Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that an internet mob bombasted a NY family over a cell phone that was left behind in a cab and found its way through the black market?
Yeah. It certainly was. Using the internet to whip up a froth of mob hatred is nothing new and nothing regional. Assholes live in every region, and can reach through the internet with ease.
Let Carnegie Mellon bring on its steel ball robot. MIT will counter it with their Wheel Chock Robot. Meanwhile, Penn State robotics department has in development the magnetic iron filings robot.
And Arizona State is working on the unlevel tile floor robot, which has two modes of attack--the missing tiles mode and the wide, deep grout lines mode.
I would have thought all the video recordings from the moon missions would have been loaded to Google Video by now. Perhaps NASA was in the process of preparing the files for upload when they discovered they don't actually have the files...
Actually, this event illustrates the conundrum that we are all presented with in this digital age. In the analog age we were accustomed to the loss of old data--it really had little value to the general population. Sure, we had a box of photos of vacations and relatives and such, a wedding album, maybe a voice recording or super-8 film. We relied on historians to do the digging and to present the past to us. People lived shorter lives and when they died they didn't leave behind much data that couldn't be easily divvied up among survivors--photos, keepsakes, mementos.
That's all changed, and with the boomers entering the end game, habits will change.
Today we can easily capture and keep quite a lot of data in a tiny area. It may not be evident just how many gems are saved on the deceased's computers, or portable devices, and how much time will it take to sift through it? It's not a group activity where you can sit with mourners around a box of photos, dig them out and tell stories as you hand them around.
Do we just shut off or reformat and not bother to look? Maybe it becomes a task assigned to one trusted person through a will--to "sift throught the data, share the gems and destroy the porn", before reformatting the system. Maybe it falls to the elderly to email out to others the digital items they treasure, so that the burden is spread around.
So, I keep an old scsi hard disk from an early Mac because I think that disk has a voice recording I captured of my daughter. Some day I want to mine that disk and recover that sound. The physical disk is of no value to others as it sits collecting dust, and is always at risk of being thrown out.
I think the experience at NASA is probably repeated among us all quite frequently.
Because they will be coming home. We should not discard them like we did to our Vietnam veterans.
I thought the current national thinking was that veterans should just "get off welfare" -- at least if the VP is to be believed.
Oh, there is very little thinking going on in Washington. Even though he never served in the military, VP Dick Cheney does indeed need healing. I recommend we submit him to endless Halo challenge matches, fully connected to biofeedback devices that simulate the video environment. And especially connected directly to his pacemaker.
Cheney could be Sgt. Cheney in the Halo match, in charge of his platoon of chickenhawks. And they could reinact Saving Private Ryan, only Private Ryan is Ollie North. Would you pay to see that match replayed on Google Video? Damn right you would!
Besides, the government has already told us that playing videogames will reliably turn you into a psychotic baby-murderer. You really want to take someone who's been trained to kill and make them into a crazed maniac?
Well, that's why the Army uses videogames for recruiting and training. However, I think the doctors mentioned in this article have convinced some that by guiding soldiers through a simulated environment, they can undo a lot of the damage that has been done, both through training and by consequence.
Seriously, we will have quite a large number of soldiers returning to our streets, who during the day built soccer fields and schools, at night they invaded Iraqi homes, rousted families and shot people dead. At checkpoints they unloaded clips into vehicles to discover innocents who did not understand they would be killed for approaching. They have seen their buddies killed by bombs and snipers. Do you think they should be accorded some treatment to help them re-adapt to our megaconsumer society that sacrificed nothing while they served overseas?
Do you think their jobs are still waiting? Do you think they can adapt to mundane family life once more? Do you think they will tolerate what has passed for political discourse after being exposed to the reality of Iraq? It is something we have to address, and if video environments help, then it is one more tool at our disposal.
And no matter where you live, there you are. And when in Rome you do like the Romans. And Romans liked bloodsport--lots and lots of bloody games.
Video games are our modern form of bloodsport, and if they can be altered to do something good for people who need assistance, then that's a positive development.
Sure. I rented the Black Hole to show it to my kids. And they wouldn't watch it, so it sat gathering dust for a week or so, and then I watched it alone and then mailed it back.
You know, to get my money's worth...
Anyway, it was a hoot seeing Ernest Borgnine again, and listening to that Disney-fied Right Stuff hogwash dialog. It was funny and painful at the same time.
Where did they end up at the end of the movie? On a slow boat to certain death as their resources dwindled and fighting broke out over the woman. And after the humans were gone, V.I.N.CENT became the loneliest little robot. Ever.
A psychiatrist I knew who served in WWII treated shell-shocked vets by introducing them to model railroading--the type where you would build everything from kits.
Model railroading worked a lot better than the George S. Patton school of rehabilitation.
I hope these simulated video environments truly help those soldiers who served our country.
On the minus side, JMS's dialog skills are a bit weak
That's a real drawback, and resulted in a show where most of the storytelling happens in monolog.
I always thought he could benefit by studying David Mamet, and lo and behold, Mamet gets his own show. The Unit is holding up nicely--great dialog, great fx.
and the production values are pretty low by today's standards.
Sci-fi shows rarely age well, fx-wise. But really, B5 didn't use a lot of fx beyond what Drew Carey has done with green screen. It is the failure of the writer to understand how to use visual storytelling, pacing, timing and other non-technical dramatic effects that have sealed the fate of this show's place in history.
Re:innovative content production and distribution
on
Babylon 5 Coming Back?
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· Score: 1
I think of this B5 direct to DVD as another innovation by JMS.
Innovation? You used innovation in Slashdot to describe this newsbit?
Direct-to-DVD is old news.
Distributing on little plastic disks is passe. Today's innovator distributes through YouTube or Google Video.
And innovative writers don't cough up backstory hairballs from a tale he told a decade ago. It shows the brains behind this move hasn't got anything to compete with the edgy, SUCCESSFUL Sci-fi that's happened after B5 went off the air: Lexx, Farscape, Battlestar Galactica and Dr. Who have raised the bar much higher.
Babylon 5 is hardly "back." Direct to DVD 20 minute character episodes hardly qualify as any sort of ressurection.
The fanboys will eat these up, or post them on Youtube. All Straczynski has to do is have Bruce Boxleitner stand in front of a wall and yammer for 20 minutes.
I might consider purchasing the background story of that replacement commander with the big tits. What was her name? You know, the one who stepped in for the boring fifth season after her predecessor achieved godhood.
Babylon 5 was great but it didn't instill the sort of eternal love that series like Doctor Who (and even Star Trek: the Next Generation to some degree) have.
The torch of eternal love is lit and carried by Jay Denebeim over at rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated, and it is truly a sight to behold.
To this very day if I walked outside and saw a Dalek or Patrick Stewart I would shit my pants, a creature or actor from Babylon 5, not so much.
If I saw a Dalek outside I would put my cigarette butt in it. If it were Patrick Stewart I'd say "booya! I'm the freakin' ghost of Christmas future, mofo!", and if Andreas Katsulas were out on the street, well, that would just be wrong.
>>When I said 'we', I wasn't referring to you - I was referring to Fantastic Lad. As for the rest of your post, I don't really find your attitude very... friendly... so I'll simply refrain from responding to the rest of it.
That is always the most civil way to approach a discussion.
Yes, I included myself in your tete-a-tete with Fantistic Lad because I claim clairvoyance and I was there to witness the collusion between you and he, and it was nothing more than a plan to hoodwink others. You two really need to hone your telepathic skilz, 'cuz you can't detect even a powerful clairvoyant eavesdropping on your scamfest.
>>I will, however, say that I can see you have unresolved issues relating to telepathy, as evidenced by the acidic response you have when people claim they have experienced it. While it's your right to take whatever view on the topic that you choose, you are only closing yourself off to information and relationship with people holding said information, as well as getting yourself worked up into a state for no reason. It's not hurting me. When I get this response now, I simply shake my head and turn around.
Whoopsie! Didn't follow your own advice. Well, who can blame you? This is just too much fun.
I'll say it again--you hold no secret knowledge of telepathy because it does not exist and people should feel no compunction to seek you out to pursue magical mystical mind-fumfering. I don't mind calling you on it, either, because history has proven time and again that the quest for knowledge is better served by the scientific method than by seeking smoothtalking salespersons.
So, Popular Science took a break from its glut of war porn and crackpot energy generation schemes to write a story about yet another impractical energy scheme.
Why am I not surprised? Then again, I guess the answer is in the name of the magazine, and it is just more popular to try to wish your way out of a crisis, rather than sacrifice consumption and promote significant change in the way we live.
At least they still have the BEST artwork in the trade...
>>To be pedantic, we mutated two more, green and blue. Ten percent of the population have an extra green, making four total and ripe for another mutation.
This ability to see more green explains why 10% of the US population is extremely wealthy. Or, it did, until we started adding other colors to the greenback.
Dagnabbit! And here I sit, struggling to see green at all. Colorblindness is not fun.
Well, maybe if I spend less time on slashdot and more doing labor, I might see more green...
Well, *somebody* missed the point. You have fooled yourself into believing in telepathy.
>We have both experienced telepathy first-hand.
No you didn't. I am clairvoyant and I was there and you did not.
>We require no further proof.
You just don't find many million-dollar offers for this level of evidence.
>What we're discussing is whether telepathy is able to be proved. Your attitude is the exact one I was referring to when I said that proof carries an assumption of a negative result.
Telepathy is a matter of attitude, belief, faith, and willingness to interpret your experiences in terms of mysticism. You accept anectdote on faith, because you want to believe in magical mind powers. This is easily proven, and has been proven time and again that gullible people are easily swayed into belief.
Proof is a matter of evidence, repeatibility, and predictability. You can offer none of this, and on the day you do, you become a millionaire.
>Until you can drop this attitude, your own personal proof will never materialise, and you will always be a sceptic, insisting that the 'believers' proove something to you.
Yes, that would be the definition of proof. You have no right to speak of proof in any terms, personal or scientific, until you meet standards for evidence.
>As my original post argued ( and Fantastic Lad's concurred ), it doesn't work like that. It's not testable. You will have to accept that there is an area - a very large area in fact - of mystic and psychadelic experience that is beyond scientific inquiry.
Oh, not at all! I already know there is a very large arena of humans bullshitting other humans to generate belief and faith in things that do not exist. The scientific method continues to differentiate reality from quackery and mysticism.
>It's a hard situation to accept for someone who has never experienced what we're talking about, but trust us, this is how it works.
You are a recruiter, and your methods are exactly those employed by others who recruit to mystical belief. In the scientific world, you have to earn trust, and by doing so, you could earn a cool $1 million, too!
>> You have conflated your lack of understanding of events around you into a faith that telepathy exists.
> Well now. That's quite the assumption. You do realize that to make and believe in such a bold statement about me requires faith, don't you? (Unless, of course, you have some impirical evidence for your theory about the events transpiring around me.)
Oh, no such thing! I read what you wrote about your mystical journey toward your belief in telepathy. It was plain as day. You admitted having absolutely no empirical evidence for the experience you perceived that led you to believe in magical mind powers.
>>To date, despite decades of research, there is not a scintilla of evidence for telepathy.
I stand by that statement. In the history of earth, there is absolutely no evidence for telepathy. Just as there is no evidence for the existence of ghosts, UFOs or God. There is only belief and faith, based on anectotes and human fallability.
If you have peer-reviewed scientific evidence for mystical, magical mind powers, please go collect your million dollars.
Muddy thinking is an asset to faith, but not to science.
Oh. My. God. You have conflated your lack of understanding of events around you into a faith that telepathy exists. If it is a matter of faith, then there is nothing further to be done. Within your mind you believe in the supernatural.
What Randi is doing is separating faith for telepathy from evidence for telepathy. In other words, if something caused an experience, there should be evidence for it. To date, despite decades of research, there is not a scintilla of evidence for telepathy.
There is, however, overwhelming evidence that the human brain plays tricks on itself with regularity.
All that's left is for you and your ilk to come to terms with your faith in secular-based telepathy and your faith in God, who told you not to put faith and belief in any supernatural power but himself. For he is a jealous and angry God, and he might take away our milk and honey and have Jesus kick your ass when he returns next week.
> yet when OPEC gets together and "FIXES" a price for oil we just bend over and take it up the tailpipe?
Where have you been for 30 years? OPEC hasn't successfully fixed an oil price for decades.
Oil prices are determined by demand for a supply that is at maximum now, and will never be greater than it is today. Supply has begun its long decline and you will pay more and more for that go-go juice.
It was only a while back that we learned that hydrogen sulfide gas could put a mouse into suspended animation, without freezing. I wonder how this method is working out. (I perused the science fairs locally and didn't see any kids farting on mice in jars...)
I suppose that the nature of pigs is such that they thrive on exposure to hydrogen sulfide gas, whereas a mouse tends to faint dead away.
"The position of the animals in the maze is detected using colour-tracking via a camera, and linked to the ghosts in the game."
I dunno about you, but the PacMan I played when young never had ghosts start humping each other in the middle of the maze. They never laid eggs under each other's skin, either.
And there was never some announcer off to the side of the game inciting "Jim" to go wrestle with the ghosts
"This way, the real animals are directly controlling the virtual ghosts."
Well, we could be real animals while playing the game (visualize that, Halo-heads!).
Does this improve the game-play? Maybe, if you are Zorak and you have some time to kill...
>That's why Jobs was a success building Apple, a failure when it was on top, and a success again upon his return in the darkest days of the company.
I don't think you remember Steve Jobs' true passion: NeXT, which he built into a failure.
Nah, Jobs has no passion, that's why he finds time to split among two companies as CEO. He just doesn't give a shit any more, and is merely calling it in. Sure, he's got the best PR machine money can buy, but there's no soul.
Now, the guy who demonstrated passion was that guy who stood outside Jobs' home and threw pebbles at his windows. *That* guy was passionate about getting his job back!
Slashdot Mirror
Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that an internet mob bombasted a NY family over a cell phone that was left behind in a cab and found its way through the black market?
Yeah. It certainly was. Using the internet to whip up a froth of mob hatred is nothing new and nothing regional. Assholes live in every region, and can reach through the internet with ease.
Let Carnegie Mellon bring on its steel ball robot. MIT will counter it with their Wheel Chock Robot. Meanwhile, Penn State robotics department has in development the magnetic iron filings robot.
And Arizona State is working on the unlevel tile floor robot, which has two modes of attack--the missing tiles mode and the wide, deep grout lines mode.
...then he won't know it's not working, will he?
You know what to do!
I would have thought all the video recordings from the moon missions would have been loaded to Google Video by now. Perhaps NASA was in the process of preparing the files for upload when they discovered they don't actually have the files...
Actually, this event illustrates the conundrum that we are all presented with in this digital age. In the analog age we were accustomed to the loss of old data--it really had little value to the general population. Sure, we had a box of photos of vacations and relatives and such, a wedding album, maybe a voice recording or super-8 film. We relied on historians to do the digging and to present the past to us. People lived shorter lives and when they died they didn't leave behind much data that couldn't be easily divvied up among survivors--photos, keepsakes, mementos.
That's all changed, and with the boomers entering the end game, habits will change.
Today we can easily capture and keep quite a lot of data in a tiny area. It may not be evident just how many gems are saved on the deceased's computers, or portable devices, and how much time will it take to sift through it? It's not a group activity where you can sit with mourners around a box of photos, dig them out and tell stories as you hand them around.
Do we just shut off or reformat and not bother to look? Maybe it becomes a task assigned to one trusted person through a will--to "sift throught the data, share the gems and destroy the porn", before reformatting the system.
Maybe it falls to the elderly to email out to others the digital items they treasure, so that the burden is spread around.
So, I keep an old scsi hard disk from an early Mac because I think that disk has a voice recording I captured of my daughter. Some day I want to mine that disk and recover that sound. The physical disk is of no value to others as it sits collecting dust, and is always at risk of being thrown out.
I think the experience at NASA is probably repeated among us all quite frequently.
Cheney could be Sgt. Cheney in the Halo match, in charge of his platoon of chickenhawks. And they could reinact Saving Private Ryan, only Private Ryan is Ollie North. Would you pay to see that match replayed on Google Video? Damn right you would!
Well, that's why the Army uses videogames for recruiting and training. However, I think the doctors mentioned in this article have convinced some that by guiding soldiers through a simulated environment, they can undo a lot of the damage that has been done, both through training and by consequence.Seriously, we will have quite a large number of soldiers returning to our streets, who during the day built soccer fields and schools, at night they invaded Iraqi homes, rousted families and shot people dead. At checkpoints they unloaded clips into vehicles to discover innocents who did not understand they would be killed for approaching. They have seen their buddies killed by bombs and snipers. Do you think they should be accorded some treatment to help them re-adapt to our megaconsumer society that sacrificed nothing while they served overseas?
Do you think their jobs are still waiting? Do you think they can adapt to mundane family life once more? Do you think they will tolerate what has passed for political discourse after being exposed to the reality of Iraq? It is something we have to address, and if video environments help, then it is one more tool at our disposal.
I didn't say *which* country.
And no matter where you live, there you are. And when in Rome you do like the Romans. And Romans liked bloodsport--lots and lots of bloody games.
Video games are our modern form of bloodsport, and if they can be altered to do something good for people who need assistance, then that's a positive development.
Sure. I rented the Black Hole to show it to my kids. And they wouldn't watch it, so it sat gathering dust for a week or so, and then I watched it alone and then mailed it back.
You know, to get my money's worth...
Anyway, it was a hoot seeing Ernest Borgnine again, and listening to that Disney-fied Right Stuff hogwash dialog. It was funny and painful at the same time.
Where did they end up at the end of the movie? On a slow boat to certain death as their resources dwindled and fighting broke out over the woman. And after the humans were gone, V.I.N.CENT became the loneliest little robot. Ever.
A psychiatrist I knew who served in WWII treated shell-shocked vets by introducing them to model railroading--the type where you would build everything from kits.
Model railroading worked a lot better than the George S. Patton school of rehabilitation.
I hope these simulated video environments truly help those soldiers who served our country.
That's a real drawback, and resulted in a show where most of the storytelling happens in monolog.
I always thought he could benefit by studying David Mamet, and lo and behold, Mamet gets his own show. The Unit is holding up nicely--great dialog, great fx.
Sci-fi shows rarely age well, fx-wise. But really, B5 didn't use a lot of fx beyond what Drew Carey has done with green screen. It is the failure of the writer to understand how to use visual storytelling, pacing, timing and other non-technical dramatic effects that have sealed the fate of this show's place in history.
Innovation? You used innovation in Slashdot to describe this newsbit?
Direct-to-DVD is old news.
Distributing on little plastic disks is passe. Today's innovator distributes through YouTube or Google Video.
And innovative writers don't cough up backstory hairballs from a tale he told a decade ago. It shows the brains behind this move hasn't got anything to compete with the edgy, SUCCESSFUL Sci-fi that's happened after B5 went off the air: Lexx, Farscape, Battlestar Galactica and Dr. Who have raised the bar much higher.
Naw, innovative is not the word for this ploy.
I might consider purchasing the background story of that replacement commander with the big tits. What was her name? You know, the one who stepped in for the boring fifth season after her predecessor achieved godhood.
The torch of eternal love is lit and carried by Jay Denebeim over at rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated, and it is truly a sight to behold. If I saw a Dalek outside I would put my cigarette butt in it. If it were Patrick Stewart I'd say "booya! I'm the freakin' ghost of Christmas future, mofo!", and if Andreas Katsulas were out on the street, well, that would just be wrong.>>When I said 'we', I wasn't referring to you - I was referring to Fantastic Lad. As for the rest of your post, I don't really find your attitude very ... friendly ... so I'll simply refrain from responding to the rest of it.
That is always the most civil way to approach a discussion.
Yes, I included myself in your tete-a-tete with Fantistic Lad because I claim clairvoyance and I was there to witness the collusion between you and he, and it was nothing more than a plan to hoodwink others. You two really need to hone your telepathic skilz, 'cuz you can't detect even a powerful clairvoyant eavesdropping on your scamfest.
>>I will, however, say that I can see you have unresolved issues relating to telepathy, as evidenced by the acidic response you have when people claim they have experienced it. While it's your right to take whatever view on the topic that you choose, you are only closing yourself off to information and relationship with people holding said information, as well as getting yourself worked up into a state for no reason. It's not hurting me. When I get this response now, I simply shake my head and turn around.
Whoopsie! Didn't follow your own advice. Well, who can blame you? This is just too much fun.
I'll say it again--you hold no secret knowledge of telepathy because it does not exist and people should feel no compunction to seek you out to pursue magical mystical mind-fumfering. I don't mind calling you on it, either, because history has proven time and again that the quest for knowledge is better served by the scientific method than by seeking smoothtalking salespersons.
So, Popular Science took a break from its glut of war porn and crackpot energy generation schemes to write a story about yet another impractical energy scheme.
Why am I not surprised? Then again, I guess the answer is in the name of the magazine, and it is just more popular to try to wish your way out of a crisis, rather than sacrifice consumption and promote significant change in the way we live.
At least they still have the BEST artwork in the trade...
>>To be pedantic, we mutated two more, green and blue. Ten percent of the population have an extra green, making four total and ripe for another mutation.
This ability to see more green explains why 10% of the US population is extremely wealthy. Or, it did, until we started adding other colors to the greenback.
Dagnabbit! And here I sit, struggling to see green at all. Colorblindness is not fun.
Well, maybe if I spend less time on slashdot and more doing labor, I might see more green...
>Wow dude. You've completely missed our points.
Well, *somebody* missed the point. You have fooled yourself into believing in telepathy.
>We have both experienced telepathy first-hand.
No you didn't. I am clairvoyant and I was there and you did not.
>We require no further proof.
You just don't find many million-dollar offers for this level of evidence.
>What we're discussing is whether telepathy is able to be proved. Your attitude is the exact one I was referring to when I said that proof carries an assumption of a negative result.
Telepathy is a matter of attitude, belief, faith, and willingness to interpret your experiences in terms of mysticism. You accept anectdote on faith, because you want to believe in magical mind powers. This is easily proven, and has been proven time and again that gullible people are easily swayed into belief.
Proof is a matter of evidence, repeatibility, and predictability. You can offer none of this, and on the day you do, you become a millionaire.
>Until you can drop this attitude, your own personal proof will never materialise, and you will always be a sceptic, insisting that the 'believers' proove something to you.
Yes, that would be the definition of proof. You have no right to speak of proof in any terms, personal or scientific, until you meet standards for evidence.
>As my original post argued ( and Fantastic Lad's concurred ), it doesn't work like that. It's not testable. You will have to accept that there is an area - a very large area in fact - of mystic and psychadelic experience that is beyond scientific inquiry.
Oh, not at all! I already know there is a very large arena of humans bullshitting other humans to generate belief and faith in things that do not exist. The scientific method continues to differentiate reality from quackery and mysticism.
>It's a hard situation to accept for someone who has never experienced what we're talking about, but trust us, this is how it works.
You are a recruiter, and your methods are exactly those employed by others who recruit to mystical belief. In the scientific world, you have to earn trust, and by doing so, you could earn a cool $1 million, too!
>> You have conflated your lack of understanding of events around you into a faith that telepathy exists.
> Well now. That's quite the assumption. You do realize that to make and believe in such a bold statement about me requires faith, don't you? (Unless, of course, you have some impirical evidence for your theory about the events transpiring around me.)
Oh, no such thing! I read what you wrote about your mystical journey toward your belief in telepathy. It was plain as day. You admitted having absolutely no empirical evidence for the experience you perceived that led you to believe in magical mind powers.
>>To date, despite decades of research, there is not a scintilla of evidence for telepathy.
I stand by that statement. In the history of earth, there is absolutely no evidence for telepathy. Just as there is no evidence for the existence of ghosts, UFOs or God. There is only belief and faith, based on anectotes and human fallability.
If you have peer-reviewed scientific evidence for mystical, magical mind powers, please go collect your million dollars.
Muddy thinking is an asset to faith, but not to science.
Oh. My. God. You have conflated your lack of understanding of events around you into a faith that telepathy exists. If it is a matter of faith, then there is nothing further to be done. Within your mind you believe in the supernatural.
What Randi is doing is separating faith for telepathy from evidence for telepathy. In other words, if something caused an experience, there should be evidence for it. To date, despite decades of research, there is not a scintilla of evidence for telepathy.
There is, however, overwhelming evidence that the human brain plays tricks on itself with regularity.
All that's left is for you and your ilk to come to terms with your faith in secular-based telepathy and your faith in God, who told you not to put faith and belief in any supernatural power but himself. For he is a jealous and angry God, and he might take away our milk and honey and have Jesus kick your ass when he returns next week.
> Raise my hand if your a telepath.
Ok, I just did that. You probably didn't feel my influence, but I did indeed force you to raise your hand just now.
Now I can do the same for a group of skinheads. Watch!
"Heil Hitler!"
There, you see? I have the force.
> Figure out a test and tell how to prevent my Migraines and I'll give you a million dollars.
This is a really tough challenge, because the first step, cutting off your head with a saw, precludes step two, getting paid.
Dang. I can see why that is worth a million!
Randi never claimed to be a scientist on a quest. He is a debunker of pseudoscience and has proven darn good at it.
I think the Amazing Randi speaks in shorthand now, after decades of chuckleheads spouting the same baseless gunk.
Oh, wait! I just felt a chill in the room. You know, in this fleabag hotel a lot of people have died over the years. I wonder if it is ghosts.
Naw, they just fixed the air conditioner.
Then it will be just like many haunted house movies. Cheap dramatics, suspenseful music, shallow character development, gullible audience.
Those boys over at SETI could point their antennas at this experiment and still nothing will be found.
> yet when OPEC gets together and "FIXES" a price for oil we just bend over and take it up the tailpipe?
Where have you been for 30 years? OPEC hasn't successfully fixed an oil price for decades.
Oil prices are determined by demand for a supply that is at maximum now, and will never be greater than it is today. Supply has begun its long decline and you will pay more and more for that go-go juice.
I'm surprised you don't know this stuff.
It was only a while back that we learned that hydrogen sulfide gas could put a mouse into suspended animation, without freezing. I wonder how this method is working out. (I perused the science fairs locally and didn't see any kids farting on mice in jars...)
I suppose that the nature of pigs is such that they thrive on exposure to hydrogen sulfide gas, whereas a mouse tends to faint dead away.
"The position of the animals in the maze is detected using colour-tracking via a camera, and linked to the ghosts in the game."
I dunno about you, but the PacMan I played when young never had ghosts start humping each other in the middle of the maze. They never laid eggs under each other's skin, either.
And there was never some announcer off to the side of the game inciting "Jim" to go wrestle with the ghosts
"This way, the real animals are directly controlling the virtual ghosts."
Well, we could be real animals while playing the game (visualize that, Halo-heads!).
Does this improve the game-play? Maybe, if you are Zorak and you have some time to kill...
>That's why Jobs was a success building Apple, a failure when it was on top, and a success again upon his return in the darkest days of the company.
I don't think you remember Steve Jobs' true passion: NeXT, which he built into a failure.
Nah, Jobs has no passion, that's why he finds time to split among two companies as CEO. He just doesn't give a shit any more, and is merely calling it in. Sure, he's got the best PR machine money can buy, but there's no soul.
Now, the guy who demonstrated passion was that guy who stood outside Jobs' home and threw pebbles at his windows. *That* guy was passionate about getting his job back!