Neither did I expect the Messiah to come down and fellate me, as so many who were disappointed by Episode I seem to have expected.
This should be modded up, if only for that particular line...
But seriously, I may have expected a little too much from Episode 1, but it did disappoint in key areas.
Ep.1 had the worst child actor I can think of in a movie of that proportion and hype. It almost made the kid in the 6th Sense look like he might have been the messiah. Lucas seriously botched there... ("Whoopieeee!")
Darth Maul - the cover-for-the-real-villian villian, and apparent center of the Ep 1 marketing universe, was very very poorly developed. He had, what, like one line in the flick??? Not even a good one (or two) at that!
Mythical hype was actually pretty good w.r.t. Yoda and the council, and respectable with the Obi-Wan/Qui-Gon relationship development. The hype was way too much for any film to live up to, but these areas were at least good enough to make me want to see the rest of the movies.
As for being for the kiddies, it appears that Ep 1 was indeed a kiddie flick. I expected the prequels to be, not necessarily mature or deep, but at least approaching the level of the original trilogy - the trilogy that I can still watch today with minimal discomfort from the cheesiness inherent in such a film (with the exception of the ewoks. God they sucked.)
(Nit-picking a little here, it would have been nice to have seen a little evil in young Anakin...)
So damn what if it's just backstory! Does that make it ok to fill the film up with bad acting, a few "filler" scenes, and enough special effects to give one a headache from the too-blasted-loud-THX-kick-my-ass theatre system?
Are you a Southerner? (referring to anything cola-ish as a "coke".)
Re:Does business always have to be this way ?
on
Dan Gillmor on WinXP
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· Score: 1
Americans fear government, especially big or powerful government. We absolutely hate being told what or how to do something. This is why we have guns. Fear of government is the whole reason we have an inefficient government in the first place - it was built to (not) work that way. No action is better than hasty action, or so the theory goes.
(Off topic: I heard that the "insurrectionist" theory of the 2nd amendment is not in vogue right now. Why the hell not? I doubt that hunting and target shooting were the stimuli that brought about a constitutional ammendment. I'm allowed to have guns because the people have the right to rebel against an oppressive government. You can argue that this is no longer a valid justification - there's no way all the NRA members + misc. gun owners in the US could hold off the US armed forces - but that's a completely different argument. I can't think of a better or more "American" reason why there would be a 2nd ammendment if not to hold the threat of rebellion against the government, thus ensuring that there would never be tyranny nor need for rebellion.)
Back on topic: American bureaucrats fall into a couple of categories. A pyramid of intelligence, it seems. A few intelligent people at the top, with decreasingly smart people as you approach the bottom. The intelligent aren't stifled by the government - they just don't work for it. They work in the private sector where their efforts have maximal impact and they are rewarded in an "economically efficent" manner. There's more cash in the private sector - a talented person will take a serious salary hit when s/he works for the government.
Capitalists don't really care whether the consumer is happy - the capitalist will only make the consumer happy enough to buy his products instead of his competitors'. In a monopoly situation, the lack of competition lowers the bar for the quality of the product - it doesn't have to be as good if it's "the only game in town."
The first task for the new employee at Hotel Infinite was to add one guest to an infinitely booked hotel... Solution: tell the new guest to go to room 1 and tell the guest in 1 to go to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4....
The second task was to add an infinite number of guests to the hotel... Solution: Tell every current guest to move to the room number double his/her current room. Tell the new guests to go to the odd numbered rooms.
Sorry, I don't where this story was first published...
Re:Random bits that are in Pi somewhere
on
Share The Pi!
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· Score: 1
IANAM (I am not a mathematician), but I don't think you could put pi (or any other irrational number) in pi
3.14....lots of numbers.... infinite number of numbers....lots more numbers.....
You'd never get to the end of INON (that is, pi) in order to tack LMN to the end... In order to put pi inside of pi, pi would have to be infinitely self-referential, thus giving it repetition... and making it a rational number.
Assume: On the x-th digit of pi, insert pi.... but on the (x*2)th digit (the xth digit of the second iteration of pi) you'd start pi again...
Therefore, pi is repeating (rational)
But, pi is not rational
Therefore, the assumption that pi contains pi cannot be true.
????
Not necessarily. A kidnapping case immediately falls into FBI terf because a kidnapper could have crossed state lines. The feds show up even if it is known that the kidnapper is still in-state.
also, and perhaps more importantly, virually all schools get federal money of some kind.
Basically, young people have no real rights. They are all disenfranchised and at the whims of old men.
To a congressman, it's a matter of who voted for him. The answer, overwhelmingly, is wealthier over poorer, older over younger (not even counting the voting age), and "better educated" over slack-jawed yokel.
It is entirely evil how our government treats youth. I thought the driving laws here in PA were anal when I was 16. (I couldn't drive after midnight - it somewhat cramped my style, but a semi-reasonable law, I suppose.) Now, my little sister has to be in by 11pm, and she had to wait 6 months after getting her learner's permit to test for her "junior" license. I understand NY has laws even more anal than that.
So many laws exist to prevent the "damn kids" from old ladies, but until recently it was entirely suicidal for a politician to propose taking away a driver's license from a 90 year old virtually blind and deaf voter. It's still not a great idea politically for someone to bring that up.
A modest proposal: Allow kids of any age to attempt to pass the INS citizenship exam in order to secure voting privileges. We (rightly) allow recently naturalized citizens to vote... What about a 16 year old who can answer a bunch of questions about the USA that a lot of lifelong citizens can't answer?
Congress passes legislation that is vague and/or contradictory.
Somebody takes it to court
The court "interprets" the law.
(Rinse and repeat for appeal process...)
If Congress is not sufficiently pleased with the outcome, new legislation is written...
This crap happens all the time. "Let the courts hash it out." If constituents aren't happy with the law (as interpreted), the congress can claim they didn't mean for it to be interpreted the way it was... and then proceed to "fix" it.
This precisely how Linux distros operate and compete with each other; by providing shitload of features "build into" their distros.
What is good for them obviously is bad for Microsoft.
Big differences
- MS has a monopoly.
- MS is using this monopoly in such a way that apps that were previously 3rd party are assimilated into Windows, in the process destroying some companies and/or products.
- Linux distros can be obtained freely (beer)
- A non-trivial number of/.ers don't like all the crap those distros build in anyway. LFS.
It's not going to be any harder to run a 3rd party app, but it will be easier to just use what's already default-installed instead, thus making it relatively harder to use the 3rd party app.
Um.... browser-war?? It wasn't harder to get Netscape, but IE was there... so many people just used it. (Of course, Netscape sort of sucks now, but we're talking about pre-4.0 browsers.)
Also, we're talking about "dumb users". Why get Winamp when Media Player works just fine? What is this "winamp" thing anyway??
In the world of academic political science, it is an assumption that each politician is looking out for his own well-being. (Also, this is not necessarily bad, but that's another discussion...)
What does Schumer get out of this?
1)"points" against the pro-business bush republicans.
2)"points" in his own state politically, especially for sticking up for Eastman Kodak. Kodak has been hurting recently, and also happens to lie in a somewhat Republican-leaning Rochester area - an area that relies a little too heavily on Kodak.
So, somewhat ironically, scores partisan points within the Democratic party for being anti-bush (anti-bush == anti-microsoft) while perhaps winning a few republicans in UpstateNY because he's sticking up for their company.
Look it up.
Voting in a three (or more) person race makes it impossible to choose completely "fair" rules. Not to say that it would necessarily be a bad idea, but not obviously good either.
Instead of having pure electronic voting, have each voting terminal print out an actual, tangible, paper ballot with all the appropriate info printed out accurately and precisely so that the optical vote counting machines can work optimally.
This way people could double/triple-check their votes before handing in a "real" ballot. Real ballots can be (re)counted to double check the electronic vote in case "hackers" decide to fsck with the electronic system.
Slashdot Mirror
This should be modded up, if only for that particular line...
But seriously, I may have expected a little too much from Episode 1, but it did disappoint in key areas.
Ep.1 had the worst child actor I can think of in a movie of that proportion and hype. It almost made the kid in the 6th Sense look like he might have been the messiah. Lucas seriously botched there... ("Whoopieeee!")
Darth Maul - the cover-for-the-real-villian villian, and apparent center of the Ep 1 marketing universe, was very very poorly developed. He had, what, like one line in the flick??? Not even a good one (or two) at that!
Mythical hype was actually pretty good w.r.t. Yoda and the council, and respectable with the Obi-Wan/Qui-Gon relationship development. The hype was way too much for any film to live up to, but these areas were at least good enough to make me want to see the rest of the movies.
As for being for the kiddies, it appears that Ep 1 was indeed a kiddie flick. I expected the prequels to be, not necessarily mature or deep, but at least approaching the level of the original trilogy - the trilogy that I can still watch today with minimal discomfort from the cheesiness inherent in such a film (with the exception of the ewoks. God they sucked.)
(Nit-picking a little here, it would have been nice to have seen a little evil in young Anakin...)
So damn what if it's just backstory! Does that make it ok to fill the film up with bad acting, a few "filler" scenes, and enough special effects to give one a headache from the too-blasted-loud-THX-kick-my-ass theatre system?
Are you a Southerner? (referring to anything cola-ish as a "coke".)
(Off topic: I heard that the "insurrectionist" theory of the 2nd amendment is not in vogue right now. Why the hell not? I doubt that hunting and target shooting were the stimuli that brought about a constitutional ammendment. I'm allowed to have guns because the people have the right to rebel against an oppressive government. You can argue that this is no longer a valid justification - there's no way all the NRA members + misc. gun owners in the US could hold off the US armed forces - but that's a completely different argument. I can't think of a better or more "American" reason why there would be a 2nd ammendment if not to hold the threat of rebellion against the government, thus ensuring that there would never be tyranny nor need for rebellion.)
Back on topic: American bureaucrats fall into a couple of categories. A pyramid of intelligence, it seems. A few intelligent people at the top, with decreasingly smart people as you approach the bottom. The intelligent aren't stifled by the government - they just don't work for it. They work in the private sector where their efforts have maximal impact and they are rewarded in an "economically efficent" manner. There's more cash in the private sector - a talented person will take a serious salary hit when s/he works for the government.
Capitalists don't really care whether the consumer is happy - the capitalist will only make the consumer happy enough to buy his products instead of his competitors'. In a monopoly situation, the lack of competition lowers the bar for the quality of the product - it doesn't have to be as good if it's "the only game in town."
The second task was to add an infinite number of guests to the hotel... Solution: Tell every current guest to move to the room number double his/her current room. Tell the new guests to go to the odd numbered rooms.
Sorry, I don't where this story was first published...
3.14....lots of numbers.... infinite number of numbers....lots more numbers.....
You'd never get to the end of INON (that is, pi) in order to tack LMN to the end... In order to put pi inside of pi, pi would have to be infinitely self-referential, thus giving it repetition... and making it a rational number.
Assume: On the x-th digit of pi, insert pi....
but on the (x*2)th digit (the xth digit of the second iteration of pi) you'd start pi again...
Therefore, pi is repeating (rational)
But, pi is not rational
Therefore, the assumption that pi contains pi cannot be true. ????
also, and perhaps more importantly, virually all schools get federal money of some kind.
To a congressman, it's a matter of who voted for him. The answer, overwhelmingly, is wealthier over poorer, older over younger (not even counting the voting age), and "better educated" over slack-jawed yokel.
It is entirely evil how our government treats youth. I thought the driving laws here in PA were anal when I was 16. (I couldn't drive after midnight - it somewhat cramped my style, but a semi-reasonable law, I suppose.) Now, my little sister has to be in by 11pm, and she had to wait 6 months after getting her learner's permit to test for her "junior" license. I understand NY has laws even more anal than that.
So many laws exist to prevent the "damn kids" from old ladies, but until recently it was entirely suicidal for a politician to propose taking away a driver's license from a 90 year old virtually blind and deaf voter. It's still not a great idea politically for someone to bring that up.
A modest proposal: Allow kids of any age to attempt to pass the INS citizenship exam in order to secure voting privileges. We (rightly) allow recently naturalized citizens to vote... What about a 16 year old who can answer a bunch of questions about the USA that a lot of lifelong citizens can't answer?
This crap happens all the time. "Let the courts hash it out." If constituents aren't happy with the law (as interpreted), the congress can claim they didn't mean for it to be interpreted the way it was... and then proceed to "fix" it.
Big differences /.ers don't like all the crap those distros build in anyway. LFS.
- MS has a monopoly.
- MS is using this monopoly in such a way that apps that were previously 3rd party are assimilated into Windows, in the process destroying some companies and/or products.
- Linux distros can be obtained freely (beer)
- A non-trivial number of
Um.... browser-war?? It wasn't harder to get Netscape, but IE was there... so many people just used it. (Of course, Netscape sort of sucks now, but we're talking about pre-4.0 browsers.)
Also, we're talking about "dumb users". Why get Winamp when Media Player works just fine? What is this "winamp" thing anyway??
What does Schumer get out of this?
1)"points" against the pro-business bush republicans.
2)"points" in his own state politically, especially for sticking up for Eastman Kodak. Kodak has been hurting recently, and also happens to lie in a somewhat Republican-leaning Rochester area - an area that relies a little too heavily on Kodak.
So, somewhat ironically, scores partisan points within the Democratic party for being anti-bush (anti-bush == anti-microsoft) while perhaps winning a few republicans in UpstateNY because he's sticking up for their company.
Look it up. Voting in a three (or more) person race makes it impossible to choose completely "fair" rules. Not to say that it would necessarily be a bad idea, but not obviously good either.
Instead of having pure electronic voting, have each voting terminal print out an actual, tangible, paper ballot with all the appropriate info printed out accurately and precisely so that the optical vote counting machines can work optimally.
This way people could double/triple-check their votes before handing in a "real" ballot. Real ballots can be (re)counted to double check the electronic vote in case "hackers" decide to fsck with the electronic system.