You need not be concerned. As you point out the model is taking off and once it's "airborne" then the competition will arrive. It's already forming and it's only a matter of time before someone else manages to put something together along these lines that does equally well if not better.
I love iTunes and I'm one of those Apple zealots that get on so many peoples nerves but the kind of control that Apple will have over the music industry will not approach the level that the labels have enjoyed in the past.
Not unless they start signing artists and begin cutting off CD's completely creating an iTunes or nothing proposition for the consumer. By controling it from the moment it leaves the artists hands to the moment it goes in your ears they could become a problem. I doubt Apple even wants to get that deep into it though.
Be sure to add their legal fees into the cost of getting the 3 grand. Maybe they're still making money, I don't know or care (because none of it's coming from me)
Honestly, whenever an article appears about the latest RIAA tactic the only thing that comes to my mind anymore is "Fuck those guys".
I have two different ideas where your "larger arcs" proposal is concerned. Yeah, I'd like to see it happen but I don't think it will. The networks seem to be steering clear of series that develop like this because a year or two in you've got your audience and you aren't going to be getting many new viewers. The show's hard to come into after the initial episodes whereas the "each week is a nice, neat self contained little episode" approach means that you can miss a whole month of it and still know what's going on. Genre programming isn't faring very well and the long story arcs of Buffy and Angel didn't give them better ratings, just more loyal fans who numbered too few.
Then again Star Trek's got a pretty big built in audience to begin with. Who knows, maybe they could make the long story arcs work.
9th out of how many? Surely if even half of the countries in this world compete at this then 9th isn't too bad at all for a nation that collectively couldn't care less about soccer.
And no Canada is not part of the USA. It's USA junior per Homer Simpson.
Of course the Nigerian PM is still alive you dolt! He's the lousy bastard that put the screws on Mr (Formerly Colonel) M'buato (and his freedom fighters) and brought about the dire situation he's currently trying to escape. If it wasn't for the Nigerian PM my friend M'buato would be President M'buato and the Nigerian people would be living in peace free from oppression.
Once I've done my part to secure enough money to get the locked bank accounts transferred over here into my name THEN the Nigerian PM will meet his fate (once I get my 20% of course).
First I've heard of the Sultan being involved though. I need to email Mr. M'buato and check on that. He should know what to do...
Actually, while it might be in poor taste I think that every post on this thread should be modded "Flamebait". It just seems fitting for some reason.
Re:What no "Imagine a Beowolf cluster" jokes yet?
on
Happy Birthday, UNIVAC I
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Nope, it's not the AC's day off. It's just that the UNIVAC I is the only computer that nobody can (even trying their hardest) actually imagine "a Beowulf cluster" of.
Where would you put it? "Oh and over here, next to Texas is New Mexico which, you might find interesting to note is not actually an inhabited state. It's where we keep our UNIVAC Beowulf Cluster. Sweet huh? You can see it from space!"
I truly wanted to write something insightful about this story. I wanted to make a logical balanced statement about why the RIAA is simply wrong and will eventually die due to their own greed. I wanted to write something that would illuminate and entertain and was suitable for all age groups to read.
Unfortunately I couldn't do that. Every time I now think about the RIAA and whatever approach they are currently trying to keep their grip on the fat cash they make screwing over the artist, customer, and anyone else who gets in the way I can only ever think of two words.
"Fuck Them"
So that's my post. Don't be too hard on me mods because I tried. Maybe I've seen one too many RIAA stories or something but those four letters just draw one response from me at this point and that was it.
Ditto for anyone who's been in the army trying to watch a war movie. Rarely if ever does anything look real or act appropriately. People stay bunched together because they all need to be in the shot when in reality they would be much farther apart for example.
Soldiers in the movies generally don't behave much like their real world counterparts nor do their opponents.
Anyone remember "Red Dawn" where the RPG's looked like they were moving in slow motion along a wire? Most war movies to a pathetic job of portraying what real munitions look like in use.
Guys roaming around the jungles of Vietnam with modern versions of M-16 rifles in "Platoon". Once character named "Bunny" bit a beer can in half at one point and it was aluminum. I was too young for the Vietnam war and even I remember that before aluminum cans beer and soda came in steel cans with a stamped strip down the side (which I challenge anyone to casually bite through to impress their friends). Or the scene in "Full Metal Jacket" where Joker is walking through the barracks carrying a modern Mag-light.
One movie where the inconsistancies didn't bother me too bad was the Jason Patrick movie "The Beast" about a Russian tank crew lost in Afghanistan. It was filmed in Israel using a bunch of real Soviet hardware which I can only assume the Israeli army has piles of just sitting around from thumping thier Arab friends. Tanks firing looked like tanks firing. WP rounds looked like WP rounds. Houses didn't burst into flames (they were stone and mud huts) but rather shuddered and collapsed.
They rarely resorted to the cliche "Monster Fireball" effect and even the radio that the tank crewmen were listening to was labeled in Russian.
It's hard to find a realistic movie if you're in the field being shown. I imagine lawyers get a good laugh out of lawyer movies, cops chuckle at police movies, and doctors find medical dramas hard to watch.
See my response to mrchaotic in this thread. I'm as covered as I can possibly be. A firing isn't impossible (he could get me before I get him) but I don't think it will go down that way.
Just on the off hand chance that you come back curious about this I do have it in writing. I've got the most beautiful folder full of email messages related to this and I've got a copy of it on CD as well (can't be too safe).
They cover his instructions to me, my responses pointing out that I don't think this is the way to go about this including reasons why, and finally his response complete with an almost iron-clad statement amounting to "You let me worry about that, you do as your told" where the guy pretty much signs his own dismissal slip if he tries to lay the mess on me when the inevitable happens.
Not me man, I wade right into that shit hip deep. My bosses have laid down the law here and insist that I get everyone patched ASAP. I've tried to explain about the balance between being safe and being sure but they don't want to hear any of that so the way I see it "Fuck em".
Now granted I've got closer to 500 machines (But I'd do the same thing if they gave me 2000, or even 20,000) but I still patch every single one of them the moment Microsoft spits it out.
One day, one fine day Microsoft is going to release that "Broke the whole damned thing" patch. When they do I'm going to savor the look on my particular PHB's face as it dawns on him what he's ordered me to do.
Well, true to Slashdot's image I never did get to tap that. It wasn't for lack of trying though and we did date for a while. I never could manage to close the deal despite all I went through.
It turned out to be something of a blessing in disguise in the long run. It wasn't long after I dated this girl that I decided that this shit was a waste of time and gave up on the dating scene. I was done with all the bullshit (Prince movies? paying for concert tickets to see Billy Joel becauses some girl wanted to see him? What was I thinking?) and quit trying.
Got more sex once I stopped trying than I ever did before. Not monumental porn star sex night and day mind you, just regular "Damn! now this is more like it" sex. I'm sure there's a reason and a lesson in there somewhere but I'm old (and married) now so it wouldn't do me any good to bother figuring it out.
Besides I just can't see my wife being all that thrilled with my newly rediscovered ability to find some regular strange. Nope, something tells me to stick with the status quo which has me plenty happy.
One many years ago when I was a young man I was forced to sit through the movie "Purple Rain" three times in three days. I never once paid for a ticket and I didn't particularly want to see the film. I just happened to be with three different groups of people who were dead set on seeing it and having nothing better to do I went with them. They were paying for it after all.
The first time it was not entirely horrible. It wasn't good of course but I could deal with it. The second time it was starting to get horrible but again I held it together and managed to make it through the movie. The third night I would have passed on it if the girl I was desperate to get into bed hadn't wanted to go see it but that's where I made my mistake.
We sat in a theater next to a couple who brought with them a thoroughly miserable baby who (on reflection I really can't blame the little bugger) wanted to be anywhere but sitting in a dark theater watching Prince. That baby cried through most of the picture. People sitting around them asked them politely if they would take the baby into the lobby. People glared at them while the baby screamed like someone was pulling it's toes off. People moved to other available seats. They didn't budge.
I was hanging on by a very, very thin thread at this point and stood up, turned around and told them that if they didn't find a way to shut that baby up I was going to pick it up by it's feet and beat them to death with it.
They got up and left as people around us clapped. Now, at close to 40 years of age I realize how lucky I was not to have gone to jail. On the other hand these people were terribly rude to make everyone else sit through a movie listening to their child.
You're right though. In recent years I've just asked people to be quiet and gone and brought an usher down when necessary. It's the better choice.
I believe it does mean that very thing. "Free" is not going to be a good thing in this particular instance. Free is just going to be a euphamism for "trapped".
I disagree. Always shoot to kill. Don't ever shoot anyone (or anything for that matter) that you do not intend to kill. If you fire the weapon 6-7 times and there's no possible way that your would be attacker could survive that then fantastic.
Just make sure that you are suitably shaken by the entire incident and cannot for the life of you recall how many times you fired due to your frightened state.
This way you can be certain that the only lies the grand jury hears are yours.
On the outside chance that you come back by AC I bow to your superior memory. Highlander 2 "The Sickening" was indeed worse than my selection. I had forgotten about that or possibly I blacked it out.
That's an excellent point. It's kind of like many historical dramas that are made. I saw "Gangs of New York" not too long ago on DVD. It's hardly what you would call a documentary but it wasn't a bad movie. A little long IMO but enjoyable.
What it did do though was get me just interested enough in the subject matter to go looking for how much of this was based in fact. The real story of New York's various gangs was a great deal more interesting than anything in the movie.
If this movie gets a few people to check out how much of this is plausible then it's a good thing. If they enjoyed the special effects ride in the process of getting those brain cells to fire that's even better.
It's not amazing that his career survived that movie. His career took off with that movie. As you point out a lot of people seemed to like it. They might not be collectively the sharpest tools in the shed but those people understood the object of the excercise. Have fun.
You obviously went in there expecting to see cinema of some sort. They went in there expecting a really good ride.
My own Worst Movie Ever, if we restrict this to SciFi has to be "Star Trek V: Let's go see God!" but that's just me.
Your last line reminds me of something George Carlin said. He was talking about all of the "Save the Earth" people and how arrogant that sounded to him. He then went on a long tirade (As George often does) about how the Earth has been around for millions and millions of years and has gone through ice ages, meteor strikes, etc;.
Then he paused and said "If we don't change what we're doing the Earth isn't going to care and isn't going anywhere... We are."
Actually happened to me the other day. I was walking from one of our buildings to another location (our offices are in downtown Houston) and some guy pulls up to a stoplight near me with windows down. A second later I'm hearing Rush's "Spirit of Radio" at what must have been better than a hundred decibles.
Have to admit though it was a first for me. Never once heard anyone blasting anything I liked before.
Slashdot Mirror
You need not be concerned. As you point out the model is taking off and once it's "airborne" then the competition will arrive. It's already forming and it's only a matter of time before someone else manages to put something together along these lines that does equally well if not better.
I love iTunes and I'm one of those Apple zealots that get on so many peoples nerves but the kind of control that Apple will have over the music industry will not approach the level that the labels have enjoyed in the past.
Not unless they start signing artists and begin cutting off CD's completely creating an iTunes or nothing proposition for the consumer. By controling it from the moment it leaves the artists hands to the moment it goes in your ears they could become a problem. I doubt Apple even wants to get that deep into it though.
Be sure to add their legal fees into the cost of getting the 3 grand. Maybe they're still making money, I don't know or care (because none of it's coming from me)
Honestly, whenever an article appears about the latest RIAA tactic the only thing that comes to my mind anymore is "Fuck those guys".
Crude but that's the truth.
I have two different ideas where your "larger arcs" proposal is concerned. Yeah, I'd like to see it happen but I don't think it will. The networks seem to be steering clear of series that develop like this because a year or two in you've got your audience and you aren't going to be getting many new viewers. The show's hard to come into after the initial episodes whereas the "each week is a nice, neat self contained little episode" approach means that you can miss a whole month of it and still know what's going on. Genre programming isn't faring very well and the long story arcs of Buffy and Angel didn't give them better ratings, just more loyal fans who numbered too few.
Then again Star Trek's got a pretty big built in audience to begin with. Who knows, maybe they could make the long story arcs work.
Of course there's no need to take all the mirrors down but it's too late for such kindness because to paraphrase Mr Scott in "Wrath of Khan"
Kirk: "We've got to set up a torrent! The mirrors will die!"
Scotty: "They're dead already!"
New episodes of Star Trek (in any form) + Slashdot = server death. No way around it.
9th out of how many? Surely if even half of the countries in this world compete at this then 9th isn't too bad at all for a nation that collectively couldn't care less about soccer.
And no Canada is not part of the USA. It's USA junior per Homer Simpson.
Of course the Nigerian PM is still alive you dolt! He's the lousy bastard that put the screws on Mr (Formerly Colonel) M'buato (and his freedom fighters) and brought about the dire situation he's currently trying to escape. If it wasn't for the Nigerian PM my friend M'buato would be President M'buato and the Nigerian people would be living in peace free from oppression.
Once I've done my part to secure enough money to get the locked bank accounts transferred over here into my name THEN the Nigerian PM will meet his fate (once I get my 20% of course).
First I've heard of the Sultan being involved though. I need to email Mr. M'buato and check on that. He should know what to do...
Actually, while it might be in poor taste I think that every post on this thread should be modded "Flamebait". It just seems fitting for some reason.
Nope, it's not the AC's day off. It's just that the UNIVAC I is the only computer that nobody can (even trying their hardest) actually imagine "a Beowulf cluster" of.
Where would you put it? "Oh and over here, next to Texas is New Mexico which, you might find interesting to note is not actually an inhabited state. It's where we keep our UNIVAC Beowulf Cluster. Sweet huh? You can see it from space!"
Just last month they had the crew from "This Old House" over to do a case mod for it.
I truly wanted to write something insightful about this story. I wanted to make a logical balanced statement about why the RIAA is simply wrong and will eventually die due to their own greed. I wanted to write something that would illuminate and entertain and was suitable for all age groups to read.
Unfortunately I couldn't do that. Every time I now think about the RIAA and whatever approach they are currently trying to keep their grip on the fat cash they make screwing over the artist, customer, and anyone else who gets in the way I can only ever think of two words.
"Fuck Them"
So that's my post. Don't be too hard on me mods because I tried. Maybe I've seen one too many RIAA stories or something but those four letters just draw one response from me at this point and that was it.
Ditto for anyone who's been in the army trying to watch a war movie. Rarely if ever does anything look real or act appropriately. People stay bunched together because they all need to be in the shot when in reality they would be much farther apart for example.
Soldiers in the movies generally don't behave much like their real world counterparts nor do their opponents.
Anyone remember "Red Dawn" where the RPG's looked like they were moving in slow motion along a wire? Most war movies to a pathetic job of portraying what real munitions look like in use.
Guys roaming around the jungles of Vietnam with modern versions of M-16 rifles in "Platoon". Once character named "Bunny" bit a beer can in half at one point and it was aluminum. I was too young for the Vietnam war and even I remember that before aluminum cans beer and soda came in steel cans with a stamped strip down the side (which I challenge anyone to casually bite through to impress their friends). Or the scene in "Full Metal Jacket" where Joker is walking through the barracks carrying a modern Mag-light.
One movie where the inconsistancies didn't bother me too bad was the Jason Patrick movie "The Beast" about a Russian tank crew lost in Afghanistan. It was filmed in Israel using a bunch of real Soviet hardware which I can only assume the Israeli army has piles of just sitting around from thumping thier Arab friends. Tanks firing looked like tanks firing. WP rounds looked like WP rounds. Houses didn't burst into flames (they were stone and mud huts) but rather shuddered and collapsed.
They rarely resorted to the cliche "Monster Fireball" effect and even the radio that the tank crewmen were listening to was labeled in Russian.
It's hard to find a realistic movie if you're in the field being shown. I imagine lawyers get a good laugh out of lawyer movies, cops chuckle at police movies, and doctors find medical dramas hard to watch.
Nope, Just you baby. Just you.
See my response to mrchaotic in this thread. I'm as covered as I can possibly be. A firing isn't impossible (he could get me before I get him) but I don't think it will go down that way.
Just on the off hand chance that you come back curious about this I do have it in writing. I've got the most beautiful folder full of email messages related to this and I've got a copy of it on CD as well (can't be too safe).
They cover his instructions to me, my responses pointing out that I don't think this is the way to go about this including reasons why, and finally his response complete with an almost iron-clad statement amounting to "You let me worry about that, you do as your told" where the guy pretty much signs his own dismissal slip if he tries to lay the mess on me when the inevitable happens.
Not me man, I wade right into that shit hip deep. My bosses have laid down the law here and insist that I get everyone patched ASAP. I've tried to explain about the balance between being safe and being sure but they don't want to hear any of that so the way I see it "Fuck em".
Now granted I've got closer to 500 machines (But I'd do the same thing if they gave me 2000, or even 20,000) but I still patch every single one of them the moment Microsoft spits it out.
One day, one fine day Microsoft is going to release that "Broke the whole damned thing" patch. When they do I'm going to savor the look on my particular PHB's face as it dawns on him what he's ordered me to do.
Well, true to Slashdot's image I never did get to tap that. It wasn't for lack of trying though and we did date for a while. I never could manage to close the deal despite all I went through.
It turned out to be something of a blessing in disguise in the long run. It wasn't long after I dated this girl that I decided that this shit was a waste of time and gave up on the dating scene. I was done with all the bullshit (Prince movies? paying for concert tickets to see Billy Joel becauses some girl wanted to see him? What was I thinking?) and quit trying.
Got more sex once I stopped trying than I ever did before. Not monumental porn star sex night and day mind you, just regular "Damn! now this is more like it" sex. I'm sure there's a reason and a lesson in there somewhere but I'm old (and married) now so it wouldn't do me any good to bother figuring it out.
Besides I just can't see my wife being all that thrilled with my newly rediscovered ability to find some regular strange. Nope, something tells me to stick with the status quo which has me plenty happy.
One many years ago when I was a young man I was forced to sit through the movie "Purple Rain" three times in three days. I never once paid for a ticket and I didn't particularly want to see the film. I just happened to be with three different groups of people who were dead set on seeing it and having nothing better to do I went with them. They were paying for it after all.
The first time it was not entirely horrible. It wasn't good of course but I could deal with it. The second time it was starting to get horrible but again I held it together and managed to make it through the movie. The third night I would have passed on it if the girl I was desperate to get into bed hadn't wanted to go see it but that's where I made my mistake.
We sat in a theater next to a couple who brought with them a thoroughly miserable baby who (on reflection I really can't blame the little bugger) wanted to be anywhere but sitting in a dark theater watching Prince. That baby cried through most of the picture. People sitting around them asked them politely if they would take the baby into the lobby. People glared at them while the baby screamed like someone was pulling it's toes off. People moved to other available seats. They didn't budge.
I was hanging on by a very, very thin thread at this point and stood up, turned around and told them that if they didn't find a way to shut that baby up I was going to pick it up by it's feet and beat them to death with it.
They got up and left as people around us clapped. Now, at close to 40 years of age I realize how lucky I was not to have gone to jail. On the other hand these people were terribly rude to make everyone else sit through a movie listening to their child.
You're right though. In recent years I've just asked people to be quiet and gone and brought an usher down when necessary. It's the better choice.
No they won't. They'll say "Arrrggh! The Price of this DVD be high says I"
I believe it does mean that very thing. "Free" is not going to be a good thing in this particular instance. Free is just going to be a euphamism for "trapped".
I want no part of this.
I disagree. Always shoot to kill. Don't ever shoot anyone (or anything for that matter) that you do not intend to kill. If you fire the weapon 6-7 times and there's no possible way that your would be attacker could survive that then fantastic.
Just make sure that you are suitably shaken by the entire incident and cannot for the life of you recall how many times you fired due to your frightened state.
This way you can be certain that the only lies the grand jury hears are yours.
On the outside chance that you come back by AC I bow to your superior memory. Highlander 2 "The Sickening" was indeed worse than my selection. I had forgotten about that or possibly I blacked it out.
Damn! I'm so sorry I ever saw that movie.
That's an excellent point. It's kind of like many historical dramas that are made. I saw "Gangs of New York" not too long ago on DVD. It's hardly what you would call a documentary but it wasn't a bad movie. A little long IMO but enjoyable.
What it did do though was get me just interested enough in the subject matter to go looking for how much of this was based in fact. The real story of New York's various gangs was a great deal more interesting than anything in the movie.
If this movie gets a few people to check out how much of this is plausible then it's a good thing. If they enjoyed the special effects ride in the process of getting those brain cells to fire that's even better.
It's not amazing that his career survived that movie. His career took off with that movie. As you point out a lot of people seemed to like it. They might not be collectively the sharpest tools in the shed but those people understood the object of the excercise. Have fun.
You obviously went in there expecting to see cinema of some sort. They went in there expecting a really good ride.
My own Worst Movie Ever, if we restrict this to SciFi has to be "Star Trek V: Let's go see God!" but that's just me.
Your last line reminds me of something George Carlin said. He was talking about all of the "Save the Earth" people and how arrogant that sounded to him. He then went on a long tirade (As George often does) about how the Earth has been around for millions and millions of years and has gone through ice ages, meteor strikes, etc;.
Then he paused and said "If we don't change what we're doing the Earth isn't going to care and isn't going anywhere... We are."
Actually happened to me the other day. I was walking from one of our buildings to another location (our offices are in downtown Houston) and some guy pulls up to a stoplight near me with windows down. A second later I'm hearing Rush's "Spirit of Radio" at what must have been better than a hundred decibles.
Have to admit though it was a first for me. Never once heard anyone blasting anything I liked before.