The Beatles "Obla Di, Obla Da"..."life goes on..." Yeah, we would want to think of life getting back to normal in any way.
Youngbloods "Get Together" "Come on people now, Smile on your brother Everybody get together, Try to love one another right now."
At a time when the government is pumping up the rhetoric to whip up people's shock and anger into support for what they admit will be a long and drawn out war, such peaceful urgings may seem treasonous.
Likewise with "Blowin' in the Wind" Those kind of anti-war folk songs caused enough trouble in the sixties, we wouldn't want them to provoke the population at a time of crises like this.
Louis Armstrong "What A Wonderful World" Oh, come on! At times like this we need something to remind us about the good things in life.
On a slightly different muscical note, on the weekend one of the Canadian TV networks showed a montage of the events and aftermath of last Tuesday. The song (by Don Henley?) they used as background was chillingly true:
"In a New York minute, Everything can change In a New York minute Everything is strange..."
The Hugo award winner for novelette, "Millennium Babies" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, can be read online in its entirity at the Asimov's Science Fiction website.
In the mid-1970's, when I was living in Frederciton, New Brunswick (Atlantic Canada), I was able to receive a TV station from Nashville, Tennesee. The reception was a bit snowy, but it lasted for a couple of days. I made an audio recording of the reception and still have that tape lying around.
As systems become more complex, more education is required. The education costs more money. At some point, if this continues unchecked, we will be faced with a situation where the cost of education exceeds the value brought as a result of that education.
Like you say, an interesting theory. However, it seems to hinge on the idea that educating someone carries a fixed cost per unit of knowledge (whatever that may be). Or at least that the cost of education per k.u. is not falling as fast as the rise in the number of k.u.'s required to operate in society.
This ignores the fact that it is not always necessary to have an instructor or prepared curriculum in order to learn something.
For example, when I first got a Windows box, I could have spent $150. on a course at the community college to learn how to double click on an icon, but chose to save my money and teach myself.
In fact when it comes to education in general, once you teach someone how to engage in critical thinking, and give them access to a worldwide knowledge database (which the Internet is turning into), the motivated student can gain unlimited knowledge and virtually no cost other than connectivity.
Myself as an example: I have learned far more in my past 6 years of Internet access at a cost of <$1.4K in dial-up fees than I did in my previous 6 years of university education at a cost of >$30K in tuition fees.
Trickster Coyote
I think, therefore I am. I think...
Mozilla (Netscape 6) using the Gecko rendering engine doesn't render a page linearly as the older and other browsers do. Whatever info it has already downloaded is put on the screen right away, then the other, later arriving elements are slotted in when they finally do arrive.
I find that on most websites the text comes up first, then when the ads and other images are received, they are popped onto the screen and the text rearranges itself around them.
The rare times when I need to revert to using Netscape 4, I find myself feeling rather impatient as I sit for countless seconds staring at some stupid blinking ad on an otherwise blank screen. With Mozilla, I find myself more relaxed and my workflow less interupted.
Trickster Coyote
Reality is a consensual halluciation.
It sounds a bit like "Distraction" by Bruce Sterling.
The thing with the Chinese broadcasting the software to all the world wasn't central in the novel, it was more of a background thing that set the economic environment for the story.
Fairly good book. I enjoyed as I have most of Sterlings books.
As we start to remove the last vestiges of a paternalistic scheme of government that regulates what may be patented, true innovation will again shine through.
It is precisely that paternalism that gives patents their power. The gov't says: Show us your idea and give us $xK and we will grant you a monopoly to use that idea. And if you catch anyone else using your idea without your permission and can prove it in court, we will use our power to force them to give you money.
If you get rid of the paternalism, you get rid of the scheme that is the patent protection racket.
I've heard that a corporation can be de-chartered, the equivalent of a death sentence. I've never heard of it being applied.
It has been applied in the past, but not for around 100 years give or take. The legal mechanism to do this is still available. I've come across some campaigns to impose a "corporate death penalty" on various businesses here and there on the web.
For a general primer on the history and evolution of corporate power, along with a call to arms to fight back, check out the Corporate Crackdown at the Adbusters website.
Trickster Coyote
The power of illusion. The illusion of power.
Seriously, lets declare war on them and force them to feed California all their electricity!
Actually, BC Hydro is already supplying a big chunk of electric power to California. Last week, with over $400M owing, the California utilities announced they would only be paying 15 cents on the dollar. BC might not be sending much more juice south if this situation continues.
Well given that eToys' shares are currently worth about 25 cents and they just announced third quarter losses of about 52 cents a share - much larger than predicted - it doesn't look like eToys is much longer for this world. Given that, it may seem pointless and vindictive for etoy to be going after them at this point.
But consider this: when eToys goes bankrupt, its assets will be put up for sale. Like most dotcoms, the main asset of this company is likely their domain name. If another company buys the domain, there is always the chance that with fresh money and fresh lawyers, they once again pursue the attack on etoy.
By counter attacking now, etoy is in a good position to protect themselves once and for all. First of all, with eToys on the financial ropes, they will have less money to throw at lawyers to defend themselves. Secondly, and most importantly, if etoy wins, they will prevent many potential future headaches for themselves. Even if eToys goes down before the suit is settled, the legal cloud hovering over the etoys.com domain "property" will make it much less attractive to prospective buyers.
Trickster Coyote
Ignore that man behind the curtain.
Deregulation has SUCCESSFULLY circumvented these problems in many markets by allowing the companies to respond economically to demand.
Just curious, but where exactly are these markets that have successfully deregulated electricity? Here in Alberta, Canada, we are into our first month of electrical deregulation and are already having problems with doubling and tripling of prices. The government has stepped in with subsidies on power bills and rate freezes (they have to call an election this spring). It looks like we may be starting down a path similar to California's.
If there are markets out there that have successfully deregulated their electrical production/distribution industries, I would like to look at how they did it so perhaps we can follow their methods and avoid the fate that California is experiencing.
Please follow up your previous post with some specific examples.
Thank you.
Trickster Coyote
Illusions are real. Reality is an illusion.
Once you get to your voting table, you're greeted by at least two, and perhaps three, volunteers. They're from opposing parties, to keep each other honest.
Actually the pair of people working at the voting table are not volunteers. They are hired help and paid not too bad for a day's work. (I know since I worked at the polls for the last election.) They are not from opposing parties -- they have no party affiliation at all, or if they do, they are required to keep mum about it. Political discussion of any kind is verboten in the polling place.
There may also be one or several observers on hand on behalf of the candidates, but they don't actually do any of the work involved in conducting the voting.
During the ballot counting, the party observers may also be on hand, but even if they are not, the ballots must be counted in the presence of 2 witnesses.
All in all though, you have described the Canadian voting process pretty thoroughly.
Some trivia from the Canadian election day: of the 181 people who cast a vote at my polling station, 27 of them made a joke about the US elections; of those, 18 of the jokes were about chads.
Maybe next time we should have computer monitors with great big colored buttons and a windows-style "are you really sure yes/no" dialogue boxes for the voters in palm beach.
This is actually a very good idea. Really.
Large colored buttons on a monitor make it easier to map the candidate choice to the action of voting for that candidate. This is particularly useful for many elderly people who may have trouble reading the small print and arrows on a ballot. The confirmation step "You are voting for Jane X. Doe. Yes / No" will further minimize any possibility of mistaken voting.
An additional level of confirmation would be to print out the name of their choice on a slip of paper for the voter to deposit in a box after leaving the voting booth. This step also provides for a backup method of counting the votes in case of computer problems that might prevent an electronic tabulation.*
*Such as hardware problems or software crashes. You might also want to require that the software running the system be open source so that all interested parties can be sure that the code is honest.
By the way, what is with this method of voting by using metal stylus to poke a hole in a piece of paper? This is pretty ancient technology that was developed by the precursor to IBM to count the census in the late 1800's. Surely a world leader in technology such as the United States can come up with something a bit more modern?
Digging a new Panama Canal with nuclear bombs. Blasting out an instant harbour. Launching a giant rocket with nuclear explosions. Science fiction? No. Actual plans.
Between 1957 and 1988, American and Soviet scientists used nuclear bombs in more than 150 civilian engineering experiments around the world.
There was an episode of the Nature of Things a couple of weeks ago called "Nuclear Dyanamite" about proposed and actual uses of nuclear bombs for civil engineering projects. Unfortunately my local CBC affliate has decided to run Walker, Texas Ranger instead of this show this season so I wasn't able to see this episode. I believe the show is also seen in the U.S. on PBS. Check your local listings.
Actually what I need is a room that will clean itself. Maybe it can be set up to vibrate all the stuff I want to keep into the closet and vibrate the rest into the trash.
The REAL question is could the RIAA break Napster/Gnutella etc. as a useful tool by bombarding it with files like these (or just corrupt mp3s)...
I doubt that the RIAA flooding Napster, etc. with corrupt or trojan files would ultimately have much much effect in polluting the the system. The reason being that these phoney files will be immediately deleted by the downloader after discovering their nature and not left on their computers for redistribution to others. These are PEER to PEER file trading systems and Peers Won't Pass Along Phoney Files to Peers.
Therefore the only source of corrupt files will be the RIAA moles themselves, meaning they will always be a tiny minority of Napster users. In addition, known mole user handles can be publicly posted on black lists to warn people against the dubious nature of their offerings.
As for the Barenaked Ladies promotion, I think their fans will get a kick out of it, since it features some witty banter from the artists themselves (instead of just some corporate commercial) and they will actively seek it out. It could definitely ending up working in favour of promoting the BNL album. At least it is not as likely to piss their fans as Metallica's tactics in fighting Napster.
Trickster Coyote
Reality isn't everything it's cracked up to be.
Actually I think just about every cable company in Canada carries US network stations, no matter what city you are in. For example here in Alberta every city, including Edmonton which couldn't even pull in a ghost of a signal from south of the border, carries a full raft of channels from Spokane, Washigton. In fact the PBS station in Spokane gets the majority of their viewer donated funding from Albertans.
In Vancouver, the only US signal you can get by antenna is KVOS in Bellingham (which is actually kind of a Vancouver station - they originally had their studios in downtown Vancouver and when buying programming they must compete with the native Vancouver stations for market area rights). However the local cable carries 6 or 7 broadcast stations from Seattle/Tacoma.
(Conversely, the only Canadian station you can get on Seattle cable is CBC. They tried to remove it a few years ago but met with vocal protest from a group of loyal local CBC fans.)
So basically, any major city in Canada has all they major US networks available on cable, relayed from the nearest US city, no matter how far from the border they are.
It seems that right about the time I was getting around to being born,... they were saying that industrial soceity was bringing about global COOLING!!! We were dooming ourselves to a new ice age! And now they've done a 180 and are doomsaying about global warming???
Well, come on guys... which is it?
You can't have it both ways.
Oh come off it! 30-odd years ago (I'm guessing at your age) the scientists based on the research of the day were theorizing one thing and now, after 30 years of futher research and observation, they are concluding something different. This is not suprising nor can it in any way be called hypocritical. Do you expect scientists to make one theory and stick to it for over a generation, no matter what further evidence may suggest?
You also presuppose that "they" are a monolithic block of researchers and that they speak with a unified voice. Further more, you presuppose that the exact same people from 30 years ago are the ones saying something different now when in actual fact the ones from 30 years ago are probably mostly all dead now or retired and the ones speaking today about global warming are an entirely new generation.
How your comment got moderated as "Insightful" is beyond me, when it mostly shows your profound ignorance of the scientific method and is an extreme over-simplification of the nature of the scientific community based on a hearsay anecdote of a doddering old man who obviously passed on his lack of intelligence to his progeny.
Try this on: "At one time scientists were saying that the world was flat. Now they've done a 180 and are claiming that the world is round! Well come on guys... which is it? You can't have it both ways."
I must disagree with your assumption that the only way we can find commonality in a society is to have some inane TV series that we all watch. Having any TV channels at all is only a recent experience as far as history is concerned and societies before ours had no problems finding commonalities. With an increasingly wide variety of entertainment choices, people will (and are) discovering other things that they share in common.
The next question is how long society will tolerate this before reverting back to conformity and three "channels" again.
How will that happen? Who is going to shut down the other 97 channels? Who is going to decide which three channels to keep? I doubt you will find any consensus among the populace about which channels they are willing to give up to achieve their desired commonality. And what about the Internet with its millions of channels? That also pulls people away from their precious 3-channel television commonality. Will everyone willingly give up their Internet connections?
If our only common experience is that we were lied to by the same politicians and corporations, then when a real crisis occurs...
Actually, when people finally realize that that is their most common experience, there will be a real crisis -- for the politicians and corporations. I predict that there will be a new popular shared entertainment: tar and feather parades. People will gather around the water cooler on Mondays and discuss whether Joe Congressman or Jane CEO really got the treatment they deserved or whether they should be run through the gauntlet again next Saturday.
Trickster Coyote
Please ignore the man behind the curtain.
Well at least one of the turkeys I worked on made it on the list (#12 Carpool). I am partly responsible for bringing this travesty to the big screen in a one-of-the-little-people sort of way. I even got my name in the credits. Unfortunately they don't let crew members remove their names from movies like directors can. (Yes, I used to be an MPAA stooge, but I'm feeling much better now.)
David Paymer is a good guy and I have a lot of respect for him, but people like Tom Arnold should never be allow anywhere near a film set. One of the highlights of the whole experience was putting Tom and Rod Steiger in the same room and watching the battle of the egos. No contest. At least Rod earned his ego and has a golden statue or two to back it up.
The real tragedy was that before Carpool made it to the theatres and proved to the world that Tom had no business starring in movies, they let him make The Stupids and McHale's Navy. All three made the top ten list of that years least profitable films.
I don't mean to rain on NASA's parade, but, seriously, who would want to live on other planets?
Well, besides the grand dreams of boldly going where no one has gone before, (which would be reason enough for me, even if it was a one way trip), Mars would be a great place for an offshore data haven. Sure, the pings times would be dreadful, but those corporate lawyer types would have one hell of a time trying to shut down your servers!
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmm....
The Beatles "Obla Di, Obla Da"..."life goes on..." Yeah, we would want to think of life getting back to normal in any way.
Youngbloods "Get Together"
"Come on people now,
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together,
Try to love one another right now."
At a time when the government is pumping up the rhetoric to whip up people's shock and anger into support for what they admit will be a long and drawn out war, such peaceful urgings may seem treasonous.
Likewise with "Blowin' in the Wind" Those kind of anti-war folk songs caused enough trouble in the sixties, we wouldn't want them to provoke the population at a time of crises like this.
Louis Armstrong "What A Wonderful World" Oh, come on! At times like this we need something to remind us about the good things in life.
On a slightly different muscical note, on the weekend one of the Canadian TV networks showed a montage of the events and aftermath of last Tuesday. The song (by Don Henley?) they used as background was chillingly true:
"In a New York minute,
Everything can change
In a New York minute
Everything is strange..."
Trickster Coyote
Reality is as reality does."
The Hugo award winner for novelette, "Millennium Babies" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, can be read online in its entirity at the Asimov's Science Fiction website.
TC
In the mid-1970's, when I was living in Frederciton, New Brunswick (Atlantic Canada), I was able to receive a TV station from Nashville, Tennesee. The reception was a bit snowy, but it lasted for a couple of days. I made an audio recording of the reception and still have that tape lying around.
As systems become more complex, more education is required. The education costs more money. At some point, if this continues unchecked, we will be faced with a situation where the cost of education exceeds the value brought as a result of that education.
Like you say, an interesting theory. However, it seems to hinge on the idea that educating someone carries a fixed cost per unit of knowledge (whatever that may be). Or at least that the cost of education per k.u. is not falling as fast as the rise in the number of k.u.'s required to operate in society.
This ignores the fact that it is not always necessary to have an instructor or prepared curriculum in order to learn something.
For example, when I first got a Windows box, I could have spent $150. on a course at the community college to learn how to double click on an icon, but chose to save my money and teach myself.
In fact when it comes to education in general, once you teach someone how to engage in critical thinking, and give them access to a worldwide knowledge database (which the Internet is turning into), the motivated student can gain unlimited knowledge and virtually no cost other than connectivity.
Myself as an example: I have learned far more in my past 6 years of Internet access at a cost of <$1.4K in dial-up fees than I did in my previous 6 years of university education at a cost of >$30K in tuition fees.
Trickster Coyote
I think, therefore I am. I think...
Mozilla (Netscape 6) using the Gecko rendering engine doesn't render a page linearly as the older and other browsers do. Whatever info it has already downloaded is put on the screen right away, then the other, later arriving elements are slotted in when they finally do arrive.
I find that on most websites the text comes up first, then when the ads and other images are received, they are popped onto the screen and the text rearranges itself around them.
The rare times when I need to revert to using Netscape 4, I find myself feeling rather impatient as I sit for countless seconds staring at some stupid blinking ad on an otherwise blank screen. With Mozilla, I find myself more relaxed and my workflow less interupted.
Trickster Coyote
Reality is a consensual halluciation.
It sounds a bit like "Distraction" by Bruce Sterling.
The thing with the Chinese broadcasting the software to all the world wasn't central in the novel, it was more of a background thing that set the economic environment for the story.
Fairly good book. I enjoyed as I have most of Sterlings books.
Trickster Coyote
Viva les idées libres!
As we start to remove the last vestiges of a paternalistic scheme of government that regulates what may be patented, true innovation will again shine through.
It is precisely that paternalism that gives patents their power. The gov't says: Show us your idea and give us $xK and we will grant you a monopoly to use that idea. And if you catch anyone else using your idea without your permission and can prove it in court, we will use our power to force them to give you money.
If you get rid of the paternalism, you get rid of the scheme that is the patent protection racket.
Trickster Coyote
Viva les idées libre!
I've heard that a corporation can be de-chartered, the equivalent of a death sentence. I've never heard of it being applied.
It has been applied in the past, but not for around 100 years give or take. The legal mechanism to do this is still available. I've come across some campaigns to impose a "corporate death penalty" on various businesses here and there on the web.
For a general primer on the history and evolution of corporate power, along with a call to arms to fight back, check out the Corporate Crackdown at the Adbusters website.
Trickster Coyote
The power of illusion. The illusion of power.
Seriously, lets declare war on them and force them to feed California all their electricity!
Actually, BC Hydro is already supplying a big chunk of electric power to California. Last week, with over $400M owing, the California utilities announced they would only be paying 15 cents on the dollar. BC might not be sending much more juice south if this situation continues.
Trickster Coyote
Howl at the Moon!
Well given that eToys' shares are currently worth about 25 cents and they just announced third quarter losses of about 52 cents a share - much larger than predicted - it doesn't look like eToys is much longer for this world. Given that, it may seem pointless and vindictive for etoy to be going after them at this point.
But consider this: when eToys goes bankrupt, its assets will be put up for sale. Like most dotcoms, the main asset of this company is likely their domain name. If another company buys the domain, there is always the chance that with fresh money and fresh lawyers, they once again pursue the attack on etoy.
By counter attacking now, etoy is in a good position to protect themselves once and for all. First of all, with eToys on the financial ropes, they will have less money to throw at lawyers to defend themselves. Secondly, and most importantly, if etoy wins, they will prevent many potential future headaches for themselves. Even if eToys goes down before the suit is settled, the legal cloud hovering over the etoys.com domain "property" will make it much less attractive to prospective buyers.
Trickster Coyote
Ignore that man behind the curtain.
Deregulation has SUCCESSFULLY circumvented these problems in many markets by allowing the companies to respond economically to demand.
Just curious, but where exactly are these markets that have successfully deregulated electricity? Here in Alberta, Canada, we are into our first month of electrical deregulation and are already having problems with doubling and tripling of prices. The government has stepped in with subsidies on power bills and rate freezes (they have to call an election this spring). It looks like we may be starting down a path similar to California's.
If there are markets out there that have successfully deregulated their electrical production/distribution industries, I would like to look at how they did it so perhaps we can follow their methods and avoid the fate that California is experiencing.
Please follow up your previous post with some specific examples.
Thank you.
Trickster Coyote
Illusions are real. Reality is an illusion.
Actually the pair of people working at the voting table are not volunteers. They are hired help and paid not too bad for a day's work. (I know since I worked at the polls for the last election.) They are not from opposing parties -- they have no party affiliation at all, or if they do, they are required to keep mum about it. Political discussion of any kind is verboten in the polling place.
There may also be one or several observers on hand on behalf of the candidates, but they don't actually do any of the work involved in conducting the voting.
During the ballot counting, the party observers may also be on hand, but even if they are not, the ballots must be counted in the presence of 2 witnesses.
All in all though, you have described the Canadian voting process pretty thoroughly.
Some trivia from the Canadian election day: of the 181 people who cast a vote at my polling station, 27 of them made a joke about the US elections; of those, 18 of the jokes were about chads.
Trickster Coyote
Howl at the moon!
Obviously to target sales to that new breed, the "Joe Sixpack" geek.
Trickster Coyote
Howl at the moon.
By morning, I will probably have no idea I ever posted this.
/.
Hah. So that's why stories sometimes get posted twice to
Trickster Coyote
Reality is but a dream
Maybe next time we should have computer monitors with great big colored buttons and a windows-style "are you really sure yes/no" dialogue boxes for the voters in palm beach.
This is actually a very good idea. Really.
Large colored buttons on a monitor make it easier to map the candidate choice to the action of voting for that candidate. This is particularly useful for many elderly people who may have trouble reading the small print and arrows on a ballot. The confirmation step "You are voting for Jane X. Doe. Yes / No" will further minimize any possibility of mistaken voting.
An additional level of confirmation would be to print out the name of their choice on a slip of paper for the voter to deposit in a box after leaving the voting booth. This step also provides for a backup method of counting the votes in case of computer problems that might prevent an electronic tabulation.*
*Such as hardware problems or software crashes. You might also want to require that the software running the system be open source so that all interested parties can be sure that the code is honest.
By the way, what is with this method of voting by using metal stylus to poke a hole in a piece of paper? This is pretty ancient technology that was developed by the precursor to IBM to count the census in the late 1800's. Surely a world leader in technology such as the United States can come up with something a bit more modern?
Trickster Coyote
Reality is an option.
(From the N ature of Things website.)
There was an episode of the Nature of Things a couple of weeks ago called "Nuclear Dyanamite" about proposed and actual uses of nuclear bombs for civil engineering projects. Unfortunately my local CBC affliate has decided to run Walker, Texas Ranger instead of this show this season so I wasn't able to see this episode. I believe the show is also seen in the U.S. on PBS. Check your local listings.
Trickster Coyote
Even illusions are real.
Actually what I need is a room that will clean itself. Maybe it can be set up to vibrate all the stuff I want to keep into the closet and vibrate the rest into the trash.
Trickster Coyote
Reality is only an illusion.
Also slahsdot.org takes you to the same framing site.
Pearl Jam is releasing 25 "bootlegs" -- obviously not bootlegs since they're "official"
Heh. Sounds like something you would expect from everyone's favourite (semi-)fictious band:
New from Spinal Tap! The Official Bootleg Live Album!
Trickster Coyote
Even illusions are real.
The REAL question is could the RIAA break Napster/Gnutella etc. as a useful tool by bombarding it with files like these (or just corrupt mp3s)...
I doubt that the RIAA flooding Napster, etc. with corrupt or trojan files would ultimately have much much effect in polluting the the system. The reason being that these phoney files will be immediately deleted by the downloader after discovering their nature and not left on their computers for redistribution to others. These are PEER to PEER file trading systems and Peers Won't Pass Along Phoney Files to Peers.
Therefore the only source of corrupt files will be the RIAA moles themselves, meaning they will always be a tiny minority of Napster users. In addition, known mole user handles can be publicly posted on black lists to warn people against the dubious nature of their offerings.
As for the Barenaked Ladies promotion, I think their fans will get a kick out of it, since it features some witty banter from the artists themselves (instead of just some corporate commercial) and they will actively seek it out. It could definitely ending up working in favour of promoting the BNL album. At least it is not as likely to piss their fans as Metallica's tactics in fighting Napster.
Trickster Coyote
Reality isn't everything it's cracked up to be.
Actually I think just about every cable company in Canada carries US network stations, no matter what city you are in. For example here in Alberta every city, including Edmonton which couldn't even pull in a ghost of a signal from south of the border, carries a full raft of channels from Spokane, Washigton. In fact the PBS station in Spokane gets the majority of their viewer donated funding from Albertans.
In Vancouver, the only US signal you can get by antenna is KVOS in Bellingham (which is actually kind of a Vancouver station - they originally had their studios in downtown Vancouver and when buying programming they must compete with the native Vancouver stations for market area rights). However the local cable carries 6 or 7 broadcast stations from Seattle/Tacoma.
(Conversely, the only Canadian station you can get on Seattle cable is CBC. They tried to remove it a few years ago but met with vocal protest from a group of loyal local CBC fans.)
So basically, any major city in Canada has all they major US networks available on cable, relayed from the nearest US city, no matter how far from the border they are.
Trickster Coyote
Are you ready for the red pill?
It seems that right about the time I was getting around to being born, ... they were saying that industrial soceity was bringing about global COOLING!!! We were dooming ourselves to a new ice age! And now they've done a 180 and are doomsaying about global warming???
Well, come on guys... which is it?
You can't have it both ways.
Oh come off it! 30-odd years ago (I'm guessing at your age) the scientists based on the research of the day were theorizing one thing and now, after 30 years of futher research and observation, they are concluding something different. This is not suprising nor can it in any way be called hypocritical. Do you expect scientists to make one theory and stick to it for over a generation, no matter what further evidence may suggest?
You also presuppose that "they" are a monolithic block of researchers and that they speak with a unified voice. Further more, you presuppose that the exact same people from 30 years ago are the ones saying something different now when in actual fact the ones from 30 years ago are probably mostly all dead now or retired and the ones speaking today about global warming are an entirely new generation.
How your comment got moderated as "Insightful" is beyond me, when it mostly shows your profound ignorance of the scientific method and is an extreme over-simplification of the nature of the scientific community based on a hearsay anecdote of a doddering old man who obviously passed on his lack of intelligence to his progeny.
Try this on: "At one time scientists were saying that the world was flat. Now they've done a 180 and are claiming that the world is round! Well come on guys... which is it? You can't have it both ways."
Sounds rather moronic doesn't it?
Trickster Coyote
Life is an illusion.
I must disagree with your assumption that the only way we can find commonality in a society is to have some inane TV series that we all watch. Having any TV channels at all is only a recent experience as far as history is concerned and societies before ours had no problems finding commonalities. With an increasingly wide variety of entertainment choices, people will (and are) discovering other things that they share in common.
The next question is how long society will tolerate this before reverting back to conformity and three "channels" again.
How will that happen? Who is going to shut down the other 97 channels? Who is going to decide which three channels to keep? I doubt you will find any consensus among the populace about which channels they are willing to give up to achieve their desired commonality. And what about the Internet with its millions of channels? That also pulls people away from their precious 3-channel television commonality. Will everyone willingly give up their Internet connections?
If our only common experience is that we were lied to by the same politicians and corporations, then when a real crisis occurs...
Actually, when people finally realize that that is their most common experience, there will be a real crisis -- for the politicians and corporations. I predict that there will be a new popular shared entertainment: tar and feather parades. People will gather around the water cooler on Mondays and discuss whether Joe Congressman or Jane CEO really got the treatment they deserved or whether they should be run through the gauntlet again next Saturday.
Trickster Coyote
Please ignore the man behind the curtain.
Well at least one of the turkeys I worked on made it on the list (#12 Carpool). I am partly responsible for bringing this travesty to the big screen in a one-of-the-little-people sort of way. I even got my name in the credits. Unfortunately they don't let crew members remove their names from movies like directors can. (Yes, I used to be an MPAA stooge, but I'm feeling much better now.)
David Paymer is a good guy and I have a lot of respect for him, but people like Tom Arnold should never be allow anywhere near a film set. One of the highlights of the whole experience was putting Tom and Rod Steiger in the same room and watching the battle of the egos. No contest. At least Rod earned his ego and has a golden statue or two to back it up.
The real tragedy was that before Carpool made it to the theatres and proved to the world that Tom had no business starring in movies, they let him make The Stupids and McHale's Navy. All three made the top ten list of that years least profitable films.
Trickster Coyote
Illusions are real.
I don't mean to rain on NASA's parade, but, seriously, who would want to live on other planets?
Well, besides the grand dreams of boldly going where no one has gone before, (which would be reason enough for me, even if it was a one way trip), Mars would be a great place for an offshore data haven. Sure, the pings times would be dreadful, but those corporate lawyer types would have one hell of a time trying to shut down your servers!
Trickster Coyote