I remember seeing those signs for the first time when I went to San Francisco last year. I was across the street from my hotel and kind of did double-take when I saw it.
I never read the comic, and didn't really have high hopes for the first movie...
I thought the first one was great. It wasn't my favorite movie or in my top 10, but I enjoyed it and watch the DVD maybe once a year.
The sequel, I don't know. On one hand I liked seeing the characters again and they were all in full force, but there some some instances where it just didn't do it for me.
I still liked it though. I'd give it 3.5 or 4 stars (out of 5).
but in the end, I find it hard to see how an oil change could break anything else, so I do it myself now that it is out of warranty.
I think the grandparents comments were along the lines: I'll let them do the oil change, because while they're under the hood if they notice anything they can fix it (under warranty). I think my place does a general diagnostic and such when I bring it an and gives it a once-over.
Meanwhile an owner (even an educated one) might not notice something wrong unless the one of the "obvious" alerts are appearing. Lights on the dash, hesitation, weird noises, etc.
Slashdot articles aren't just posted for the question, but for the discussion. Yes, anyone can find an answer to anything they want with Google+Wikipedia+etc.
The point here is that maybe someone will take an interest in it that never thought of it before or cared enough to dig around Google.
Obviously from the author's point of view, multiple viewpoints by the readers would be helpful. However from the Slashdot mods (and community in general) it's an interesting enough topic to read on their own.
there's NO NEED for the average citizen to have a gun
Define "average." If that includes farmers and ranchers, then I'd say your PoV is being affected by your Townhouse environment. If you mean the casual City dweller or Suburbanite, then I won't disagree.
Farmers and Ranchers have to deal with wild (sometimes rabid) animals that can kill/harm their herd or wreck their crops. For those situations a gun is sometimes essential.
What's the big deal? Our space program doesn't really get much in terms of funding, especially compared to other Government programs. There's a lot of pork to cut from our budget, and if politicians start focusing on something that's a small part of a federal budget then I think they should first focus on the big blunders that got some of them rich (like the "Bridge to Nowhere").
In any case, Politicians should not be dictating what we peruse with science. They are not qualified and would let personal beliefs and "the bottom line" cloud their judgement.
As far as Science is concerned, learning that something is not there is just as important as learning as something is there. We learn something, maybe it has little value or maybe a lot. But we learn something that may be important down the line.
Not everything has to be quantified in terms of "what do we get out of it." And nothing should be quantified in terms of "what do we (the politicians) get out of it."
They release MacOS X only for Macs. Is there a reason why they don't release it for regular PC's? Is it because they'd like people to buy Mac hardware along with the OS? But maybe there would be more Mac OS's sold if they also made a version for regular PC's? Or maybe they do it because there are less possible compatibility problems if they only make it for their own Mac hardware, because PC's are too customizable? This question is nothing new, people are constantly asking it and just about any story on Slashot about OS X has multiple threads about it.
I don't think we've ever gotten an actual answer from Apple, the the usual answers from Apple fans are:
They make money of their hardware solutions, the OS is just the cheese to get the consumers in the door. Remove the cheese and a decent percentage will go elsewhere for their hardware (at a cheaper price).
Stability - Apple's moniker is "it just works," whether you agree with that is another discussion. By limiting the combinations of hardware + drivers they can make a decently stable solution. If they open it up to everything then they will lose their "stability" reputation for the short term until drivers are developed.
Some say it's only a matter of time before they release it for PCs, others say it will never happen. Personally I wouldn't be surprised either way.
But the alternative for people with pre-existing conditions could easily be death (or at the least) bankruptcy.
For example, I heard some scenarios where someone lost their health insurance due to non-health reasons; for example spouse A is incredibly sick (something major) and is under spouse B's insurance, and spouse B leaves (dies, divorce, etc). But because they were sick with something major they were having a hard time.
Insurance is a gamble, I know people that go their whole lives without every getting more than the flu and have never had an automobile accident, yet they also went their whole lives paying into medical and auto insurance. Meanwhile you get people that have very few issues in their lives.
The health insurance companies hope that the money they get each month overwhelms those with major needs. Should casinos ban everyone that knows how to legally play Blackjack (without counting cards), just because they're not happy with the scenario?
Perhaps the commercial version uses different equipment? I don't know.
The problem is/was only a pain to fix if you want both Internet and TV. People without Fios TV had a much easier time plugging in their own equipment.
I think it was if you didn't have TV and your techs hooked you up with Ethernet running from the switch box then you were in the clear (could use any hardware you want). And if they would only run coax then you could still use your own hardware and just keep theirs to do (I guess) auth.
As it stands, I don't know what the current status of everything is. They hooked us up some months ago and the only problems we had were with Team Fortress 2.
To the setup has similarities to a Cable internet setup, except for the fact that the Router isn't just a router but also something that controls the cable boxes. And when the fiber reaches your house there's a large converter box (with battery backup) that splits out the signal to phone lines and Coax (for TV and Internet).
Fiber line to your house
Large box near your fusebox converts optical signal from fiber to coax
Coax line runs to Splitter
Splitter distributes cables to to both the Actiontec router and subsequent TVs
Actiontec router's admin UI shows the TVs you have hooked up
I don't recall which authentication method it uses, though I doubt it's PPOE.
There's supposedly a way you can use the Actiontec as a bridge, keep your TVs working, and bypass the overflow bug but it's a pain.
Verizon also used to offer an option to run a ethernet line from the large conversion box but they stopped doing that at one point.
This is a very well known issue w/ Verizon FIOS ActionTec routers. It was affecting at least 2 different versions of them. And if you want both TV and Internet over FIOS you pretty much need their gear.
I had the problem too and stopped playing TF2 shortly there-after. I don't know if/when they actually fixed it since I just don't play it anymore.
However, a million bucks? Maybe big-name actors make this much, but that doesn't automatically entitle video-game actors to the same. Moreover, I'm not really sure how much movie voice-actors make, but that would be a closer comparison. I read his comment as the collective group of actors on the project could/should have gotten millions (combined), not just him or each person.
So you figure you add up Niko, Roman, the other central characters, and everyone else and you could get $2.5 million.
However, if Niko (the main character) got $100k then everyone combined probably equaled something like $250k.
I don't think he's a whiner, from his standpoint he did the equivalent of a cartoon movie and isn't getting much on the back-end while in that situation the main characters usually do. Then again we're comparing Oranges to Grapefruits.
So Windows is unstable because Microsoft has to support many different hardware configurations. Then what about Linux?... Wow, you didn't read my last paragraph did you?
I stated that Linux has been accomplishing this for some time now, and though not perfect its darn stability is impressive for a lot of hardware out there (old and new). Yet there is still obscure hardware out there that isn't supported as well and does cause the occasional problem, mostly due to cruddy hw design and the companies going out of business.
However, as I mention, companies and communities have been supporting Linux for a few years now... hence its stability. Going back 10 years the availability and quality of drivers were not as good as now. I remember RedHat 5 hated a lot of hardware I used to use. Now XUbuntu (and its cousins) are practically perfect stability-wise.
This would be a major hurdle for Apple. Though they could eventually reach a stable position across most hardware, they'd still have to go through the growing pains the Linux went through. That could take a few years, during which point their "It Just Works" motto would be ruined by users that didn't know better. Meanwhile, they'd be more at the mercy of companies than Linux so they'd have to wait for them to get around to it.
I'm an Apple user, I switched a year ago and am quite content. I'm not a zealot by any means, as I think arguing over one's preference of OS or hardware is about as rediculous as one can get.
But even I have to admit, I find it very hard to believe Apple would take over the majority of the Market. I know their laptop numbers are quite good, but as things stand I don't see them becoming a majority in anything except maybe portable music players.
In my eyes, the only way for Apple to become a majority is if Microsoft goes under in a big way. While Vista hurt them I really don't see this happening anytime soon
I guess the only other way is if Apple did go the Software route and allow on generic PCs. But that would be a very rocky road unless they've been working secretly behind closed doors with major hardware suppliers on creating drivers for a vast majority of the hardware out there. Because if they lose their reliability in the public's eyes, people will just fall back on old prejudices of "Apples are worthles."
Apple's percentages are increasing, but not in huge leaps and bounds. In my opinion it would take something massive for them to become a majority in the Personal Computer world.
Just maybe Apple is allowing this to continue to test the waters for a PC version of OS/X I doubt it.
One of the main reasons Apples are stable is because the hardware they have to support comes from a very small bin. Heck, even with that they're not 100% bug free (google MBP keyboard issues).
A lot of problems in Windows come from either poor drivers or low-quality components (which in turn often have old/poor drivers). For all of the flack we give MS, they do an alright job considering they have to support millions and millions of combinations of hardware.
If next month they released a generic PC capable OSX it would be a disaster. Most of their problems would come from bargain-bin PCs from Joe Sixpack trying to run OSX on his $150 Walmart box.
Linux has been dealing with this for a few years now, and though the community drivers are quite good, a lot of distros have problems with more "unique" or cruddy hardware.
Not for nothing, but how is this different from the In Demand feature that's been part of Comcast for several years now? Why would I need/want this? Selection and cost.
Though the Netflix OnDemand selection is weak and old, it's a lot larger than the free Comcast OnDemand selection. While Comcast's selection grows if you have premium channels it's still smaller than Netflix's selection.
If you already have Netflix, then once you have the device there's no extra cost. While most of Comcast's OnDemand library is free, not everything is and not everyone has Starz/HBO/Showtime. Meanwhile some of those shows are (or at least were) offered via NetFlix OnDemand.
I'ts not a must-by, but if you're a Netflix customer with a high speed connection then it's a tempting self-birthday gift.
Well it is the company's server. If you get idiots writing queries they can bog down the server big time. I've heard horror stories of people doing running many concurrent queries every few minutes, and they were poorly written so they'd be constantly putting a drain on the server.
Unfortunately, too many people think that just because they know a few SQL terms that they're DB experts.
That's a good theory, but it has some flaws. For example, they're still going after universities with good law schools as well as ivy league schools.
The law schools have a chance to fight back and have the resources to put up a decent struggle. And many students attending law schools have parents with money and/or connections.
I'm not saying those 2 scenarios invalidate your theory, but something to think about.
First off, you're obviously an MS basher (MS languages vs good languages? oh you mean C++?)
Perhaps he means things like MFC and the like. Not languages, but APIs used to write native Windows applications. I haven't used MFC in maybe 5 years, but from what I recall (from back then) it was kind of a pain and counter-intuitive.
I agree about C#, from what little I've done with it, it is quite nice.
Slashdot Mirror
Which ending?
The climax? Yeh, I saw that coming really early into the movie.
Or the final scenes, because not having read the comics I did not see that coming at all.
I remember seeing those signs for the first time when I went to San Francisco last year. I was across the street from my hotel and kind of did double-take when I saw it.
Hey, at least they're being honest.
I never read the comic, and didn't really have high hopes for the first movie...
I thought the first one was great. It wasn't my favorite movie or in my top 10, but I enjoyed it and watch the DVD maybe once a year.
The sequel, I don't know. On one hand I liked seeing the characters again and they were all in full force, but there some some instances where it just didn't do it for me.
I still liked it though. I'd give it 3.5 or 4 stars (out of 5).
I think the grandparents comments were along the lines: I'll let them do the oil change, because while they're under the hood if they notice anything they can fix it (under warranty). I think my place does a general diagnostic and such when I bring it an and gives it a once-over.
Meanwhile an owner (even an educated one) might not notice something wrong unless the one of the "obvious" alerts are appearing. Lights on the dash, hesitation, weird noises, etc.
You can up the memory without voiding the warranty, at least on the MacBook Pros; I'd imagine on most systems too.
As for the Hard-drives, I don't know.
God, not another person saying this.
Slashdot articles aren't just posted for the question, but for the discussion. Yes, anyone can find an answer to anything they want with Google+Wikipedia+etc.
The point here is that maybe someone will take an interest in it that never thought of it before or cared enough to dig around Google.
Obviously from the author's point of view, multiple viewpoints by the readers would be helpful. However from the Slashdot mods (and community in general) it's an interesting enough topic to read on their own.
Eh, it' not too bad.
The first install is long and annoying, but I believe each install after that is only 2 or 3 minutes.
At least that's been the case for me, and just recently defeated Crying Wolf as I'm taking my time with the game.
Slander is spoken, in print it's libel.
Define "average." If that includes farmers and ranchers, then I'd say your PoV is being affected by your Townhouse environment. If you mean the casual City dweller or Suburbanite, then I won't disagree.
Farmers and Ranchers have to deal with wild (sometimes rabid) animals that can kill/harm their herd or wreck their crops. For those situations a gun is sometimes essential.
What's the big deal? Our space program doesn't really get much in terms of funding, especially compared to other Government programs. There's a lot of pork to cut from our budget, and if politicians start focusing on something that's a small part of a federal budget then I think they should first focus on the big blunders that got some of them rich (like the "Bridge to Nowhere").
In any case, Politicians should not be dictating what we peruse with science. They are not qualified and would let personal beliefs and "the bottom line" cloud their judgement.
As far as Science is concerned, learning that something is not there is just as important as learning as something is there. We learn something, maybe it has little value or maybe a lot. But we learn something that may be important down the line.
Not everything has to be quantified in terms of "what do we get out of it." And nothing should be quantified in terms of "what do we (the politicians) get out of it."
I don't think we've ever gotten an actual answer from Apple, the the usual answers from Apple fans are:
Some say it's only a matter of time before they release it for PCs, others say it will never happen. Personally I wouldn't be surprised either way.
But the alternative for people with pre-existing conditions could easily be death (or at the least) bankruptcy.
For example, I heard some scenarios where someone lost their health insurance due to non-health reasons; for example spouse A is incredibly sick (something major) and is under spouse B's insurance, and spouse B leaves (dies, divorce, etc). But because they were sick with something major they were having a hard time.
Insurance is a gamble, I know people that go their whole lives without every getting more than the flu and have never had an automobile accident, yet they also went their whole lives paying into medical and auto insurance. Meanwhile you get people that have very few issues in their lives.
The health insurance companies hope that the money they get each month overwhelms those with major needs. Should casinos ban everyone that knows how to legally play Blackjack (without counting cards), just because they're not happy with the scenario?
Perhaps the commercial version uses different equipment? I don't know.
The problem is/was only a pain to fix if you want both Internet and TV. People without Fios TV had a much easier time plugging in their own equipment.
I think it was if you didn't have TV and your techs hooked you up with Ethernet running from the switch box then you were in the clear (could use any hardware you want). And if they would only run coax then you could still use your own hardware and just keep theirs to do (I guess) auth.
As it stands, I don't know what the current status of everything is. They hooked us up some months ago and the only problems we had were with Team Fortress 2.
I don't recall which authentication method it uses, though I doubt it's PPOE.
There's supposedly a way you can use the Actiontec as a bridge, keep your TVs working, and bypass the overflow bug but it's a pain.
Verizon also used to offer an option to run a ethernet line from the large conversion box but they stopped doing that at one point.
This is a very well known issue w/ Verizon FIOS ActionTec routers. It was affecting at least 2 different versions of them. And if you want both TV and Internet over FIOS you pretty much need their gear.
I had the problem too and stopped playing TF2 shortly there-after. I don't know if/when they actually fixed it since I just don't play it anymore.
So you figure you add up Niko, Roman, the other central characters, and everyone else and you could get $2.5 million.
However, if Niko (the main character) got $100k then everyone combined probably equaled something like $250k.
I don't think he's a whiner, from his standpoint he did the equivalent of a cartoon movie and isn't getting much on the back-end while in that situation the main characters usually do. Then again we're comparing Oranges to Grapefruits.
I stated that Linux has been accomplishing this for some time now, and though not perfect its darn stability is impressive for a lot of hardware out there (old and new). Yet there is still obscure hardware out there that isn't supported as well and does cause the occasional problem, mostly due to cruddy hw design and the companies going out of business.
However, as I mention, companies and communities have been supporting Linux for a few years now... hence its stability. Going back 10 years the availability and quality of drivers were not as good as now. I remember RedHat 5 hated a lot of hardware I used to use. Now XUbuntu (and its cousins) are practically perfect stability-wise.
This would be a major hurdle for Apple. Though they could eventually reach a stable position across most hardware, they'd still have to go through the growing pains the Linux went through. That could take a few years, during which point their "It Just Works" motto would be ruined by users that didn't know better. Meanwhile, they'd be more at the mercy of companies than Linux so they'd have to wait for them to get around to it.
I'm an Apple user, I switched a year ago and am quite content. I'm not a zealot by any means, as I think arguing over one's preference of OS or hardware is about as rediculous as one can get.
But even I have to admit, I find it very hard to believe Apple would take over the majority of the Market. I know their laptop numbers are quite good, but as things stand I don't see them becoming a majority in anything except maybe portable music players.
In my eyes, the only way for Apple to become a majority is if Microsoft goes under in a big way. While Vista hurt them I really don't see this happening anytime soon
I guess the only other way is if Apple did go the Software route and allow on generic PCs. But that would be a very rocky road unless they've been working secretly behind closed doors with major hardware suppliers on creating drivers for a vast majority of the hardware out there. Because if they lose their reliability in the public's eyes, people will just fall back on old prejudices of "Apples are worthles."
Apple's percentages are increasing, but not in huge leaps and bounds. In my opinion it would take something massive for them to become a majority in the Personal Computer world.
One of the main reasons Apples are stable is because the hardware they have to support comes from a very small bin. Heck, even with that they're not 100% bug free (google MBP keyboard issues).
A lot of problems in Windows come from either poor drivers or low-quality components (which in turn often have old/poor drivers). For all of the flack we give MS, they do an alright job considering they have to support millions and millions of combinations of hardware.
If next month they released a generic PC capable OSX it would be a disaster. Most of their problems would come from bargain-bin PCs from Joe Sixpack trying to run OSX on his $150 Walmart box.
Linux has been dealing with this for a few years now, and though the community drivers are quite good, a lot of distros have problems with more "unique" or cruddy hardware.
Though the Netflix OnDemand selection is weak and old, it's a lot larger than the free Comcast OnDemand selection. While Comcast's selection grows if you have premium channels it's still smaller than Netflix's selection.
If you already have Netflix, then once you have the device there's no extra cost. While most of Comcast's OnDemand library is free, not everything is and not everyone has Starz/HBO/Showtime. Meanwhile some of those shows are (or at least were) offered via NetFlix OnDemand.
I'ts not a must-by, but if you're a Netflix customer with a high speed connection then it's a tempting self-birthday gift.
The rest on their list, eh. I used to be a fan of all of the "Law & Order" shows but not anymore.
Well it is the company's server. If you get idiots writing queries they can bog down the server big time. I've heard horror stories of people doing running many concurrent queries every few minutes, and they were poorly written so they'd be constantly putting a drain on the server.
Unfortunately, too many people think that just because they know a few SQL terms that they're DB experts.
That's a good theory, but it has some flaws. For example, they're still going after universities with good law schools as well as ivy league schools.
The law schools have a chance to fight back and have the resources to put up a decent struggle. And many students attending law schools have parents with money and/or connections.
I'm not saying those 2 scenarios invalidate your theory, but something to think about.
I agree about C#, from what little I've done with it, it is quite nice.
While I wasn't a fan of either Fantastic Four or the Matrix sequels , I found Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow a nice movie.
It had a retro feel to it, not just the "tech" but the storyline and such. Not quite a Rocketeer but a decent movie none-the-less.