You REALLY need to check out the top rated episodes towards the last 2-3 years of TNG. There are some amazing writers that really put out some wonderful episodes. (Tapestry (ep 141), Inner Light (ep 125), and a few others.) I'd argue that some of the TNG space-time episodes weren't bad. (They were much unlike the usual "go back to the past and fix history".) One of DS9's best episodes was a time travel episode (Trials And Tribble-ations). (Don't hate the plot device, hate the writer...)
Yeah, I'm more of TOS fanatic, but DS9 was my next favorite (seasons 3 to finale). (Of course, they did suffer from holodeck syndrome.)
My previous post here pretty much sums up what I thought. What you said is pretty much confirms the facts, and I love how you presented it. But we obviously disagree on the conclusions.
TNG sucked until GR was out of the picture. Propaganda is not entertainment. Fans loved what Berman did for TNG. Trek is dead whether they keep RB for another lame-ass Enterprise season. And I say "Thank God", because I'll always take excellent sci-fi to formulaic entertainment. Why suck dollars away from great sci-fi literature and TV shows to be put into the Federated Corpse?
Nope, previous poster was correct. Berman (or somebody) pried the Trek franchise from Roddenberry's cold dead fingers.
GR fell ill of cancer around when TNG was released. GR was responsible for much of season one's suckiness. GR was a true sci-fi fan, who was more concerned with philosophic themes than entertainment. He also harbored a grudge against TV execs making his reign with the original series difficult. (You know, violence & T&A.)
Example: He thought that in the future, people would be more enlightened and think out situations before moving to action. So in the 1st season, you saw a lot of committees before anything was done. The betazed(?) was the other one. Human's, being emotional beings, would need to have all sorts of warm fuzzy, new agey crap to keep an even keel. Thus every starship would have a shrink. While Marina Sirtis provided a T&A quota, I couldn't stand her granola eating, "I have feelings, don't do what is necessary if it wipes out some bystanding aliens", blah, blah, blah.
Basically, TNG season one was the universe run by a 60's hippee liberal utopia. That was what GR forsaw. It might have made him happy, but it sucked dogsh*t for entertainment. Think of GR like that Trek episode where Kirk gets split into a good Kirk and a bad Kirk. Call the good Kirk "science fiction excellence" and the bad Kirk "soulless entertainment". Eg - Arthur C. Clarke makes excellent, dispassionate, cerebral sci-fi, but you can't really make any of his books into movies, they are so subtle. Bad Kirk is obvious, "zero artistry and logical consistency, but lots of space battles and crewwomen in miniskirts". You really need both, or the show sucks from either extreme.
So, Roddenberry called the shots in the first season, became fatally ill, and had to hand over the reigns to Berman. Whallah, more space battles, more T&A, more engaging stories, less sermonizing propaganda, less Wesley = entertaining show.
Don't get me wrong. I loved Roddenberry, TOS and even his other sci-fi spinoff (Final Earth?). But TNG season one sucked crap, and it was because of Roddenberry. Berman did a wonderful job salvaging TNG, and his mediocrity and desire to be popular allowed DS9 to steal themes from B5 and let DS9 be the series it was. But Berman has sucked the Trek franchise dry with Voyager & Enterprise, and has to go; much like a great ballplayer who is on the decline of his career.
Small farmers are getting squeezed by megafarms, megacorps, the weather, alien crop circle makers, etc isn't exactly "the story of the century"
No, it isn't. But that isn't the story of note, ye of feeble mind. Using the judicial branch & the federal gov't to oppress the citizen farmer *is* the story of the century, or at very least, pretty damn important.
Your ranting about the media is a bunch of BS. They aren't covering because, for the most part, most people don't give a crap (rightly or wrongly).
No, that is the rationalization they provide. And pursuit of the almighty buck over all other considerations was not how media worked pre-1994. When CBS started reporting against practices of the Vietnam war, they did not do so with the intent of boosting ratings. People did not want to watch American casualities at the dinner table. The Washington Post knew they could catch hell for reporting every instance of malfeasance from the White House in Nixon's administration.
What you sheep don't realize is that level of journalistic integrity doesn't exist today. They're telling you the CIA was not selling drugs to the inner city, or that Ollie North did not operate a drug cartel to fund the Contras, or that there were no WMD in Iraq (until after the invasion).
The rest of your drivel is not even worth commenting on.
Yeah, you go to your God and tell him how you support killing, torturing, and raping Iraqi civilians in his name.
And what did they report? Monsanto sues farmers for illegally using their seeds, and you can't get away with doing it. That is hardly thorough, insightful reportage.
Why didn't the article mention Percy Schmeiser? Who is he? You don't know, you depend on commercial media to tell you what they think you need to know.
Did the article point out that pollen from neighboring fields can make a law abiding farmer a criminal? Did the article bring up one organization or politician who is looking to curb Monsanto's practices?
It's carried in such obscure media as, gosh, the "New York Times" -- perhaps you've heard of them?
Why yes, didn't they just get rid of some black guy for fabricating major news stories? I wonder why they haven't gotten rid of the reporter with the story about WMD in Iraq before the invasion?
Perhaps you've blinded yourself to the continued existence of quality newspapers and listen solely to AlterNet and friends.
I read what's on Google, because the AP is not as fascistly structured as the "major" papers, and Google will carry many "local" and foreign sources for news stories. Then I use the blogs & conspiracy sites for stories that isn't covered by commercial media. I'm not big on Alternet. Its heavily slanted left, which means they are as accurate and reliable as Fox News.
I read the news that comes from commercial media. It doesn't mean I believe what they report, anymore than I'd believe tobacco companies telling me that cigarettes are not really harmful to my health. Commercial media is the mouthpiece of the rich, and centralized so that it is the tool that is used to manage voter perception, much like 1984. Savish belief in the sanctity of the press & gov't is at your own peril.
I'm one of those under 40 bitches but you can be sure that I won't fight for GWB, and you won't find me over in Iraq. I'd rather be in prison, starve to death, whatever.
I don't think that's necessary. Can't you emigrate? Build a financial stake, and then move to Costa Rica. Or Canada, if you like the cold.
death by cop (killing cops so that the cops kill you).
I never really understood that. Its such a horrible thing to do to a civil servant and his children. Couldn't you just break into an NRA member's house instead? Date a psycho-chick gun owner, and then figure a way to really piss her off? Hell, the federal gov't or a SWAT team will execute you if you shoot a high level official. Shooting a politician or neo-con traitor is so much more preferable than a cop.
I really don't know what to do.
I don't either. I can't really gloat about the younguns getting drafted, since I figure the country will go into economic shambles for a draft to reach the general population.
I already lost my cushie job in the dot-bomb.
Learn a new skill. Become a plumber, or sanitation worker. I don't see a shortage in language interpreters, particularly arabic. If you're not ethnic, that will give a leg up in the CIA, FBI, State dept., or large city police force.
It's too bad I don't have anything of value to trade if the currency collapsed tomorrow.
Maybe the currency won't collapse tomorrow. Maybe the US will stay as the world's preferred reserve currency. Maybe even if it doesn't, the dollar won't collapse to the point it triggers hyperinflation and depression.
Maybe my next purchase should be a gun.
Not a bad idea, especially if you live alone and have no kids or unstable wife. If you get a handgun, get a revolver. Automatics can jam, and you can fire "junk" ammo in a revolver. If you're more ambitious, get a.50 cal rifle. You can always bury it when they outlaw it.
Even though I'm in America, this country definitely is in need of a serious bitch-slapping.
I don't think there's a pimp in existence that can give the US the bitch-slap it needs to change its losing ways. Economic collapse could do it though.
I can make a blog that nobody reads and rarely gets comments. I can write congress which does no good. I can vote which does even less good, especially when the whole thing is rigged. Despite the probably fraud, the opposition candidate is their guy too, so it's not like its possible for them to lose.
A little too defeatist. Blogs may evolve to be the local papers that used to exist back in the '20's. People will look elsewhere for information when they realize the commercial media cannot be trusted to report factually and thoroughly. Democracy is not the fragile flower people believe it to be. When you don't have consent of the governed, you tend to have less stable forms of gov't. You can't get as much done when you're worried about assassination, production sabotaged, cout d'etat, etc. There appears to be a power grab taking place, but they may have to back off when hurt hard enough.
The US has been a bad, fascist environment before. You need to learn from history to create good coping strategies. The problem as I see it, is that things didn't really change much when Sacco & Venzetti were executed, when the WW I veterans were shot for protesting, etc. Perhaps the solution is to become a "made" man in a local crime syndicate. That has recession-proof job security. You just need to lose the squeamishness about killing people.
Hopefully you have some close friends.
Friends are overrated. They can turn you in, and possibly without coersion.
I can't predict the future, but I think we are living in interesting times.
No, the guy I'm talking about is named Scott Peterson(?). Kaczynski shows enough traits of paranoid schitzophrenia that I pretty much accept his being stamped with the label "wackjob".
You can have a "modern" society without gross corruption and centralization of the 4th estate. And people who believe such are not terrorists.
Citigroup does expend effort in its security setup. (Any internet access involves going through two network firewall routers (and thus a DMZ network for potentially vulnerable machines like application servers), and web access through proxy servers, virus/trojan scanning of incoming traffic, etc.. But you are deluded if you think every time a new security hole gets announced, that every internet accessible machine is patched within 24 hours or shutdown. They are not going to shutdown critical services if a patch is not available for a new hole, or even put in a workaround without engineering first evaluating the kludge on its applications. That doesn't happen overnight.
Also, Citibank has been hacked before, by a Russian team. It was reported in the news back in 1998. Fortune 100 businesses, whether they are banks or stock exchanges, do not make public announcements when they get hacked. They only let the FBI make announcements when they put the perps on trial. The question is what is done when there is no trial...
You can make noises that the media is controlled by the right or the left. But this is proof the media is controlled by the rich.
This is obviously the story of the century. The implications to access to food is staggering. As well as the future of non-megacorp farming. And yet, barely a peep comes out of the TV or the magazines or the newspapers.
Is it a story out in the farming communities? That's one thing I don't know, given that I live in the city and don't come from farming stock...
Its much like the Telecommunications Deregulation Act of '94. Or the DMCA. Monsanto is proceeding to use the courts to establish a corporate monopoly on producing foodstuffs. They are counting on scientific illiteracy to keep the public from becoming aware of the ramifications.
The US media doesn't dare call the spade a spade. They'll get buried in lawsuits. Just like 60 Minutes & the tobacco companies. And they aren't motivated to report anyway. The public are told that terrorists are a bigger threat to your well being than automobile transport, and apparently they believe it. Its more important to report about Brad and Jenn, or Ben and J-Lo, or one premeditated murder in CA by a white guy.
Ah, I'm going to laugh at you under 40 bitches when you have to give up your life to go serve Uncle Sam and Mobil. So many of you just don't have a clue.
Watch out for mysterious wasting disease and financial chaos wiping out life savings. Those are next on the horizon of unreported news.
Yeah, and I think there's a gaping plot hole: wouldn't earth attempt to contact Atlantis in the event of not hearing from them for a certain amount of time?
For whatever reason, the Atlantis mission was a one-way longshot (more like an existential suicide mission). It depended on the presumption they would find a working ZPM on the other side. SG-1 is now working a cobbled subplot that Earth now has the kind of ships that can go to Atlantis's galaxy in 6 months. Perhaps the original Atlantis plot wasn't as ridiculously unrealistic as I thought.
Anyway, my Tivo hasn't picked up a new episode in awhile, so I fear the worst.
Yes, you should. Your TiVo is busted.
*joking* I'm going through a few episodes of the the second leg of the first season. I guess skyone or Canadians gets them before the US of A.
I thought me had it with Farscape for a bit, but it feel apart. It was good for the first couple seasons, but then it went off track and the casual watcher (to survive a show needs to be accessible the casual watcher) couldn't keep up with the plot twists and the cast changes. This killed the show...
It only killed the show for the casual viewer. Plot twists & cast changes made the show dynamic, not moribund in its storyline. Nothing stops a viewer from buying DVD sets now (or whatever) and catching up.
StarGate I still love but lately it just seems a bit Earth bound, I have hopes for the second half of the season. And we know there will be a 9th now...the replicators in the new human form lurk and I think this is the way to bring new interesting plots the G'uld, have run thier course for now...
The problem with SG-1 (besides being moribund) is that the charm of the show was the character dialog and chemistry, and that is falling apart with Hammond, Dr. Frazier, and especially O'Neill leaving. (It would be dead without Jackson, but he's back.) I'm not against semi-radical change, but change itself won't keep a show alive. I feel inner conflict generates the best entertainment, but there definitely is less of that now. And I think making Carter the SG-1 leader really screws up the role she used to do, and she's not going to fill O'Neill's boots with his role.
What's really gives me a bad feeling is grafting on Ben Browder and Claudia Black (from Farscape) onto SG-1. Don't get me wrong, I luuurve them as actors. But you can have great actors and still produce crap. And recycling characters personalities you love threatens stagnation.
My feeling is that they should have made a cleaner slate and threw the Farscape refugees onto Atlantis. Even if you think the SG-1 theme hasn't been played out (and I don't), the character development definitely has. They should have had a cleaner break, retired SG-1, and reattempted a new SG-1 with different themes and actors. They are sort of doing that now, but no clean break is going to compound the problem. They're looking to use the soap opera formula to maintain the show. Soap operas have a tendency to produce crap. Its a Berman-like move.
Enterprise sucks. It is not remotely good. A galactic war will not save it. And there was plenty in the Trek cannon for wars. (Hellooo, Romulans.) Enterprise is the corporate rape of a great sci-fi TV show. Or look at Enterprise as wasp larva and Trek as the unfortunate silkworm.
Atlantis? eh. It suffers from the sequel syndrome for mediocrity. And I don't like how they are writing Dr. McKay. He has to be a central character (given the sci-fi nature of the show and that he's the only non-vanilla personality). You can't make him an incompetent, craven clown in one episode, and a noble goto guy in another episode.
With Atlantis, they try to keep the SG-1 accoutrements, and then do a Voyager. I think they're better off doing a DS9. They'd really be better if they just did something new.
Actually, it is. Its not merely better executed performances than the original (which was a campy joke). Its not merely a twist or two different. It has strikingly better plots, dialogue, and execution. Special effects and Star Trek dogma does not drive that show.
I'd rather know right away my systems are at risk...worst case, I walk over and yank the ethernet cable until the issue can be resolved. Waiting even 5 days means I'm vulnerable for those 5 days, which is unacceptable. [...] And yes, I do administer a significant number of Linux systems (and Solaris) so I know what I am talking about.
I doubt it. You're a liar, an idiot, or a cracker. Sometimes you can't take systems down even if you know there is a root level exploit. Tell Citibank and NASDAQ to take their servers off the internet while they wait a few days for a patch fix. Or Level 3 or Digex.
I want the vulnerability fixed immediately.
With a thousand servers, even if you got information about a security hole, you would still have to devise a plan to modify 1K servers, implement a workaround, and then remodify those servers when the "real" fix comes about. No large installation can turn on that kind of dime. Hell, it could be as few as 10 servers. If they're mission critical, the workaround can kill the servers' ability to do it job.
I want the vulnerability fixed immediately.
This is linux. You don't like it, fix it yourself. My point is only people who can make kernel changes can really benefit from a 0-day announcement of a major security hole. The rest of the world has to wait anyway. Do you craft a policy for the real world, that uses millions of PCs/servers every day for critical stuff, or do you craft a policy for a few hundred pompous, low-hygiene idiots who think linux philosophy represents the apex of kernel development and operating system implementation?
Admins who are truly security zealous do not need 0-day security notices to the world. They are regularly covering the security forums for hints of a security breach, and then determining if their PREPARED, security design in depth installations are vulnerable, and how to respond to it. They can't stop uber-cracker with 0-day changes anyway. Its the prepared design that allows them to respond to those significant threats. 0-day announcements only aid the cracker mediocrities. (And that's why I suggest you may be a cracker.)
90 days? You've got to be kidding...that means my systems and networks are sitting ducks for 90 days. Unacceptable.
Amen. 90 days is a corporate idiot rationalization. But if Torvalds decides to put in a policy where he has a security committee, and all maintainers are obliged to address security issues (or the committee does by fiat), and gives them a 5-day window of secrecy to address it, I surely would prefer 5 days of ignorance to a 0-day cracker playground.
...but the execution sucks. Has to be the ugliest color schemes I've seen for a case.
A classic lego case would have the case resembling something other than a computer case, say a house, or a hospital building.
I probably couldn't tolerate legos as computer casing. I don't see any metal plating to screen out RF generated by the computer components.
a good portion of Deep Space 1's 149.7 million dollar cost was for its engine and all of the infrastructure needed to support it, and would be pretty heavy to lift up for the amount of trash you'll deorbit with them.
If it costs too much to send it to space, create a re-entry vehicle to splash it to earth and then haul it to a landfill. Whatever. It has to be cheaper than $300 million per shuttle launch.
The problem with reusables isn't the physics or "by the book" economics - reusables beat disposables easily. It's the maintainance costs. Ths shuttle has had huge maintainance costs.
The bottom line is that its not going to change in the next 10 years as is. The American public is not inclined to dedicate X billions on top of the yearly shuttle budget to get another another formula one racecar, and not the Corolla hatchback that we need. After NASA has gotten around to cutting shuttle costs in half, its still going to be 4 times more expensive than a disposable rocket.
A space elevator would be better
So would a teleporter. I'm not going to hold my breath for either.;)
Nanotubes thusfar, even individual pure SWNTs, have had tensile strengths that render a space elevator on earth all but economically impossible (just ignoring the myriad other technical issues). Lets hope that some better numbers turn up somehow...
The question is whether a space elevator is technologically infeasible in 2005. Is it impossible to improve nanotube yields and tensile strength to required levels in the next 5 years? There ARE a myriad of technical issues. The question is it too infeasible to even invest money to do research for an eventual engineering project?
Since there are no significant launch facilities from private corporations yet, its unlikely that the private sector is going to invest money in developing a space elevator. This has gov't project written all over it. Its going to require paying a lot of money to expensive brains to be considering engineering issues no other type of enterprise would be putting money into answering. And if the American gov't can put money into developing an engineering feat like the atomic bomb, and money into putting man on the moon, why shouldn't it set its sights on the ultimate launch system? (Assuming of course that it will end up being cheaper, safer, and more efficient than rockets.)
And so what? The space elevator will have to survive hurricane forces to be practical. A ton of aluminum crashing into it would unlikely be able to take it down. And even if it could, its a problem solved with an air corridor with a pair of inteceptors in range to shoot the plane down.
Again, scientifically ignorant, stupid, racist American. Why the f**k do you even bother reading stuff on/.?
I can't find the page offhand, but I once ran into a page that had statistics on shuttle deorbiting. The shuttle has deorbited 30-some satellites in its history, along with tons of trash from the ISS (the lack of the shuttle has led to severe trash accumulation on the station).
As many people have already pointed out (and I still haven't sifted out the commercial satellites from the orbiting sputniks), but its still a white elephant feature. The problem with trash removal is a lack of design. Build a (non-metallic) cargo container with an ion engine, and just shoot the trash towards the Moon or the Sun.
disagree, however, that disposable is the answer. The shuttle helped us learn what works and what is problematic with reusables.
The problem is the shuttle must still obey the laws of physics, and implied is that it will still be more costly to use than a rocket. Reentry structures is weight, as is manned features which are unnecessary when sending cargo on a one way trip into space. The real answer is that a space elevator will probably be cheaper and safer once implemented than a disposable or reusable rocket program. So why are we wasting money on a shuttle program that can be put to better use?
No, we won't. Ore is not a living breathing thing. The answer is a re-entry vehicle, which would basically a heat shield attached to a cargo container with floats. The container gets pushed out of orbit, it goes plop into the ocean, and gets recovered by retrieval ship. It will still be cheaper than a manned recovery vehicle.
It may not even be feasible to have a shuttle land "ore". Its designed to land with a negligible weight in its payload bay.
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I really, really want to believe that. But how do I know its not some dirty, lying trick from a no life, unshowered, Trekkie lamebot?
(Plus, I'm a big stickler for the orginal timeline.)
I'm still grumbling about Firefly bumping Dark Angel off the TV
Which was the WORST SG1 season? The one without Dr. Daniel Jackson (season 6)?
You REALLY need to check out the top rated episodes towards the last 2-3 years of TNG. There are some amazing writers that really put out some wonderful episodes. (Tapestry (ep 141), Inner Light (ep 125), and a few others.) I'd argue that some of the TNG space-time episodes weren't bad. (They were much unlike the usual "go back to the past and fix history".) One of DS9's best episodes was a time travel episode (Trials And Tribble-ations). (Don't hate the plot device, hate the writer...)
Yeah, I'm more of TOS fanatic, but DS9 was my next favorite (seasons 3 to finale). (Of course, they did suffer from holodeck syndrome.)
My previous post here pretty much sums up what I thought. What you said is pretty much confirms the facts, and I love how you presented it. But we obviously disagree on the conclusions.
TNG sucked until GR was out of the picture. Propaganda is not entertainment. Fans loved what Berman did for TNG. Trek is dead whether they keep RB for another lame-ass Enterprise season. And I say "Thank God", because I'll always take excellent sci-fi to formulaic entertainment. Why suck dollars away from great sci-fi literature and TV shows to be put into the Federated Corpse?
Nope, previous poster was correct. Berman (or somebody) pried the Trek franchise from Roddenberry's cold dead fingers.
GR fell ill of cancer around when TNG was released. GR was responsible for much of season one's suckiness. GR was a true sci-fi fan, who was more concerned with philosophic themes than entertainment. He also harbored a grudge against TV execs making his reign with the original series difficult. (You know, violence & T&A.)
Example: He thought that in the future, people would be more enlightened and think out situations before moving to action. So in the 1st season, you saw a lot of committees before anything was done. The betazed(?) was the other one. Human's, being emotional beings, would need to have all sorts of warm fuzzy, new agey crap to keep an even keel. Thus every starship would have a shrink. While Marina Sirtis provided a T&A quota, I couldn't stand her granola eating, "I have feelings, don't do what is necessary if it wipes out some bystanding aliens", blah, blah, blah.
Basically, TNG season one was the universe run by a 60's hippee liberal utopia. That was what GR forsaw. It might have made him happy, but it sucked dogsh*t for entertainment. Think of GR like that Trek episode where Kirk gets split into a good Kirk and a bad Kirk. Call the good Kirk "science fiction excellence" and the bad Kirk "soulless entertainment". Eg - Arthur C. Clarke makes excellent, dispassionate, cerebral sci-fi, but you can't really make any of his books into movies, they are so subtle. Bad Kirk is obvious, "zero artistry and logical consistency, but lots of space battles and crewwomen in miniskirts". You really need both, or the show sucks from either extreme.
So, Roddenberry called the shots in the first season, became fatally ill, and had to hand over the reigns to Berman. Whallah, more space battles, more T&A, more engaging stories, less sermonizing propaganda, less Wesley = entertaining show.
Don't get me wrong. I loved Roddenberry, TOS and even his other sci-fi spinoff (Final Earth?). But TNG season one sucked crap, and it was because of Roddenberry. Berman did a wonderful job salvaging TNG, and his mediocrity and desire to be popular allowed DS9 to steal themes from B5 and let DS9 be the series it was. But Berman has sucked the Trek franchise dry with Voyager & Enterprise, and has to go; much like a great ballplayer who is on the decline of his career.
No, it isn't. But that isn't the story of note, ye of feeble mind. Using the judicial branch & the federal gov't to oppress the citizen farmer *is* the story of the century, or at very least, pretty damn important.
No, that is the rationalization they provide. And pursuit of the almighty buck over all other considerations was not how media worked pre-1994. When CBS started reporting against practices of the Vietnam war, they did not do so with the intent of boosting ratings. People did not want to watch American casualities at the dinner table. The Washington Post knew they could catch hell for reporting every instance of malfeasance from the White House in Nixon's administration.
What you sheep don't realize is that level of journalistic integrity doesn't exist today. They're telling you the CIA was not selling drugs to the inner city, or that Ollie North did not operate a drug cartel to fund the Contras, or that there were no WMD in Iraq (until after the invasion).
Yeah, you go to your God and tell him how you support killing, torturing, and raping Iraqi civilians in his name.
And what did they report? Monsanto sues farmers for illegally using their seeds, and you can't get away with doing it. That is hardly thorough, insightful reportage.
Why didn't the article mention Percy Schmeiser? Who is he? You don't know, you depend on commercial media to tell you what they think you need to know.
Did the article point out that pollen from neighboring fields can make a law abiding farmer a criminal? Did the article bring up one organization or politician who is looking to curb Monsanto's practices?
Why yes, didn't they just get rid of some black guy for fabricating major news stories? I wonder why they haven't gotten rid of the reporter with the story about WMD in Iraq before the invasion?
I read what's on Google, because the AP is not as fascistly structured as the "major" papers, and Google will carry many "local" and foreign sources for news stories. Then I use the blogs & conspiracy sites for stories that isn't covered by commercial media. I'm not big on Alternet. Its heavily slanted left, which means they are as accurate and reliable as Fox News.
I read the news that comes from commercial media. It doesn't mean I believe what they report, anymore than I'd believe tobacco companies telling me that cigarettes are not really harmful to my health. Commercial media is the mouthpiece of the rich, and centralized so that it is the tool that is used to manage voter perception, much like 1984. Savish belief in the sanctity of the press & gov't is at your own peril.
I don't think that's necessary. Can't you emigrate? Build a financial stake, and then move to Costa Rica. Or Canada, if you like the cold.
I never really understood that. Its such a horrible thing to do to a civil servant and his children. Couldn't you just break into an NRA member's house instead? Date a psycho-chick gun owner, and then figure a way to really piss her off? Hell, the federal gov't or a SWAT team will execute you if you shoot a high level official. Shooting a politician or neo-con traitor is so much more preferable than a cop.
I don't either. I can't really gloat about the younguns getting drafted, since I figure the country will go into economic shambles for a draft to reach the general population.
Learn a new skill. Become a plumber, or sanitation worker. I don't see a shortage in language interpreters, particularly arabic. If you're not ethnic, that will give a leg up in the CIA, FBI, State dept., or large city police force.
Maybe the currency won't collapse tomorrow. Maybe the US will stay as the world's preferred reserve currency. Maybe even if it doesn't, the dollar won't collapse to the point it triggers hyperinflation and depression.
Not a bad idea, especially if you live alone and have no kids or unstable wife. If you get a handgun, get a revolver. Automatics can jam, and you can fire "junk" ammo in a revolver. If you're more ambitious, get a .50 cal rifle. You can always bury it when they outlaw it.
I don't think there's a pimp in existence that can give the US the bitch-slap it needs to change its losing ways. Economic collapse could do it though.
A little too defeatist. Blogs may evolve to be the local papers that used to exist back in the '20's. People will look elsewhere for information when they realize the commercial media cannot be trusted to report factually and thoroughly. Democracy is not the fragile flower people believe it to be. When you don't have consent of the governed, you tend to have less stable forms of gov't. You can't get as much done when you're worried about assassination, production sabotaged, cout d'etat, etc. There appears to be a power grab taking place, but they may have to back off when hurt hard enough.
The US has been a bad, fascist environment before. You need to learn from history to create good coping strategies. The problem as I see it, is that things didn't really change much when Sacco & Venzetti were executed, when the WW I veterans were shot for protesting, etc. Perhaps the solution is to become a "made" man in a local crime syndicate. That has recession-proof job security. You just need to lose the squeamishness about killing people.
Friends are overrated. They can turn you in, and possibly without coersion.
True dat.
No, the guy I'm talking about is named Scott Peterson(?). Kaczynski shows enough traits of paranoid schitzophrenia that I pretty much accept his being stamped with the label "wackjob".
You can have a "modern" society without gross corruption and centralization of the 4th estate. And people who believe such are not terrorists.
Citigroup does expend effort in its security setup. (Any internet access involves going through two network firewall routers (and thus a DMZ network for potentially vulnerable machines like application servers), and web access through proxy servers, virus/trojan scanning of incoming traffic, etc.. But you are deluded if you think every time a new security hole gets announced, that every internet accessible machine is patched within 24 hours or shutdown. They are not going to shutdown critical services if a patch is not available for a new hole, or even put in a workaround without engineering first evaluating the kludge on its applications. That doesn't happen overnight.
Also, Citibank has been hacked before, by a Russian team. It was reported in the news back in 1998. Fortune 100 businesses, whether they are banks or stock exchanges, do not make public announcements when they get hacked. They only let the FBI make announcements when they put the perps on trial. The question is what is done when there is no trial...
You can make noises that the media is controlled by the right or the left. But this is proof the media is controlled by the rich.
This is obviously the story of the century. The implications to access to food is staggering. As well as the future of non-megacorp farming. And yet, barely a peep comes out of the TV or the magazines or the newspapers.
Is it a story out in the farming communities? That's one thing I don't know, given that I live in the city and don't come from farming stock...
Its much like the Telecommunications Deregulation Act of '94. Or the DMCA. Monsanto is proceeding to use the courts to establish a corporate monopoly on producing foodstuffs. They are counting on scientific illiteracy to keep the public from becoming aware of the ramifications.
The US media doesn't dare call the spade a spade. They'll get buried in lawsuits. Just like 60 Minutes & the tobacco companies. And they aren't motivated to report anyway. The public are told that terrorists are a bigger threat to your well being than automobile transport, and apparently they believe it. Its more important to report about Brad and Jenn, or Ben and J-Lo, or one premeditated murder in CA by a white guy.
Ah, I'm going to laugh at you under 40 bitches when you have to give up your life to go serve Uncle Sam and Mobil. So many of you just don't have a clue.
Watch out for mysterious wasting disease and financial chaos wiping out life savings. Those are next on the horizon of unreported news.
For whatever reason, the Atlantis mission was a one-way longshot (more like an existential suicide mission). It depended on the presumption they would find a working ZPM on the other side. SG-1 is now working a cobbled subplot that Earth now has the kind of ships that can go to Atlantis's galaxy in 6 months. Perhaps the original Atlantis plot wasn't as ridiculously unrealistic as I thought.
Yes, you should. Your TiVo is busted.
*joking* I'm going through a few episodes of the the second leg of the first season. I guess skyone or Canadians gets them before the US of A.
It only killed the show for the casual viewer. Plot twists & cast changes made the show dynamic, not moribund in its storyline. Nothing stops a viewer from buying DVD sets now (or whatever) and catching up.
The problem with SG-1 (besides being moribund) is that the charm of the show was the character dialog and chemistry, and that is falling apart with Hammond, Dr. Frazier, and especially O'Neill leaving. (It would be dead without Jackson, but he's back.) I'm not against semi-radical change, but change itself won't keep a show alive. I feel inner conflict generates the best entertainment, but there definitely is less of that now. And I think making Carter the SG-1 leader really screws up the role she used to do, and she's not going to fill O'Neill's boots with his role.
What's really gives me a bad feeling is grafting on Ben Browder and Claudia Black (from Farscape) onto SG-1. Don't get me wrong, I luuurve them as actors. But you can have great actors and still produce crap. And recycling characters personalities you love threatens stagnation.
My feeling is that they should have made a cleaner slate and threw the Farscape refugees onto Atlantis. Even if you think the SG-1 theme hasn't been played out (and I don't), the character development definitely has. They should have had a cleaner break, retired SG-1, and reattempted a new SG-1 with different themes and actors. They are sort of doing that now, but no clean break is going to compound the problem. They're looking to use the soap opera formula to maintain the show. Soap operas have a tendency to produce crap. Its a Berman-like move.
Enterprise sucks. It is not remotely good. A galactic war will not save it. And there was plenty in the Trek cannon for wars. (Hellooo, Romulans.) Enterprise is the corporate rape of a great sci-fi TV show. Or look at Enterprise as wasp larva and Trek as the unfortunate silkworm.
Atlantis? eh. It suffers from the sequel syndrome for mediocrity. And I don't like how they are writing Dr. McKay. He has to be a central character (given the sci-fi nature of the show and that he's the only non-vanilla personality). You can't make him an incompetent, craven clown in one episode, and a noble goto guy in another episode.
With Atlantis, they try to keep the SG-1 accoutrements, and then do a Voyager. I think they're better off doing a DS9. They'd really be better if they just did something new.A second on the post. My original perspective almost exactly. (Not a big Daily Show fan, and I do watch other shows.)
Its better than SG-1 & Atlantis right now.
Actually, it is. Its not merely better executed performances than the original (which was a campy joke). Its not merely a twist or two different. It has strikingly better plots, dialogue, and execution. Special effects and Star Trek dogma does not drive that show.
I doubt it. You're a liar, an idiot, or a cracker. Sometimes you can't take systems down even if you know there is a root level exploit. Tell Citibank and NASDAQ to take their servers off the internet while they wait a few days for a patch fix. Or Level 3 or Digex.
With a thousand servers, even if you got information about a security hole, you would still have to devise a plan to modify 1K servers, implement a workaround, and then remodify those servers when the "real" fix comes about. No large installation can turn on that kind of dime. Hell, it could be as few as 10 servers. If they're mission critical, the workaround can kill the servers' ability to do it job.
This is linux. You don't like it, fix it yourself. My point is only people who can make kernel changes can really benefit from a 0-day announcement of a major security hole. The rest of the world has to wait anyway. Do you craft a policy for the real world, that uses millions of PCs/servers every day for critical stuff, or do you craft a policy for a few hundred pompous, low-hygiene idiots who think linux philosophy represents the apex of kernel development and operating system implementation?
Admins who are truly security zealous do not need 0-day security notices to the world. They are regularly covering the security forums for hints of a security breach, and then determining if their PREPARED, security design in depth installations are vulnerable, and how to respond to it. They can't stop uber-cracker with 0-day changes anyway. Its the prepared design that allows them to respond to those significant threats. 0-day announcements only aid the cracker mediocrities. (And that's why I suggest you may be a cracker.)
Amen. 90 days is a corporate idiot rationalization. But if Torvalds decides to put in a policy where he has a security committee, and all maintainers are obliged to address security issues (or the committee does by fiat), and gives them a 5-day window of secrecy to address it, I surely would prefer 5 days of ignorance to a 0-day cracker playground.
...but the execution sucks. Has to be the ugliest color schemes I've seen for a case. A classic lego case would have the case resembling something other than a computer case, say a house, or a hospital building. I probably couldn't tolerate legos as computer casing. I don't see any metal plating to screen out RF generated by the computer components.
Geez man, if you're gonna pick Albany NY, at least get the zip code right... (like 1220X).
If it costs too much to send it to space, create a re-entry vehicle to splash it to earth and then haul it to a landfill. Whatever. It has to be cheaper than $300 million per shuttle launch.
The bottom line is that its not going to change in the next 10 years as is. The American public is not inclined to dedicate X billions on top of the yearly shuttle budget to get another another formula one racecar, and not the Corolla hatchback that we need. After NASA has gotten around to cutting shuttle costs in half, its still going to be 4 times more expensive than a disposable rocket.
The question is whether a space elevator is technologically infeasible in 2005. Is it impossible to improve nanotube yields and tensile strength to required levels in the next 5 years? There ARE a myriad of technical issues. The question is it too infeasible to even invest money to do research for an eventual engineering project?
Since there are no significant launch facilities from private corporations yet, its unlikely that the private sector is going to invest money in developing a space elevator. This has gov't project written all over it. Its going to require paying a lot of money to expensive brains to be considering engineering issues no other type of enterprise would be putting money into answering. And if the American gov't can put money into developing an engineering feat like the atomic bomb, and money into putting man on the moon, why shouldn't it set its sights on the ultimate launch system? (Assuming of course that it will end up being cheaper, safer, and more efficient than rockets.)
Bull. Design the satellite enclosure to be a re-entry capsule. Parachutes down, splashes into the sea, gets picked up by a ship.
I live in a country where 59 million morons elected GWB president. What do you think?
And so what? The space elevator will have to survive hurricane forces to be practical. A ton of aluminum crashing into it would unlikely be able to take it down. And even if it could, its a problem solved with an air corridor with a pair of inteceptors in range to shoot the plane down.
Again, scientifically ignorant, stupid, racist American. Why the f**k do you even bother reading stuff on
As many people have already pointed out (and I still haven't sifted out the commercial satellites from the orbiting sputniks), but its still a white elephant feature. The problem with trash removal is a lack of design. Build a (non-metallic) cargo container with an ion engine, and just shoot the trash towards the Moon or the Sun.
The problem is the shuttle must still obey the laws of physics, and implied is that it will still be more costly to use than a rocket. Reentry structures is weight, as is manned features which are unnecessary when sending cargo on a one way trip into space. The real answer is that a space elevator will probably be cheaper and safer once implemented than a disposable or reusable rocket program. So why are we wasting money on a shuttle program that can be put to better use?
No, we won't. Ore is not a living breathing thing. The answer is a re-entry vehicle, which would basically a heat shield attached to a cargo container with floats. The container gets pushed out of orbit, it goes plop into the ocean, and gets recovered by retrieval ship. It will still be cheaper than a manned recovery vehicle.
It may not even be feasible to have a shuttle land "ore". Its designed to land with a negligible weight in its payload bay.