Agreed, the show went downhill after it moved the shooting from Vancouver to California. The dark dreary days, and the separation from the Hollywood hype is what made the show great. I was an avid fan up until that season. After that, I just quit watching because the episodes became just too silly.
I admit, I cheated on intro to VB! I stayed out drinking almost every night right before the program was due, so I schmoozed up those nerdy chicks to give me the code so that I wouldn't fail. Honestly now, why waste time coding VB, which I never use, when I could be out partying, and drinking, which I always use? Cheating in VB is just as much a part of getting a well rounded college education as getting laid is!
I can think of over a thousand uses for a device such as this for a hardware support technician. What about people who can not have internet access at home and need to share files from work(and a ton of cash burning a hole in their pocket)? This invention is a God-send! Imagine what all of our spies/disgruntled employees can get themselves into now!
The internet was once a friendly place where one could go to get information about almost anything that they wanted to know for free. Then someone figured out that they could probably make money from it, and then we were constantly bombarded with pop-up adds, subscription fees, and online shopping. This trend isn't new. Look at how M$ came to power... The sad fact is, people need to make money, and the easiest way to make money is to whore out someone elses love. In M$ case it was basically stealing DOS.. The problem with the internet is much larger: it's like sex... Something that is meant to be and born out of love... however some people sell it... Some of these 'net companies are nothing but a bunch of pimps. The only the internet will change for the better is when people no longer profit from subscriptions to information, and there are no more pop-up adds/advertisments. Come on you Linux guys.... isn't information supposed to be free? An open-source internet?
You're fooling yourself, we do not live in a plutocratic oligarchy, we live in a world where the media rules all human thought. We live in a Mediocracy.:) Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
My original point was, was that the people who run those corporations are human like you and me. However, some are more humane than others. But I totally agree with your statment that the people who hold our wealth have a lot to say about our future. Keep the faith my man!
Keep in mind that the corporate boards have making money as number one on their agenda. They are required to make money for themselves, their families, their stock holders and their employees and their families. They aren't the enemy. Keep in mind that the corporate boards are made up of people, people like you and me. The attitudnal shift has to happen from the root level. The change cannot occur overnight, it will take generations. I can't blame corporations from trying to provide a better life for their families, and they do the majority of the charity work. What seems to be neglected in the "board room" is a sense of responsibility towards humanity, and that requires a visionary. Being a visionary is not a requirement for an MBA at any university. Also, helping humanity hurts the bottom line.
How about a paradigm shift in the way the American culture has been going for the past 200 years? How about a shift from the "me" attitude that is common in America today to become more socially aware, and aware of the impact on our environment and society that a single individual imposes. You mention McDonald's and their happy meal toys, and the garbage that they cause, that is the prototypical example of the me-now attitude that we are teaching our children. All growing up we are taught that we are special, and unique. What we have to realize is that EVERYONE is special and unique, and we have to respect others, even if it means the next generation. What we need now more than anything is a cultural revolution. To get away from quick fixes, and me now garbage. Instead of spending the money on "Happy meal" toys, why not emplore McDonalds to give that money to Cancer research, or building a great work of art? Where is the pride in craftsmanship in the world today? Why don't we build brick roads that can last for hundreds of years rather than quick asphalt solutions that pothole-up after the first hard rain? Money is not the problem, never really has been, it's the attitude of the here, now quick fixes that is the downfall of our society today. This rant can go on and on, but our pollution is a symbol of our polluted attitude toward our world.
Get every Geek what he really wants: A CowboyNeal Picture of the day calandar! That way, they could look forward to each and every day of the year knowing that there is always someone with a more pathetic existance than they have!!!:)
Where does the aunt and uncle come that Luke stays with during Ep. IV come into play? What about the people that Leia stays with when she is growing up? Maybe it's all just a ploy... in Ep. III Anakin will find out that Amadala is really his sister, and they clone Anakin to make Luke...
Why did I call a post about our "New War" off topic in a thread about the RIAA hacking into computers? Don't you see a difference here? Why don't you try to express your feelings about the war in a different forum? How about one that is discussing those issues? Calling anyone immature and a censor for no reason sounds immature and censor-like. Don't you think? I'm tired of seeing these types of posts everywhere I look, everyone trys to get their viewpoint in at any time they see fit. Quite honestly, I don't care what your viewpoint is. Just as you could care less what mine is. Let me read about the dumb ass RIAA, and you discuss your views in a more appropriate thread.
Oh, and don't let your cable-modem get fried during a lightning storm... It took 3 months before a tech could be scheduled to come out and replace it. (seriously) Then it was up for a month, then lightning took it again.. once again it was 3 months before a tech could replace. I'm on my 3'd one now, and so far it's held up. (2 years) Oh, I'm not a complete moron, I had a surge protector/UPS on the power, apparently it was spiking through the cable line! Very weird, and very poor customer service/technical support! Also, they had this weird problem with deleting my e-mail account every Sunday night. It would take me 2 days to get to be able to e-mail again. I swear if I hear one of those tier 1 techs tell me again to wait 15 minutes while they "refresh"......
The RIAA's goal is to probably force a law into existance that clearly defines that all file sharing has to stop. Once there's a law, they need only report, not sue, to get the police involved. (Note: I, personally, am FOR file sharing.) Why don't we create this gigantic library where we can contribute our personal work for free, and, in turn, have free access to everyone else's work that is submitted? Kind of like a file-share-a-sannce. Information should be free!
The key to writing anything worthwile is to tell a story. Most Sci-Fi never gets beyond the "idea", and ends up telling the story very poorly.
Ideas are important, and crucial to Sci-Fi. The reason the first Star Trek was so good, was because Roddenbury(sp?) had good ideas and he understood that the key to his show was the universe, not neccessarily the day to day mundane happenings of life. If you are writing Science fiction, and have a wonderful, magical world out there, that (the environment) should be your story, not some petty personal conflict among the crew.
Too many Sci-Fi writers try to just use an idea, and build personal conflict around it in a futuristic setting, and they just plain old forget to tell a good story and build on their universe. If you look at The Hobbit, Tolkein didn't get too much into character conflict. He brought you into his world, and explained it beautifully. The world was what the story was about, not so much the people in it.
Honestly, I used to absolutely dig Sci-Fi, but they keep building off of each other, and the "futuristic" technology ideas that they incorporate into each show have become mundane and unimaginative. The writers know this, so they add petty, everyday jibber-jabber into the script, and the show ends up being flat.
Maybe he was arrested for "violating" the DMCA, kind of like Al Capone was arrested for Tax Evasion. It was a weak charge, but we knew that Al was guilty of other things. Same could hold true for Dimitri. Also, maybe the reason the media hasn't jumped on this story, is because so little facts are known about what else he may be suspected of, and they don't want to jump on a free Dimitri bandwagon if the guy is accused of espionage. Who knows?! My opinion is that if he is in jail for a brush with the DMCA, then he needs to be let go. It's that simple.
Yep, tried to put glitz, and typical Hollywood techniques to a dark, quaint, once scary and thought provoking show. Hollywood absolutely ruined a good show. I quit watching after the first 3 eps of the 6th season. I was a die hard fan, had to not schedule anything on Sunday nights to watch the X-files. Now, I couldn't care less.
FF3 was wonderful! I got each character up to 9999 on all 3 savegames.. took hundreds upon hundreds of hours, but it NEVER got old. Who's got that Moogle charm?? How many Hoovers have you killed for MP? Do you remember how to do Saban's Pummel? Who was his "refined" brother? Who has a castle that goes under the desert? Who is the flying gambler? If you know the answers to these questions, you're a hard core FF3 junkie!
However, I had the most fun with FF7!
I stood up and cheered at the end when Cloud met Seph, and a group of friends and I would get together and drink and bet on the Chocobo races. (damn we're pathetic). Only problem I had was that the Summons took way too long. You could cast Bahamut Zero and get up and smoke a cigarette before it was done.
I couldn't get into FF8, it started getting way to cinematic. It lost my interest almost immediately.
I'm all for FF10, just as long as Square remembers to put a game in there somewhere.
Ultimately, Cyc isn't actually making decisions, but re-gurgitating what it's been told previously - the people programming it make the decisions.
But before it can make logical, morally right decisions it has to understand why we humans do what we do. It has to understand the underlying motivation of the human condition. And before it can attempt to do that, the computer needs to understand what it is to be human.
Remember, at this point, computers are "blind" to our world. They don't really understand our speech yet. They cannot successfully negotiate themselves around in this world(walk, run, swim, etc.) So, computers have no other way of exploring our world and understanding us unless we program them to do so. Because of the math and logical input methods, their understanding of our world will be a logical one. So probably the only thing that the computer will not immediately understand is human emotion. However, if put to good use, maybe we can quantify emotion, and predict emotion given hormonal levels. That is if Cyc gets good data.
I say, that once this system understands the difference between redundant, good, bad, and false data, open source this puppy to the General Public. Allow data entry over the website. The more diverse and quantiful the data, the better it's understanding will be of the general human condition.
Peace!!!
Why should the general public take over the job of the police that are being paid to protect us? If I'm having a heart attack, and my wife is frantically trying to get me to the hospital, wouldn't being "voted off" the interstate for 5 minutes because some people didn't agree with my wife's driving seem a little ridiculous? It's not up to the public to make these decisions. The public should be able to alert authorities. They can do that already. If you have a cell phone and are driving along the interstate, you can hit *lsp (in Louisiana) and get a state trooper to help you with your problem. Anarchy, mob rule went out with the caveman.
Yeah, it's a typo. Don't get your are panties in a not..:)
It's that damn "All Your Base" crap that is messing us all up!
All My Typo are belong to me!
I think the whole purpose of a Union in the IT industry would be to fight the hours that are being put in.
We are not automechanics. If you call your mechanic to come and fix your alternator at 2am on a Saturday morning, he'll tell you to kiss his ass and bring it to the shop Monday morning, and maybe he'll look at it before noon.
How many of us would tell our CEO that we won't go check on the Exchange server on a Saturday night because he can't get his e-mail?
"I'm playing with my son sir. See you at 8am Monday!"/click/ Fired
Simply, there are different expectations for IT workers than normal workers. We keep hours like doctors. We're the doctors of the business world. But we're getting paid like mechanics. (they make good money, and they can tell you to kiss their ass!!!)
Peace!
In the article it said that it would be going above the "Thick" atmosphere to transmit to earth. That's thin isn't it? But seriously, do you think a friggin blimp is the ticket to continuous exploration of Titan?
Peace!!
ShortedOut
We can't send a human being around the world in a balloon, what makes us think that we can send a helium filled balloon to Titan, and have it successfully circumnavigate that moon without any problems?
We can't even use those remote controlled balloons around the house without ripping it on a ceiling fan!
It won't work guys, do not waste time, and money on this thing. You won't be able to make it light enough, and strong enough for a foreign atmosphere. The propellers alone would have to be like 21 feet long to work in that thin of atmosphere!!!
Peace!!!
ShortedOut
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed, the show went downhill after it moved the shooting from Vancouver to California. The dark dreary days, and the separation from the Hollywood hype is what made the show great. I was an avid fan up until that season. After that, I just quit watching because the episodes became just too silly.
I admit, I cheated on intro to VB! I stayed out drinking almost every night right before the program was due, so I schmoozed up those nerdy chicks to give me the code so that I wouldn't fail. Honestly now, why waste time coding VB, which I never use, when I could be out partying, and drinking, which I always use? Cheating in VB is just as much a part of getting a well rounded college education as getting laid is!
I'm 27 but I look like I'm 37, but the good thing about it, is that I can probably light up my Marlboro's without feeling worried!
Way to go p53!
I can think of over a thousand uses for a device such as this for a hardware support technician. What about people who can not have internet access at home and need to share files from work(and a ton of cash burning a hole in their pocket)? This invention is a God-send! Imagine what all of our spies/disgruntled employees can get themselves into now!
The internet was once a friendly place where one could go to get information about almost anything that they wanted to know for free. Then someone figured out that they could probably make money from it, and then we were constantly bombarded with pop-up adds, subscription fees, and online shopping. This trend isn't new. Look at how M$ came to power... The sad fact is, people need to make money, and the easiest way to make money is to whore out someone elses love. In M$ case it was basically stealing DOS.. The problem with the internet is much larger: it's like sex... Something that is meant to be and born out of love... however some people sell it... Some of these 'net companies are nothing but a bunch of pimps. The only the internet will change for the better is when people no longer profit from subscriptions to information, and there are no more pop-up adds/advertisments. Come on you Linux guys.... isn't information supposed to be free? An open-source internet?
You're fooling yourself, we do not live in a plutocratic oligarchy, we live in a world where the media rules all human thought. We live in a Mediocracy. :) Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
My original point was, was that the people who run those corporations are human like you and me. However, some are more humane than others. But I totally agree with your statment that the people who hold our wealth have a lot to say about our future. Keep the faith my man!
Keep in mind that the corporate boards have making money as number one on their agenda. They are required to make money for themselves, their families, their stock holders and their employees and their families. They aren't the enemy. Keep in mind that the corporate boards are made up of people, people like you and me. The attitudnal shift has to happen from the root level. The change cannot occur overnight, it will take generations. I can't blame corporations from trying to provide a better life for their families, and they do the majority of the charity work. What seems to be neglected in the "board room" is a sense of responsibility towards humanity, and that requires a visionary. Being a visionary is not a requirement for an MBA at any university. Also, helping humanity hurts the bottom line.
How about a paradigm shift in the way the American culture has been going for the past 200 years? How about a shift from the "me" attitude that is common in America today to become more socially aware, and aware of the impact on our environment and society that a single individual imposes. You mention McDonald's and their happy meal toys, and the garbage that they cause, that is the prototypical example of the me-now attitude that we are teaching our children. All growing up we are taught that we are special, and unique. What we have to realize is that EVERYONE is special and unique, and we have to respect others, even if it means the next generation. What we need now more than anything is a cultural revolution. To get away from quick fixes, and me now garbage. Instead of spending the money on "Happy meal" toys, why not emplore McDonalds to give that money to Cancer research, or building a great work of art? Where is the pride in craftsmanship in the world today? Why don't we build brick roads that can last for hundreds of years rather than quick asphalt solutions that pothole-up after the first hard rain? Money is not the problem, never really has been, it's the attitude of the here, now quick fixes that is the downfall of our society today. This rant can go on and on, but our pollution is a symbol of our polluted attitude toward our world.
Get every Geek what he really wants: A CowboyNeal Picture of the day calandar! That way, they could look forward to each and every day of the year knowing that there is always someone with a more pathetic existance than they have!!! :)
Where does the aunt and uncle come that Luke stays with during Ep. IV come into play? What about the people that Leia stays with when she is growing up? Maybe it's all just a ploy... in Ep. III Anakin will find out that Amadala is really his sister, and they clone Anakin to make Luke...
Why did I call a post about our "New War" off topic in a thread about the RIAA hacking into computers? Don't you see a difference here? Why don't you try to express your feelings about the war in a different forum? How about one that is discussing those issues? Calling anyone immature and a censor for no reason sounds immature and censor-like. Don't you think?
I'm tired of seeing these types of posts everywhere I look, everyone trys to get their viewpoint in at any time they see fit. Quite honestly, I don't care what your viewpoint is. Just as you could care less what mine is. Let me read about the dumb ass RIAA, and you discuss your views in a more appropriate thread.
Thank you!
Oh, and don't let your cable-modem get fried during a lightning storm... It took 3 months before a tech could be scheduled to come out and replace it. (seriously) Then it was up for a month, then lightning took it again.. once again it was 3 months before a tech could replace. I'm on my 3'd one now, and so far it's held up. (2 years) Oh, I'm not a complete moron, I had a surge protector/UPS on the power, apparently it was spiking through the cable line! Very weird, and very poor customer service/technical support! Also, they had this weird problem with deleting my e-mail account every Sunday night. It would take me 2 days to get to be able to e-mail again. I swear if I hear one of those tier 1 techs tell me again to wait 15 minutes while they "refresh"......
Peace!
ShortedOut
Isn't this just a tad offtopic?
The RIAA's goal is to probably force a law into existance that clearly defines that all file sharing has to stop. Once there's a law, they need only report, not sue, to get the police involved. (Note: I, personally, am FOR file sharing.) Why don't we create this gigantic library where we can contribute our personal work for free, and, in turn, have free access to everyone else's work that is submitted? Kind of like a file-share-a-sannce. Information should be free!
The key to writing anything worthwile is to tell a story. Most Sci-Fi never gets beyond the "idea", and ends up telling the story very poorly.
Ideas are important, and crucial to Sci-Fi. The reason the first Star Trek was so good, was because Roddenbury(sp?) had good ideas and he understood that the key to his show was the universe, not neccessarily the day to day mundane happenings of life. If you are writing Science fiction, and have a wonderful, magical world out there, that (the environment) should be your story, not some petty personal conflict among the crew.
Too many Sci-Fi writers try to just use an idea, and build personal conflict around it in a futuristic setting, and they just plain old forget to tell a good story and build on their universe. If you look at The Hobbit, Tolkein didn't get too much into character conflict. He brought you into his world, and explained it beautifully. The world was what the story was about, not so much the people in it.
Honestly, I used to absolutely dig Sci-Fi, but they keep building off of each other, and the "futuristic" technology ideas that they incorporate into each show have become mundane and unimaginative. The writers know this, so they add petty, everyday jibber-jabber into the script, and the show ends up being flat.
Maybe he was arrested for "violating" the DMCA, kind of like Al Capone was arrested for Tax Evasion. It was a weak charge, but we knew that Al was guilty of other things. Same could hold true for Dimitri. Also, maybe the reason the media hasn't jumped on this story, is because so little facts are known about what else he may be suspected of, and they don't want to jump on a free Dimitri bandwagon if the guy is accused of espionage. Who knows?!
My opinion is that if he is in jail for a brush with the DMCA, then he needs to be let go. It's that simple.
Yep, tried to put glitz, and typical Hollywood techniques to a dark, quaint, once scary and thought provoking show. Hollywood absolutely ruined a good show. I quit watching after the first 3 eps of the 6th season. I was a die hard fan, had to not schedule anything on Sunday nights to watch the X-files. Now, I couldn't care less.
FF3 was wonderful! I got each character up to 9999 on all 3 savegames.. took hundreds upon hundreds of hours, but it NEVER got old. Who's got that Moogle charm?? How many Hoovers have you killed for MP? Do you remember how to do Saban's Pummel? Who was his "refined" brother? Who has a castle that goes under the desert? Who is the flying gambler? If you know the answers to these questions, you're a hard core FF3 junkie! However, I had the most fun with FF7! I stood up and cheered at the end when Cloud met Seph, and a group of friends and I would get together and drink and bet on the Chocobo races. (damn we're pathetic). Only problem I had was that the Summons took way too long. You could cast Bahamut Zero and get up and smoke a cigarette before it was done. I couldn't get into FF8, it started getting way to cinematic. It lost my interest almost immediately. I'm all for FF10, just as long as Square remembers to put a game in there somewhere.
I have a BFG thinking about the new BFG!!!! It's time to shoot green globs at people! YES!
:)
"Gustapo!"
BFG Blast
"Mein Liben!"
Ultimately, Cyc isn't actually making decisions, but re-gurgitating what it's been told previously - the people programming it make the decisions.
But before it can make logical, morally right decisions it has to understand why we humans do what we do. It has to understand the underlying motivation of the human condition. And before it can attempt to do that, the computer needs to understand what it is to be human.
Remember, at this point, computers are "blind" to our world. They don't really understand our speech yet. They cannot successfully negotiate themselves around in this world(walk, run, swim, etc.) So, computers have no other way of exploring our world and understanding us unless we program them to do so. Because of the math and logical input methods, their understanding of our world will be a logical one. So probably the only thing that the computer will not immediately understand is human emotion. However, if put to good use, maybe we can quantify emotion, and predict emotion given hormonal levels. That is if Cyc gets good data.
I say, that once this system understands the difference between redundant, good, bad, and false data, open source this puppy to the General Public. Allow data entry over the website. The more diverse and quantiful the data, the better it's understanding will be of the general human condition.
Peace!!!
Why should the general public take over the job of the police that are being paid to protect us? If I'm having a heart attack, and my wife is frantically trying to get me to the hospital, wouldn't being "voted off" the interstate for 5 minutes because some people didn't agree with my wife's driving seem a little ridiculous? It's not up to the public to make these decisions. The public should be able to alert authorities. They can do that already. If you have a cell phone and are driving along the interstate, you can hit *lsp (in Louisiana) and get a state trooper to help you with your problem. Anarchy, mob rule went out with the caveman.
Yeah, it's a typo. Don't get your are panties in a not.. :)
It's that damn "All Your Base" crap that is messing us all up!
All My Typo are belong to me!
I think the whole purpose of a Union in the IT industry would be to fight the hours that are being put in. /click/
We are not automechanics. If you call your mechanic to come and fix your alternator at 2am on a Saturday morning, he'll tell you to kiss his ass and bring it to the shop Monday morning, and maybe he'll look at it before noon.
How many of us would tell our CEO that we won't go check on the Exchange server on a Saturday night because he can't get his e-mail? "I'm playing with my son sir. See you at 8am Monday!"
Fired
Simply, there are different expectations for IT workers than normal workers. We keep hours like doctors. We're the doctors of the business world. But we're getting paid like mechanics. (they make good money, and they can tell you to kiss their ass!!!)
Peace!
In the article it said that it would be going above the "Thick" atmosphere to transmit to earth. That's thin isn't it? But seriously, do you think a friggin blimp is the ticket to continuous exploration of Titan?
Peace!!
ShortedOut
We can't send a human being around the world in a balloon, what makes us think that we can send a helium filled balloon to Titan, and have it successfully circumnavigate that moon without any problems?
We can't even use those remote controlled balloons around the house without ripping it on a ceiling fan!
It won't work guys, do not waste time, and money on this thing. You won't be able to make it light enough, and strong enough for a foreign atmosphere. The propellers alone would have to be like 21 feet long to work in that thin of atmosphere!!!
Peace!!!
ShortedOut