You've never actually watched Lost, have you? If you've seen the first season, you know it's simply one of the best shows on TV right now. It is character driven with outstanding production values and quality acting.
Lost is an example of hype, marketing and aesthetics over quality.
The acting is abysmal. Photogenic women mouthing their lines. Poorly-articulated emotions, like hammy theatre actors only without the talent to pull it off. Characters have traits varying all the way from 'whiny' to 'bitchy'. No-one is interesting. No-one has any personality.
The only reasons you're given to actually care about the characters is from dull flashbacks, rather than what the characters actually do on the island. Instead of subtly showing what the characters are like, you're told what to think about them.
The script is poor. Most episodes are 90% filler. People walk about, sit about, occasionally they have some fluff conversation. Perhaps there'll be 5 minutes of actual plot and character development. To be fair this applies to most American TV, like the Sopranos and CSI and Friends. Two hundred episodes, and about half an hour's worth of actual material. Writing by committee.
All these 'mysteries' are introduced and then completely forgotten. The characters all act stupid and petty, they're all identical.
I've highlighted some of your post because it's the main point. Make something glossy enough and people watch it, even though it's rubbish. This especially applies to Desperate Housewives. Only the cinematographer deserves any credit.
Most people seem to act more responsibly when they think they're in a slightly priviliged position than when they're part of a mob.
Of course, Slashdot's moderators are very responsible. It's not like trolls go round modding people down because they disagree with them. It's not like fanboys go round modding down anything which differs from the party-line, and modding up to +5 even the most worthless post that plays to the crowd.
Warning: poster 'nido' lives in an alternate reality.
Most the time "the natives" are perfectly happy living as they are. Couple hours of 'work' a day to provide for their needs, and the rest of their time is free to live and to be. Satisfying life, if you ask me.
A couple of hours, plus 100 hours working the fields and mines. Not to mention starvation, disease, non-stop tribal warfare, high child mortality, and a life expectancy in the 20s. That's when they're not being sacrificed at the altar or forced into marriage to the local chief. They barely made enough money to live in a hovel and eat stale bread and drink filthy water.
Today people work 40+ hours a week, plus commute time. And they do that so they can spend the rest of their free time watching flashing lights on a "television". Most of us can't even read anymore (I couldn't even read Harry Potter), not really anyways (slashdot comments don't count).
Today people hardly work any hours at all compared to the past, usually as low as 40 hours. They have great working conditions, with laws protecting them. They have easy jobs, often at desks rather than constant back-breaking labour. They work in clean offices rather than dust-filled mills or dust and gas filled mines.
When they get home, rather than going straight to bed in order to be up at 5am for the next day's hard labour, they get to relax, watch TV, sit in the pub, play sports, read, anything they want.
They eat decent food, all sorts of vegetables, meats, milk, imported spices, herbs and cheeses. It's all clean as well. They have so much money they can live in luxurious houses with running water, toilets, electricity, heating, air-conditioning and rooves that aren't made of straw. They have several bedrooms rather than eight kids in one bed. They have luxurious matresses and quilts rather than filthy blankets on the floor full of lice and rats. They have baths and showers, rather than bathing in the river.
Literacy is much higher today than it used to be. There is free education for all children. The 'natives' probably didn't have education for anyone other than elite, and that's assuming they had much written language at all. There's no time for learning when you're working every waking hour so the local chief can have a bigger palace.
You're looking at the world through rose-tinted specs. Probably been watching too much of 'seven years in tibet'.
Re:15 Reasons to boycott IMDb
on
IMDb Turns 15
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Reasons why IMDB is great:
1. Ranking system provides great amusement and opportunity for arguments as great but controversial films are low rated whilst fanboy-fueled crap rises to the top.
2. Ill-informed, narrow-minded comments let you feel superior.
3. Quotes section has endless repeats in case you forget half way down the page.
4. Quotes full of mistakes to test your knowledge.
5. Several films or programmes all with exactly the same name with no way of telling which one is which, this makes using the site more exciting.
6. Reviews by shills, all exactly the same with the names changed. This saves time as you don't have to read more than one type of comment.
7. Forum which you have to pay to access, just to find out it's rubbish. This teaches you to be more careful with your money.
For all these reasons, IMDB is a fantastic site. Here's to another 15 years!
No, I'm just not one of the raving Apple fanboys who mod down every anti-Apple comment. Notice how every post which isn't worshipping at the altar of Apple gets large numbers of angry replies?
The anti-Apple posts all get modded down because Slashdot has an advertising deal with them.
It's generally geeks who download TV programmes on the Internet, and who have the hardware and knowledge to link up their computer to the TV, or to make a mythtv box or something.
Say you watch 30 programmes a week, that's three grand a year. A licence to watch the BBC is less than £150 and there's no adverts on that. But I'd rather pay nothing and have adverts, I find it very hard to spend money on something like TV which is merely mindless time-filler.
iPod mini 4 gig (end of 2003) "Too expensive" ($249) "It's ugly" "Will cannibalize iPod sales" "Not enough storage" "Big flop.. Apple is through"
The ipod mini, so great they discontinued it within 2 years...
The ipod nano might be a flop. The original ipod was a flop and they had to radically change things. The shuffle hardly set trees on fire either.
The video ipod won't get very far, the sort of video files which are convenient to download for anyone other than technogeeks with high-speed broadband usually get played on mobile phones anyway.
It's funny how the apple zealots want to create their own siege mentality as well. Most of the ipod's success is based on marketing, it's that good an mp3 player. Like with Microsoft, the marketing department is more important than all the others.
As Kyoto sets up an international trading system in "emission rights", the signatories are not obliged to reach hard emission targets: They can opt to pay cash instead.
Why would America want to pay just to get on with their own business? Where does the cash go to anyway? Sounds like a waste of tax-payer's money. Especially when India and China are pumping out more and more crap into the atmosphere completely unchecked.
As for the "failing euro", what failing euro? The currency that has taken a steep plunge in recent times is the US dollar
Neither currency is acquitting itself very well. Ask Germany what they think of the euro. The euro's a good idea for countries with small economies, but I'd rather Britain stayed out of it.
"A new tree built by my company grows somewhere at 60cm per year. The rear bark breaks up. The tree falls over and burns, killing everyone underneath. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of trees in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one."
Another point to that is that India and China are very poor countries. Most of the population live in poverty, many don't even have electricity. America is the richest and most advanced country in the world. You'd think it'd have the best education.
It's about discipline as well. In countries with high education standards, if you step out of line you get the cane. In UK/US, kids can practically burn the school down and the teacher can't so much as look at them the wrong way or they get sued and arrested.
How then do you earn a living? Or what if you're no good at teaching? I don't think you've thought this through very well.
It might work in the Slashdot-centric world where everyone's well-educated, middle-class suburbians with only one parent working, with a study/computer.
What about people who live in places so small there's no room even for a proper desk and chair to work at? What about a family with three kids and both parents at work living in a cramped flat?
That's not even counting facilities. Does your house have a computer? Many don't. Does your house have a football pitch? Running track? Gym? Science lab? Are you capable of teaching foreign languages? Or maths or physics?
90% of people are not suited to teaching. 90% of households cannot accomodate home-schooling.
No, we've got Euro politicians and businesses who accepted Kyoto
Accepted it, haven't put it into practice. When they do the shit will probably hit the fan. And meanwhile China and India will be pumping out more CO2 than anyone.
In response to another post, Europe's economic problems are due to a failing Euro and excessive socialism than Kyoto.
I think it's more about animals escaping from the house rather than when on a walk. For example, a snake climbing out of an open window or a lion jumping over the back fence.
Slashdot Mirror
Who goes around the world just to eat at McDonalds?
You MUST be American!
You think non-plastic chairs and non-plastic plants make a place classy, but I prefer non-plastic food.
An affiliate broadcast TV station has one goal: To create revenue for the stockholders.
Apple have one goal: to create revenue for stockholders.
You've never actually watched Lost, have you? If you've seen the first season, you know it's simply one of the best shows on TV right now. It is character driven with outstanding production values and quality acting.
Lost is an example of hype, marketing and aesthetics over quality.
The acting is abysmal. Photogenic women mouthing their lines. Poorly-articulated emotions, like hammy theatre actors only without the talent to pull it off. Characters have traits varying all the way from 'whiny' to 'bitchy'. No-one is interesting. No-one has any personality.
The only reasons you're given to actually care about the characters is from dull flashbacks, rather than what the characters actually do on the island. Instead of subtly showing what the characters are like, you're told what to think about them.
The script is poor. Most episodes are 90% filler. People walk about, sit about, occasionally they have some fluff conversation. Perhaps there'll be 5 minutes of actual plot and character development. To be fair this applies to most American TV, like the Sopranos and CSI and Friends. Two hundred episodes, and about half an hour's worth of actual material. Writing by committee.
All these 'mysteries' are introduced and then completely forgotten. The characters all act stupid and petty, they're all identical.
I've highlighted some of your post because it's the main point. Make something glossy enough and people watch it, even though it's rubbish. This especially applies to Desperate Housewives. Only the cinematographer deserves any credit.
If people instead of watching on the affiliates are buying online, then their ratings go down.
So next time the affiliates go to ABC to negotiate to buy programmes, they won't offer as much money. This has the potential to hurt ABC.
Most people seem to act more responsibly when they think they're in a slightly priviliged position than when they're part of a mob.
Of course, Slashdot's moderators are very responsible. It's not like trolls go round modding people down because they disagree with them. It's not like fanboys go round modding down anything which differs from the party-line, and modding up to +5 even the most worthless post that plays to the crowd.
Wow, we've actually found someone who thinks the Onion's redesign isn't a disaster. And it only took 250 comments.
Warning: poster 'nido' lives in an alternate reality.
Most the time "the natives" are perfectly happy living as they are. Couple hours of 'work' a day to provide for their needs, and the rest of their time is free to live and to be. Satisfying life, if you ask me.
A couple of hours, plus 100 hours working the fields and mines. Not to mention starvation, disease, non-stop tribal warfare, high child mortality, and a life expectancy in the 20s. That's when they're not being sacrificed at the altar or forced into marriage to the local chief. They barely made enough money to live in a hovel and eat stale bread and drink filthy water.
Today people work 40+ hours a week, plus commute time. And they do that so they can spend the rest of their free time watching flashing lights on a "television". Most of us can't even read anymore (I couldn't even read Harry Potter), not really anyways (slashdot comments don't count).
Today people hardly work any hours at all compared to the past, usually as low as 40 hours. They have great working conditions, with laws protecting them. They have easy jobs, often at desks rather than constant back-breaking labour. They work in clean offices rather than dust-filled mills or dust and gas filled mines.
When they get home, rather than going straight to bed in order to be up at 5am for the next day's hard labour, they get to relax, watch TV, sit in the pub, play sports, read, anything they want.
They eat decent food, all sorts of vegetables, meats, milk, imported spices, herbs and cheeses. It's all clean as well. They have so much money they can live in luxurious houses with running water, toilets, electricity, heating, air-conditioning and rooves that aren't made of straw. They have several bedrooms rather than eight kids in one bed. They have luxurious matresses and quilts rather than filthy blankets on the floor full of lice and rats. They have baths and showers, rather than bathing in the river.
Literacy is much higher today than it used to be. There is free education for all children. The 'natives' probably didn't have education for anyone other than elite, and that's assuming they had much written language at all. There's no time for learning when you're working every waking hour so the local chief can have a bigger palace.
You're looking at the world through rose-tinted specs. Probably been watching too much of 'seven years in tibet'.
Reasons why IMDB is great:
1. Ranking system provides great amusement and opportunity for arguments as great but controversial films are low rated whilst fanboy-fueled crap rises to the top.
2. Ill-informed, narrow-minded comments let you feel superior.
3. Quotes section has endless repeats in case you forget half way down the page.
4. Quotes full of mistakes to test your knowledge.
5. Several films or programmes all with exactly the same name with no way of telling which one is which, this makes using the site more exciting.
6. Reviews by shills, all exactly the same with the names changed. This saves time as you don't have to read more than one type of comment.
7. Forum which you have to pay to access, just to find out it's rubbish. This teaches you to be more careful with your money.
For all these reasons, IMDB is a fantastic site. Here's to another 15 years!
I think that role's already been played by Denzel Washington.
Maybe it was veiled satire, that no-one else was clever enough to understand?
No, a dry martini is all gin with a drop of vermouth. 1/3 vermouth is about as un-dry as it gets.
Actually it's three measures of gin, one of vodka and a drop of vermouth. You're thinking of something completely different.
No, I'm just not one of the raving Apple fanboys who mod down every anti-Apple comment. Notice how every post which isn't worshipping at the altar of Apple gets large numbers of angry replies?
The anti-Apple posts all get modded down because Slashdot has an advertising deal with them.
It's generally geeks who download TV programmes on the Internet, and who have the hardware and knowledge to link up their computer to the TV, or to make a mythtv box or something.
Say you watch 30 programmes a week, that's three grand a year. A licence to watch the BBC is less than £150 and there's no adverts on that. But I'd rather pay nothing and have adverts, I find it very hard to spend money on something like TV which is merely mindless time-filler.
iPod mini 4 gig (end of 2003)
"Too expensive" ($249)
"It's ugly"
"Will cannibalize iPod sales"
"Not enough storage"
"Big flop.. Apple is through"
The ipod mini, so great they discontinued it within 2 years...
The ipod nano might be a flop. The original ipod was a flop and they had to radically change things. The shuffle hardly set trees on fire either.
The video ipod won't get very far, the sort of video files which are convenient to download for anyone other than technogeeks with high-speed broadband usually get played on mobile phones anyway.
It's funny how the apple zealots want to create their own siege mentality as well. Most of the ipod's success is based on marketing, it's that good an mp3 player. Like with Microsoft, the marketing department is more important than all the others.
That's like a cripple beating up a leper.
As Kyoto sets up an international trading system in "emission rights", the signatories are not obliged to reach hard emission targets: They can opt to pay cash instead.
Why would America want to pay just to get on with their own business? Where does the cash go to anyway? Sounds like a waste of tax-payer's money. Especially when India and China are pumping out more and more crap into the atmosphere completely unchecked.
As for the "failing euro", what failing euro? The currency that has taken a steep plunge in recent times is the US dollar
Neither currency is acquitting itself very well. Ask Germany what they think of the euro. The euro's a good idea for countries with small economies, but I'd rather Britain stayed out of it.
"A new tree built by my company grows somewhere at 60cm per year. The rear bark breaks up. The tree falls over and burns, killing everyone underneath. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of trees in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one."
"Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?"
"You wouldn't believe."
"Which tree company do you work for?"
"A major one."
Another point to that is that India and China are very poor countries. Most of the population live in poverty, many don't even have electricity. America is the richest and most advanced country in the world. You'd think it'd have the best education.
It's about discipline as well. In countries with high education standards, if you step out of line you get the cane. In UK/US, kids can practically burn the school down and the teacher can't so much as look at them the wrong way or they get sued and arrested.
If you have a child in the USA, home-school them.
How then do you earn a living? Or what if you're no good at teaching? I don't think you've thought this through very well.
It might work in the Slashdot-centric world where everyone's well-educated, middle-class suburbians with only one parent working, with a study/computer.
What about people who live in places so small there's no room even for a proper desk and chair to work at? What about a family with three kids and both parents at work living in a cramped flat?
That's not even counting facilities. Does your house have a computer? Many don't. Does your house have a football pitch? Running track? Gym? Science lab? Are you capable of teaching foreign languages? Or maths or physics?
90% of people are not suited to teaching. 90% of households cannot accomodate home-schooling.
If it makes the world a better place, is it really damaging the environment?
No, we've got Euro politicians and businesses who accepted Kyoto
Accepted it, haven't put it into practice. When they do the shit will probably hit the fan. And meanwhile China and India will be pumping out more CO2 than anyone.
In response to another post, Europe's economic problems are due to a failing Euro and excessive socialism than Kyoto.
I think it's more about animals escaping from the house rather than when on a walk. For example, a snake climbing out of an open window or a lion jumping over the back fence.