Ha! Read your other comment just after I posted my laughtrack complaints. Sounds like a really fun experience. I think the only TV show I've ever seen being taped is the 700 Club (religious variety show, I guess would be a fair term). Not so thrilling to me.
Glad to be wrong on that front, though if there's also selective recording / replay of the audience reaction, then I consider myself at least partly right;)
Awesome YouTube work there;) Looks like the Germans got a slightly sexier Jen. Even if it's a lacklustre remake, I wish I had more of that one so I could practice my German a bit... sit-com comprehension provides its own incentive (laughter).
a) Though it's case-by-case, I've liked more sit-coms than it's smart to admit. British ones, esp.
b) As I just wrote in another comment, laugh tracks are obnoxious, but eh, I overlook them generally. When I was small, I thought that they were all recorded from the "live studio audience," but that's just what they *want* you to think.
c) There's a lot of workplace humor in The IT Crowd that rings true (slightly exaggerated if at all - like managers who don't actually understand the thing they're supposed to "manage," and huge, often willful communication gaps between departments), but I also like the more over-the-top absurdities, like the soul-searching goth (Mason? might have the name wrong) who lives in the back room.
d) All that said, I wish they worked in more wacky sketch-like stuff like the piracy ad linked in the post.
I found it quite funny, but have the same objection. I wonder if the presence of laugh tracks is a preemptive move; later, they can offer a "regular" version for download, or, for twice the price, one with the laughtrack stripped out. My hopes on that front have dried up, though. I actually like certain sit-coms, but unfortunately for sit-coms they generally include it by default. (Arrested Development in one exception, but not the only one.)
Related aside: I used to watch the show MASH a lot -- it was my favorite show from a young age (I remember seeing it when the re-runs weren't yet re-runs...), but seeing the movie on which the TV show is based unfortunately ruined it for me. Not just because I liked the movie's cast better (the show's cast is still well-suited), but because the notably absent laugh track suits the actual mood of the film; the TV version suddenly felt tacky and cheap.
Now, the IT Crowd is not a socially ponderous, lessons-of-life type show, as MASH tried to be (and, despite it all, succeeded) -- it's a light-hearted farce, comedy of errors and lack of manners, etc. But even so -- no laugh-track should be an option, just like "laugh track" should *not* be an option on The Godfather, Schindler's List, Black Beauty...
There are trade-offs; colleges don't want to pay for more faculty / facilities than they believe they'll have the enrollment to support (and therefore justify), but when there's huge demand, they'll try to adapt to it.
Like anything else in which there's even a partial free market:) Milk, yoga lessons, vacations to Brazil...
GMU, btw, is a state school (biggest university by enrollment in the state of Virginia), which means it's fairly cheap for people from Virginia, and cheaper than typical private colleges / universities for non-residents as well.
I'd heard of it, but knew nothing about it really until a few years ago -- now I'm familiar at least with the names of many of their excellent (libertarian leaning) economics professors, through the podcast called EconTalk (econtalk.org).
What I liked, being a visual person, was the way that things on-screen were easily matched w/ their physical counterparts. I'm in charge (for good reason) of *nobody's* data center, but I was taken by that system's use of graphics. I would imagine not being impressed by abstract representations and cute names if a certain machine is on the fritz at 3:31 a.m.
So if / when my dad calls to complain that his Windows machine is broken (I think he runs XP, or perhaps it's the other way around), what should I tell him besides "Hmm. My Ubuntu machines are all fine, and the Mac doesn't seem to be affected..."
In other words, what's the simple bullet-point list of steps to fix this, for simple folk at home? (Can include visiting neighbors with a thumb drive to download fixes...)
Before eating sushi, non-Japanese people should stock up and eat some Japanese people, so as to not waste the seaweed's nutrition, not squander it? It's a plan!
So saturated with competition that people -- mostly investors -- think it's worth it to pay upwards of a quarter million dollars (more than 400k, says Wikipedia!) and go through generally onerous licensing for a medallion?:)
When demand is high, and so are barriers to entry, you can bet those who have made it *over* the barriers aren't as constrained by competition as you'd prefer (as a customer).
Think "Casino operator license." The Governor of Louisiana didn't go to jail because limited-entry business licenses are beneficial to society;) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Edwards
(And it's very kind of the bureaucrats to "turn a blind eye" to the unlicensed drivers who provide taxi service at their own legal risk in areas where the regulated cabs quite rationally won't go.)
$20? Yoiks. That's a whole lot, though I can see it for a new movie, if I really wanted to see it, and ended up missing it in the theater, and have lots of good trusted reviews in favor. (The recent Sherlock Holmes movie is in that general category, for me -- but not many movies are.)
Otherwise, well, at least for me, there are many hundreds of movies I'd like to either watch or rewatch that are available for much cheaper (incl. no-additional-free, such as at the local library, and used, and on sale), and I can't imagine paying $17 in 2010 dollars *by default* to watch a movie, even if it's a rewatchable download. The occasionaly one, Yeah, maybe, OK, sure, perhaps -- and maybe the cost'd seem more reasonable if I lived in a more rural place. (In a city -- and I live in one -- there are more options for entertainment, recorded or otherwise, I realize.)
Howard County, Maryland (back when I was living there -- might be many other places like this, too) decided to make the local parks "trash free." By removing the trash cans. I leave the results as an exercise for the reader;)
Saw a great presentation at OSCON a few years back about the massive digitzation effort undertaken by David Rumsey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Rumsey): See http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/where2005/view/e_spkr/1867 -- Drew a well-deserved standing ovation.
In the course of the talk, I think he said that he'd scanned the first 10,000 maps (though even 1,000 sounds ridiculous -- maybe it was 1,000) before hiring assistance.
Of course, he had more money to play with, so he probably had a pretty big scanner;)
Letting them relay instructions to pilots -- oh, no!
This is inherently dangerous -- a pilot expecting the gruff, masculine voice of a Real Man Controller might swoon at the dulcet soprano of a boychild, and assume he was nearly to heaven already, and that he's just to get rid of this silly chunk of aluminum tube...
Wait.
No, that's dumb.
This is typical rule-addicted asinine knee-jerkism.
Raise your virtual hand if you've ever done (and learned from) something that took supervision, but which wasn't considered age-appropriate. How many kids, completely free of helmets of work permits, get small paying jobs working on computers? (Oh no again -- computers have e-lec-tric-i-ty!).
I am glad for the kid, and contemptuous of the keystone cop investigators. Glad they've solved all the *big* problems.
I'd like to see a mashup of the blog I ran into earlier today with pairs of chatroulette web captures, but with the "you" picture in each case being the shocked (simply shocked!) face of some school official from this place.
I'm not suggesting that the students should all sit at home masturbating in leopard costumes and makeup while butt-dialing the school to report that their laptops have been stolen. There are many other fruitful scenarios that I am also not suggesting.
... that you have to flush three times in a row, and clog more often regardless.
(Note: I've seen some low-flow designs that work better than others. But as a reflexive "if you don't get this $thing, it's because you hate mother earth" often overlooks the long-term picture. Making, transporting, installing household appliances -- or Zambonis, for that matter -- in good working order may have some worthwhile benefits, including psychic, but it means of degree of waste in itself.)
They (so they claim) literally badgered the company reps to show them the device. That is, they had to implore / plead / entreat, rather than having it handed to them after a single "Please won't you?"
I don't like misuses of "literally" (as in "he literally exploded with rage" -- unless he did) but this isn't one.
I played w/ the same device briefly at CES, was also impressed by it in general.
- Yep, the screen (on the pre-production unit) was pretty bad. It was fine when perfectly on-axis, but not so bright that I'd necessarily see it doing well in some of the environments for which tablets have been touted in the past (doctors' rounds, etc.)
- The latching / locking mechanism broke while I was watching a sales rep demo how easily it locks back into place; hopefully, they pay a lot of attention to this "moving parts" aspect, because the convertability is great, but it would suck to spend a thousand bucks and then get to keep both pieces;)
- the switching ability (presto change-o, you're using Linux! And alakazam, you're back to Windows!) was impressive, but left me wondering: what if I wanted to run Ubuntu (say) on the x86 processor, and keep Skylight on the tablet part? I couldn't get other than a vague (but discouraging) answer from the mostly well-informed people in the demo booth; I think the fellow I was talking to mostly was an engineer, but wasn't directly involved in the OS integration part. To me, it would be no great tragedy if it became mostly a 2-computer-1-case solution (that is, with no special integration between the pieces, except for sharing the display), but it was quite cool to see browser windows in one OS automagically opened in the other when the tablet was removed or replaced. Not sure if that was true w/ things like PDFs, word processing docs, etc. (I wonder if Word and OpenOffice could be coaxed into that same sort of hand-off.)
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Distilled water, Calcium chloride, Potassium chloride, Potassium phosphate (monobasic), Magnesium chloride (hexahydrate), Magnesium sulfate, (heptahydrate), Sodium chloride, Sodium bicarbonate, Sodium phosphate, (dibasic; heptahydrate), d-Glucose, Glutathione (reduced), Ascorbic acid, l-Arginine, l-Citrulline malate, Adenosine, Creatine orotate, Creatine monohydrate, l-Carnosine, l-Carnitine, Dichloroacetate, Insulin ...
You forgot crushed red pepper, and dill.
Ha! Read your other comment just after I posted my laughtrack complaints. Sounds like a really fun experience. I think the only TV show I've ever seen being taped is the 700 Club (religious variety show, I guess would be a fair term). Not so thrilling to me.
Glad to be wrong on that front, though if there's also selective recording / replay of the audience reaction, then I consider myself at least partly right ;)
Of course, from here, you could be a bot ...
timothy
Awesome YouTube work there ;) Looks like the Germans got a slightly sexier Jen. Even if it's a lacklustre remake, I wish I had more of that one so I could practice my German a bit ... sit-com comprehension provides its own incentive (laughter).
timothy
a) Though it's case-by-case, I've liked more sit-coms than it's smart to admit. British ones, esp.
b) As I just wrote in another comment, laugh tracks are obnoxious, but eh, I overlook them generally. When I was small, I thought that they were all recorded from the "live studio audience," but that's just what they *want* you to think.
c) There's a lot of workplace humor in The IT Crowd that rings true (slightly exaggerated if at all - like managers who don't actually understand the thing they're supposed to "manage," and huge, often willful communication gaps between departments), but I also like the more over-the-top absurdities, like the soul-searching goth (Mason? might have the name wrong) who lives in the back room.
d) All that said, I wish they worked in more wacky sketch-like stuff like the piracy ad linked in the post.
timothy
I found it quite funny, but have the same objection. I wonder if the presence of laugh tracks is a preemptive move; later, they can offer a "regular" version for download, or, for twice the price, one with the laughtrack stripped out. My hopes on that front have dried up, though. I actually like certain sit-coms, but unfortunately for sit-coms they generally include it by default. (Arrested Development in one exception, but not the only one.)
Related aside: I used to watch the show MASH a lot -- it was my favorite show from a young age (I remember seeing it when the re-runs weren't yet re-runs ...), but seeing the movie on which the TV show is based unfortunately ruined it for me. Not just because I liked the movie's cast better (the show's cast is still well-suited), but because the notably absent laugh track suits the actual mood of the film; the TV version suddenly felt tacky and cheap.
Now, the IT Crowd is not a socially ponderous, lessons-of-life type show, as MASH tried to be (and, despite it all, succeeded) -- it's a light-hearted farce, comedy of errors and lack of manners, etc. But even so -- no laugh-track should be an option, just like "laugh track" should *not* be an option on The Godfather, Schindler's List, Black Beauty ...
timothy
There are trade-offs; colleges don't want to pay for more faculty / facilities than they believe they'll have the enrollment to support (and therefore justify), but when there's huge demand, they'll try to adapt to it.
Like anything else in which there's even a partial free market :) Milk, yoga lessons, vacations to Brazil ...
GMU, btw, is a state school (biggest university by enrollment in the state of Virginia), which means it's fairly cheap for people from Virginia, and cheaper than typical private colleges / universities for non-residents as well.
I'd heard of it, but knew nothing about it really until a few years ago -- now I'm familiar at least with the names of many of their excellent (libertarian leaning) economics professors, through the podcast called EconTalk (econtalk.org).
Cheers,
timothy
Interesting! Thanks for the reply.
What I liked, being a visual person, was the way that things on-screen were easily matched w/ their physical counterparts. I'm in charge (for good reason) of *nobody's* data center, but I was taken by that system's use of graphics. I would imagine not being impressed by abstract representations and cute names if a certain machine is on the fritz at 3:31 a.m.
timothy
So if / when my dad calls to complain that his Windows machine is broken (I think he runs XP, or perhaps it's the other way around), what should I tell him besides "Hmm. My Ubuntu machines are all fine, and the Mac doesn't seem to be affected ..."
In other words, what's the simple bullet-point list of steps to fix this, for simple folk at home? (Can include visiting neighbors with a thumb drive to download fixes ...)
timothy
Here, too:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/03/31/2154207/Supertaskers-Can-Safely-Use-Mobile-Phones-While-Driving?from=rss :)
timothy
Before eating sushi, non-Japanese people should stock up and eat some Japanese people, so as to not waste the seaweed's nutrition, not squander it? It's a plan!
Why don't you just erase your mom from those pictures? ;)
timothy
"Yes, but this is *good* censorship."
timothy
So saturated with competition that people -- mostly investors -- think it's worth it to pay upwards of a quarter million dollars (more than 400k, says Wikipedia!) and go through generally onerous licensing for a medallion? :)
When demand is high, and so are barriers to entry, you can bet those who have made it *over* the barriers aren't as constrained by competition as you'd prefer (as a customer).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_New_York_City#Medallion_taxicabs_and_livery_taxicabs
Think "Casino operator license." The Governor of Louisiana didn't go to jail because limited-entry business licenses are beneficial to society ;) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Edwards
(And it's very kind of the bureaucrats to "turn a blind eye" to the unlicensed drivers who provide taxi service at their own legal risk in areas where the regulated cabs quite rationally won't go.)
Bravo.
Reminds me of the "Travel Agent Sketch" from Monty Python.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcCuBWXd-hc
timothy
... of "Harrison Bergeron"?
Read it: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
Read about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron
timothy
$20? Yoiks. That's a whole lot, though I can see it for a new movie, if I really wanted to see it, and ended up missing it in the theater, and have lots of good trusted reviews in favor. (The recent Sherlock Holmes movie is in that general category, for me -- but not many movies are.)
Otherwise, well, at least for me, there are many hundreds of movies I'd like to either watch or rewatch that are available for much cheaper (incl. no-additional-free, such as at the local library, and used, and on sale), and I can't imagine paying $17 in 2010 dollars *by default* to watch a movie, even if it's a rewatchable download. The occasionaly one, Yeah, maybe, OK, sure, perhaps -- and maybe the cost'd seem more reasonable if I lived in a more rural place. (In a city -- and I live in one -- there are more options for entertainment, recorded or otherwise, I realize.)
timothy
Howard County, Maryland (back when I was living there -- might be many other places like this, too) decided to make the local parks "trash free." By removing the trash cans. I leave the results as an exercise for the reader ;)
timothy
Saw a great presentation at OSCON a few years back about the massive digitzation effort undertaken by David Rumsey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Rumsey): See http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/where2005/view/e_spkr/1867 -- Drew a well-deserved standing ovation.
In the course of the talk, I think he said that he'd scanned the first 10,000 maps (though even 1,000 sounds ridiculous -- maybe it was 1,000) before hiring assistance.
Of course, he had more money to play with, so he probably had a pretty big scanner ;)
timothy
Especially if it might be interesting.
Letting them relay instructions to pilots -- oh, no!
This is inherently dangerous -- a pilot expecting the gruff, masculine voice of a Real Man Controller might swoon at the dulcet soprano of a boychild, and assume he was nearly to heaven already, and that he's just to get rid of this silly chunk of aluminum tube ...
Wait.
No, that's dumb.
This is typical rule-addicted asinine knee-jerkism.
Raise your virtual hand if you've ever done (and learned from) something that took supervision, but which wasn't considered age-appropriate. How many kids, completely free of helmets of work permits, get small paying jobs working on computers? (Oh no again -- computers have e-lec-tric-i-ty!).
I am glad for the kid, and contemptuous of the keystone cop investigators. Glad they've solved all the *big* problems.
timothy
I'd like to see a mashup of the blog I ran into earlier today with pairs of chatroulette web captures, but with the "you" picture in each case being the shocked (simply shocked!) face of some school official from this place.
I'm not suggesting that the students should all sit at home masturbating in leopard costumes and makeup while butt-dialing the school to report that their laptops have been stolen. There are many other fruitful scenarios that I am also not suggesting.
timothy
"She says my grammar's good enough / but I'm almost sure it ain't."
timothy
- Have you ever heard of "the miracle of the loaves and fish"?
- If you drink a Belgian ale, a Doppelbok, and an IPA, haven't you had enough beer, and a few beers?
timothy
... that you have to flush three times in a row, and clog more often regardless.
(Note: I've seen some low-flow designs that work better than others. But as a reflexive "if you don't get this $thing, it's because you hate mother earth" often overlooks the long-term picture. Making, transporting, installing household appliances -- or Zambonis, for that matter -- in good working order may have some worthwhile benefits, including psychic, but it means of degree of waste in itself.)
timothy
They (so they claim) literally badgered the company reps to show them the device. That is, they had to implore / plead / entreat, rather than having it handed to them after a single "Please won't you?"
I don't like misuses of "literally" (as in "he literally exploded with rage" -- unless he did) but this isn't one.
timothy
I played w/ the same device briefly at CES, was also impressed by it in general.
- Yep, the screen (on the pre-production unit) was pretty bad. It was fine when perfectly on-axis, but not so bright that I'd necessarily see it doing well in some of the environments for which tablets have been touted in the past (doctors' rounds, etc.)
- The latching / locking mechanism broke while I was watching a sales rep demo how easily it locks back into place; hopefully, they pay a lot of attention to this "moving parts" aspect, because the convertability is great, but it would suck to spend a thousand bucks and then get to keep both pieces ;)
- the switching ability (presto change-o, you're using Linux! And alakazam, you're back to Windows!) was impressive, but left me wondering: what if I wanted to run Ubuntu (say) on the x86 processor, and keep Skylight on the tablet part? I couldn't get other than a vague (but discouraging) answer from the mostly well-informed people in the demo booth; I think the fellow I was talking to mostly was an engineer, but wasn't directly involved in the OS integration part. To me, it would be no great tragedy if it became mostly a 2-computer-1-case solution (that is, with no special integration between the pieces, except for sharing the display), but it was quite cool to see browser windows in one OS automagically opened in the other when the tablet was removed or replaced. Not sure if that was true w/ things like PDFs, word processing docs, etc. (I wonder if Word and OpenOffice could be coaxed into that same sort of hand-off.)
timothy