Feels like it at times but it was much worse just a couple of years ago. Now it's more like six or seven guys sitting in a huge empty stadium (probably playing D&D) all shouting that. I can't speak for everyone in Mac-Nation but pretty much everyone I know is having a great time.
I know what you mean about never clicking "OK" or "YES" buttons, hell I won't even click "NO". Ok, so it's not so much a problem these days what with the OSX and the Mac but at the end of my Windows "experience" I simply decided that nothing that popped up could be trusted. I got the idea in my head that even the "NO" button was a lie.
My own saving grace (I think) was that I got in the habit of always going down to the taskbar and doing the "right-click, close" bit.
Education is the ticket but man, I question whether or not some of these people can be educated. I've been at this for over a decade in the same job, supporting the same people and the people I've been trying to teach continue to step on the landmines. Sure from time to time there's a success story or two with my users but for the most part the ones who are going to screw up continue to screw up.
I would say (and I understand and know that I can only speak for myself since this is a matter of opinion) that season four, despite the abysmal opening story arch, has been very good, bordering on excellent at times. Had they been doing things like this from the start I believe that they wouldn't find themselves counting down to oblivion now.
It's too late of course. Barring someone wanting to pick this up the show is dead meat. This is very frustrating from a fans perspective though. Three years of bad and then when things start getting good they kill it.
What I've gathered is that it's instantaneous so how that relates to warp drive I simply don't know. I get the impression from BG that if they could compute the jump then ST Voyagers problem of being decades away from home at maximum warp would be a non-issue.
They haven't really addressed how far the Galactica can jump though so who can say. In Star Trek though ships can apparently maneuver at faster than light speeds where in BG you get the instant "flash-bang-you're there" thing. Even if you add in the time it takes the Galactica to actually do the calculations needed to jump from one place to another I'd have to say the Galactica is faster, just in a different way.
I disagree with you. I believe the reason North Korea wasn't invaded (and will not be invaded by the US) is simply summarized with one word, "China".
The best way to deal with Kim and his nukes is through China. Sure they don't particularly want to get involved but he's their puppet nutbar and not ours. The only sane path to checking this guy and his new toys is to put the pressure on China. Reign in that little freak or we're going to find ourselves another country to make pretty much everything we use. There are plenty of candidates out there.
Economic power is the way to go here. It's not as cool and flashy as military power but then it's also not nearly so expensive in lives. We won't do it though. No way will we do it.
I mean it people, listen to this poster. This is truth in it's purest form. If you take the money it becomes your problem.
I did it back in the day and it took me forever to get out of that mess. It's like you took the guy who paid you to raise once you've taken his money. Show even a remote amount of empathy and you'll be getting phone calls from them years from now.
Today when people tell me about their PC problems and ask me to look at their computer I tell them to get a Mac and then I spend as long as it takes talking to them about how my Mac never crashes, gets a virus, or gets bogged down with spyware. I talk until they go away and when they do I smile.
Yes but can't you just picture a bunch of black clad, machine gun packing ATFF agents (Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Film) storming the set of Enterprise as they start production of the first fan backed season?
Berman and Braga would figure out a way to work them into the script.
It's their money to spend and no one individual is talking about handing the Paramount people a check for $80 million dollars.
People are going to do what people want to do. If enough of them want to pool their money together to save Enterprise then good for them. What? Tsunami-aid didn't demonstrate the goodness of the world to your satisfaction?
I give to charities. I'm not ignoring the problems. I'm also not going to be made to feel guilty for choosing to throw my 100 or so dollars into trying to save Enterprise with a bunch of other fans instead of sending it to a starving kid in Africa who will get $7 worth of friggin UN wheat out of it by the time everyones got their cut.
**** DISCLAIMER: I am not going to be sending anyone any money to try and save Enterprise. The above statement is purely hypothetical in nature. It was a bad show that got better this season. If they could pull it off and pay for a season of it then fine, I'll watch it but I'm not so interested that I'm willing to send anyone money. Now back to what I was saying... ***
And if you think 80 million dollars can make a real difference then you and I simply must not share the same definition for "real difference". 80 million isn't a drop in the bucket but it's not the whole bucket either. More like a couple of shots in the bucket.
Somehow I suspect that whether it's right or wrong we'll feel just fine about affecting an entire planet with a minimum amount of "simulation and testing". We haven't been shy about affecting the one we live on so what makes anyone think we'll hesitate to start monkeying around with another one.
Yes, to so many of them Windows IS the computer. I've had people come to me with problems here at work frequently and when I ask what kind of computer it is I get a pretty frequent response of "Windows 98" or just "Windows". What version is sometimes answered with "really old" or "the newest one". This isn't a group of people that overall you're going to get good information from off the top of their heads.
Just today I had someone tell me that they needed to take a Powerpoint document home to work on. I asked her if she had Powerpoint on their computer at home and she just locked up. She said her computer came with Office (What version? The latest one!) but she added that Powerpoint wasn't on there and wondered aloud if she could install it from the Windows CD.
That's not entirely true. I'm a Mac fan and I wouldn't mod you down for stating the obvious and I've seen more than one PC fan mod down a Mac zealot the exact same thing.
As I said I'm a Mac fan, bordering on being a zealot at times but I didn't much care about this one either. How could I? Macs can be overclocked. This is news? The Mac Mini can be overclocked. Again? What makes this news?
I agree with you about there being too many stories about trivial stuff that made the page simply because it was about an Apple product. Now if someone had pushed this thing up to 2.4Ghz with some freaky looking pipes full of liquid nitrogen hanging out the back of it through some rough cut holes in the case and it had steam coming out the sides while it ran that would have been interesting. "I overclocked my Mini" just doesn't cut it.
These days it seems to me like there are more Apple related stories on Slashdot than ever before but I'm enjoying them less. They just aren't anything special.
In high school I spent about a three years working in fast food and it made a distinct impression on me. I worked at Popeye's, then McDonalds, and finally Chick-Fil-A and the only one of the three I'll go anywhere near now is Chick-Fil-A.
The one I worked in was fanatically spotless. I don't know if it's all of them but a great many are owned by Uber-Christian franchise owners who are crazy about the clean and the lord. I didn't fit in with the majority of the crew there being a godless heathen and all but I'll give them points for being obsessively clean.
I don't even want to think about, much less mention what I saw at Popeye's and McDonalds. I've tried hard to black those months out of my mind.
Actually that's more than just "Insightful" in my opinion. It's extremely insightful. As much as Star Trek is dogged for it's techno-babble dialog you're actually advocating more of that and less of the interpersonal relationship focus.
I think you're dead on with that. Character development IS important but there are plenty of ensemble cast shows on the air set in the here and now where we can sit and speculate on which cast members are going to pair off. Star Trek is supposed to be SciFi though and drama is only a part of that. The producers lost sight of this and their show is going away as a result.
I also think Enterprise and Star Trek in general has just crumbled under the weight of it's own enormous history. When your fan base can spot even a minor continuity error from a mile away and there are volumes of material available detailing the history of your imaginary universe then you've got to walk a very fine line with your stories. Each season slowly tightens the noose a little more. The people doing Star Trek have gotten progressively worse at keeping things plausible and Enterprise has been a train wreck where continuity is concerned.
There are just so many reasons why this died and so many things it could have been if done well. All this work and effort and in the end Scott Bakula is going to go down as the George Clooney of Starship captains. He'll be the guy who's tour of duty killed the franchise (A disctinction that should have gone to his predecessor on Voyager. I can't remember her name for some reason, all I can think of is "The woman with the munchkin voice")
It could be that this thing is right on time. It's even possible that it's a little early.
I think that the current state of radio cannot stand and remain profitable forever. It's crap from one end of the dial to the other and that seems to be the general consensus with everyone I speak to. People like the Clear Channel folks have pretty much destroyed everything that made radio stations worth listening to and turned them into boring generic copies of one another. This is in the process of leading to what I think will be a satellite radio explosion in the near future because XM simply kicks the crap out of listening to FM radio.
Eventually they're going to reach critical mass and recievers aren't going to just be options in cars. They're going to be standard equipment and all the owner will need to do is activate the service. Most won't I'm sure but enough will to start to erode the ad revenues. When satellite radio gets big enough then broadcast radio will have to change. I think eventually we'll see a brief period where FM starts to get interesting again.
Maybe we're heading for a point where Apple doesn't offer any mouse out of the box but merely sells them (along with keyboards) alongside their computers. I would have no problem with that. They could even call it an "upgrade" and ask $5 more for it on their website.
I'd like to see the option to not purchase a keyboard, mouse, or both as well as an optional Apple made two button wheel mouse. I understand that Apple had some very good reasons for choosing a one-button design but so many of us using Macs are just tossing the Apple mouse back in the box and going with something better that I'm surprised that they've not budged even a little on this.
Giving people a choice would be the best way to stick to your one-button position while giving the (seemingly) majority of users the two-button mouse they require.
There is no line. There is no right or wrong here. We take it as far as we can and see what happens. It's human nature to just keep pushing it until it either blows up in our faces or we succeed in whatever the hell it is we're trying to do.
Honestly I don't think it's going to matter all that much. I don't care if they grow an eight foot tall walking vagina that breathes fire or that spews cotton candy or somehow manage to make ourselves immortal. It won't be the greatest achievement since the creation of the universe. I have this pessimistic idea that there's literally nothing mankind will be capable of doing that rates that kind of description.
Maybe someday way, way down the road but the "version" of mankind that does it won't be much like us when it happens.
Yes they're half human and half animal but they only have three asses! They'll have to be destroyed.
First thing that popped into my mind upon reading this. The second thing was that we're going to need them to learn the law. What is the law? No spill blood of course.
What does it run if you just bump up the RAM? Just curious because the $499 model with enough added RAM to make things snappy should handle that whole "Surfing the web, sending the email, shopping on ebay" thing that mom and pop want to do without being bombarded by spyware, viruses, and pop-ups. The 32MB video card should in no way impede them.
I just don't think you are the target audience here pOrnking. Niether am I really so I'm not planning on buying one either but for what it is it's a pretty good value. It's affordable enough. It's just not what I (or you apparently) need and want.
Yeah, Apollo doesn't maintain as well as the rest of them but the truly sad thing about it is he would be the Emmy nominee on most of the Treks since TNG. That alone tells us something.
I kind of think that the main reason he seems weak is that the rest of the cast is just that damned good. Olmos as you said is rocking in this and the guy who plays Col Tigh is IMO one of the high points too. Just excellent acting overall.
Slashdot Mirror
Feels like it at times but it was much worse just a couple of years ago. Now it's more like six or seven guys sitting in a huge empty stadium (probably playing D&D) all shouting that. I can't speak for everyone in Mac-Nation but pretty much everyone I know is having a great time.
Long past time actually. Come on over to the Mac side. Everybody seriously, there's plenty of room over here.
I know what you mean about never clicking "OK" or "YES" buttons, hell I won't even click "NO". Ok, so it's not so much a problem these days what with the OSX and the Mac but at the end of my Windows "experience" I simply decided that nothing that popped up could be trusted. I got the idea in my head that even the "NO" button was a lie.
My own saving grace (I think) was that I got in the habit of always going down to the taskbar and doing the "right-click, close" bit.
Education is the ticket but man, I question whether or not some of these people can be educated. I've been at this for over a decade in the same job, supporting the same people and the people I've been trying to teach continue to step on the landmines. Sure from time to time there's a success story or two with my users but for the most part the ones who are going to screw up continue to screw up.
I would say (and I understand and know that I can only speak for myself since this is a matter of opinion) that season four, despite the abysmal opening story arch, has been very good, bordering on excellent at times. Had they been doing things like this from the start I believe that they wouldn't find themselves counting down to oblivion now.
It's too late of course. Barring someone wanting to pick this up the show is dead meat. This is very frustrating from a fans perspective though. Three years of bad and then when things start getting good they kill it.
Like Keanu said in the critically applauded masterpiece "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure"
"All we are, is dust in the wind...dude"
What I've gathered is that it's instantaneous so how that relates to warp drive I simply don't know. I get the impression from BG that if they could compute the jump then ST Voyagers problem of being decades away from home at maximum warp would be a non-issue.
They haven't really addressed how far the Galactica can jump though so who can say. In Star Trek though ships can apparently maneuver at faster than light speeds where in BG you get the instant "flash-bang-you're there" thing. Even if you add in the time it takes the Galactica to actually do the calculations needed to jump from one place to another I'd have to say the Galactica is faster, just in a different way.
I disagree with you. I believe the reason North Korea wasn't invaded (and will not be invaded by the US) is simply summarized with one word, "China".
The best way to deal with Kim and his nukes is through China. Sure they don't particularly want to get involved but he's their puppet nutbar and not ours. The only sane path to checking this guy and his new toys is to put the pressure on China. Reign in that little freak or we're going to find ourselves another country to make pretty much everything we use. There are plenty of candidates out there.
Economic power is the way to go here. It's not as cool and flashy as military power but then it's also not nearly so expensive in lives. We won't do it though. No way will we do it.
(Doing my best Scotty voice)
"It's dead already!"
Plus if you do manage to open the website you'll flood the whole compartment.
With what? Hell if I know but it killed that server!
You are so real in this post it's frightening.
I mean it people, listen to this poster. This is truth in it's purest form. If you take the money it becomes your problem.
I did it back in the day and it took me forever to get out of that mess. It's like you took the guy who paid you to raise once you've taken his money. Show even a remote amount of empathy and you'll be getting phone calls from them years from now.
Today when people tell me about their PC problems and ask me to look at their computer I tell them to get a Mac and then I spend as long as it takes talking to them about how my Mac never crashes, gets a virus, or gets bogged down with spyware. I talk until they go away and when they do I smile.
Yes but can't you just picture a bunch of black clad, machine gun packing ATFF agents (Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Film) storming the set of Enterprise as they start production of the first fan backed season?
Berman and Braga would figure out a way to work them into the script.
"Keep rolling! This is good stuff."
It's their money to spend and no one individual is talking about handing the Paramount people a check for $80 million dollars.
People are going to do what people want to do. If enough of them want to pool their money together to save Enterprise then good for them. What? Tsunami-aid didn't demonstrate the goodness of the world to your satisfaction?
I give to charities. I'm not ignoring the problems. I'm also not going to be made to feel guilty for choosing to throw my 100 or so dollars into trying to save Enterprise with a bunch of other fans instead of sending it to a starving kid in Africa who will get $7 worth of friggin UN wheat out of it by the time everyones got their cut.
****
DISCLAIMER: I am not going to be sending anyone any money to try and save Enterprise. The above statement is purely hypothetical in nature. It was a bad show that got better this season. If they could pull it off and pay for a season of it then fine, I'll watch it but I'm not so interested that I'm willing to send anyone money. Now back to what I was saying...
***
And if you think 80 million dollars can make a real difference then you and I simply must not share the same definition for "real difference". 80 million isn't a drop in the bucket but it's not the whole bucket either. More like a couple of shots in the bucket.
Somehow I suspect that whether it's right or wrong we'll feel just fine about affecting an entire planet with a minimum amount of "simulation and testing". We haven't been shy about affecting the one we live on so what makes anyone think we'll hesitate to start monkeying around with another one.
Yes, to so many of them Windows IS the computer. I've had people come to me with problems here at work frequently and when I ask what kind of computer it is I get a pretty frequent response of "Windows 98" or just "Windows". What version is sometimes answered with "really old" or "the newest one". This isn't a group of people that overall you're going to get good information from off the top of their heads.
Just today I had someone tell me that they needed to take a Powerpoint document home to work on. I asked her if she had Powerpoint on their computer at home and she just locked up. She said her computer came with Office (What version? The latest one!) but she added that Powerpoint wasn't on there and wondered aloud if she could install it from the Windows CD.
I just don't know anymore.
That's not entirely true. I'm a Mac fan and I wouldn't mod you down for stating the obvious and I've seen more than one PC fan mod down a Mac zealot the exact same thing.
As I said I'm a Mac fan, bordering on being a zealot at times but I didn't much care about this one either. How could I? Macs can be overclocked. This is news? The Mac Mini can be overclocked. Again? What makes this news?
I agree with you about there being too many stories about trivial stuff that made the page simply because it was about an Apple product. Now if someone had pushed this thing up to 2.4Ghz with some freaky looking pipes full of liquid nitrogen hanging out the back of it through some rough cut holes in the case and it had steam coming out the sides while it ran that would have been interesting. "I overclocked my Mini" just doesn't cut it.
These days it seems to me like there are more Apple related stories on Slashdot than ever before but I'm enjoying them less. They just aren't anything special.
In high school I spent about a three years working in fast food and it made a distinct impression on me. I worked at Popeye's, then McDonalds, and finally Chick-Fil-A and the only one of the three I'll go anywhere near now is Chick-Fil-A.
The one I worked in was fanatically spotless. I don't know if it's all of them but a great many are owned by Uber-Christian franchise owners who are crazy about the clean and the lord. I didn't fit in with the majority of the crew there being a godless heathen and all but I'll give them points for being obsessively clean.
I don't even want to think about, much less mention what I saw at Popeye's and McDonalds. I've tried hard to black those months out of my mind.
Actually that's more than just "Insightful" in my opinion. It's extremely insightful. As much as Star Trek is dogged for it's techno-babble dialog you're actually advocating more of that and less of the interpersonal relationship focus.
I think you're dead on with that. Character development IS important but there are plenty of ensemble cast shows on the air set in the here and now where we can sit and speculate on which cast members are going to pair off. Star Trek is supposed to be SciFi though and drama is only a part of that. The producers lost sight of this and their show is going away as a result.
I also think Enterprise and Star Trek in general has just crumbled under the weight of it's own enormous history. When your fan base can spot even a minor continuity error from a mile away and there are volumes of material available detailing the history of your imaginary universe then you've got to walk a very fine line with your stories. Each season slowly tightens the noose a little more. The people doing Star Trek have gotten progressively worse at keeping things plausible and Enterprise has been a train wreck where continuity is concerned.
There are just so many reasons why this died and so many things it could have been if done well. All this work and effort and in the end Scott Bakula is going to go down as the George Clooney of Starship captains. He'll be the guy who's tour of duty killed the franchise (A disctinction that should have gone to his predecessor on Voyager. I can't remember her name for some reason, all I can think of is "The woman with the munchkin voice")
It could be that this thing is right on time. It's even possible that it's a little early.
I think that the current state of radio cannot stand and remain profitable forever. It's crap from one end of the dial to the other and that seems to be the general consensus with everyone I speak to. People like the Clear Channel folks have pretty much destroyed everything that made radio stations worth listening to and turned them into boring generic copies of one another. This is in the process of leading to what I think will be a satellite radio explosion in the near future because XM simply kicks the crap out of listening to FM radio.
Eventually they're going to reach critical mass and recievers aren't going to just be options in cars. They're going to be standard equipment and all the owner will need to do is activate the service. Most won't I'm sure but enough will to start to erode the ad revenues. When satellite radio gets big enough then broadcast radio will have to change. I think eventually we'll see a brief period where FM starts to get interesting again.
You're one merger short of total domination.
That's "ApPixBayGoo" if you want to take on "SonDisSoft".
Obi Wan didn't dance back?
Man he goit F'd in the A!
Maybe we're heading for a point where Apple doesn't offer any mouse out of the box but merely sells them (along with keyboards) alongside their computers. I would have no problem with that. They could even call it an "upgrade" and ask $5 more for it on their website.
I'd like to see the option to not purchase a keyboard, mouse, or both as well as an optional Apple made two button wheel mouse. I understand that Apple had some very good reasons for choosing a one-button design but so many of us using Macs are just tossing the Apple mouse back in the box and going with something better that I'm surprised that they've not budged even a little on this.
Giving people a choice would be the best way to stick to your one-button position while giving the (seemingly) majority of users the two-button mouse they require.
There is no line. There is no right or wrong here. We take it as far as we can and see what happens. It's human nature to just keep pushing it until it either blows up in our faces or we succeed in whatever the hell it is we're trying to do.
Honestly I don't think it's going to matter all that much. I don't care if they grow an eight foot tall walking vagina that breathes fire or that spews cotton candy or somehow manage to make ourselves immortal. It won't be the greatest achievement since the creation of the universe. I have this pessimistic idea that there's literally nothing mankind will be capable of doing that rates that kind of description.
Maybe someday way, way down the road but the "version" of mankind that does it won't be much like us when it happens.
So you think. How do you know that it won't be defended by MY army of Elephant-Gorillas with human brains AND lasers mounted on their heads?
What? Did you really think you were the only mad scientist who reads Slashdot?
Yes they're half human and half animal but they only have three asses! They'll have to be destroyed.
First thing that popped into my mind upon reading this. The second thing was that we're going to need them to learn the law. What is the law? No spill blood of course.
What does it run if you just bump up the RAM? Just curious because the $499 model with enough added RAM to make things snappy should handle that whole "Surfing the web, sending the email, shopping on ebay" thing that mom and pop want to do without being bombarded by spyware, viruses, and pop-ups. The 32MB video card should in no way impede them.
I just don't think you are the target audience here pOrnking. Niether am I really so I'm not planning on buying one either but for what it is it's a pretty good value. It's affordable enough. It's just not what I (or you apparently) need and want.
Yeah, Apollo doesn't maintain as well as the rest of them but the truly sad thing about it is he would be the Emmy nominee on most of the Treks since TNG. That alone tells us something.
I kind of think that the main reason he seems weak is that the rest of the cast is just that damned good. Olmos as you said is rocking in this and the guy who plays Col Tigh is IMO one of the high points too. Just excellent acting overall.