Attack of the Clones really illustrated what shoddy directing is.
One example: the droid factory. Amidala is about to become part of a vat of molten metal, but R2D2 shuts down the system and saves her. Shoddy directing point: R2D2 sprouts jets and is able to fly across the chasm to the control terminal. To illustrate this, Lucas fills the entire screen with R2D2's leg, showing the jet emerging from it. Cue dramatic near-victory music, even an amoeba now knows that R2D2 has jets and where they are located. It is so painfully obvious that R2D2 is going to fly across the chasm and save Amidala, that the scene loses all of its drama. Much better to have Amidala struggle for a few extra seconds, then cut to R2D2 landing near the control terminal and shutting down the equipment with moments to spare. You have kept the audience in complete suspense, because they did not know R2D2 could fly across that chasm.
Still sounds fishy to me. I believe there are "dialers" that dial up a private connection to someone's server, after you download and run it. Could easily be a virus in one of those.
Though I certainly would not put it past a virus maker to attempt a little social sabotage. And it doesn't take much to get a trojan on your PC. A year or two ago I was repairing my mom's Windows machine, and discovered a trojan that had installed itself because she had sharing turned on (not even an open drive). The trojan itself was mostly benign, other than using the computer to scan for others to infect. The dangerous part was that the virus itself was infected, with Kriz. It was one week until Christmas.
I have seen the same reasoning keep an entire corporation on Win95 and P133's...until 2001. And then it was near impossible to get the budget to upgrade machines to work with (mandated) migration to Win2000.
Employees were literally unable to exchange documents with clients. Inflexibility is bad.
Yeah I've had that up for a while. Not too many real bites yet. Guess it would help if I had my coffee before posting on here, so I don't make "duh, Contact, huhuhuh...." comments.
But honestly, the best application of this is powering inaccessible sensors; in fact, reading the article would reveal just that use.
You're not going to get a significant amount of power out of this, but enough to power a little wireless sensor embedded in a piece of machinery, which you could never possibly run wires to or replace the batteries.
It's great for actually cutting stuff, for when you're using flat materials; fast, and a very small kerf.
As such it's just a 2D device. Can't do some of the more useful CNC work such as fly-cutting surfaces, pocket cutting, and 3D slopes.
If you want to do the same thing and can live with an 1/8" or 1/16" kerf, you can build a homebuilt CNC machine for an incredibly low price. Depending on what parts you make and where you get them, the price can range from near nothing to $750. Plus you get 3D profiling and a much more flexible machine: put a pen in it and sign lots of certificates, put a woodburning iron in it and make a cool clock face, put a small router in it and engrave your logo into your valve covers.
Just do a Google search for "homebuilt CNC" and you'll find plenty of good links.
We are so quick to rush to judgement. Perhaps even reversing cause and effect?
Maybe the frivolous patents are a result of everyone bum-rushing the Patent Office. There might not be enough time to scrutinize every patent that comes in. Of course this encourages more frivolous patents, making it even harder for the Patent Office to give each patent its due care.
It's an interesting tactic: flood the Patent Office with useless requests, making it impossible for individuals to get their life's work patented. The longer an invention remains unpatented, the better chance of duplicating and marketing someone's idea before they have the chance (because you have all the production capabilities already). Vague patents and lawyers can keep away those who decide to challenge, and most will probably accept a small settlement.
The companies pretty much count on you forgetting or not bothering with them. Whatever rebates you don't send for is more profit for them.
This is also precisely the motive behind gift certificates.
Until the certificate recipient uses it, they are at 100% profit. The money begins to accrue interest immediately. When the certificate is exchanged for goods, the profit is whatever they would normally get plus accrued interest. If the gift certificate is never used (which is often) it is 100% pure profit.
Practically every first-generation product I've ever purchased has been a beta test. It's to the point where I'll hardly buy anything if it's "Rev. 1.0" or "Rev. A."
They just cut out their QA budget, let the customers rack up the losses and complaints, and feed it back into R&D.
No amount of handwaving and slacking will get you through a full control system problem ending in solving a complex system of differential equations that you derived, by hand. And there are five other problems to occupy your free time on the test.
I happen to have a decent contract postion (though it's mechanical engineering), and am getting a consulting business underway. Not too shabby considering some recently graduated engineers literally are working at McDonalds.
However, you should be doing all your homework without being forced! School is already too easy, and if you skip any of it you'll be the only one at McDonald's who can't make change! You should be asking your teachers for extra homework!
Finally, someone else who is noticing this. Whenever I talk about it people look at me funny: "Huh? Stuff keeps getting bigger, better, faster, and cheaper! What are you talking about?"
It's called a short attention span. By the time the doohickey breaks, they've forgotten when they bought it and a brand new model is already out.
We're getting tools that are unreliable and wear out quickly. The manufacturers have eliminated the work required to make a good quality piece of equipment. This work is then passed on to the customers, in the form of lost time, troubleshooting, ruined work, and tool replacement cost. Way to go! Cut off progress at the knees, will ya?
Slashdot Mirror
Attack of the Clones really illustrated what shoddy directing is.
One example: the droid factory. Amidala is about to become part of a vat of molten metal, but R2D2 shuts down the system and saves her. Shoddy directing point: R2D2 sprouts jets and is able to fly across the chasm to the control terminal. To illustrate this, Lucas fills the entire screen with R2D2's leg, showing the jet emerging from it. Cue dramatic near-victory music, even an amoeba now knows that R2D2 has jets and where they are located. It is so painfully obvious that R2D2 is going to fly across the chasm and save Amidala, that the scene loses all of its drama. Much better to have Amidala struggle for a few extra seconds, then cut to R2D2 landing near the control terminal and shutting down the equipment with moments to spare. You have kept the audience in complete suspense, because they did not know R2D2 could fly across that chasm.
Still sounds fishy to me. I believe there are "dialers" that dial up a private connection to someone's server, after you download and run it. Could easily be a virus in one of those.
Though I certainly would not put it past a virus maker to attempt a little social sabotage. And it doesn't take much to get a trojan on your PC. A year or two ago I was repairing my mom's Windows machine, and discovered a trojan that had installed itself because she had sharing turned on (not even an open drive). The trojan itself was mostly benign, other than using the computer to scan for others to infect. The dangerous part was that the virus itself was infected, with Kriz. It was one week until Christmas.
My choice for the new new Phoenix name: AnnHarrison.
I have seen the same reasoning keep an entire corporation on Win95 and P133's...until 2001. And then it was near impossible to get the budget to upgrade machines to work with (mandated) migration to Win2000.
Employees were literally unable to exchange documents with clients. Inflexibility is bad.
Yeah I've had that up for a while. Not too many real bites yet. Guess it would help if I had my coffee before posting on here, so I don't make "duh, Contact, huhuhuh...." comments.
...and you get front page.
But honestly, the best application of this is powering inaccessible sensors; in fact, reading the article would reveal just that use.
You're not going to get a significant amount of power out of this, but enough to power a little wireless sensor embedded in a piece of machinery, which you could never possibly run wires to or replace the batteries.
BETTER EXAMPLE: Simplified, low-cost tire pressure sensors.
How soon before we hear about suspicious noisy thumping sounds from a point in outer space, which turn out to be encoded plans for a strange device?
It's great for actually cutting stuff, for when you're using flat materials; fast, and a very small kerf.
As such it's just a 2D device. Can't do some of the more useful CNC work such as fly-cutting surfaces, pocket cutting, and 3D slopes.
If you want to do the same thing and can live with an 1/8" or 1/16" kerf, you can build a homebuilt CNC machine for an incredibly low price. Depending on what parts you make and where you get them, the price can range from near nothing to $750. Plus you get 3D profiling and a much more flexible machine: put a pen in it and sign lots of certificates, put a woodburning iron in it and make a cool clock face, put a small router in it and engrave your logo into your valve covers.
Just do a Google search for "homebuilt CNC" and you'll find plenty of good links.
We are so quick to rush to judgement. Perhaps even reversing cause and effect?
Maybe the frivolous patents are a result of everyone bum-rushing the Patent Office. There might not be enough time to scrutinize every patent that comes in. Of course this encourages more frivolous patents, making it even harder for the Patent Office to give each patent its due care.
It's an interesting tactic: flood the Patent Office with useless requests, making it impossible for individuals to get their life's work patented. The longer an invention remains unpatented, the better chance of duplicating and marketing someone's idea before they have the chance (because you have all the production capabilities already). Vague patents and lawyers can keep away those who decide to challenge, and most will probably accept a small settlement.
The companies pretty much count on you forgetting or not bothering with them. Whatever rebates you don't send for is more profit for them.
This is also precisely the motive behind gift certificates.
Until the certificate recipient uses it, they are at 100% profit. The money begins to accrue interest immediately. When the certificate is exchanged for goods, the profit is whatever they would normally get plus accrued interest. If the gift certificate is never used (which is often) it is 100% pure profit.
Better make sure the engagement ring is the appropriate percentage of your yearly wages, or you will never hear the end of it.
If you want to truly test the strength of your relationship, propose over the phone. *ring* "Hi! This is your engagement ring! Will you marry me?"
Admit it! You're just frustrated that we aren't going to have genetically engineered cat-girls, and no cybernetic nano-implants to toy with.
...
Sorry, but common sense is more important! Girls with tails and ears, and the ability to vaporize planets with your bare hands, can wait.
You're right, we've gone soft.
All thanks to the space race between AMD and Intel.
Intel's chips ship overclocked just under the breaking point...they even increase the voltage a little.
I like my AMD.
How is that renewable? I guess that would be the invention part of it....
Careful there! You've just disturbed the cheap monitor racket!
Buy monitor, tint poorly, return, have a friend buy it, sell on black market, buy guns and drugs. I'd watch my back if I were you.
Practically every first-generation product I've ever purchased has been a beta test. It's to the point where I'll hardly buy anything if it's "Rev. 1.0" or "Rev. A."
They just cut out their QA budget, let the customers rack up the losses and complaints, and feed it back into R&D.
Not to mention those slick little logic controllers that used compressed air lines and air-controllable valves.
Actually, any monitor that has this should include a "Mirror" button!
Simply press the button and each camera cell is directly linked to its nearby display cell.
Sounds like the screens in "1984" doesn't it?
A nice side effect of this would be built-in touchscreens on everything. More like pointscreens, you won't even have to contact the surface.
And kids can open up Paintbrush and make Hand Turkeys!
No amount of handwaving and slacking will get you through a full control system problem ending in solving a complex system of differential equations that you derived, by hand. And there are five other problems to occupy your free time on the test.
No.
I happen to have a decent contract postion (though it's mechanical engineering), and am getting a consulting business underway. Not too shabby considering some recently graduated engineers literally are working at McDonalds.
I'm recently graduated and starting up a consulting business and the economy isn't so hot, you insensitive clod! ;-)
And it took an embedded systems developer to bring it to your attention.
It's not new. We've been doing state diagrams over here in Engineerland for decades.
We'll take care of that little problem for you.
However, you should be doing all your homework without being forced! School is already too easy, and if you skip any of it you'll be the only one at McDonald's who can't make change! You should be asking your teachers for extra homework!
Finally, someone else who is noticing this. Whenever I talk about it people look at me funny: "Huh? Stuff keeps getting bigger, better, faster, and cheaper! What are you talking about?"
It's called a short attention span. By the time the doohickey breaks, they've forgotten when they bought it and a brand new model is already out.
We're getting tools that are unreliable and wear out quickly. The manufacturers have eliminated the work required to make a good quality piece of equipment. This work is then passed on to the customers, in the form of lost time, troubleshooting, ruined work, and tool replacement cost. Way to go! Cut off progress at the knees, will ya?