Another element in the NASA debate is the fact that basically every president since the 1980's has taken office and changed NASA's course. Four to eight years isn't enough time to get anything done, and if you get a new boss who wants HIS LEGACY to be crafted through NASA.... welcome to space exploration in the US!
Don't think public sector is going to get much done in space anymore. It's now about presidential egos and partisan politics....Ahhh a capitalist democracy, the best government money can buy!
You are correct that many present day movie actors make terrible stage actors, but not all. Also, it's not that stage actors "overact" it's that the stage requires one to be "bigger". There is a huge difference between overacting (bad) and being "bigger" (good). Overacting, regardless of medium is bad. Modulating your tone for the medium is good.
Camera captures everything so all you really need to do is capture the emotional tone for a given moment and the eyes take care of everything for you (assuming you're one of them expressive types). Stage requires you to bring more of yourself to the character in order to reach the entire audience thus the requirement to be bigger.
I have similar experiences on the West Coast. Lived in Los Angeles for about a decade and I don't think I *EVER* saw a driver pulled over in LA County for speeding on a freeway. If traffic didn't throttle you to 5 mph, you were going 85. If you didn't go 85, you were a danger on the road...
It's a subjective thing. The most important element in Do Androids... to me, was the juxtaposition of a less-than-ordinary man in an extraordinary circumstance. Northrop Frye, a 20th century literary theorist, postulated that the hero has undergone an extraordinary transformation starting with our first written stories and moving forward to today. Basically, he argues that things exist on a spectrum and that different ages have different takes on what the story protagonist should be like. In Ancient Greece, they were god-men, and they've slowly taken on more and more human traits. In a sense, protagonists have become more authentic.
In stories, and especially in film, I want that authenticity. The handsome, brilliant super-man protagonist is boring. It has no life, no character and no artistry. And in the case of Androids, it actually changes the stakes. In the movie, we know Deckard is out-matched but we think he has a shot. In the book, he's the worst cop on the force. He's afraid he's going to get fired. He can't leave Earth even though it's royally fucked. He's boxed in, and has no choice but to move forward, everything is removed from him. The movie never, ever captures this, and to me, it's the most important thread in the story.
Story's and audiences coexist together, one is not without the other. The consequence of this is a completely subjective realm. I am not saying that Dick is in any way wrong with his assessment of his work. I'm looking at a different part of the story, because it's the part that speaks to me at the deepest level. This is how art works...
I've actually avoided that one. The book was a treatise on the consequences of drug addiction; when I asked a good friend if that was there he laughed. So I'm working on second hand information, but in my mind that book is actually the hardest of Dick's library to translate to film.
I have not seen it though, so I can only base things on second hand information.
Height doesn't particularly matter on film, they have all sorts of tricks to make someone look taller than they are. And the rock is quite a bit more muscular than I ever pictured Raven but maybe that's just me.
So rather than making a declarative statement on my internet soapbox, let me say that it's my point of view that Blade Runner was terrible. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep dealt with some beautiful ideas, the movie bastardizes most of them.
Dick's writing revolved around less-than-ordinary individuals thrown into extraordinary situations. This mechanism created some deeply powerful moments were Dick was able to make comments on globalized culture and the introduction of advanced technology to culture.
Time and time again, people try and turn Dick's books into movies and every time the real heart of the story is lost in translation....Resisting urge to be Phillip K. Dick fan boy...
Occam's Razor: One should proceed to simpler theories until simplicity can be traded for greater explanatory power.
In my mind, there is a much simpler explanation: it has gotten to the point that the cost of not complying with recording and movie industry is now smaller than the cost of complying with them.
Diablo III is a fascinating game from a business point of view. It has many of the features of an MMO, but it's not an MMO. Moreover, it has many features of an RPG but it's really an action game. The game play is very similar to that of Gauntlet.
It's a one time fee with no monthly subscription, though Blizzard would be crazy not to have a nine month content release schedule planed. Every nine months you can charge another $29.95 for some additional content, wahoo!
Moreover, Diablo does not directly cannibalize the WoW audience and in fact will satiate some of them while we all wait with baited breath for Titan to be released. On top of that, it's bringing a new audience of players to Blizzard's gaming world. The game is a divergence from the original and the second one, it's looks and feels like an action-RPG in a video game. Interesting choices made by Blizzard...
It comes down to how replaceable are you. If your skill set is differentiated in the market place and you're exactly what they need in this management role, they will pay you more money. If there's a line of people with your skill set, you have no leverage.
And of course they're low-balling you. It's called anchoring, a basic tenet of negotiation.
If you think you are differentiated, tell them that you're not happy with this offer and to bring a new one to the table. By offering nothing, they've already set the baseline. Get them to come back with a new offer.
The faulty assumption being made occurs when looking at this from the individual perspective as opposed to the aggregate perspective. Legislation can't stop the market from responding to the wants and needs of the customer. One can pound the drum of injustice until the cows come home, the market has no taste for right and wrong it's simply a response; a lot like evolution. It responds to environment and the "fittest" survive. Granted it helps when you're being subsidized by the US government!
Problem is, they've already lost that battle. Comcast and other companies who own the pipe are the ones with the leverage. Comcast doesn't make any content, they just deliver most of it to us (in the US at least). At around 21% of the US, they have extraordinary leverage to decide the fate of who gets to distribute content. They already put a cap on what a person can bring down on Netflix for a month but if you use their knock-off service, you can have as much as you want! Anyone who goes to distribute content directly to consumers will have to pay their pound of flesh of to the pipe providers... and I'm fairly certain that Comcast can buy more politicians than MPAA/RIAA can...
It's human nature. Entrenched powers resist changes that will undermine there current methodology. It's as old as time, and it has happened in every single aspect of human organizations.
Until I read your post I hadn't connected the dots on that one but as soon as I got itworking on my playstation hooked up to a TV, I stopped downloading anything via torrents with the exception of one show whose content is never available via Netflix. I don't even look for movies via torrents anymore because I just watch the variety of stuff that Netflix offers. Much of what hits the theaters these days doesn't have drawing power into a theater and Netflix currently offers tons of more obscure titles that I'd never watch without this service.
It's made watching movies with Anthony Hopkins in them a hell of a lot easier!
Erm, right....emotional maturity of a 12 year old....evidence.....Desperate Housewives!
There are MANY professional entertainers who indeed do have the emotional maturity of a 12 year old, but with that said, there is a huge assumptive leap occurring here. You do realize that actors merely modify the prism of the self to act as a bridge between the character and the actor?
If anything, the success of Desperate Housewives is more indicative of our collective emotional intelligence than of the emotional intelligence of the actor.
And since we're pulling arbitrary evidence out of thin air, do you think Anthony Hopkins has the "emotional intelligence of a 12 year old"? Based on his many varied and compelling performances, I would argue there are very few individuals on this planet with a higher emotional intelligence. It kinda goes hand-in-hand with talented actors... otherwise they couldn't do what they do and be believable.
It's about as realistic as a physicists who only got up to Algebra.
Disclaimer: Hollywood is full of entertainers who fit the definition described above, but those people are a dime a dozen.
Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body. One said, ``It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints.'' Another said, ``No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous systems many thousands of electrical connections.'' The last said, ``Actually it was a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?''
Actually, it's standard operating procedure in big business. Most large corporations will have the 5-10 largest/best law firms on retainer throughout the world so as to eliminate the ability of litigants to utilize those firms in their lawsuits. Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, along with any other large multinational corporation have strategic plans in place to mitigate the caliber of talent that can be brought against them in these lawsuits. This does not make them immune, but merely hedges their bet and pushes the odds in their favor.
Rift has many similarities to WoW but to say that they are exactly the same is a gross overstatement. Rift's class system and the ability to tailor make your class to your own desires stands head and shoulders above WoW.
Though the game play, and quest mechanics are eerily like WoW...
Also, the process by which the Rifts and Invasions work makes the game every bit as dynamic as WoW. It's just different.
And people reverse engineer pace makers, without the "bullshit code" due to various motivations. Sounds to me like no one was motivated enough with Darwin.
Since when does releasing something to open source constitute creating a community around that thing? That's not Google's job. That our job, you know... the community. And if no one in the community, us, takes it upon themselves to make this entity matter, why should it be Google's responsibility to do so?
If Darwin had mattered to the community enough, it would have been taken on by someone. But it didn't, so all we're left with are bitter folks who never tried to do anything for the platform they so loved. Obviously, I'm glossing over some of the finer points, as there are outside influences that can cause an open source project to fail, but at its heart an open source project needs to be spearheaded by a community to be successful.
Google provided the community the rock but didn't push it up the hill... after all if they did that, they'd be the ones holding the rock at the end of the day and that would be insanity on many many levels.
I would wager that at least 95% of tablet users have no interest in developing custom applications. I suspect that this will never be a major selling point for these devices, sure a niche audience is interested in this ability but most of the users don't care.
And honestly, my 95% estimation is probably on the low end of the spectrum. Its probably much closer to 99%.
Although this is merely anecdotal evidence, I can say that every user that I personally know who utilizes a tablet device will never develop a custom application for these devices. One of them has worked in technology for over 35 years and has been a significant part (programmer) of over 20 game releases in that time period. But this is just a small subset of people and I do not have enough information to speculate accurately on this issue at the macro level.
I would suspect that if you're in the US that the CAN-SPAM Act applies to this situation. Log all your attempts to get them to stop sending your emails, and then forward the information on to the FCC. I was unable to get Domino's to stop sending me text messages advertising their shit pizza. I went through their online complaint system twice and kept getting the messages so in the end I called up customer support and explained the situation to them very clearly, and was sure to add that I would no longer contact them to be removed but instead would start filing complains with the FCC. The texts stopped....
Though this may not apply to your situation, it might be worth a shot:)
Slashdot Mirror
Another element in the NASA debate is the fact that basically every president since the 1980's has taken office and changed NASA's course. Four to eight years isn't enough time to get anything done, and if you get a new boss who wants HIS LEGACY to be crafted through NASA .... welcome to space exploration in the US!
Don't think public sector is going to get much done in space anymore. It's now about presidential egos and partisan politics....Ahhh a capitalist democracy, the best government money can buy!
You are correct that many present day movie actors make terrible stage actors, but not all. Also, it's not that stage actors "overact" it's that the stage requires one to be "bigger". There is a huge difference between overacting (bad) and being "bigger" (good). Overacting, regardless of medium is bad. Modulating your tone for the medium is good.
Camera captures everything so all you really need to do is capture the emotional tone for a given moment and the eyes take care of everything for you (assuming you're one of them expressive types). Stage requires you to bring more of yourself to the character in order to reach the entire audience thus the requirement to be bigger.
TLDR: bigger...not overacting
I have similar experiences on the West Coast. Lived in Los Angeles for about a decade and I don't think I *EVER* saw a driver pulled over in LA County for speeding on a freeway. If traffic didn't throttle you to 5 mph, you were going 85. If you didn't go 85, you were a danger on the road...
I'll give it a shot...
It's a subjective thing. The most important element in Do Androids... to me, was the juxtaposition of a less-than-ordinary man in an extraordinary circumstance. Northrop Frye, a 20th century literary theorist, postulated that the hero has undergone an extraordinary transformation starting with our first written stories and moving forward to today. Basically, he argues that things exist on a spectrum and that different ages have different takes on what the story protagonist should be like. In Ancient Greece, they were god-men, and they've slowly taken on more and more human traits. In a sense, protagonists have become more authentic.
In stories, and especially in film, I want that authenticity. The handsome, brilliant super-man protagonist is boring. It has no life, no character and no artistry. And in the case of Androids, it actually changes the stakes. In the movie, we know Deckard is out-matched but we think he has a shot. In the book, he's the worst cop on the force. He's afraid he's going to get fired. He can't leave Earth even though it's royally fucked. He's boxed in, and has no choice but to move forward, everything is removed from him. The movie never, ever captures this, and to me, it's the most important thread in the story.
Story's and audiences coexist together, one is not without the other. The consequence of this is a completely subjective realm. I am not saying that Dick is in any way wrong with his assessment of his work. I'm looking at a different part of the story, because it's the part that speaks to me at the deepest level. This is how art works...
lolz
I've actually avoided that one. The book was a treatise on the consequences of drug addiction; when I asked a good friend if that was there he laughed. So I'm working on second hand information, but in my mind that book is actually the hardest of Dick's library to translate to film.
I have not seen it though, so I can only base things on second hand information.
Depending on how long it takes to get this off the ground, my money would actually be on Jason Momoa - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0597388/
Height doesn't particularly matter on film, they have all sorts of tricks to make someone look taller than they are. And the rock is quite a bit more muscular than I ever pictured Raven but maybe that's just me.
...Wow I just about went all internet fan boy...
So rather than making a declarative statement on my internet soapbox, let me say that it's my point of view that Blade Runner was terrible. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep dealt with some beautiful ideas, the movie bastardizes most of them.
Dick's writing revolved around less-than-ordinary individuals thrown into extraordinary situations. This mechanism created some deeply powerful moments were Dick was able to make comments on globalized culture and the introduction of advanced technology to culture.
Time and time again, people try and turn Dick's books into movies and every time the real heart of the story is lost in translation. ...Resisting urge to be Phillip K. Dick fan boy...
Occam's Razor: One should proceed to simpler theories until simplicity can be traded for greater explanatory power.
In my mind, there is a much simpler explanation: it has gotten to the point that the cost of not complying with recording and movie industry is now smaller than the cost of complying with them.
Diablo III is a fascinating game from a business point of view. It has many of the features of an MMO, but it's not an MMO. Moreover, it has many features of an RPG but it's really an action game. The game play is very similar to that of Gauntlet.
It's a one time fee with no monthly subscription, though Blizzard would be crazy not to have a nine month content release schedule planed. Every nine months you can charge another $29.95 for some additional content, wahoo!
Moreover, Diablo does not directly cannibalize the WoW audience and in fact will satiate some of them while we all wait with baited breath for Titan to be released. On top of that, it's bringing a new audience of players to Blizzard's gaming world. The game is a divergence from the original and the second one, it's looks and feels like an action-RPG in a video game. Interesting choices made by Blizzard...
It comes down to how replaceable are you. If your skill set is differentiated in the market place and you're exactly what they need in this management role, they will pay you more money. If there's a line of people with your skill set, you have no leverage.
And of course they're low-balling you. It's called anchoring, a basic tenet of negotiation.
If you think you are differentiated, tell them that you're not happy with this offer and to bring a new one to the table. By offering nothing, they've already set the baseline. Get them to come back with a new offer.
If you're not differentiated, take the offer.
The faulty assumption being made occurs when looking at this from the individual perspective as opposed to the aggregate perspective. Legislation can't stop the market from responding to the wants and needs of the customer. One can pound the drum of injustice until the cows come home, the market has no taste for right and wrong it's simply a response; a lot like evolution. It responds to environment and the "fittest" survive. Granted it helps when you're being subsidized by the US government!
Problem is, they've already lost that battle. Comcast and other companies who own the pipe are the ones with the leverage. Comcast doesn't make any content, they just deliver most of it to us (in the US at least). At around 21% of the US, they have extraordinary leverage to decide the fate of who gets to distribute content. They already put a cap on what a person can bring down on Netflix for a month but if you use their knock-off service, you can have as much as you want! Anyone who goes to distribute content directly to consumers will have to pay their pound of flesh of to the pipe providers ... and I'm fairly certain that Comcast can buy more politicians than MPAA/RIAA can ...
It's human nature. Entrenched powers resist changes that will undermine there current methodology. It's as old as time, and it has happened in every single aspect of human organizations.
As Vonnegut once said, "So it goes".
Double This.
Until I read your post I hadn't connected the dots on that one but as soon as I got itworking on my playstation hooked up to a TV, I stopped downloading anything via torrents with the exception of one show whose content is never available via Netflix. I don't even look for movies via torrents anymore because I just watch the variety of stuff that Netflix offers. Much of what hits the theaters these days doesn't have drawing power into a theater and Netflix currently offers tons of more obscure titles that I'd never watch without this service.
It's made watching movies with Anthony Hopkins in them a hell of a lot easier!
Art.
Philosophy.
Sociology.
English.
Something to use the other side of your brain.
It'll create more depth and give you a broader base of knowledge to draw from.
Erm, right....emotional maturity of a 12 year old....evidence.....Desperate Housewives!
There are MANY professional entertainers who indeed do have the emotional maturity of a 12 year old, but with that said, there is a huge assumptive leap occurring here. You do realize that actors merely modify the prism of the self to act as a bridge between the character and the actor?
If anything, the success of Desperate Housewives is more indicative of our collective emotional intelligence than of the emotional intelligence of the actor.
And since we're pulling arbitrary evidence out of thin air, do you think Anthony Hopkins has the "emotional intelligence of a 12 year old"? Based on his many varied and compelling performances, I would argue there are very few individuals on this planet with a higher emotional intelligence. It kinda goes hand-in-hand with talented actors ... otherwise they couldn't do what they do and be believable.
It's about as realistic as a physicists who only got up to Algebra.
Disclaimer: Hollywood is full of entertainers who fit the definition described above, but those people are a dime a dozen.
And on that note....
Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of the human body.
One said, ``It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints.''
Another said, ``No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous systems many thousands of electrical connections.''
The last said, ``Actually it was a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?''
Actually, it's standard operating procedure in big business. Most large corporations will have the 5-10 largest/best law firms on retainer throughout the world so as to eliminate the ability of litigants to utilize those firms in their lawsuits. Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, along with any other large multinational corporation have strategic plans in place to mitigate the caliber of talent that can be brought against them in these lawsuits. This does not make them immune, but merely hedges their bet and pushes the odds in their favor.
Such is the world we live in.
Rift has many similarities to WoW but to say that they are exactly the same is a gross overstatement. Rift's class system and the ability to tailor make your class to your own desires stands head and shoulders above WoW.
Though the game play, and quest mechanics are eerily like WoW...
Also, the process by which the Rifts and Invasions work makes the game every bit as dynamic as WoW. It's just different.
And people reverse engineer pace makers, without the "bullshit code" due to various motivations. Sounds to me like no one was motivated enough with Darwin.
Since when does releasing something to open source constitute creating a community around that thing? That's not Google's job. That our job, you know ... the community. And if no one in the community, us, takes it upon themselves to make this entity matter, why should it be Google's responsibility to do so?
If Darwin had mattered to the community enough, it would have been taken on by someone. But it didn't, so all we're left with are bitter folks who never tried to do anything for the platform they so loved. Obviously, I'm glossing over some of the finer points, as there are outside influences that can cause an open source project to fail, but at its heart an open source project needs to be spearheaded by a community to be successful.
Google provided the community the rock but didn't push it up the hill ... after all if they did that, they'd be the ones holding the rock at the end of the day and that would be insanity on many many levels.
I would wager that at least 95% of tablet users have no interest in developing custom applications. I suspect that this will never be a major selling point for these devices, sure a niche audience is interested in this ability but most of the users don't care.
And honestly, my 95% estimation is probably on the low end of the spectrum. Its probably much closer to 99%.
Although this is merely anecdotal evidence, I can say that every user that I personally know who utilizes a tablet device will never develop a custom application for these devices. One of them has worked in technology for over 35 years and has been a significant part (programmer) of over 20 game releases in that time period. But this is just a small subset of people and I do not have enough information to speculate accurately on this issue at the macro level.
I would suspect that if you're in the US that the CAN-SPAM Act applies to this situation. Log all your attempts to get them to stop sending your emails, and then forward the information on to the FCC. I was unable to get Domino's to stop sending me text messages advertising their shit pizza. I went through their online complaint system twice and kept getting the messages so in the end I called up customer support and explained the situation to them very clearly, and was sure to add that I would no longer contact them to be removed but instead would start filing complains with the FCC. The texts stopped....
Though this may not apply to your situation, it might be worth a shot :)