Cowboys and Indians. Soldier. King Arthur!
on
Killing Video Games
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· Score: 4
Oh! We're SOOOO much more violent nowadays! Boo freakin Hoo Hoo!
So nobody growing up in the 40's, 50's, 60's, or 70's EVER played at:
Cowboys and Indians. Complete with "authentic" "Ugh! You gottum me!"
Lone Ranger: "Kick his butt some more Kimosabe!"
Shootout at the OK Corral. How many boys (and girls) lived out a summer of eternal High Noons with their six-shooters?
Heck, there used to be a western amusement park up in the Wisconsin Dells (Fort Dells), the highlight of the live entertainment was the Sherriff capturing Black Bart, Deputizing a bunch of kids, having Black Bart escape and meet his well deserved end.
Heck, it's nearly anecdotal how most kids in the 40's and 50's had cowboy hats, checked shirts, and toy guns.
Or howabout the kids who played soldier during and after World War Two? "C'mere and die you dirty Nazi!"
Or some kids who grew up members of a fictional royal court? And routinely ran each other through with plastic swords and beat on each other's plastic helmets?
Or for those of a more contemporary turn, Sam Spade and the pulp genre. Trouncing goons. Blowing away shifty characters, and generally being "Mr. Tough". THANKS BOGIE!
Oh! But all that was INNOCENT VIOLENCE!
MY ARSE! I grew up in the 70's and 80's. I knew what "killing" really was. I KNEW that people didn't just stand up afterwards and go "Darn! You got me!"
Howabout MOVIES?
It's a Wonderful Life: One of the nicest guys on the movie screen, Jimmy Stewart.
Trashes his living room
Manhandles his aged uncle
Bitches out his kid's teacher.
Gets into a fight in a bar
Gets drunk and crashes his car
Nearly commits suicide
SLUGS A COP who also happens to be one of his best friends.
But that's not violent is it?
Howsabout "The Dirty Dozen", or any of the other war movies out?
The Western genre is even worse. Has anyone ever seen a SINGLE western where at least ONE person DOESN'T get shot?
And back to real life. Wartime footage!
Society today is so litigious, and so hypersensitized by idiotic "initiatives" to "get the word out" about these "evil" things, that they completely miss that NOTHING we consume, media-wise, is any less violent than anything our fathers and possibly grandfathers were exposed to.
People are so hysterical, and so eager to get money that's "owed to them", that they're willing to overlook little things. Like people's RIGHTS. Common sense. SANITY!
But, worse still, they overlook the BIG thing. How little REAL attention they pay to their kids. You know. The thing you had as an accessory to your nice car, nice house, and beautiful home furnishings?
The state of the modern day family, and America as a result, disgusts me to NO end.
"We've got to realize that we can't legislate everyting under the sun," said Gov. Rowland, himself the father and stepfather of five kids under 16. "It's too much big government, it's too much Big Daddy. Let's send a message to parents that, 'Hey there are some games out there that are pretty ugly, and why don't you go see what your kids are doing?" Rowland also noticed that the bill would be a nightmare to enforce, if it were even possible. We are shocked by this kind of logic from public officials, even though the idea that parents ought to yank their kids out of video game parlors for playing point and shoot games is still pretty inane.
The quote puts the guy's statement in a positive light. The bill being discussed just after that is the one he vetoed.
It's more like: "If you don't feel the need to buy our product or donate money, don't. If you do feel the need, but don't need to buy the boxed version, here's a way."
If you ALREADY have the distro on a CD-R, why are you going to contribute to the dead-tree+waste plastic version a couple weeks after you burnt your own copy?
Unless you're buying the PowerPack or Enterprise version. And unless you actually NEED something on one of those disks, it's simply WASTE.
This way, if you want to contribute the $20/30 and already have the distro, you can give the money DIRECTLY to them and cut out production costs (as someone else can buy the the boxed copy that you avoided).
And believe me, they DO get bought. ALL of the Best Buys, CompUSA, and Computer City stores in my area (about two dozen), had been out of Mandrake 7.2 for a couple weeks following the release of 8.0. And let me assure you. The boxes were NOT pulled off the shelves by employees.
When you suck down a gig and a half of ISO off someone's site, you're costing THEM money.
When you suck down updates, you're costing THEM money.
All the coders they have working for them cost THEM money.
Yes, they can make up a lot of that in boxed sales. But still, some people WANT to contribute. Those who can, contribute code. Those who's coding skills are marginal to nonexistant (like me) can contribute money to support the coders.
Remember, the donations are OPTIONAL. Nobody's MAKING you pay a damn thing.
Personally, I buy the boxed x.0 release and tend to leech point releases.
Personally, I won't miss an occasional $5/$10 bucks every now and again.
As the saying goes. I spent half of my money on wine, women, and song. The rest, I just WASTED.
Something a lot of people outside the health institutions don't hear much about.
Nosocomial Infections
Basic Translation: Hospital-Acquired Infections (you get sick from stuff you didn't have before you came into the hospital).
It's really not surprising that relatively warm, dark environments like computer cases are breeding grounds for this sort of thing. Heck, you have people going into and out of infected rooms, picking stuff up, mixing it about on keyboards, touch-screens, etc. Computers are already an avenue of infection simply due to their high traffic usage.
I work on an orthopaedic/trauma/general surgery unit at my institution. You name it, we've seen it. There's so much stuff (disease-causing organisms) coming in, that most people barely notice if they pick up "a little something else".
Consequently, we spend a LOT of time making sure rooms are clean and surgical patients are kept as far as feasibly possible from infected patients.
You sorta need to KNOW the person's cheating. With see-through, unless the server is telling you (PunkBuster), you have NO WAY of knowing.
If a person cheats, you don't play with that person, and then they'll either cheat all by themselves or they start to not cheat.
And I repeat. BULL!
Again, this presupposes the notion that you're able to discover that the person is cheating? What about Internet games?
Shouldn't you be able to drop onto a random server for some gib-action without worrying that R001ZU is using a wall hack?
The only time cheating should be an issue is if there is money to be gained.
God you're naive. Cheating should be an issue if you're interested in fair and equitable gaming. What fun is a game if you have to join an arms-race for cheats just to achieve parity with the llamas?
Excuse me for prefering to match my GAMING SKILLS against the GAMING SKILLS of others, not their CHEATING SKILLS, CODING SKILLS, or their EXPENSIVE CARD BUYING SKILLS.
Games should be for fun and excitement, and it seems too many gamers take them FAR too seriously.
What's so fun about getting smeared by a guy with an aimbot who can see through walls who fires no-look rails out their ass?
I think it's abominable for the community to make a company restrict its drivers for this reason
It's abominable to restrict driver-hack/cheats? Sorry, I disagree. When I want to play someone, I want to play THEM, not their cheats/hacks.
The ONLY legitimate use for these driver hacks is CHEATING. Most games, if you need to look at the wireframes and scan maps, come with the options to do so, outside of a competitive environment.
Supplying a driver that allows this IN-GAME, is ridiculous. And if you can't see that it's only purpose is cheating, I'm not going to argue it with you. You're already too deluded.
Okay, as much as I hate MS products and their lack of options, the revelation of this back door is NOT perfect.
It means that there's a bunch of poor bastards out there who're going to get their systems trashed because they believed in Microsoft.
Yes. This may be a wicked little ego boost to the mindless OSS boosters. But to everyone else, it's a pain in the ass and potentially VERY damaging to some people's sites/businesses.
So gloating to the point of calling this "perfect" is WAY off-base. And, frankly, I'd expected a little more from you guys.
While this sounds like some teen angst joke, it ain't. While 13 year olds are completely capable of reason, many of them are so caught up in their emotional travails (something that makes it much easier for adults to manipulate them).
It's like a principle of mine, years and years ago. He'd do everything in his power to exaggerate the seriousness of an offense, mess with a kid's emotions. Then this jackass would call up their parents and make these kids give sobbing confessions about the petty, inane, totally irrelevant things their done "wrong".
And, as was pointed out, the way the media plays on the issues of violence and other social factors in the prison environment, is it any wonder than some kid with a lot of smarts, but very little in the way of LIFE EXPERIENCE would be willing to DIE to avoid that?
Note: I'm not saying I agree with the kid's conclusions. I'm just saying I can understand how he arrived at them.
So what? We should stick with a 2 year old browser? A browser than doesn't handle Java properly?
A browser than doesn't do HTML 4.0 properly?
A suite of internet apps that doesn't handle multiple e-mail accounts?
A suite of internet apps where we CANNOT fix bugs that come up because:
The browser is closed-source
The browser is basically abandon-ware with the parent company moving to a newer browser based off the open-source browser (Mozilla) that we want to move to?
And the Netscape/Mozilla project is going to lose funding?
BULLDINKY!
As Mozilla matures, Netscape his all it's future browser releases locked in right there. So it's HIGHLY unlikely that funding is just going to "go away".
I really believe that the cast and crew of "The Mummy" knew EXACTLY what they were doing. They were not trying to create a horror flick. They were after parody from the first.
The book cases
The prison sequence
The constant beating on Benny
Rick and Benny standing on opposite sides of the river yelling like a pair of little kids.
The mysterious, flame retardent breezes that'd always seem to come up when somebody mentioned "the curse".
The British Aviator guy
Even the death of the prison warden (death by scarab tunneling) got more laughs then reactions of horror.
Imhotep's sarcophagus dropping from the sky (the ceiling).
I could go on and on. The first movie was a camp film from beginning to end. The second was the same, just kicked up a notch.
Okay, before I go any further. TMR is an "action film", with all that that implies. It was never meant to be some deeply philosophical/intellectual work of film. If you didn't know that from the first one, you should have.
That being said, aside from your distaste for the movie (hey, you didn't like it, this sort of movie isn't for everyone), the movie wasn't THAT bad. And it appears you've exaggerated some issues completely out of context.
What you see as stupid and derivative, I see as a fairly tongue-in-cheek homage to the old mummy movies, as well as a great number of more modern films (did you miss the Slim Pickens impression).
Also, I find your "Dateline" crack to be both petulant and self-serving. It's an action movie. There's no "high drama" here. Only melodrama. You should know this by now Jon. You're more than old enough.
As to Fraser's wise-ass character. How many of these movies have you seen where people are dragging their jaws around on the floor as some gristly old codger pronounces the end of the world is at hand unless someone does something? In these more jaded times, "The world's ending, the world's always ending." is a much more believable response in Hollywood features.
As for your preferences with computer animation, I'm not going to argue them. They're YOUR preferences. All I'll say is that synthespiansim and CG sets are becoming more common all the time. Why? Simply because some things are more easily/economically done. Not every film can be one a Joan Collins "Cleopatra" with a cast of zillions. Additionally, there will always be locales in films that simply cannot be reproduced in analog. Like it or hate it. It's fact.
As to your inability to make out every line of dialog in the movie. They repealed the Universal Translator on every movie. It's no longer a law that every creature under heaven speaks English. It's at least an attempt to lend a small measure of verisimultude to a fantastic situation.
You'd think the gods of the Underworld could off one dunder-headed family without too much trouble
Then there'd be no movie Jon. Sheesh.
Additionally, your crack about people dying and coming back endlessly is no more correct that a great portion of your hatchet job^H^H^H^H^review.
There is exactly ONE character death followed by ONE resurrection in the movie.
Yellow journalism is beneath even you Jon.
One is the truly astonishing appearance of The Rock as the Scorpion King, reportedly paid more than $5 million for this two or three-minute gig.
The Rock (Dwight whatever his last name is), had approximately 15 minutes of screen time. Also, they're spinning the "Scorpion King" character off into a star vehicle for him.
Do a little RESEARCH. It'll add, immeasurably, to your arguments.
And in closing, I'll summarize.
No, the movie isn't for everyone. If you don't like it, oh well. You're apparently not in the target audience, or you just missed all the easter eggs in the movie.
But don't descend to lies and misrepresentation just because YOU don't like it.
Personally, most of us could not care a whit about what OS anyone uses.
We DO care when one of those OS/application companies tries to attack (through FUD) the the software distribution model for the OS or OSes we happen to use.
WE are not the ones trying to lock someone into using our OS.
The executive, Irving Wladawsky- Berger, an I.B.M. vice president, said, "If we thought this *Open Source* was a trap, we wouldn't be doing it, and as you know, we have a lot of lawyers."
It took me a couple minutes to stop laughing at that one.
Then I started thinking about the overt threat involved in that statement.
Even still, it's somewhat humorous to have a company flash their "Rabid Attack Lawyers" warnings in response to an MS attack on OSS.
Okay, this may, or may not be relevant, but it DOES deal with on-call pay.
I work for a major hospital in the Chicago-land area. There are several units (like the OR) that have nurses on-call.
They have specific days that they're on-call. And during those days, they get paid a piddling sum-per hour (don't remember how much), simply because they have to be ready to come in on a moment's notice.
Once they come in, they're paid at full hourly wage. And if it's more than their standard 40-hour week, they make overtime pay off it.
Now, this may not be completely germane to your situation. If you're supposed to be available 24/7/365, you REALLY should be a salaried employee. In addition to this, you should have an employee contract in place stating compensation (either monetary or time off) for any time you put in over a given period (usually anything over a 48-hour week).
You need to sit down with your employer and work this out. Because, not only will it protect you, and make YOUR life/job easier/more lucrative, it should save your employer money as well.
And if your employer isn't amenable to fair compensation (I said FAIR, not avaricious), begin looking for an employer who actually values their work force.
Chas - The one, the only. THANK GOD!!!
Paid advertising does not guarantee viewership.
on
Calling Out TiVo
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· Score: 1
Well, maybe for the Superbowl....
The point is, just becuase advertisers sink money into an ad slot (and into the ad itself) does not entitle them to any actual viewership at all.
Sure, there's a really good chance that the spot will be seen by some (or heck even a lot of) people. But if nobody happens to have the TV turned on or tuned in to that particular channel at that particular time, it's like money down the tubes.
In short, advertising is a gamble.
Time-shifting, and commercial editing happen NOW with VCR's. As I said, the advertisers are NOT entitled to force their commercials on you no matter what. The gripe from Dvorak isn't even really that commercial editing is happening. It's that the set-top boxes make it EASIER than sitting there and watching it to do the editing.
B
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In short, it's my time. I'll spend it how I want. Also, it's my choice of what to view. If you want to start FORCING programming on me, I'll simply stop watching PERIOD.
This is one of the reasons I have stopped buying DVDs. All these idiotic previews that you cannot fast forward through.
Also, as someone else pointed out, nobody's going to record one or two shows on a $300-500 set-top box like TiVo and then start swapping TiVos. It ain't gonna happen. So basically, piracy isn't an issue either.
I remember a time, not all that long ago (but ages ago in Internet Time), when John Dvorak actually made worthwhile contributions to the sum of human knowledge in the sphere of computing.
It's a shame that he's become this bloated, bitter shill who lives only for ratings now.
Think about it for a second. Try to imagine the sheer volume of matter (at least the stuff we can see) present in the known universe. Even if truly VAST quantities of it were formed into super-massive stars and, eventually, black holes, there's still a massive amount of matter left over.
My personal views about a cascading cyclic universe aside.
But not really surprising. I mean how old is the universe (not just cluster of local space that we've been able to see)? Why's it so surprising that there's tons of black holes out there?
"Do you seriously expect us to believe you're a Jedi? Do you know the kind of trouble you can get in for falsifyin....ggggghhhh"
"Minister, I find your lack of faith....disturbing."
Chas - The one, the only. THANK GOD!!!
Re:OhmyGAWD!! Mars has been Slashdotted!
on
The Dot in .mars
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· Score: 1
And what're his pings going to look like from almost 49 million miles away?
Probably a lot like any AOL user.
Does this mean they have to use AOL-speak/type too?
Chas - The one, the only. THANK GOD!!!
OhmyGAWD!! Mars has been Slashdotted!
on
The Dot in .mars
·
· Score: 1
I can see it now. Next target for a slashdotting? The big Jupe itself! Big planet, little bandwidth!
And what happens to the link if one of the martians decides he wants to hop in on a game of Quake? And what're his pings going to look like from almost 49 million miles away?
Slashdot Mirror
Oh! We're SOOOO much more violent nowadays! Boo freakin Hoo Hoo!
So nobody growing up in the 40's, 50's, 60's, or 70's EVER played at:
Cowboys and Indians. Complete with "authentic" "Ugh! You gottum me!"
Lone Ranger: "Kick his butt some more Kimosabe!"
Shootout at the OK Corral. How many boys (and girls) lived out a summer of eternal High Noons with their six-shooters?
Heck, there used to be a western amusement park up in the Wisconsin Dells (Fort Dells), the highlight of the live entertainment was the Sherriff capturing Black Bart, Deputizing a bunch of kids, having Black Bart escape and meet his well deserved end.
Heck, it's nearly anecdotal how most kids in the 40's and 50's had cowboy hats, checked shirts, and toy guns.
Or howabout the kids who played soldier during and after World War Two? "C'mere and die you dirty Nazi!"
Or some kids who grew up members of a fictional royal court? And routinely ran each other through with plastic swords and beat on each other's plastic helmets?
Or for those of a more contemporary turn, Sam Spade and the pulp genre. Trouncing goons. Blowing away shifty characters, and generally being "Mr. Tough". THANKS BOGIE!
Oh! But all that was INNOCENT VIOLENCE!
MY ARSE! I grew up in the 70's and 80's. I knew what "killing" really was. I KNEW that people didn't just stand up afterwards and go "Darn! You got me!"
Howabout MOVIES?
It's a Wonderful Life: One of the nicest guys on the movie screen, Jimmy Stewart.
But that's not violent is it?
Howsabout "The Dirty Dozen", or any of the other war movies out?
The Western genre is even worse. Has anyone ever seen a SINGLE western where at least ONE person DOESN'T get shot?
And back to real life. Wartime footage!
Society today is so litigious, and so hypersensitized by idiotic "initiatives" to "get the word out" about these "evil" things, that they completely miss that NOTHING we consume, media-wise, is any less violent than anything our fathers and possibly grandfathers were exposed to.
People are so hysterical, and so eager to get money that's "owed to them", that they're willing to overlook little things. Like people's RIGHTS. Common sense. SANITY!
But, worse still, they overlook the BIG thing. How little REAL attention they pay to their kids. You know. The thing you had as an accessory to your nice car, nice house, and beautiful home furnishings?
The state of the modern day family, and America as a result, disgusts me to NO end.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The quote puts the guy's statement in a positive light. The bill being discussed just after that is the one he vetoed.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
It's more like: "If you don't feel the need to buy our product or donate money, don't. If you do feel the need, but don't need to buy the boxed version, here's a way."
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
If you ALREADY have the distro on a CD-R, why are you going to contribute to the dead-tree+waste plastic version a couple weeks after you burnt your own copy?
Unless you're buying the PowerPack or Enterprise version. And unless you actually NEED something on one of those disks, it's simply WASTE.
This way, if you want to contribute the $20/30 and already have the distro, you can give the money DIRECTLY to them and cut out production costs (as someone else can buy the the boxed copy that you avoided).
And believe me, they DO get bought. ALL of the Best Buys, CompUSA, and Computer City stores in my area (about two dozen), had been out of Mandrake 7.2 for a couple weeks following the release of 8.0. And let me assure you. The boxes were NOT pulled off the shelves by employees.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
When you suck down a gig and a half of ISO off someone's site, you're costing THEM money.
When you suck down updates, you're costing THEM money.
All the coders they have working for them cost THEM money.
Yes, they can make up a lot of that in boxed sales. But still, some people WANT to contribute. Those who can, contribute code. Those who's coding skills are marginal to nonexistant (like me) can contribute money to support the coders.
Remember, the donations are OPTIONAL. Nobody's MAKING you pay a damn thing.
Personally, I buy the boxed x.0 release and tend to leech point releases.
Personally, I won't miss an occasional $5/$10 bucks every now and again.
As the saying goes. I spent half of my money on wine, women, and song. The rest, I just WASTED.
Now I can waste a little less.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Something a lot of people outside the health institutions don't hear much about.
Nosocomial Infections
Basic Translation: Hospital-Acquired Infections (you get sick from stuff you didn't have before you came into the hospital).
It's really not surprising that relatively warm, dark environments like computer cases are breeding grounds for this sort of thing. Heck, you have people going into and out of infected rooms, picking stuff up, mixing it about on keyboards, touch-screens, etc. Computers are already an avenue of infection simply due to their high traffic usage.
I work on an orthopaedic/trauma/general surgery unit at my institution. You name it, we've seen it. There's so much stuff (disease-causing organisms) coming in, that most people barely notice if they pick up "a little something else".
Consequently, we spend a LOT of time making sure rooms are clean and surgical patients are kept as far as feasibly possible from infected patients.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Cheating is best dealt with, socially in games.
You sorta need to KNOW the person's cheating. With see-through, unless the server is telling you (PunkBuster), you have NO WAY of knowing.
If a person cheats, you don't play with that person, and then they'll either cheat all by themselves or they start to not cheat.
And I repeat. BULL!
Again, this presupposes the notion that you're able to discover that the person is cheating? What about Internet games?
Shouldn't you be able to drop onto a random server for some gib-action without worrying that R001ZU is using a wall hack?
The only time cheating should be an issue is if there is money to be gained.
God you're naive. Cheating should be an issue if you're interested in fair and equitable gaming. What fun is a game if you have to join an arms-race for cheats just to achieve parity with the llamas?
Excuse me for prefering to match my GAMING SKILLS against the GAMING SKILLS of others, not their CHEATING SKILLS, CODING SKILLS, or their EXPENSIVE CARD BUYING SKILLS.
Games should be for fun and excitement, and it seems too many gamers take them FAR too seriously.
What's so fun about getting smeared by a guy with an aimbot who can see through walls who fires no-look rails out their ass?
I think it's abominable for the community to make a company restrict its drivers for this reason
It's abominable to restrict driver-hack/cheats? Sorry, I disagree. When I want to play someone, I want to play THEM, not their cheats/hacks.
The ONLY legitimate use for these driver hacks is CHEATING. Most games, if you need to look at the wireframes and scan maps, come with the options to do so, outside of a competitive environment.
Supplying a driver that allows this IN-GAME, is ridiculous. And if you can't see that it's only purpose is cheating, I'm not going to argue it with you. You're already too deluded.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Okay, as much as I hate MS products and their lack of options, the revelation of this back door is NOT perfect.
It means that there's a bunch of poor bastards out there who're going to get their systems trashed because they believed in Microsoft.
Yes. This may be a wicked little ego boost to the mindless OSS boosters. But to everyone else, it's a pain in the ass and potentially VERY damaging to some people's sites/businesses.
So gloating to the point of calling this "perfect" is WAY off-base. And, frankly, I'd expected a little more from you guys.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
While this sounds like some teen angst joke, it ain't. While 13 year olds are completely capable of reason, many of them are so caught up in their emotional travails (something that makes it much easier for adults to manipulate them).
It's like a principle of mine, years and years ago. He'd do everything in his power to exaggerate the seriousness of an offense, mess with a kid's emotions. Then this jackass would call up their parents and make these kids give sobbing confessions about the petty, inane, totally irrelevant things their done "wrong".
And, as was pointed out, the way the media plays on the issues of violence and other social factors in the prison environment, is it any wonder than some kid with a lot of smarts, but very little in the way of LIFE EXPERIENCE would be willing to DIE to avoid that?
Note: I'm not saying I agree with the kid's conclusions. I'm just saying I can understand how he arrived at them.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
GREAT!
I 'effing love it!
Laws that nobody can read because the exact wording of them is copyrighted.
What jackass came up with this idiotic notion?
The public law HAS to be available for public consumption by ANY means. Otherwise you're stifling all discourse over the issues covered in the law!
Ye BOB! Just when I thought it couldn't get any dumber in this country!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Topic says it all.
If you don't want certain features in a car, you get the stripped model, and only pay for the features you want.
I've bought several cars where I've downgraded the stereo system to just speakers and a face plate, and saved money.
Again, the point isn't that they're including these things. The point is, they're not making them optional.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
So what? We should stick with a 2 year old browser? A browser than doesn't handle Java properly?
A browser than doesn't do HTML 4.0 properly?
A suite of internet apps that doesn't handle multiple e-mail accounts?
A suite of internet apps where we CANNOT fix bugs that come up because:
And the Netscape/Mozilla project is going to lose funding?
BULLDINKY!
As Mozilla matures, Netscape his all it's future browser releases locked in right there. So it's HIGHLY unlikely that funding is just going to "go away".
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I really believe that the cast and crew of "The Mummy" knew EXACTLY what they were doing. They were not trying to create a horror flick. They were after parody from the first.
I could go on and on. The first movie was a camp film from beginning to end. The second was the same, just kicked up a notch.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Okay, before I go any further. TMR is an "action film", with all that that implies. It was never meant to be some deeply philosophical/intellectual work of film. If you didn't know that from the first one, you should have.
That being said, aside from your distaste for the movie (hey, you didn't like it, this sort of movie isn't for everyone), the movie wasn't THAT bad. And it appears you've exaggerated some issues completely out of context.
What you see as stupid and derivative, I see as a fairly tongue-in-cheek homage to the old mummy movies, as well as a great number of more modern films (did you miss the Slim Pickens impression).
Also, I find your "Dateline" crack to be both petulant and self-serving. It's an action movie. There's no "high drama" here. Only melodrama. You should know this by now Jon. You're more than old enough.
As to Fraser's wise-ass character. How many of these movies have you seen where people are dragging their jaws around on the floor as some gristly old codger pronounces the end of the world is at hand unless someone does something? In these more jaded times, "The world's ending, the world's always ending." is a much more believable response in Hollywood features.
As for your preferences with computer animation, I'm not going to argue them. They're YOUR preferences. All I'll say is that synthespiansim and CG sets are becoming more common all the time. Why? Simply because some things are more easily/economically done. Not every film can be one a Joan Collins "Cleopatra" with a cast of zillions. Additionally, there will always be locales in films that simply cannot be reproduced in analog. Like it or hate it. It's fact.
As to your inability to make out every line of dialog in the movie. They repealed the Universal Translator on every movie. It's no longer a law that every creature under heaven speaks English. It's at least an attempt to lend a small measure of verisimultude to a fantastic situation.
You'd think the gods of the Underworld could off one dunder-headed family without too much trouble
Then there'd be no movie Jon. Sheesh.
Additionally, your crack about people dying and coming back endlessly is no more correct that a great portion of your hatchet job^H^H^H^H^review.
There is exactly ONE character death followed by ONE resurrection in the movie.
Yellow journalism is beneath even you Jon.
One is the truly astonishing appearance of The Rock as the Scorpion King, reportedly paid more than $5 million for this two or three-minute gig.
The Rock (Dwight whatever his last name is), had approximately 15 minutes of screen time. Also, they're spinning the "Scorpion King" character off into a star vehicle for him.
Do a little RESEARCH. It'll add, immeasurably, to your arguments.
And in closing, I'll summarize.
No, the movie isn't for everyone. If you don't like it, oh well. You're apparently not in the target audience, or you just missed all the easter eggs in the movie.
But don't descend to lies and misrepresentation just because YOU don't like it.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Personally, most of us could not care a whit about what OS anyone uses.
We DO care when one of those OS/application companies tries to attack (through FUD) the the software distribution model for the OS or OSes we happen to use.
WE are not the ones trying to lock someone into using our OS.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The executive, Irving Wladawsky- Berger, an I.B.M. vice president, said, "If we thought this *Open Source* was a trap, we wouldn't be doing it, and as you know, we have a lot of lawyers."
It took me a couple minutes to stop laughing at that one.
Then I started thinking about the overt threat involved in that statement.
Even still, it's somewhat humorous to have a company flash their "Rabid Attack Lawyers" warnings in response to an MS attack on OSS.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
They even had an article up in the Chicago Sun Times about it.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Okay, this may, or may not be relevant, but it DOES deal with on-call pay.
I work for a major hospital in the Chicago-land area. There are several units (like the OR) that have nurses on-call.
They have specific days that they're on-call. And during those days, they get paid a piddling sum-per hour (don't remember how much), simply because they have to be ready to come in on a moment's notice.
Once they come in, they're paid at full hourly wage. And if it's more than their standard 40-hour week, they make overtime pay off it.
Now, this may not be completely germane to your situation. If you're supposed to be available 24/7/365, you REALLY should be a salaried employee. In addition to this, you should have an employee contract in place stating compensation (either monetary or time off) for any time you put in over a given period (usually anything over a 48-hour week).
You need to sit down with your employer and work this out. Because, not only will it protect you, and make YOUR life/job easier/more lucrative, it should save your employer money as well.
And if your employer isn't amenable to fair compensation (I said FAIR, not avaricious), begin looking for an employer who actually values their work force.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Well, maybe for the Superbowl....
The point is, just becuase advertisers sink money into an ad slot (and into the ad itself) does not entitle them to any actual viewership at all.
Sure, there's a really good chance that the spot will be seen by some (or heck even a lot of) people. But if nobody happens to have the TV turned on or tuned in to that particular channel at that particular time, it's like money down the tubes.
In short, advertising is a gamble.
Time-shifting, and commercial editing happen NOW with VCR's. As I said, the advertisers are NOT entitled to force their commercials on you no matter what. The gripe from Dvorak isn't even really that commercial editing is happening. It's that the set-top boxes make it EASIER than sitting there and watching it to do the editing.
B
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In short, it's my time. I'll spend it how I want. Also, it's my choice of what to view. If you want to start FORCING programming on me, I'll simply stop watching PERIOD.
This is one of the reasons I have stopped buying DVDs. All these idiotic previews that you cannot fast forward through.
Also, as someone else pointed out, nobody's going to record one or two shows on a $300-500 set-top box like TiVo and then start swapping TiVos. It ain't gonna happen. So basically, piracy isn't an issue either.
I remember a time, not all that long ago (but ages ago in Internet Time), when John Dvorak actually made worthwhile contributions to the sum of human knowledge in the sphere of computing.
It's a shame that he's become this bloated, bitter shill who lives only for ratings now.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Heheh.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
My personal views about a cascading cyclic universe aside.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
But not really surprising. I mean how old is the universe (not just cluster of local space that we've been able to see)? Why's it so surprising that there's tons of black holes out there?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
"Do you seriously expect us to believe you're a Jedi? Do you know the kind of trouble you can get in for falsifyin....ggggghhhh"
"Minister, I find your lack of faith....disturbing."
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
And what're his pings going to look like from almost 49 million miles away?
Probably a lot like any AOL user.
Does this mean they have to use AOL-speak/type too?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I can see it now. Next target for a slashdotting? The big Jupe itself! Big planet, little bandwidth!
And what happens to the link if one of the martians decides he wants to hop in on a game of Quake? And what're his pings going to look like from almost 49 million miles away?
U R 0WN3D 3RTHL1NG!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!