"Still, given the scope of the tragedy, a sub-plot embracing several people and their families would have been more appropriate. The love story of Dawson and Rose was a pure manipulation to sell tickets."
You are missing a fundamental point - the movie was NOT about the sinking of the Titanic. "Rose and Dawson" wasn't a sub-plot - it was THE plot. The sinking of the Titanic was a backdrop and a plot device, as was the whole bit with the modern exploration. The reason the movie sucked was that it was a shitty love story, not because the story of the Titanic wasn't told well. Criticizing "Titanic" for doing a poor job of telling the story of the disaster is like criticizing "Star Wars" for it's poor portrayal of the realities of interstellar warfare.
I applaud Cameron for sliding some science and fact down the pre-teen girls' gullets along with the sappy love story. Instead of a spoonful of sugar he used a cup of high fructose corn syrup, but the audience with the money swallowed the medicine even if the sweetener made others puke.
Complexity: 1) Applying the laws of nature and mathematics (which don't change) to materials (which don't change) to get an outcome (which is generally predictable.
2) Applying various techniques of persuasion and coercion (which may or may not work) to people (who are all different, from day to day) to get an outcome (which, if you are lucky, might resemble what you wanted to begin with).
Hmmmmmm...
(Oh, and I'm a project manager - I have no direct reports, but that doesn't mean I envy my boss)
"In the shadow of 1500 people dying needlessly in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic as a result of corporate short-sightedness and greed and societal dispassion for the poor working-class, we get some bullshit "love story" with sappy, contrived prose."
Yes, because he missed the gigantic market in socially conscious, gazing, protest tourist "anarchists" who went and spent their money on tickets to Seattle and "Rage Against the Machine" t-shirts.
I am in 100% agreement that the movies sucked. Because it sucked, not because it could have been so much better if he did it MY way.
I didn't say that the movie sucked; I said it was a failure in about every way measurable. Some have argued that it was actually a good movie; the foreign press thought very highly of it. But is was still a disaster from about every angle that mattered in the Hollywood movie business. Unless you count the level of infamy.
It's the Watergate of Hollywood, even down to tacking "-gate" onto scandalsm - "Waterworld" was called "Kevin's Gate", referencing the parallels in the movie development.
"For the love of fucking god there are a hundred other overproduced pieces of crap in the movie world to compare it to, why use the one that has a horrific double meaning?"
Because Heaven's Gate is the cinematic disaster by which all others are judged. Not only was it a critical failure and a box office debacle, it wiped out an Academy Award winning director's career, put an entire studio out of business, and removed the Western as a major film genre. It also scared studios into taking more control over movies, which has led to the "overproduced pieces of crap" that plague the industry today.
Look at artificial blood. Artificial blood research has had proven, safe in terms of biocompatibility and toxicity, and reduced the spread of disease, and has been around for 15+ years. Is it commonplace? Hell no.
Ahh, no. First off, there is no such thing currently as artificial blood. You are referring to oxygen therapeutics, which are substances that carry oxygen. These are NOT ready for prime time, see excerpt from the Wikipedia article below. But besides that, blood is enormously complex, and does a great deal more than carry oxygen. When they come up with replacements for platelets and all the stuff in plasma, then you can start talking about "artificial blood".
"Withdrawn oxygen therapeutics
* Flourasol-DA, by Green Cross. Status: withdrawn in 1994 due to usage complexity, limited clinical benefit and complications
* HemAssist, by Baxter International. Status: withdrawn in 1998 due to higher than expected mortality
* Hemolink, by Hemosol, Inc. Status: phase III clinical trials were discontinued in 2003 when cardiac surgery patients receiving the product experienced higher rates of adverse cardiovascular-related events. Some very limited ongoing investigation is still being conducted as of 2007, including the possibility of a future modified Hemolink product.
[edit] Clinical Trials of Blood Substitutes
Since blood transfusions are often most critically needed in trauma situations where obtaining informed consent is either difficult, impossible, or a barrier to providing lifesaving care, the ethics of clinical trials for these products are difficult. In the United States, these trials are performed under a specific exemption from requirements for informed consent [6].
Nominally, the community where blood substitutes will be used in clinical trials is informed, and wristbands or other clear markers are distributed so that a person can "opt out" of the trial. The concept that a person could be involved in experimentation on humans without consent is controversial[7].
In 2008 a review of clinical trail data found that hemoglobin-based blood substitutes may increase the odds of deaths and heart attacks[8][9][10]"
Your post sounds like typical "THEY are keeping the good stuff from us." Does it happen? Sure. But then there's the 100mpg carburetor, running your car on water, and all the other bs conspiracy theories.
"Technically, "net neutrality" refers to the traffic being completely agnostic about what a packet is--phone, video, http, etc."
No, NO, NO
"Net Netrality" is, technically, treating all customers and providers neutrally - that is to say, not giving someone's packets preferential treatment over someone else's. It has NOTHING to do with protocols but being agnostic over where a packet comes from or goes to.
Your definition is for Quality of Service, or rather lack of QOS. No one cares if FTP or Bittorrent is throttles in favor of VOIP, as long as that throttling is without prejudice and as needed. Unfortunately, it's people like you getting "confused" (to be charitable) who get the issue muddied. Either that or you are a shill for the bandwidth providers.
What the company in question is doing is ham-handed and clumsy, but it is NOT a violation of Net Neutrality because they are throttling those protocols for everybody, not just "bad people". I think their method is stupid and pointless, but the "outrage" shown by TFP and the first posters plays right into the bandwidth providers hands.
"I'm pro-choice on the grounds that people should be aloud to control their own lives and make decisions about what they want to put their bodies through - what this represents though is termination of lives NOT on the basis of ones own body or ability to raise a child, but based upon non-life threatening genetic predispositions in our children. This line of thinking is dangerous,..."
Yes, because it erodes the moral basis for abortion itself - "choice". The vast majority of abortions are not performed because of physical danger to the woman, or disgust at the parasitic growth inside their bodies, or a philosophical objection to their bodies being used to increase the population. They are performed for convenience (although the level of inconvenience in pregnancy shouldn't be underestimate), fear ("My Mom's going to KILL meeee!"), or economics (powerful, but mitigable). And these decisions are wholly unbalanced, because legally a fetus has no standing, no rights. And, within pro choice thought, while fetuses might possibly have some moral value, it is far overwhelmed by the moral value of a woman having absolute freedom.
But your proposal goes against that. You are stating, in effect, that fetus's DO have moral value, in that women should not be allowed to abort them based on "non-life threatening genetic predispositions". But why should that have any value? If a woman wants a girl because she just can't picture herself raising a boy, she can abort a male fetus with the full legal and moral support of the pro-choice philosophy. Sure, individuals may have some misgivings, but they are obligated to accept the woman's choice as the highest authority.
Abortion is a nightmare politically and legally, but a deeper philosophical analysis shows up a lot more difficulties with the pro-choice position vs. the pro-life position.
"Interesting"? Try "Funny [unintentional]": Entertainment Weekly isn't a newspaper, it's a glossy magazine. And, despite the lack of gravity of the subject matter, they cover it pretty competently.
I wasn't criticizing your comment, merely reinforcing the GP by pointing out the double standard - Pelosi herself said that raising 5 kids qualified her to be Speaker.
"To be fair, nobody has a problem with Palin Porn. Pelosi Porn, on the other hand...ugh."
Yeah, it's funny, but apparently if a woman has 5 kids her choices are:
1) Being wholly unqualified to be 2nd in line for the Presidency but keeping a nice set of tits and ass, or 2) Being perfectly qualified to be 3rd in line for the Presidency but looking like a hag.
"Them knowing what is essentially publicly available information is not concerning to me in the least regardless of which party is in charge."
Sure, they have all that. But now, they have something extra, that they didn't have before - an association with someone who is a political enemy. That they can now feed into a database with all the rest of the CC's on that list and build a picture of who your associates are, and your political leanings. Which means they can target you - for political advertising only, I'm sure.
After all, other organizations collect and collate information like that all the time, and we don't have any problem with that. Right?
Per Wikipedia: A parody (pronounced/pærdi/; also called send-up or spoof), in contemporary usage, is a work created to mock, comment on, or poke fun at an original work, its subject, or author, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation.
Isn't anyone else bothered ONE LITTLE BIT by the administration asking people to forward email rumors, etc., critical of the Obama or "the health care plan"? The site says "please don't forward names, etc." but they publicly ask that those things be forwarded. So if you have a slightly conspiracy minded friend, and you are one of the many recipients of his email, guess what - the Administration likely has your email address.
"The probability of it getting all the way there without one single part of the 1 KM sail getting hit by any single piece of space rock or other debris: 0% "
Slashdot Mirror
You are missing a fundamental point - the movie was NOT about the sinking of the Titanic. "Rose and Dawson" wasn't a sub-plot - it was THE plot. The sinking of the Titanic was a backdrop and a plot device, as was the whole bit with the modern exploration. The reason the movie sucked was that it was a shitty love story, not because the story of the Titanic wasn't told well. Criticizing "Titanic" for doing a poor job of telling the story of the disaster is like criticizing "Star Wars" for it's poor portrayal of the realities of interstellar warfare.
I applaud Cameron for sliding some science and fact down the pre-teen girls' gullets along with the sappy love story. Instead of a spoonful of sugar he used a cup of high fructose corn syrup, but the audience with the money swallowed the medicine even if the sweetener made others puke.
Welcome to 2008. They've ALREADY lost, multiple times, in court. The antics are because they lost (or expected to lose), not vice versa.
Complexity:
1) Applying the laws of nature and mathematics (which don't change) to materials (which don't change) to get an outcome (which is generally predictable.
2) Applying various techniques of persuasion and coercion (which may or may not work) to people (who are all different, from day to day) to get an outcome (which, if you are lucky, might resemble what you wanted to begin with).
Hmmmmmm...
(Oh, and I'm a project manager - I have no direct reports, but that doesn't mean I envy my boss)
"In the shadow of 1500 people dying needlessly in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic as a result of corporate short-sightedness and greed and societal dispassion for the poor working-class, we get some bullshit "love story" with sappy, contrived prose."
Yes, because he missed the gigantic market in socially conscious, gazing, protest tourist "anarchists" who went and spent their money on tickets to Seattle and "Rage Against the Machine" t-shirts.
I am in 100% agreement that the movies sucked. Because it sucked, not because it could have been so much better if he did it MY way.
I didn't say that the movie sucked; I said it was a failure in about every way measurable. Some have argued that it was actually a good movie; the foreign press thought very highly of it. But is was still a disaster from about every angle that mattered in the Hollywood movie business. Unless you count the level of infamy.
It's the Watergate of Hollywood, even down to tacking "-gate" onto scandalsm - "Waterworld" was called "Kevin's Gate", referencing the parallels in the movie development.
"After all there's a reason you're not actually working in enginerring, when you're such a great engineer..."
Yeah - the pay is better.
Because Heaven's Gate is the cinematic disaster by which all others are judged. Not only was it a critical failure and a box office debacle, it wiped out an Academy Award winning director's career, put an entire studio out of business, and removed the Western as a major film genre. It also scared studios into taking more control over movies, which has led to the "overproduced pieces of crap" that plague the industry today.
Oh, and it was first.
Ahh, no. First off, there is no such thing currently as artificial blood. You are referring to oxygen therapeutics, which are substances that carry oxygen. These are NOT ready for prime time, see excerpt from the Wikipedia article below. But besides that, blood is enormously complex, and does a great deal more than carry oxygen. When they come up with replacements for platelets and all the stuff in plasma, then you can start talking about "artificial blood".
Your post sounds like typical "THEY are keeping the good stuff from us." Does it happen? Sure. But then there's the 100mpg carburetor, running your car on water, and all the other bs conspiracy theories.
Snape? Is that you? You've gained some weight.
No, NO, NO
"Net Netrality" is, technically, treating all customers and providers neutrally - that is to say, not giving someone's packets preferential treatment over someone else's. It has NOTHING to do with protocols but being agnostic over where a packet comes from or goes to.
Your definition is for Quality of Service, or rather lack of QOS. No one cares if FTP or Bittorrent is throttles in favor of VOIP, as long as that throttling is without prejudice and as needed. Unfortunately, it's people like you getting "confused" (to be charitable) who get the issue muddied. Either that or you are a shill for the bandwidth providers.
What the company in question is doing is ham-handed and clumsy, but it is NOT a violation of Net Neutrality because they are throttling those protocols for everybody, not just "bad people". I think their method is stupid and pointless, but the "outrage" shown by TFP and the first posters plays right into the bandwidth providers hands.
Some of us don't need battery powered toys to create a Big Bang.
FTFY.
Yes, because it erodes the moral basis for abortion itself - "choice". The vast majority of abortions are not performed because of physical danger to the woman, or disgust at the parasitic growth inside their bodies, or a philosophical objection to their bodies being used to increase the population. They are performed for convenience (although the level of inconvenience in pregnancy shouldn't be underestimate), fear ("My Mom's going to KILL meeee!"), or economics (powerful, but mitigable). And these decisions are wholly unbalanced, because legally a fetus has no standing, no rights. And, within pro choice thought, while fetuses might possibly have some moral value, it is far overwhelmed by the moral value of a woman having absolute freedom.
But your proposal goes against that. You are stating, in effect, that fetus's DO have moral value, in that women should not be allowed to abort them based on "non-life threatening genetic predispositions". But why should that have any value? If a woman wants a girl because she just can't picture herself raising a boy, she can abort a male fetus with the full legal and moral support of the pro-choice philosophy. Sure, individuals may have some misgivings, but they are obligated to accept the woman's choice as the highest authority.
Abortion is a nightmare politically and legally, but a deeper philosophical analysis shows up a lot more difficulties with the pro-choice position vs. the pro-life position.
"Interesting"? Try "Funny [unintentional]": Entertainment Weekly isn't a newspaper, it's a glossy magazine. And, despite the lack of gravity of the subject matter, they cover it pretty competently.
"Jimbo from Jimbo's Used Cars and Ammo starts screaming about his amazing auto deals (free ammo with every car!) "
Really? How many rounds? And what caliber? And will they take my Prius in trade?
I agree, but Pelosi herself said that it did.
I wasn't criticizing your comment, merely reinforcing the GP by pointing out the double standard - Pelosi herself said that raising 5 kids qualified her to be Speaker.
"To be fair, nobody has a problem with Palin Porn. Pelosi Porn, on the other hand...ugh."
Yeah, it's funny, but apparently if a woman has 5 kids her choices are:
1) Being wholly unqualified to be 2nd in line for the Presidency but keeping a nice set of tits and ass, or
2) Being perfectly qualified to be 3rd in line for the Presidency but looking like a hag.
Decisions, decisions...
"Them knowing what is essentially publicly available information is not concerning to me in the least regardless of which party is in charge."
Sure, they have all that. But now, they have something extra, that they didn't have before - an association with someone who is a political enemy. That they can now feed into a database with all the rest of the CC's on that list and build a picture of who your associates are, and your political leanings. Which means they can target you - for political advertising only, I'm sure.
After all, other organizations collect and collate information like that all the time, and we don't have any problem with that. Right?
That's almost as good as the artist that did the red and white Obama portrait having it 100% co-opted.
"It's ok to have a picture of Bush as Hitler/Joker/Satan, but Obama is clearly off limits."
Yes. It really is that simple.
"Also, I wonder if the Streisand Effect will hit?"
Already has - I had heard about it, but had no real interest until now. So I looked at it.
Black man in whiteface - why is this "iconic"? Aren't we throwing that term around a bit freely these days?
"It's not parody either."
Per Wikipedia: A parody (pronounced /pærdi/; also called send-up or spoof), in contemporary usage, is a work created to mock, comment on, or poke fun at an original work, its subject, or author, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation.
Looks like a parody to me.
I'm sure that the Obama administration has his info on file already through the http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/ website.
Isn't anyone else bothered ONE LITTLE BIT by the administration asking people to forward email rumors, etc., critical of the Obama or "the health care plan"? The site says "please don't forward names, etc." but they publicly ask that those things be forwarded. So if you have a slightly conspiracy minded friend, and you are one of the many recipients of his email, guess what - the Administration likely has your email address.
"The probability of it getting all the way there without one single part of the 1 KM sail getting hit by any single piece of space rock or other debris: 0% "
Math or GTFO.