling into view. That, and actors bumping into them.
You can also tell when they're playing baseball in Toronto when they have to dogsled the relief pitcher to the mound...
Depending on how powerful you try to make it.
Once upon a time, shoe stores used to have X-ray machines with which one could look at their feet through it. Eventually these were banned, because they were supposed to be used only by licenced radiologists (and how many of those work at shoe stores?) and many were faulty, giving up to 100 times the recommended dosage!
Some of you might find the idea of a shoe store having an X-ray machine as far fetched, but this is true! I know because my mother played with one a lot when she was a teenager, thinking it was good fun. According to her parents, there was a time where she used it almost every day on her way to public school in England.
She died of cancer when I was five.
For those of you who are asking what H2G2 is, and don't have time to explore the site in detail, this is a basic breakdown:
H2G2 is meant to be a "real" Hitchhiker's Guide. While it can be used on your computer (as well as palmtops, naturally), it can be accessed with internet-friendly cell phones as well.
The ultimate goal is to not only have a large database with useful/humerous/unique information available, but to have each member of a community also be a contributor.
For example. You're in France, you want to go to the Louvre, but you're not sure where it is. H2G2 can tell you where to find it. Now you go in, start looking at some paintings, and are moved by one in particular. You can then send a review or recomendation to the site for that particular art work, which others can then access.
Now you leave the art museum and get a bite to eat. There is a cafe right next door, you pay twice as much for a simple sandwhich and coffee as you're supposed to, and the quality of each is poor. If you had checked on H2G2 before, you would have found this cafe already had several warnings from previous unfortunate tourists caught in the same trap, and could have avoided it.
Needless to say, there are "official" reports and a slush pile which is "believe at your own risk". Everyone's reports would go to the slush pile until confirmed (however that would be done), and made "official".
That's my understanding of H2G2, hope it helps.
Can anyone say "Cyberpunk"?
I don't know about you, but growing up waaay back in the 20th century, this kind of stuff was just science fiction. The most advanced promise I saw for vision was on the old TV show "That's Incredible", in which they showed how they could make a blind person "see" brail by stimulating the brain directly. It's not a long just to go from that to, say, miniature video cameras to give full video to the blind.
But this isn't restoring sight, it's enhansing it! I've worn glasses most of my life, and the idea of being able to see 20/10 or better is awesome! I just hope it comes in the next ten years...
The new Fallout game, Brotherhood of Steel, is a game that can be turn based or real time, depending on how you want to play. It's also squad based like X-Com.
Bring it on, baby!
Last summer I biked across Canada on a recumbent bicycle (a weird, comfortable, geeky bike if there ever was one). Somewhere in B.C., I stopped by a yard sale where someone was selling their old paperbacks. Seeing as I had plenty of time to kill during the trip, I ended buying an original copy of Mission of Gravity.
I must admit, the reading was enjoyable and straight forward. Not taxing, not overly technical, but very science oriented nevertheless. Still, it lacked a certain character driven quality, and kinda felt like things were just going through the motions.
I'm sorry, but your comment holds no weight. There are movies with a PG rating that can be profound and deaply moving.
My case in point is "The Straight Story", directed by (believe it or not) David Lynch. It's PG, and is a touching true story of a 73 year old man who travels from Iowa to Wiscon to visit his estranged brother. This was PG, I remind you once again, and it was nominated for a Golden Globe award and Oscar.
I empathise with what you're TRYING to say, which is, I think that a rating like PG restricts the ability of the director to make the movie the way they see fit. Often times movies are made with a rating in mind, so the writer and director can't do what is best for the story sometimes.
What I think is a more fair statement to make is that movies with an R rating have much more freedom of expression, making it easier for a better story to be developed. It's not that a PG movie CAN'T be moving or profound, it's just not as easy.
Someone my last comment came out Anonymous, but that wasn't my intention. Sorry.
... if I had been in high school now instead of a decade ago.
Back in high school, I was a total social outcast. And it wasn't until after I left that I found out people concidered me "most likely to return to high school with an AK-47".
I was shocked! I had no idea people thought of me in that respect! But when you wear dark clothing, keep to yourself, and face daily ridicule from "the cool kids", I guess some people worry that you're going to snap.
If I was in high school now, my locker would probably have been repeatedly searched, I'd be even more of an outcast (because people would actualy BELIEVE I return with an AK-47 instead of just joking about it), and who knows how that would have affected my development in those years?
I concider myself a well-adjusted individual. Back in public school I used to have a temper, but taking Martial Arts took care of that. Today I pretty much have a WTF attitude and nothing gets me seriously down, depressed, or angry.
Would I have still turned out this way if I been treated like anathema by everyone instead of (mostly) ignored? I can't help but think that this kind of attitude might lead to MORE social disfunction, a self-fulfilling prophecy!
I've been reading a lot of comments, but they generally go into one of two groups:
1) Hey, it's funny, it's a prank, have a sense of humour!
2) It's not funny, it held up traffic, some people have to work, taxpayers money spent, lame prank anyways, ect...
I don't know if it's even really nessesary to respond to the second one, most of us just shake our heads to these... well perhaps "anal retensive" is the only word that fits?
Anyways, if you start viewing pranks in the latter fashion, pretty soon you won't be having ANY fun! Generally the people who are offending by this are well-meaning (important to mention that, because they are) citizens who see the costs (traffic jams, late for work, taxpayer money, ect) outweighing the benefits (humour, shaking up the ordinary, a challenging goal, ect)
Yes, traffic was jammed. Yes, people got to work late (and I'm sure the economy suffered greatly for it or something). Yes, it took time and taxpayers money to remove the bug. But is it really THAT big a deal? Furthermore, what about the laugh it gave thousands of people who saw it live, and perhaps millions of others who got a chuckle out of it on TV later?
I think it's important to empathise with those that view this prank as harmful, and not simply tell them to get the stick out of their butt (but they should, nevertheless).
All in all, though, it's worth a laugh (or chuckle)
Yes, I am Canadian. I spell humour with a U...
---
... we eventually wetwire computers to our brains, where we can store (or upload/download) whatever information we want. Then as we rely more and more on the computer part of our brains to remember information we might really see some long term deterimental effects...
:)
... not to mention the creepyness of us all going Borg
--
The problem I have with the whole issue is how we're inevitably drawn to the conclusion that anything animated is intended for kids.
In Japan, animation is a medium, not a genre. Within that medium you can find shows intended for young children, tweens, teens, young adults, and full adults. But as soon as you talk about animation here, it's always about kids.
Disney's grip (and the subsequent box-office pressure that forces all other North American animation studios to conform to the Disney standards) has all but spoiled a wonderful medium for anyone who's over 13.
What makes animation so special and important to me is consistancy. Even the best special effects in movies tend to look like special effects. The T-Rex in Jurassic Park looked GREAT, but you could still tell it wasn't REAL. You see a real person and a CG monster, and you feel somehow out of place. Animation, however, doesn't have that. Once you accept the style, suspend your disbelief, you can get away with anything, and it has a more profound effect on the imagination that way.
I suppose my favorite case in point is my childhood exposure to Robotech (aka Macross). The animation blew (but then, so did Transformers and G.I. Joe, which were my other after-school alternatives), but it still captured my imagination like nothing else. Add to that a rich ongoing storyline (compared to said shows), dealing with serious issues like love and death, not giving easy answers to (or avoiding) those issues and you have the show which, more than any other, shaped my childhood.
The problem comes when cartoons deal with violence in such a way that there are no apparent consequences. When everyone ejects at the last minute before a plane crashes, where thousands of bullets are fired and nobody gets hurt, where bad guys and good guys are cardboard cut-outs meant to sell action figures than to be related to, THEN you have a problem.
Heck, that's been a fantasy of mine since I was a teenager and realized things were only going to get worse :)
:)
Problems (which will hopefully soon be solved):
While brain transplants have been successfuly done (monkeys back in the 70s or 80s), they still can't connect the brain with the spinal column. Hence, paralysis.
Also, growing the clone to adulthood in a relatively short period of time. Unless you want to plan ahead and let it grow for 15-18 years (keeping in mind the costs involved to keep it alive).
And unless you have no moral qualms about letting the clone live its life until it was 15-18 and then essentially killing it by replacing its brain with yours, you'd also have to find a way to grow it without a brain from the get-go.
And even though your body is new, your brain isn't. Imagine being an 18 year old and suddenly come down with Alzeimers!
Of course, these are just some idle thoughts I had. I bet there are lots of other problems you might have as a result...
My two cents... your change is in the mail
I hear people always saying how they are afraid that cloning and genetic engineering is going to "create a monster"... that we open ourselves to all sorts of nightmare scenarios. I can't say I buy that, personally. A friend of mine, retired engineer, made a really good analogy for me on the matter. He compared the situation to the story of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley... Most people assume that the moral of the story is "don't mess in God's Domain", but if you read the book you realize that isn't the case at all. The moral is, simply put, if you make a monster, you damn well better take care of it. The only reason the monster goes homicidal is because it is rejected and neglected and hated by everyone. So it is with cloning and genetic engineering. The monster exists. If we shun it, force it underground and make it illegal, the result could be disasterous. People are going to use it anyways and advance research in the field along limited goal-oriented lines (after all, it will be underground and privately funded). If the community as a whole is not keeping up, we may be ill-prepared for what comes up from the underground. In Austrailia (I believe) the search for a new form of birth control ended up creating a new virus instead! It's easy to imagine a similar incident occuring in the field of genetics somehow. Why should allow ourselves to be ill prepared for it? Anyways, that's my two cents... you're probably expecting a penny in change :)
----
I'm sure we'll be happy to move in and pick up the pieces :)
With something like this on the horizon, it's starting to feel like we're living in "the future" that we imagined when we were kids... of course, that varies from person to person, but I speak as a late-twenty-something :)
Well, if you insist, there's always "The Science of Diskworld", which isn't about silly hypothetical gobbledy-gook like other "The Science of (insert SF franchise here)" books.
:)
The Science of Diskworld cleverly uses the wizards of Unseen University as a tool to explore OUR reality and understand real science in an amuzing way. They end up creating a "roundworld" (our world) and study it from thier unique perspective. The chapters alternate between the wizards perspective, and an essay dealing with the real science behind what the previous chapter was exploring.
Overall, a really good book. And I think that can up the subject to a point of "legitamacy", making this "news that matters", perhaps.