The cable companies do miss ads sometimes so you'll see those prescription ones and US fast food ads too.
Check the Taco Bell logo on those commercials. The ads that apply in Canada include a Canadian flag (or used to at least). Taco Bell's menu changes a huge amount in different areas. Try ordering a Fries Supreme in an American Taco Bell. Very few of them serve fries.
How do you figure that carpooling reduces wear-and-tear and uses less gas? More people in the car means more mass in the car. More mass means more gas used to accelerate and resist friction.
Unless you're talking about carpooling lanes which would offset those losses. Not everywhere has carpool lanes though.
Try watching an American station such as CNN in Canada. Any ads that don't apply here get changed to whatever ad your cable company wants to put in. The commercials replaced are usually things like drug ads (you aren't allowed to advertise prescription drugs here), political ads (we can't vote in your elections so we don't care who's running), and ads for products that are only available in the US. They're usually replaced with ads for the cable company's services or the local equivalent of the American ad (US McDonalds ad for a Canadian McDonalds ad).
Of course, if you believe the pundits, every second a popular website is down they lose millions
I do tech support for a website hosting company. If a server goes does and a customer notices, they'll call and bitch and moan about how it's costing them thousands of dollars. I love to point out these sites to my coworkers once the panic is over and see what their website involves. Usually it's some little puny site which doesn't make thousands of dollars in a year, let alone a few minutes.
If a website actually made a company thousands or millions per day, then they should be able to afford to setup multiple dedicated servers and pay an admin or two to keep them up.
It's a humbling gesture that keeps sys admins in their place and makes them come up with functional miracles with existing equipment purchases (think of Scotty from Star Trek).
Ah, but Scotty always gave an exagerrated time estimate as to how long his repairs would take. The people who approve buying decisions are assuming that the equipment asked for is overkill for the task and that you're just putting it in there so they can reject it but give you something with half the power.
This happened in conversations between Kirk and Scotty all the time.
Scotty: The warp engines are down, it's going to take at least 2 hours to fix them.
Kirk: You have 30 minutes.
Scotty: I'll do my best captain (He'll then get them fixed in just over 30 minutes)
If it's your plain old garden-variety hijacking where someone wants to make a political point or (gasp) actually be transported somewhere, then passenger intervention is probably the last thing you want, same as it always was.
Except any person trying to make a political point or get a ride somewhere would have to be insane to try hijacking a plane now. Even if the hijacker proclaims that "the pilot is the one who is flying and we are just going to be flying to Cuba. We are not going to be crashing into anything" at least a few people will get the idea that the pilot is in on it, the plane is heading for a building and they have to stop it by killing the hijacker and pilot. Since none of them knows how to fly, they're going to hit the ground, ocean, or city below them.
I'm pretty sure that the character in the movie was an homage to the character in the book. Either directly from the book or indirectly through the editor of 2600, Emmanual Goldstein (I believe his real name is Eric).
The point in 1984 is that the citizen's spirits were crushed so badly that even if a single person decided to rebel, it would not spread because the people would not have the will to join the rebellion.
Organizing a rebellion of multiple people would also be impossible. Let's say you have 3 people in your group of rebels. If one of them blinks an eye at the wrong time or has the wrong expression on their face for a split second, they will be watched closely from then on. Since they would meet with you at some point, you would be watched as well. Then all of you get to take a nice visit to Room 101.
Brave New World really is the more appealing society. Given the choice between oppression enforced with artificial misery or oprression enforced with artificial happiness, I think I'll go with the artificial happiness. The other thing about Brave New World is that people who do not fit into the system are not forced to fit in. They are shipped to an island (Iceland if I'm remembering correctly) and allowed to think their thoughts.
Of course, one person can make an absolute pile of steaming shit too. Remember E.T. for the Atari 2600? I still have a working copy of it and still can't figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do. I probably don't want to know.
You're right that there is a real advantage to smaller games. Even if some pieces of crap are floating around, it's easier to seperate them from the real gems.
Since you mentioned Bejeweled, this is as good a place as any to mention this. Bejeweled is addictive. It's also one of the few games I've found that I can stop playing but leave running while I take a call at work. Then I can come back to it later. It's also a game that I can play to keep me awake during an early-morning Sunday shift. To sum up, Bejeweled is evil.
And they're right...in a way. All systems don't tend towards maximum entropy. Just closed systems. And the only closed system that I know of is our universe (assuming our universe really is closed)
I understand what the gerbil is for (everyone has probably heard that urban legend) but what's the electrical tape for? Would duct tape also be acceptable?
I wish my electricity would stay on that long. My uptime is based on how often the power goes down. I'm lucky to get two weeks. I guess I could get a UPS, but they don't help for multiple-hour outages.
I found a solution to that problem. I call it "Going to the Ghettoplex". Thankfully the "ghetto" nearby is just the part of town with low-income but not all that violent people. I feel comfortable parking my car (I do lock it) and walking to the theatre. It helps to go to the later showing too.
And even the levy we Canadians pay does not go to the RIAA. It goes to the CPCC which distributes the money in a fair (heh, yeah) way to the artists, writers, and labels.
Slashdot Mirror
The cable companies do miss ads sometimes so you'll see those prescription ones and US fast food ads too.
Check the Taco Bell logo on those commercials. The ads that apply in Canada include a Canadian flag (or used to at least). Taco Bell's menu changes a huge amount in different areas. Try ordering a Fries Supreme in an American Taco Bell. Very few of them serve fries.
How do you figure that carpooling reduces wear-and-tear and uses less gas? More people in the car means more mass in the car. More mass means more gas used to accelerate and resist friction.
Unless you're talking about carpooling lanes which would offset those losses. Not everywhere has carpool lanes though.
Innocent until proven guilty.
Do we still have that? I thought we threw that out and went back to guilty until proven innocent.
Find me a person that doesn't exceed the speed limit by 5 MPH!
The asshole I followed for a while on the way to work was going about 5 under the limit.
Try watching an American station such as CNN in Canada. Any ads that don't apply here get changed to whatever ad your cable company wants to put in. The commercials replaced are usually things like drug ads (you aren't allowed to advertise prescription drugs here), political ads (we can't vote in your elections so we don't care who's running), and ads for products that are only available in the US. They're usually replaced with ads for the cable company's services or the local equivalent of the American ad (US McDonalds ad for a Canadian McDonalds ad).
I'm waiting for the Fuzzy Little Kittens Act. Who would even think about voting against Fuzzy Little Kittens?
Sunlight is overrated.
Of course, if you believe the pundits, every second a popular website is down they lose millions
I do tech support for a website hosting company. If a server goes does and a customer notices, they'll call and bitch and moan about how it's costing them thousands of dollars. I love to point out these sites to my coworkers once the panic is over and see what their website involves. Usually it's some little puny site which doesn't make thousands of dollars in a year, let alone a few minutes.
If a website actually made a company thousands or millions per day, then they should be able to afford to setup multiple dedicated servers and pay an admin or two to keep them up.
It's a humbling gesture that keeps sys admins in their place and makes them come up with functional miracles with existing equipment purchases (think of Scotty from Star Trek).
Ah, but Scotty always gave an exagerrated time estimate as to how long his repairs would take. The people who approve buying decisions are assuming that the equipment asked for is overkill for the task and that you're just putting it in there so they can reject it but give you something with half the power.
This happened in conversations between Kirk and Scotty all the time.
Scotty: The warp engines are down, it's going to take at least 2 hours to fix them.
Kirk: You have 30 minutes.
Scotty: I'll do my best captain (He'll then get them fixed in just over 30 minutes)
It's new? I'm pretty sure the metric system has been around since the 1700s.
10 years ago you got a manual. Hell, 4 or 5 years ago you got a manual. It's only in the last couple years that they've stopped with the manuals.
If it's your plain old garden-variety hijacking where someone wants to make a political point or (gasp) actually be transported somewhere, then passenger intervention is probably the last thing you want, same as it always was.
Except any person trying to make a political point or get a ride somewhere would have to be insane to try hijacking a plane now. Even if the hijacker proclaims that "the pilot is the one who is flying and we are just going to be flying to Cuba. We are not going to be crashing into anything" at least a few people will get the idea that the pilot is in on it, the plane is heading for a building and they have to stop it by killing the hijacker and pilot. Since none of them knows how to fly, they're going to hit the ground, ocean, or city below them.
Emmanuel Goldstein (not the guy in hackers ;)
I'm pretty sure that the character in the movie was an homage to the character in the book. Either directly from the book or indirectly through the editor of 2600, Emmanual Goldstein (I believe his real name is Eric).
The point in 1984 is that the citizen's spirits were crushed so badly that even if a single person decided to rebel, it would not spread because the people would not have the will to join the rebellion.
Organizing a rebellion of multiple people would also be impossible. Let's say you have 3 people in your group of rebels. If one of them blinks an eye at the wrong time or has the wrong expression on their face for a split second, they will be watched closely from then on. Since they would meet with you at some point, you would be watched as well. Then all of you get to take a nice visit to Room 101.
Brave New World really is the more appealing society. Given the choice between oppression enforced with artificial misery or oprression enforced with artificial happiness, I think I'll go with the artificial happiness. The other thing about Brave New World is that people who do not fit into the system are not forced to fit in. They are shipped to an island (Iceland if I'm remembering correctly) and allowed to think their thoughts.
Of course, one person can make an absolute pile of steaming shit too. Remember E.T. for the Atari 2600? I still have a working copy of it and still can't figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do. I probably don't want to know.
You're right that there is a real advantage to smaller games. Even if some pieces of crap are floating around, it's easier to seperate them from the real gems.
Since you mentioned Bejeweled, this is as good a place as any to mention this. Bejeweled is addictive. It's also one of the few games I've found that I can stop playing but leave running while I take a call at work. Then I can come back to it later. It's also a game that I can play to keep me awake during an early-morning Sunday shift. To sum up, Bejeweled is evil.
And they're right...in a way. All systems don't tend towards maximum entropy. Just closed systems. And the only closed system that I know of is our universe (assuming our universe really is closed)
I understand what the gerbil is for (everyone has probably heard that urban legend) but what's the electrical tape for? Would duct tape also be acceptable?
I wish my electricity would stay on that long. My uptime is based on how often the power goes down. I'm lucky to get two weeks. I guess I could get a UPS, but they don't help for multiple-hour outages.
hell, they could sponsor a midnight orgy session if they wanted to
Uh, do you know of any libraries that do this? I'd like to know for, uh, for research purposes. Yeah, that's it.
You mean like this? Remember kids, if cops are chasing you, drop anything that's in your hands or they may think it's a gun.
I found a solution to that problem. I call it "Going to the Ghettoplex". Thankfully the "ghetto" nearby is just the part of town with low-income but not all that violent people. I feel comfortable parking my car (I do lock it) and walking to the theatre. It helps to go to the later showing too.
Don't worry, you appear to live in Canada. We don't have an equivalent to the DMCA so you can decrypt things as much as you want.
And even the levy we Canadians pay does not go to the RIAA. It goes to the CPCC which distributes the money in a fair (heh, yeah) way to the artists, writers, and labels.
I just looked at the picture and I'm pretty sure I saw him on a show called Red Dwarf.