You can't predict anything meaningful or useful. Telling me next year will have a spring and summer isn't useful, it's a given. Telling me who will win next year's Superbowl or where and when the next World War will start (in a way that makes it preventable), now THOSE would be useful and meaningful.
The only thing you can accurately predict about the future is that it won't be what you expect. It will surprise you in a million different ways. Issues which seem very important today won't mean jackshit in the future. And issues that seem insignificant today could be very important then. You can construct every potential doomsday and utopian scenario that you like, but the future will somehow defy all of them and be something entirely different.
In never thought when DVD's came out in 1997 that it would still be a pain in the ass to play them back on a standard PC in 2014. Can we please just forgo all the licensing bullshit on a well-established standard technology, already?
I knew the hippies would find *some* way to blame this on fossil fuels (and us evil, evil humans in general). Since they couldn't figure out how to blame it on global warming, they turned to fracking instead.
I still prefer a physical copy too. I'll really miss the days when movies came with a bunch of extras like commentary tracks, deleted scenes, etc. Blu-ray quality is also still better than HD streaming. And with blu-rays, no one company bankruptcy or server change will ever be able to turn off my entire movie collection like a light bulb.
Hippies always start with education. But it never takes long for them to turn to laws and court cases to force their point of view on the rest of us. That's why "Let's work together to conserve water!" turned from voluntary to the point where I can't leagally buy a shower-head that doesn't have the power of warm snot.
I agree on IE, and would add Safari (Apple's default) to that too. I would love to see PC vendors and Apple be required to at least offer first-time users an option to install better browsers like Chrome or Firefox as their default.
Or Safari and all the other Apple apps on a Mac or iPad. In the 90's MS got bitch-slapped for doing something that's absolutely standard practice today. A consumer would probably be pissed if you installed an OS today and it DIDN'T come with some sort of standard browser and default search engine.
Actually, I find the Bing is better for news searches. Google News used to be pretty good too, in the early days. But like so many Google projects, once the glamor of the launch fades, it slowly started to deteriorate. Today it's pretty flaky. It will often miss news stories that Bing catches.
They only need one customer. Uncle Sam will throw pallets of cash at any company that says the magic words "We can help you with national security" (non-bullshit translation: "We can help you spy on your citizens and other county's citizens").
I'm sick of Americans who bad-mouth the Russian space program because of the reflexive Cold War-era propaganda that we grew up on, and ignore the fact that Russia had almost every single "first" in space (save for ONE, "man on the moon")--treating the Russian space program as if it's some third-world joke instead of the fucking PIONEERS of space travel.
That attitude is in every single American movie, documentary, etc. on the space race. It's pure propaganda. If you watched nothing but American movies and TV, you would barely even know that Russia even HAD a space program. All we get to hear is about how fucking GREAT NASA IS!! If you ever get to hear the real story sometime, you would be amazed at how much of the *real* story you're missing.
Nope, not typical here at all. I don't still hold a Cold War grudge against Russia for example, and respect their many accomplishments--without the bitter resentment that 99% of Americans harbor when mentioning anything invented by or excelled out by anyone not born whistling the American Anthem out of their assholes.
I'm just waiting for a studio to announce a remake of a movie that hasn't even been released yet, or a reboot of a franchise that isn't even finished yet. They've come close a few times.
Well, by all means then, throw a couple of chairs into the thing and start launching tomorrow, hero! Just don't spend a single fucking dime of my tax dollars on the surviving families when one of those things blows up.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't predict anything meaningful or useful. Telling me next year will have a spring and summer isn't useful, it's a given. Telling me who will win next year's Superbowl or where and when the next World War will start (in a way that makes it preventable), now THOSE would be useful and meaningful.
Probably started this to distract us from Benghazi, didn't you??
I've said it before and I'll say it again:
No one can predict the future.
The only thing you can accurately predict about the future is that it won't be what you expect. It will surprise you in a million different ways. Issues which seem very important today won't mean jackshit in the future. And issues that seem insignificant today could be very important then. You can construct every potential doomsday and utopian scenario that you like, but the future will somehow defy all of them and be something entirely different.
Don't worry. If people don't like it, they'll just fork it into 100 different competing conferences.
Doesn't appeal to me. I only get off on Ewok porn.
In never thought when DVD's came out in 1997 that it would still be a pain in the ass to play them back on a standard PC in 2014. Can we please just forgo all the licensing bullshit on a well-established standard technology, already?
I guess they think the pirates are going to keep the warning message in for some reason. Pretty stupid.
They don't want oil from fracking, they want natural gas--a fuel that puts a lot less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than other fossil fuels.
So what's it going to be? Here are your choices:
a) coal
b) oil
c) nuclear
d) natural gas
Solar and wind are not options because those can't handle the load, sorry.
I knew the hippies would find *some* way to blame this on fossil fuels (and us evil, evil humans in general). Since they couldn't figure out how to blame it on global warming, they turned to fracking instead.
I still prefer a physical copy too. I'll really miss the days when movies came with a bunch of extras like commentary tracks, deleted scenes, etc. Blu-ray quality is also still better than HD streaming. And with blu-rays, no one company bankruptcy or server change will ever be able to turn off my entire movie collection like a light bulb.
Hippies always start with education. But it never takes long for them to turn to laws and court cases to force their point of view on the rest of us. That's why "Let's work together to conserve water!" turned from voluntary to the point where I can't leagally buy a shower-head that doesn't have the power of warm snot.
I agree on IE, and would add Safari (Apple's default) to that too. I would love to see PC vendors and Apple be required to at least offer first-time users an option to install better browsers like Chrome or Firefox as their default.
"Hey, why not trust a civilian with full access to our defense system?" said the Caprican Defense Ministry, regarding Gaius Baltar.
Or Safari and all the other Apple apps on a Mac or iPad. In the 90's MS got bitch-slapped for doing something that's absolutely standard practice today. A consumer would probably be pissed if you installed an OS today and it DIDN'T come with some sort of standard browser and default search engine.
I'm reminded of the old "Company Computer Guy" skit that Jimmy Fallon used to do on SNL.
Actually, I find the Bing is better for news searches. Google News used to be pretty good too, in the early days. But like so many Google projects, once the glamor of the launch fades, it slowly started to deteriorate. Today it's pretty flaky. It will often miss news stories that Bing catches.
Duh, it's the BIOS that C3PO boots to.
The ideal business:
"So, tell us about your product and/or services"
"That's classified."
"Well, does it at least work?"
"That's classified."
"Was it successful?"
"That's classified."
"And how much did it cost the taxpayer?"
"That's classified."
"Well, is it even fucking legal??"
"That's classified."
Oops, that's actually a typo. I meant *hundreds* of millions--every year, of our tax dollars.
Worked for Blackwater, aka "Academi". Still gets 10's of $millions in government contracts every year.
They only need one customer. Uncle Sam will throw pallets of cash at any company that says the magic words "We can help you with national security" (non-bullshit translation: "We can help you spy on your citizens and other county's citizens").
I'm sick of Americans who bad-mouth the Russian space program because of the reflexive Cold War-era propaganda that we grew up on, and ignore the fact that Russia had almost every single "first" in space (save for ONE, "man on the moon")--treating the Russian space program as if it's some third-world joke instead of the fucking PIONEERS of space travel.
That attitude is in every single American movie, documentary, etc. on the space race. It's pure propaganda. If you watched nothing but American movies and TV, you would barely even know that Russia even HAD a space program. All we get to hear is about how fucking GREAT NASA IS!! If you ever get to hear the real story sometime, you would be amazed at how much of the *real* story you're missing.
So, yeah, it pisses me off.
Nope, not typical here at all. I don't still hold a Cold War grudge against Russia for example, and respect their many accomplishments--without the bitter resentment that 99% of Americans harbor when mentioning anything invented by or excelled out by anyone not born whistling the American Anthem out of their assholes.
I'm just waiting for a studio to announce a remake of a movie that hasn't even been released yet, or a reboot of a franchise that isn't even finished yet. They've come close a few times.
Well, by all means then, throw a couple of chairs into the thing and start launching tomorrow, hero! Just don't spend a single fucking dime of my tax dollars on the surviving families when one of those things blows up.