I think this is a realistic perspective. SP2 will have numerous enhancements and functionality changes, and will fix some long-standing bugs. For those programs that are 'broken' by SP2, businesses always have the opportunity to continue to run @ SP1 for a period of time while the kinks are worked out. I doubt MS will stop providing hotfixes for major problems under SP1 for a period of time.
I'm not a big fan of MS, but some of the criticism they receive is unfair -- damned if they do, damned if they don't. I'd rather have SP2 with some pain and be more stable and secure, vs running indefinitely under SP1.
100% agree. I bought a PS/1 to play this game, tried a few others (Resident Evil, Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy, Einhander, Tekken 3) but found I really only enjoyed the rich textured side-scrollers.
Once I ran out of side-scrollers, I sold it. I've been playing PC games ever since.
Its really an extension of his show "Talking to Americans". He'd go around asking regular americans questions about Canada that were clearly ludicrous.
I remember one soundbite of the Govenor of Arkansas (no, not Bill Clinton) congratulating Canadians at getting 7/24 electriciy. In another bit, a mayor of some American city congratulated us on completing our "National Igloo".
I was *really* surprised to see an economics professor from Harvard agree that Canadians got better fuel mileage because we used the metric system.
All of these bits were funny, but I don't one one second assume that Canadians are any better under the circumstances than Americans in this regard -- you put the glare of the camera on somebody, you ask for an opinion and you get thoughts about being on TV, and the brain freezes. A micro-burst ego trip. Plus they control the edits.
...to help a team beat Michael Schumacher. The guy is ridiculously good, and he's paired with a great car. F1 basically is a contest to see who will finish 2nd.
Tiger Woods in golf, Wayne Gretzky in hockey, Michael Jordan in basketball -- all three of these guys dominated their respective sports at one time or another. But I don't think anyone has ever dominated a sport as much as Schumacher has in the past few years. Its getting so bad that F1 is actively NOT promoting Schumacher, as people are losing interest...
The human brain is the best pattern recongition mechanism every discovered. There is nothing remotely upon our technological horizon that can mimic or replace the pattern recognition ability that is inherent in advanced mammals. There's a level of function that we understand abstractly, but have no working model for.
In these posts there's been alot of discussion about symmetry and its associations with beauty, but I think that simplifies things too much. I like to look at inverse reactions to beauty...horror. A misshappen human figure we natural recoil against. Its probably an biological protocol that evolved to have us avoid diseased members of our species that are not viable partners for procreation.
Think of the grotesequely repulsive reactions you have.
1. Burn victims and disfiguring diseases like leoprosy or facial cancers (victims of which who deserve tremendous sympathy and support)... 2. Misproportinate artistic representation (think "Black Hole Sun" video)...
3. Botched or excessive body manipulation (e.g. excessive weightlighting, or breast impants/face lifts). Think Michael Jackson.
There was a pastiche diagram I once saw, comprised of pictures of reaslitic human female body parts compiled together in the proportions of Barbie. It was so creepy i have shivers up and down my spine.
I am hoping that HDTV and its realism will have a calming effect on our air brushed, perfectionist, image-perfect culture. I think women have a much more difficult time with body image due to our media than men (although Calvin Klein has been trying to change this for years, fark you CK). Once people realise how heavily made up Catherine-Zeta Jones is, or how Jennifer Aniston always has a soft lense used, maybe people will be more comfortable with their own selves.
Strong disagree with most of your statements.
#1. Okay, I don't disagree with this one. Unions are very good at leveraging their position during negotiations. Unfortunately in Canada most companies that are unionised pack up shop and move elsewhere where labour is cheaper; this is a natural pressure downward on union demands. Government services can't be easily moved since its inherently a local situation, such as teaching...thus their leverage is far stronger than is warranted in a free-market economy.
2. Teachers with a quick burn-out rate? Compared to what??? I can think of at least 20 occupations that I would deem more stressful, not the least of which are police enforcement, law, doctors, and most IT careers. The fact that the teacher's pensions are so good and retention is so long in Ontario (e.g. no retention problems here, like elsewhere in the US apparently) you'd be crazy to leave.
3. Teachers in high demand? No, the job in Ontario is in high demand. If teaching positions were in such high demand the union would be irrelevant.
Teaching in Ontario is considered a cushy, fat paying government job by most of this province's citizens. You're guaranteed 3 months+ per year of time off; there's "Professional Activity Days" where training comes during the school year for teachers, adding up to 5-10 days during the school year where students have 'days off'. This is infuriating as this training does not come during the 3 months paid leave in the summers, but during the children's learning curriculum.
The Ontario Teacher's Union is one of the most powerful unions in the country. Its almost impossible to be fire from the OTU. They're extremely active politically, and have been able to resist most modernisation efforts including: a) regular performance reviews of teachers, b) part time/replacement help, and c) mandatory training and skills progression. Sick days are essentially vacation days...you can accrue them gradually over your career and cash them in for $ or early retirement w/ full pay. I've seen teachers retire after 25 years service with almost a full school year off.
The OTU's indexed pension is LEGENDARY. Last I read it was considered the 2nd best pension in Canada, next to retired Ministers of Parliament. In some odd circumstances some teachers have found their salaries INCREASE upon retirement.
I suspect it is nigh-impossible to find a better location than Ontario to teach in North America. I seriously considered teaching for a long period of time, but ultimately rejected the career choice due to the personal stagnation that would be inflicted upon me by the union rules.
PS I know of several PhD professors from UofT who retired from the university to become high school teachers -- equivalent pay, better benefits, fewer hours. Only detriment was less notoriety.
Try a Canon A-Series camera. I use the A-70. I got it for $450 CAD (probably ~ $300 USD).
It has very accurate CCD translation of colours. I will try your recommended red test. When I bought the camera, the research I did suggested it was the best camera for accurate colour representation in its price range.
For x10 zoom, I agree that SLR is the way to go, and digital SLR cameras are MUCH more expensive.
The lense for the Canon A-70 is replaceable, and albeit its not SLR quality there is also a zoom lense available for the A-series.
I think you're mis-intrepeting why people buy digital cameras. I'm not looking at this like an overpriced 35 mm point & shoot camera, but I'm looking at this like a better 35mm point & shoot camera with minimal costs over its lifespan for photo developing. With moderate regular use of a 35mm camera I can easily hit $100 in photo developing a year.
BTW, all of the functions of the A-Series 60/70/75/80 are manually available. Flash, ISO, exposure, focal lenghth, white balance...if the camera does it, you can override the auto setting for your own enjoyment, and set macros. Another reason why I chose Canon.
I bought a digital camera so that I could avoid 35mm print development and import into Photoshop right away; I wanted better, crisper pictures than a point&shoot 35mm camera would give me. Also, SLR cameras are not cheap, and neither are their lenses. I suspect you're targeting the $500-$2500 hobbiest crowd with your comments, not the $500 beginners who need a few years to learn photography at a low cost and convenience.
I'm not a professional nor even a good amateur photographer. However, using some common sense I've found that I can consistently come up with some excellent shots that are comparable to my hard core photography-obsessed friends.
#1. Its digital. Take a ton of shots. Take shots you don't think will turn out; take lots of the obvious shots. Shoot your camera with reckless abandon. It costs you ~nothing~. This technique was validated by a professional photographer friend later on...he claimed that at professional shoots you sometimes have a ratio of 10:1 or 100:1 of good vs bad shots, even with an optimum setup and years of experience on his side.
#2. Know the limitations of your camera. If you don't have an big zoom lense, don't expect long distance shots to turn out. Digital zoom is pretty useless. Most digital cameras have a good short-to-middle distance focal length. Anything beyond that and you're pushing beyond your camera's limits.
#3. Next best investment you can make to getting a good camera = tripod. Extend the exposures to get more clear pictures in low-light conditions, or dark coloured subject matter. Lots of shots I took at the time looked good in the LCD screen, but later turned out to be slightly blurred.
#4. Avoid use of the flash. Its a 'brute force' attempt to get good lighting. Work with your ISO setting and exposure levels first. (remember your tripod!). If you don't know about ISOs or exposure, who cares, just take the same pic 3-4 times with different levels...you learn.
5. Be brutal about your pics. Take 200, delete 190. Don't be the guy with the unending home movies... only keep and show the best of your best pics. You'll also get a good rep for taking good photos this way.
6. Learn the basic filters in Photoshop and touch up your digital pics if necessary. I prefer Photoshop sepia and B&W to the filters that come with the camera.
For hard core photographers this may all seem obvious, but for us beginners I found these 5 or 6 tips are what really made the difference for my pics. And they're easy to execute.
You're close to the money re: OS390, and it being a bank problem (not vendor). I work for another canadian bank, but have former associates at RBC. Here's what I've heard is happening:
- May 31st = month end. new month end code gets run first time in prod (JCL), there's problems
- not sure of name of system, but the general bank ledger for customers is fubared.
- RBC rolls back all changes, so RBC is 1 day behind on Tuesday.
- re-run batch with old code on Wednesday am... unfortunately recovery procedures are flawed/human error, batch is screwed up again.
- now bank is 2-3 days behind...can't process transactions effectively, can't catch up with sequential batches in evenings because there's too much to run.
- RBC departments start running independently based on May 31st data...can't afford to be down more than 2 days. now the roadmap is a mess for recovery, general ledger is still at May 31st state (might be June 1st after a successful batch run last night???)
Apparently about 80-100 IT staff are living at the Skydome hotel in Toronto working 16 hour shifts (16 on, 8 off) to try and get caught up. Everything i've heard suggests that they know they can't get done during the business week...they're relying on 2 days of 24hr downtime on the weekend to reload the batches and get systems back in sync.
Based on my experience in Canadian banking (7 years) plus stories of old timers, this is the worst outage in close to 10 years, maybe the worst in 20 if my rumours prove to be true. I have no direct mainframe experience, though, so take my descripton of the problems with a grain of salt...
I found your joke pretty funny...anything that makes me smile in the middle of the working day was worthwhile. Don't worry about ACs in future...they're only here to boost the web advert impressions.
There is actually a school of thought that says we should fight just as hard, if not harder, against "small" human rights abuses {e.g. dress codes} as "big" human rights abuses {e.g. racism, sexism}. As long as the lesser abuses are accepted without question, that acceptance can be cited in an attempt to justify greater ones
The effect you are refering to is called 'cumulative radicalisation', and is currently in vogue with historians trying to explain how the progressive German societies of the 18th and 19th centuries could take such a right-handed turn to Fascism in the early 20th.
I still think you've Godwin'ed yourself here, but the premise is valuable to investigate regarding computer technologies. Cumulative radicalisation in this case is an effective method of reducing the 'barrier to entry' into other markets, once you're operating from a position of strength in one area. In Microsoft's case, its many areas.
I couldn't agree more! Cultures value certain aspects differently over time, and vary widely across the globe. Also, given a century of hyper-accelerated global change, its hard to believe that we'll know what types of attributes people will need throughout the 21st century.
Also, remember the Heinlein quote (slightly paraphrased):
"The society that values the poet or the scientist over the plumber simply because the former vocation is more 'noble', will ultimately have neither good art nor good science nor good plumbing..."
I know that at the time Bladerunner was made that Ridley Scott had some scientific advisors help verify the screenplay, specifically for this speech. At the very least the principles of the dialogue are supposed to be accurate, at least according to understanding of molecular biology in the early 80s.
I agree with many of your points, and skepticism is very valid in this case. But, I believe this is still a huge opportunity for North America and would make the basis of a valuable domestic policy.
#1. it provides new incentives and labour opportunities for the failing agricultural industry. Instead of paving over our most valuable land we'll repurpose it.
#2. want to increase the yield of your biofuel? here's a good goal for the genetic engineers -- a research cornucopia waiting to happen.
#3. It relieves US dependency upon the mid-east.
#4. Not enough biomass possible? Fine, just reduce your dependency upon fossil fuels from 100% to 50% of your national demand. There's close to enough domestic supply available in Canada/US/Gulf of Mexico to be self sufficient in this regard.
In my utopian fantasies, the agri-fuel will be used to power domestic commuter vehicles and personal equipment, while the dino-oil continues to be used for large scale heavy trucks and equipment.
For those of you non-gamers, this is a joke refering to the creation of the ancient wonder "The Colossus of Rhodes" in the computer game Civilisation. There are specific in-game bonuses provided to the player who owns a city with this artifact until another player invents electricity.
Canada's version of MTV, Much Music, at least started out as a more independently-flavoured enterprise: shows like The New Music would track musical trends at the grass roots and give alot of air time to genre-specific or non-major label signed bands.
They broadcast a concert with Neil Young in their studio a few years ago...they talked about this song "This Note's for You" (take off on This Bud's For You), then asked him how he felt about Bob Dylan licensing one of his songs to a Canadian bank. His response was so blunt I still remember it clearly.
(paraphrasing a bit)"Well, I thought it was pretty obvious. We lost that one. Like, the whole war. We're all commercials now. And I can't see a way to change it back."
Re:It has become the best studio because...
on
Welcome To Planet Pixar
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Eisner saved the company. After some disasterous films (e.g. "The Great Mouse Detective", "The Fox and the Hound") the animation studio was bleeding reems of red ink from the 70s onwards... also Disney's ill-fated expansion into Epcot Centre didn't generate the crowds desired. By the mid-80s Disney was very likely going to go bankrupt.
Eisner is responsible for Touchstone Pictures (e.g. movies for adults), and for their revived enthusiasm for animation ("The Little Mermaid", "Beauty and the Beast", "Aladin", and "The Lion King" -- all solid flicks).
I suspect Disney in this case has repeated the classic IBM blunder with Microsoft -- they outsourced their 3d animation to Pixar in the early days, thus allowing Pixar to fund its own development. Now Pixar has gone off on their own, and Disney is left with a gutted animation department. Also, Eisner has been in power far too long -- he's probably tapped out for ideas, and greed is skewing his view of the world.
Canada is 100% metric. The only industries where we maintain an imperial set of weights and measures is the result of a) trade obligations with the US, or b) supply of equipment and measures from the US itself.
I'd argue that you're focusing too much on the differences, not the similarities.
1. The comic duo is clearly paterned through C3P0 and R2D2.
2. The princess is trying to escape a malevolent power in order to save her country/planet. The sequence of events or details are less important than the thematic similarity.
3. Cinematography wise, Lucas heavily lifts the pacing and framing of scenes. e.g. the wide shots to establish scenes with people in the distant backgound; the slide across fades between scenes; silence punctuated with a big soundtrack when action commences, which since Star Wars/Indiana Jones has pretty much become a Hollywood standard.
4. Samurai = Jedi. Obvious. Bushido = The Force. Obvious.
5. The final reward sequence in Star Wars blends scenes from Triump of the Will, but also the throne room scene at the end of The Hidden Fortress.
I'm sure there's many more, but I haven't seen the movie in some time...
I'd rate the influence of The Hidden Fortress on Star Wars to be roughly equal to that of City on Fire on Tarantino's Resevoir Dogs. Similar characters, similar pacing, direct scene visual quotations, heavily borrowed plot elements. However, Star Wars does stand as its own movie and is not a direct copy.
BTW, I agree that The Hidden Fortress is not among Kurosawa's best works. Ebert considers Ikiru, a film that doesn't star Mifune and has nothing to do with Samurais, to be Kurosawa's crowning achievement to anyone interested.
Slashdot Mirror
1990 - Screen shots
1995 - VHS capture
1998 - Digital cable/digital satellite capture
2000 - DVD capture
2004 - HDTV capture coming soon to a bittorrent stream near you!!!
I think this is a realistic perspective. SP2 will have numerous enhancements and functionality changes, and will fix some long-standing bugs. For those programs that are 'broken' by SP2, businesses always have the opportunity to continue to run @ SP1 for a period of time while the kinks are worked out. I doubt MS will stop providing hotfixes for major problems under SP1 for a period of time.
I'm not a big fan of MS, but some of the criticism they receive is unfair -- damned if they do, damned if they don't. I'd rather have SP2 with some pain and be more stable and secure, vs running indefinitely under SP1.
100% agree. I bought a PS/1 to play this game, tried a few others (Resident Evil, Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy, Einhander, Tekken 3) but found I really only enjoyed the rich textured side-scrollers.
Once I ran out of side-scrollers, I sold it. I've been playing PC games ever since.
Its really an extension of his show "Talking to Americans". He'd go around asking regular americans questions about Canada that were clearly ludicrous.
I remember one soundbite of the Govenor of Arkansas (no, not Bill Clinton) congratulating Canadians at getting 7/24 electriciy. In another bit, a mayor of some American city congratulated us on completing our "National Igloo".
I was *really* surprised to see an economics professor from Harvard agree that Canadians got better fuel mileage because we used the metric system.
All of these bits were funny, but I don't one one second assume that Canadians are any better under the circumstances than Americans in this regard -- you put the glare of the camera on somebody, you ask for an opinion and you get thoughts about being on TV, and the brain freezes. A micro-burst ego trip. Plus they control the edits.
It was a dark and stormy night...
...to help a team beat Michael Schumacher. The guy is ridiculously good, and he's paired with a great car. F1 basically is a contest to see who will finish 2nd.
Tiger Woods in golf, Wayne Gretzky in hockey, Michael Jordan in basketball -- all three of these guys dominated their respective sports at one time or another. But I don't think anyone has ever dominated a sport as much as Schumacher has in the past few years. Its getting so bad that F1 is actively NOT promoting Schumacher, as people are losing interest...
The human brain is the best pattern recongition mechanism every discovered. There is nothing remotely upon our technological horizon that can mimic or replace the pattern recognition ability that is inherent in advanced mammals. There's a level of function that we understand abstractly, but have no working model for.
In these posts there's been alot of discussion about symmetry and its associations with beauty, but I think that simplifies things too much. I like to look at inverse reactions to beauty...horror. A misshappen human figure we natural recoil against. Its probably an biological protocol that evolved to have us avoid diseased members of our species that are not viable partners for procreation.
Think of the grotesequely repulsive reactions you have.
1. Burn victims and disfiguring diseases like leoprosy or facial cancers (victims of which who deserve tremendous sympathy and support)...
2. Misproportinate artistic representation (think "Black Hole Sun" video)...
3. Botched or excessive body manipulation (e.g. excessive weightlighting, or breast impants/face lifts). Think Michael Jackson.
There was a pastiche diagram I once saw, comprised of pictures of reaslitic human female body parts compiled together in the proportions of Barbie. It was so creepy i have shivers up and down my spine.
I am hoping that HDTV and its realism will have a calming effect on our air brushed, perfectionist, image-perfect culture. I think women have a much more difficult time with body image due to our media than men (although Calvin Klein has been trying to change this for years, fark you CK). Once people realise how heavily made up Catherine-Zeta Jones is, or how Jennifer Aniston always has a soft lense used, maybe people will be more comfortable with their own selves.
Strong disagree with most of your statements. #1. Okay, I don't disagree with this one. Unions are very good at leveraging their position during negotiations. Unfortunately in Canada most companies that are unionised pack up shop and move elsewhere where labour is cheaper; this is a natural pressure downward on union demands. Government services can't be easily moved since its inherently a local situation, such as teaching...thus their leverage is far stronger than is warranted in a free-market economy.
2. Teachers with a quick burn-out rate? Compared to what??? I can think of at least 20 occupations that I would deem more stressful, not the least of which are police enforcement, law, doctors, and most IT careers. The fact that the teacher's pensions are so good and retention is so long in Ontario (e.g. no retention problems here, like elsewhere in the US apparently) you'd be crazy to leave.
3. Teachers in high demand? No, the job in Ontario is in high demand. If teaching positions were in such high demand the union would be irrelevant.
Teaching in Ontario is considered a cushy, fat paying government job by most of this province's citizens. You're guaranteed 3 months+ per year of time off; there's "Professional Activity Days" where training comes during the school year for teachers, adding up to 5-10 days during the school year where students have 'days off'. This is infuriating as this training does not come during the 3 months paid leave in the summers, but during the children's learning curriculum.
The Ontario Teacher's Union is one of the most powerful unions in the country. Its almost impossible to be fire from the OTU. They're extremely active politically, and have been able to resist most modernisation efforts including: a) regular performance reviews of teachers, b) part time/replacement help, and c) mandatory training and skills progression. Sick days are essentially vacation days...you can accrue them gradually over your career and cash them in for $ or early retirement w/ full pay. I've seen teachers retire after 25 years service with almost a full school year off.
The OTU's indexed pension is LEGENDARY. Last I read it was considered the 2nd best pension in Canada, next to retired Ministers of Parliament. In some odd circumstances some teachers have found their salaries INCREASE upon retirement.
I suspect it is nigh-impossible to find a better location than Ontario to teach in North America. I seriously considered teaching for a long period of time, but ultimately rejected the career choice due to the personal stagnation that would be inflicted upon me by the union rules.
PS I know of several PhD professors from UofT who retired from the university to become high school teachers -- equivalent pay, better benefits, fewer hours. Only detriment was less notoriety.
Try a Canon A-Series camera. I use the A-70. I got it for $450 CAD (probably ~ $300 USD).
It has very accurate CCD translation of colours. I will try your recommended red test. When I bought the camera, the research I did suggested it was the best camera for accurate colour representation in its price range.
For x10 zoom, I agree that SLR is the way to go, and digital SLR cameras are MUCH more expensive.
The lense for the Canon A-70 is replaceable, and albeit its not SLR quality there is also a zoom lense available for the A-series.
I think you're mis-intrepeting why people buy digital cameras. I'm not looking at this like an overpriced 35 mm point & shoot camera, but I'm looking at this like a better 35mm point & shoot camera with minimal costs over its lifespan for photo developing. With moderate regular use of a 35mm camera I can easily hit $100 in photo developing a year.
BTW, all of the functions of the A-Series 60/70/75/80 are manually available. Flash, ISO, exposure, focal lenghth, white balance...if the camera does it, you can override the auto setting for your own enjoyment, and set macros. Another reason why I chose Canon.
I bought a digital camera so that I could avoid 35mm print development and import into Photoshop right away; I wanted better, crisper pictures than a point&shoot 35mm camera would give me. Also, SLR cameras are not cheap, and neither are their lenses. I suspect you're targeting the $500-$2500 hobbiest crowd with your comments, not the $500 beginners who need a few years to learn photography at a low cost and convenience.
I'm not a professional nor even a good amateur photographer. However, using some common sense I've found that I can consistently come up with some excellent shots that are comparable to my hard core photography-obsessed friends.
#1. Its digital. Take a ton of shots. Take shots you don't think will turn out; take lots of the obvious shots. Shoot your camera with reckless abandon. It costs you ~nothing~. This technique was validated by a professional photographer friend later on...he claimed that at professional shoots you sometimes have a ratio of 10:1 or 100:1 of good vs bad shots, even with an optimum setup and years of experience on his side.
#2. Know the limitations of your camera. If you don't have an big zoom lense, don't expect long distance shots to turn out. Digital zoom is pretty useless. Most digital cameras have a good short-to-middle distance focal length. Anything beyond that and you're pushing beyond your camera's limits.
#3. Next best investment you can make to getting a good camera = tripod. Extend the exposures to get more clear pictures in low-light conditions, or dark coloured subject matter. Lots of shots I took at the time looked good in the LCD screen, but later turned out to be slightly blurred.
#4. Avoid use of the flash. Its a 'brute force' attempt to get good lighting. Work with your ISO setting and exposure levels first. (remember your tripod!). If you don't know about ISOs or exposure, who cares, just take the same pic 3-4 times with different levels...you learn.
5. Be brutal about your pics. Take 200, delete 190. Don't be the guy with the unending home movies... only keep and show the best of your best pics. You'll also get a good rep for taking good photos this way.
6. Learn the basic filters in Photoshop and touch up your digital pics if necessary. I prefer Photoshop sepia and B&W to the filters that come with the camera.
For hard core photographers this may all seem obvious, but for us beginners I found these 5 or 6 tips are what really made the difference for my pics. And they're easy to execute.
Isn't that in Aquilonia?
You're close to the money re: OS390, and it being a bank problem (not vendor). I work for another canadian bank, but have former associates at RBC. Here's what I've heard is happening:
- May 31st = month end. new month end code gets run first time in prod (JCL), there's problems - not sure of name of system, but the general bank ledger for customers is fubared.
- RBC rolls back all changes, so RBC is 1 day behind on Tuesday.
- re-run batch with old code on Wednesday am... unfortunately recovery procedures are flawed/human error, batch is screwed up again.
- now bank is 2-3 days behind...can't process transactions effectively, can't catch up with sequential batches in evenings because there's too much to run.
- RBC departments start running independently based on May 31st data...can't afford to be down more than 2 days. now the roadmap is a mess for recovery, general ledger is still at May 31st state (might be June 1st after a successful batch run last night???)
Apparently about 80-100 IT staff are living at the Skydome hotel in Toronto working 16 hour shifts (16 on, 8 off) to try and get caught up. Everything i've heard suggests that they know they can't get done during the business week...they're relying on 2 days of 24hr downtime on the weekend to reload the batches and get systems back in sync.
Based on my experience in Canadian banking (7 years) plus stories of old timers, this is the worst outage in close to 10 years, maybe the worst in 20 if my rumours prove to be true. I have no direct mainframe experience, though, so take my descripton of the problems with a grain of salt...
First Rule about Slashdot: Don't feed the trolls.
I found your joke pretty funny...anything that makes me smile in the middle of the working day was worthwhile. Don't worry about ACs in future...they're only here to boost the web advert impressions.
There is actually a school of thought that says we should fight just as hard, if not harder, against "small" human rights abuses {e.g. dress codes} as "big" human rights abuses {e.g. racism, sexism}. As long as the lesser abuses are accepted without question, that acceptance can be cited in an attempt to justify greater ones
The effect you are refering to is called 'cumulative radicalisation', and is currently in vogue with historians trying to explain how the progressive German societies of the 18th and 19th centuries could take such a right-handed turn to Fascism in the early 20th.
I still think you've Godwin'ed yourself here, but the premise is valuable to investigate regarding computer technologies. Cumulative radicalisation in this case is an effective method of reducing the 'barrier to entry' into other markets, once you're operating from a position of strength in one area. In Microsoft's case, its many areas.
I couldn't agree more! Cultures value certain aspects differently over time, and vary widely across the globe. Also, given a century of hyper-accelerated global change, its hard to believe that we'll know what types of attributes people will need throughout the 21st century.
Also, remember the Heinlein quote (slightly paraphrased): "The society that values the poet or the scientist over the plumber simply because the former vocation is more 'noble', will ultimately have neither good art nor good science nor good plumbing..."
I know that at the time Bladerunner was made that Ridley Scott had some scientific advisors help verify the screenplay, specifically for this speech. At the very least the principles of the dialogue are supposed to be accurate, at least according to understanding of molecular biology in the early 80s.
I agree with many of your points, and skepticism is very valid in this case. But, I believe this is still a huge opportunity for North America and would make the basis of a valuable domestic policy.
#1. it provides new incentives and labour opportunities for the failing agricultural industry. Instead of paving over our most valuable land we'll repurpose it.
#2. want to increase the yield of your biofuel? here's a good goal for the genetic engineers -- a research cornucopia waiting to happen.
#3. It relieves US dependency upon the mid-east.
#4. Not enough biomass possible? Fine, just reduce your dependency upon fossil fuels from 100% to 50% of your national demand. There's close to enough domestic supply available in Canada/US/Gulf of Mexico to be self sufficient in this regard.
In my utopian fantasies, the agri-fuel will be used to power domestic commuter vehicles and personal equipment, while the dino-oil continues to be used for large scale heavy trucks and equipment.
For those of you non-gamers, this is a joke refering to the creation of the ancient wonder "The Colossus of Rhodes" in the computer game Civilisation. There are specific in-game bonuses provided to the player who owns a city with this artifact until another player invents electricity.
Awesome internet search -- kudos to whoever posted the above article!!!
Canada's version of MTV, Much Music, at least started out as a more independently-flavoured enterprise: shows like The New Music would track musical trends at the grass roots and give alot of air time to genre-specific or non-major label signed bands.
They broadcast a concert with Neil Young in their studio a few years ago...they talked about this song "This Note's for You" (take off on This Bud's For You), then asked him how he felt about Bob Dylan licensing one of his songs to a Canadian bank. His response was so blunt I still remember it clearly.
(paraphrasing a bit)"Well, I thought it was pretty obvious. We lost that one. Like, the whole war. We're all commercials now. And I can't see a way to change it back."
Eisner saved the company. After some disasterous films (e.g. "The Great Mouse Detective", "The Fox and the Hound") the animation studio was bleeding reems of red ink from the 70s onwards... also Disney's ill-fated expansion into Epcot Centre didn't generate the crowds desired. By the mid-80s Disney was very likely going to go bankrupt.
Eisner is responsible for Touchstone Pictures (e.g. movies for adults), and for their revived enthusiasm for animation ("The Little Mermaid", "Beauty and the Beast", "Aladin", and "The Lion King" -- all solid flicks).
I suspect Disney in this case has repeated the classic IBM blunder with Microsoft -- they outsourced their 3d animation to Pixar in the early days, thus allowing Pixar to fund its own development. Now Pixar has gone off on their own, and Disney is left with a gutted animation department. Also, Eisner has been in power far too long -- he's probably tapped out for ideas, and greed is skewing his view of the world.
Canada is 100% metric. The only industries where we maintain an imperial set of weights and measures is the result of a) trade obligations with the US, or b) supply of equipment and measures from the US itself.
I'd argue that you're focusing too much on the differences, not the similarities.
1. The comic duo is clearly paterned through C3P0 and R2D2.
2. The princess is trying to escape a malevolent power in order to save her country/planet. The sequence of events or details are less important than the thematic similarity.
3. Cinematography wise, Lucas heavily lifts the pacing and framing of scenes. e.g. the wide shots to establish scenes with people in the distant backgound; the slide across fades between scenes; silence punctuated with a big soundtrack when action commences, which since Star Wars/Indiana Jones has pretty much become a Hollywood standard.
4. Samurai = Jedi. Obvious. Bushido = The Force. Obvious.
5. The final reward sequence in Star Wars blends scenes from Triump of the Will, but also the throne room scene at the end of The Hidden Fortress.
I'm sure there's many more, but I haven't seen the movie in some time...
I'd rate the influence of The Hidden Fortress on Star Wars to be roughly equal to that of City on Fire on Tarantino's Resevoir Dogs. Similar characters, similar pacing, direct scene visual quotations, heavily borrowed plot elements. However, Star Wars does stand as its own movie and is not a direct copy.
BTW, I agree that The Hidden Fortress is not among Kurosawa's best works. Ebert considers Ikiru, a film that doesn't star Mifune and has nothing to do with Samurais, to be Kurosawa's crowning achievement to anyone interested.
(cough cough) patriot act (cough cough)