LOL. Tell me about it. When they started making the MacGuyver "Made for TV" movies, I almost cried. In the last movie, he did only 1 jury-rigging thing in the whole movie, and it was the end. He used a tennis racket and wirte to make a special tool. But THAT WAS IT. And it wasn't much better in the movies before-hand.
However, though he now looks way too old to be leading a team offworld, he still has his funny moments. Unfortunately, I think Stargate SG-1 is getting a little long in the tooth; I think the recently-purchased 8th season is a bad idea.
Ha. Literally, last night I was researching the best-quality way (while reasonably priced) to record my shows.
I looked into DVD recorders, DVR's (Tivo, etc), Digital VCR's, the whole 9 yards.
I don't see what the big deal is. When I record something, it's for my own personal use; I don't make mass-copies or upload them onto the 'net. The most I might do is lend the video/dvd/etc to a friend that missed the show.
It's getting rediculous. I'm not a criminal. I don't pirate software or music (anymore). I just want to be able to record my shows while I'm at work and watch them in a clear way.
I'm not a big audio freak (so long as it soudns OK, that's good enough for me). But I demand high quality pictures.
My brother's unit died over the weekend. Fortunately, he purchased the extended warranty from BestBuy (you know, that thing they bug you about every single time).
However, I found out the hard way that none of the stores nearby had a unit in stock (in any color). I visited 2 of the stores that are each within 15 minutes from my house, and then called a bunch of others. NOBODY had it in stock!!!!!
Well, I guess we'll have to wait a while then. Personally, I'm annoyed I purchased an XBox instead of a GameCube. Those games are fun (I love the blue sparks).
"Does any Mac user remember the Sony Spressa [a painfully bad USB CD-R drive]?"
I made the mistake of buying that P.O.S.
I wasn't a Mac user back then, but had a Dell Inspiron notebook as my primary PC for school. I bought the drive thinking it would solve my limited-space problem.
That was the worst $200 I spent in my life. I had SO many under-runs, it wasn't even funny (well about 50%).
USB 2.0 is better than the old standard, but still not as great as FireWire. I love my powerbook, and my external FireWire hard drive (for terciery backups) is wonderful.
P.S. Since then, I have NEVER bought another Sony product.
It may be a myth, but have you ever actually changed your own oil?
I don't pay for someone else to do it, I dedicate some time on a saturday when for when it's around the 3,000 mile mark. Let me tell you, you'd be more enticed to change your oil if you saw how dirty it was a 3,000 miles (hell it's horrid at 5,000).
I like to take pristine care of my car, so I don't need any major work on it (or need to replace it any time soon). The way I figure it, changing the oil myself is relatively cheap to do and is worth it if it adds even a couple of months of life to your car.
As for my friend, his record is going 10,000 miles without a change.
While I'm sure most will comlain about the lack of privacy, or the slippery slope of collecting such data and the danger of it eventualyl being used to issue tickets, I find it's an interesting approach.
It would potentially give better a better idea about traffic congenstion and weather conditions. It beats trying to set up a bunch of "stations" near highways to monitor traffic and weather in different places.
In the end, though, I don't see it flying. Too many people will be against it and the benefits will probably not justify the costs.
GM's may not be the best cards, but they last pretty damn long if you maintain them. My enitre family drives GM cars, and they last to about 180,000 to 200,000 miles.
Any car will break down if not cared for. A friend of mine changes the oil in his 1997 Honda Accord every 6,000 - 7,000 miles ane he wonders why he's having a problem. "Hondas last forever" he exclames, but he hasn't realized he slowly killing the friggin thing.
It's like that everywhere though. Hell, I bought a Dell Inspiron 3700 the moment it came out, and less than a month (or maybe 2 months) the 3800 came out to replace the 3700. The 3800 was faster, sturdier, and better.
Apple keeps their mouths shut about releases for a good reason; it keeps their sales constant. If they said "Next month we're releasing a 1.5 GHz PowerBook," then their powerbook sales would come to a screeching halt until then. But if they keep their mouths shut, then people will continue buying PowerBooks at the same rate.
Sure, it sucks for the consumers, but only if they let it bother them. I bought my PowerBook last week (my 1st mac ever) knowing full well that something better was on the horizon. But I don't care, as I'm more than content with my PowerBook (hell, I'm giddy).
In the tech world, it happens. You can either wait-and-wait-and-wait-and-wait, or you can buy it now and be happy with it.
Same thing happened to me. I bought my PowerBook (my first Mac) last Monday.
However, I love the thing. I don't care if they somehow manage to release a G5 next week. I don't like to by rev 1 products, and my 1.25 G4 Powerbook is my computer of choice. I only boot up my PC at home to play the occasional "WarHeads" or when I need to get use Visual Studio.Net.
They'll have to pry my precious PwerBook from my cold dead hands.
Fortunately, for home users, we can get the Academic version for about $150. It comes with everything except Access (which I could care less about anyway... I use MySQL).
Granted, you can't use it for commercial purposes, but it's fine for home users that just need to read / write Word and Excel files. The Academic version in retail outlets no longer requires you to provide proof-of-acadmic-status. You just pick it off the shelf, and pay for it at the register.
However, I can't justify a constant upgrade cycle of $150 per version, especially considering how little changes with each revision. But if you're buying a new PC, it's not so bad (damn that product activation).
P.S. Office: Mac ver. X is by far the best Office I've used on any platform.
"If you are using VBA in your spread sheet you need to move to a better solution - a dbms and a decent programming language. You are doing the equivilant of using a table knife for a screwdriver."
However, you're suggesting we use a bulldozer when a shovel will work just fine.
I work for a Pharmaceutical company as a software developer. Our scientists use Excel spreadsheets as reports; they enter in some raw data (or it's streamed in from an external program) and a combination of VBA and Excel formulas do the rest. These spreadhseets summarize data, predict flows, highlite trouble data, etc.
THEN, in some cases (at least those that are needed), we have the ability to export the data stored in the Excel spreadsheets into Oracle tables.
The spreadsheet acts as an intermediary for the scientists. It gives them something visual. They can modify things themselves, look at graphs for select data, etc. In some cases, they've even written their own VBA code to perform certain tasks. It's a horrible language, but simple enough for someone to pick up.
Try writing software to allow them to do all of this, and to work with about 150 different macros that were written in the past. A biologist is not going to try to learn C++ or Java, because it's too time consuming and overkill for what they need. And any application, as simple as you make it, will not be as customizable and visual as Excel. You'd be robbing them of that important aspect.
Sure, VBA is a pain in the ass; I wish it would go away forever. But it's made its niche; it allows the non-computer-savvy to do complex things. Anything better would be overkill and would reduce functionality.
I believe it would be a great FEATURE in a handgun. I'm not saying 100% (hell, even 50%) of handguns should have a sensor on it. However, I think they should be made and offered as an alternative.
Many parents have guns. And while some make sure they teach their kids not to ever touch it, or how to respect it, there are A LOT of people that ignore the problem.
To top it off, suicide by handgun is the most efficient way, meaning if a kid at their weakest moment decides to do it, there's no looking back. Where as pills and cutting can often be saved.
Having the OPTION of buying a gun with a sensor of some sort would be a nice safety net. It would prevent suicides and accidental deaths. The whole "police officer's gun being used by a criminal" is another good reason.
I believe the "surplus" referenced that the country made more money the previous year than it spent. People WANTED Bush to use some of that money left over from last year, and put it towards our long-term debt.
The US is in MAJOR debt. I mean, Bill Gates's fortune wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket compared to what we owe. I just hope live to a ripe old age before someone decides to collect.
You'r thinking of Dell. I have literally always said that my 2 Dell laptops felt like they were manufactured by Fisher-Price. They were made of cheap, flimy pastic; worse than cheaper brands of notebooks.
Allps products are usually built like tanks. The iBooks (though cheap in price) are sturdy little buggers, and the powerbooks are elegant and sturdy.
While they may LOOK odd, at least their made of sturer stuff.
Agreed. It's one of those things I wish I could go back in time, and slap myself in the face while I was waiting in line for 20 minutes. I should've just done something like you did. More fun for a fraction of the price.
My first 2 games for the XBox were "Crimson Skies" and "Prince of Persial - SOT". I fell in love the the console after that. Since then I rented Soul Caliber II, Panzer Dragoon, and Rainbox Six III. Also, the free "XBox Live" trial sweetened the deal, as I love kicking people's asses in Crimson Skies (though I suck at Rainbox Six).
However, it's getting harder to find decent games to rent/buy after the ones I listed. Part of me wishes I had gone the Gamecube route (and saved like $200). While a lot of the GC games are corny-looking, they are pretty fun to play.
In all, I think the XBox is an alright system, but they need to make more "must have" titles. Halo 2 was looking promising, but now that's delayed until Fall. Oh well, on the PC side I have (hopefully) Half-Life 2 and UT 2004 in a month.
Well, the end of the 5th season is where Buffy DIED! It wa a good place to leave off. Buffy was dead, and died in an honorable way, in fact a pretty darn decent way for a TV character to die.
Anya and Xander engaged, Spike sort of a good guy, and I guess Giles would take care of Dawn.
Then UPN picked up the show, and had the "Scoobies" bring her back to life.
Angel, Doyle, Cordellia, and (to a degree) Lyndsey were the original characters. All but Angel are gone.
However, Wesley and Gunn (early characters, though not original) have changed A LOT since the beginning.
Wes was a wimp, then went macho, then went dark, and now is sort of beige (confident, but not dark). Gunn was a bad-ass street fighter, and is now a lawyer (though the recent ep suggests his talents have been taken away). And we rarely see Lorne anymore, other than him hob-nobbing with some Hollywood superstar on a cell phone.
The show and its characters have changed a lot recently. I'm not saying it's a bad thing; I think they're all great. But the original vision just aint there so much.
That being said, it's still on my "Top 5" list of all-time favorite tv shows.
They cancelled the fledgling series "Threat Matrix", and are replacing it with YET ANOTHER JESSICA SIMPSON "REALITY" SHOW.
So, they cancel a show that (at the very least) had potential to be a decent action/drama for a network with very little under its belt, with a lame-ass reality series.
This is really quite sad. I always thought the show was great. It had the correct blend of humor and action, and I liked the characters more than in Buffy.
Unfortunately, they did a major format change (they went from the underdogs to in charge of a mega-million evil corporation), and most of the original characters are gone.
But it was still one of the better shows on TV.
Hopefully they will have a chance to end the series with some sort of of finality, unlike Farscape.
Slashdot Mirror
LOL. Tell me about it. When they started making the MacGuyver "Made for TV" movies, I almost cried. In the last movie, he did only 1 jury-rigging thing in the whole movie, and it was the end. He used a tennis racket and wirte to make a special tool. But THAT WAS IT. And it wasn't much better in the movies before-hand.
However, though he now looks way too old to be leading a team offworld, he still has his funny moments. Unfortunately, I think Stargate SG-1 is getting a little long in the tooth; I think the recently-purchased 8th season is a bad idea.
I agree on 1 point... the amount of crap is increasing exponentially.
But there are still a couple of shows out there worth watching.
At this point, I just watch:
Law & Order
Law & Order: SVU
CSI
NCIS
Without a Trace
Angel
Stargate SG-1
Smallville
Ha. Literally, last night I was researching the best-quality way (while reasonably priced) to record my shows.
I looked into DVD recorders, DVR's (Tivo, etc), Digital VCR's, the whole 9 yards.
I don't see what the big deal is. When I record something, it's for my own personal use; I don't make mass-copies or upload them onto the 'net. The most I might do is lend the video/dvd/etc to a friend that missed the show.
It's getting rediculous. I'm not a criminal. I don't pirate software or music (anymore). I just want to be able to record my shows while I'm at work and watch them in a clear way.
I'm not a big audio freak (so long as it soudns OK, that's good enough for me). But I demand high quality pictures.
This explains a lot.
My brother's unit died over the weekend. Fortunately, he purchased the extended warranty from BestBuy (you know, that thing they bug you about every single time).
However, I found out the hard way that none of the stores nearby had a unit in stock (in any color). I visited 2 of the stores that are each within 15 minutes from my house, and then called a bunch of others. NOBODY had it in stock!!!!!
Well, I guess we'll have to wait a while then. Personally, I'm annoyed I purchased an XBox instead of a GameCube. Those games are fun (I love the blue sparks).
"Does any Mac user remember the Sony Spressa [a painfully bad USB CD-R drive]?"
I made the mistake of buying that P.O.S.
I wasn't a Mac user back then, but had a Dell Inspiron notebook as my primary PC for school. I bought the drive thinking it would solve my limited-space problem.
That was the worst $200 I spent in my life. I had SO many under-runs, it wasn't even funny (well about 50%).
USB 2.0 is better than the old standard, but still not as great as FireWire. I love my powerbook, and my external FireWire hard drive (for terciery backups) is wonderful.
P.S.
Since then, I have NEVER bought another Sony product.
It may be a myth, but have you ever actually changed your own oil?
I don't pay for someone else to do it, I dedicate some time on a saturday when for when it's around the 3,000 mile mark. Let me tell you, you'd be more enticed to change your oil if you saw how dirty it was a 3,000 miles (hell it's horrid at 5,000).
I like to take pristine care of my car, so I don't need any major work on it (or need to replace it any time soon). The way I figure it, changing the oil myself is relatively cheap to do and is worth it if it adds even a couple of months of life to your car.
As for my friend, his record is going 10,000 miles without a change.
While I'm sure most will comlain about the lack of privacy, or the slippery slope of collecting such data and the danger of it eventualyl being used to issue tickets, I find it's an interesting approach.
It would potentially give better a better idea about traffic congenstion and weather conditions. It beats trying to set up a bunch of "stations" near highways to monitor traffic and weather in different places.
In the end, though, I don't see it flying. Too many people will be against it and the benefits will probably not justify the costs.
On the off-chance you're not kidding...
GM's may not be the best cards, but they last pretty damn long if you maintain them. My enitre family drives GM cars, and they last to about 180,000 to 200,000 miles.
Any car will break down if not cared for. A friend of mine changes the oil in his 1997 Honda Accord every 6,000 - 7,000 miles ane he wonders why he's having a problem. "Hondas last forever" he exclames, but he hasn't realized he slowly killing the friggin thing.
It was a 10 year old girl singing the song (acapella) for like 8 or 10 seconds. Hardly a sample or anything.
:(
However, laws are laws, as stupid as some of them may be. Apple should have known better.
Thanks to that 10 year old girl, he won't be able to buy his own gold-plated shark tank this year.
Sounds like something outta Pokemon ;)
It's like that everywhere though. Hell, I bought a Dell Inspiron 3700 the moment it came out, and less than a month (or maybe 2 months) the 3800 came out to replace the 3700. The 3800 was faster, sturdier, and better.
Apple keeps their mouths shut about releases for a good reason; it keeps their sales constant. If they said "Next month we're releasing a 1.5 GHz PowerBook," then their powerbook sales would come to a screeching halt until then. But if they keep their mouths shut, then people will continue buying PowerBooks at the same rate.
Sure, it sucks for the consumers, but only if they let it bother them. I bought my PowerBook last week (my 1st mac ever) knowing full well that something better was on the horizon. But I don't care, as I'm more than content with my PowerBook (hell, I'm giddy).
In the tech world, it happens. You can either wait-and-wait-and-wait-and-wait, or you can buy it now and be happy with it.
Same thing happened to me. I bought my PowerBook (my first Mac) last Monday.
.Net.
However, I love the thing. I don't care if they somehow manage to release a G5 next week. I don't like to by rev 1 products, and my 1.25 G4 Powerbook is my computer of choice. I only boot up my PC at home to play the occasional "WarHeads" or when I need to get use Visual Studio
They'll have to pry my precious PwerBook from my cold dead hands.
Fortunately, for home users, we can get the Academic version for about $150. It comes with everything except Access (which I could care less about anyway... I use MySQL).
Granted, you can't use it for commercial purposes, but it's fine for home users that just need to read / write Word and Excel files. The Academic version in retail outlets no longer requires you to provide proof-of-acadmic-status. You just pick it off the shelf, and pay for it at the register.
However, I can't justify a constant upgrade cycle of $150 per version, especially considering how little changes with each revision. But if you're buying a new PC, it's not so bad (damn that product activation).
P.S.
Office: Mac ver. X is by far the best Office I've used on any platform.
I agree that you can't blame this on 1 person. The national debt was huge before Bush, and it will be huge for decades to come.
"If you are using VBA in your spread sheet you need to move to a better solution - a dbms and a decent programming language. You are doing the equivilant of using a table knife for a screwdriver."
However, you're suggesting we use a bulldozer when a shovel will work just fine.
I work for a Pharmaceutical company as a software developer. Our scientists use Excel spreadsheets as reports; they enter in some raw data (or it's streamed in from an external program) and a combination of VBA and Excel formulas do the rest. These spreadhseets summarize data, predict flows, highlite trouble data, etc.
THEN, in some cases (at least those that are needed), we have the ability to export the data stored in the Excel spreadsheets into Oracle tables.
The spreadsheet acts as an intermediary for the scientists. It gives them something visual. They can modify things themselves, look at graphs for select data, etc. In some cases, they've even written their own VBA code to perform certain tasks. It's a horrible language, but simple enough for someone to pick up.
Try writing software to allow them to do all of this, and to work with about 150 different macros that were written in the past. A biologist is not going to try to learn C++ or Java, because it's too time consuming and overkill for what they need. And any application, as simple as you make it, will not be as customizable and visual as Excel. You'd be robbing them of that important aspect.
Sure, VBA is a pain in the ass; I wish it would go away forever. But it's made its niche; it allows the non-computer-savvy to do complex things. Anything better would be overkill and would reduce functionality.
In response to the "biometric auto in handguns"
I believe it would be a great FEATURE in a handgun. I'm not saying 100% (hell, even 50%) of handguns should have a sensor on it. However, I think they should be made and offered as an alternative.
Many parents have guns. And while some make sure they teach their kids not to ever touch it, or how to respect it, there are A LOT of people that ignore the problem.
To top it off, suicide by handgun is the most efficient way, meaning if a kid at their weakest moment decides to do it, there's no looking back. Where as pills and cutting can often be saved.
Having the OPTION of buying a gun with a sensor of some sort would be a nice safety net. It would prevent suicides and accidental deaths. The whole "police officer's gun being used by a criminal" is another good reason.
I believe the "surplus" referenced that the country made more money the previous year than it spent. People WANTED Bush to use some of that money left over from last year, and put it towards our long-term debt.
The US is in MAJOR debt. I mean, Bill Gates's fortune wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket compared to what we owe. I just hope live to a ripe old age before someone decides to collect.
You'r thinking of Dell. I have literally always said that my 2 Dell laptops felt like they were manufactured by Fisher-Price. They were made of cheap, flimy pastic; worse than cheaper brands of notebooks.
Allps products are usually built like tanks. The iBooks (though cheap in price) are sturdy little buggers, and the powerbooks are elegant and sturdy.
While they may LOOK odd, at least their made of sturer stuff.
Agreed. It's one of those things I wish I could go back in time, and slap myself in the face while I was waiting in line for 20 minutes. I should've just done something like you did. More fun for a fraction of the price.
My first 2 games for the XBox were "Crimson Skies" and "Prince of Persial - SOT". I fell in love the the console after that. Since then I rented Soul Caliber II, Panzer Dragoon, and Rainbox Six III. Also, the free "XBox Live" trial sweetened the deal, as I love kicking people's asses in Crimson Skies (though I suck at Rainbox Six).
However, it's getting harder to find decent games to rent/buy after the ones I listed. Part of me wishes I had gone the Gamecube route (and saved like $200). While a lot of the GC games are corny-looking, they are pretty fun to play.
In all, I think the XBox is an alright system, but they need to make more "must have" titles. Halo 2 was looking promising, but now that's delayed until Fall. Oh well, on the PC side I have (hopefully) Half-Life 2 and UT 2004 in a month.
You obviously haven't seen the teaser for the next episode.
Angel walks into a TV studio and magically turns into a puppet, which looks a lot like Bert from Sesame Street.
My soda came out my nose when I saw the clip of puppet-Angel trying to kick Spike's ass while Spike is laughing maniacally.
Yes, Angel has jumped the shark.
Well, the end of the 5th season is where Buffy DIED! It wa a good place to leave off. Buffy was dead, and died in an honorable way, in fact a pretty darn decent way for a TV character to die.
Anya and Xander engaged, Spike sort of a good guy, and I guess Giles would take care of Dawn.
Then UPN picked up the show, and had the "Scoobies" bring her back to life.
By original, I meant "there from the beginning".
Angel, Doyle, Cordellia, and (to a degree) Lyndsey were the original characters. All but Angel are gone.
However, Wesley and Gunn (early characters, though not original) have changed A LOT since the beginning.
Wes was a wimp, then went macho, then went dark, and now is sort of beige (confident, but not dark). Gunn was a bad-ass street fighter, and is now a lawyer (though the recent ep suggests his talents have been taken away). And we rarely see Lorne anymore, other than him hob-nobbing with some Hollywood superstar on a cell phone.
The show and its characters have changed a lot recently. I'm not saying it's a bad thing; I think they're all great. But the original vision just aint there so much.
That being said, it's still on my "Top 5" list of all-time favorite tv shows.
ABC has just done the same thing.
They cancelled the fledgling series "Threat Matrix", and are replacing it with YET ANOTHER JESSICA SIMPSON "REALITY" SHOW.
So, they cancel a show that (at the very least) had potential to be a decent action/drama for a network with very little under its belt, with a lame-ass reality series.
This is really quite sad. I always thought the show was great. It had the correct blend of humor and action, and I liked the characters more than in Buffy.
Unfortunately, they did a major format change (they went from the underdogs to in charge of a mega-million evil corporation), and most of the original characters are gone.
But it was still one of the better shows on TV.
Hopefully they will have a chance to end the series with some sort of of finality, unlike Farscape.