It is disrespectful, but it's hardly illegal or even unlawful, which I suspect you feel it should be despite your "regardless of politics" comment.
And using disrespect, or even actually holding the belief that he's not the POTUS, to make a point is definitely covered under freedom of speech. It speaks volumes about any writer's intent when opting for Mr. Bush or just Bush, over President Bush.
If the write is serious, he would use one of the above, but if they are just spouting propaganda, maybe Dubya, or George W, or something equally derogatory. Which is Also covered under free speech.
Though I doubt many people would care to address him personally as Mr. Bush, the office carries respect, even if the person holding it does not.
My company traditionally purchased their own equipment, but at one point was offered a "killer" deal. We were a major software company which was recently taken over (ahem). The leasing deal looked great on paper (i.e. the Bean Counters LOVED it).
In practice, it sucked wind. Not the pleasant kind I find blowing by my window as I type this, but rather more of the offensive sewage variety.
It created a maintenance nightmare, added overhead that required more staffing to deal with returns, getting off-lease equipment returned from people in the field, which required new leased equipment, a rebuild, transfer of files, etc. despite the fact that the machines were plenty good enough to handle the current software load for another year.
By the time the dust settled, my department vowed never to lease anything so transient as user desktops/laptops. Some large cost items which made sense and didn't require extra staff, tracking, and hidden work requirements were left on-lease.
All-in-all, the CPAs can figure out how to get you some bang for the buck either way via depreciation, tax breaks, and what not. Don't be sold on leasing because someone tells you it's a better deal financially. When we ran the numbers after all was said and done, it ended up costing us much more in PeoplePower and requirements to make it all work - and even then it still sucked.
Own your own. Accept no substitute.
You are obviously intelligent and well spoken. I won't waste my time defending my life, as it's a very good one!
My point was that you were generalizing how other people should react to a situation based on YOUR experience. We all have to adapt, that's a given and change is actually a good thing. I'm sure there will be opportunity abounding with regard to the computer and techno-job market for eternity in one form or another. I'd even say that the current job drain is an opportunity for the right people in the right situation.
I wasn't trying to indicate that MY Life was boring, unsatisfactory or even un-LIVED as you stated. I was trying to say that the voice of youth is often the voice of inexperience and single mindedness (not-unintelligent - as I was once a fairly gifted youth too). Re-read what I said and take away your literalism. I think you'll then see my point. At this stage in your life adaptation and change are great things and it's easy to swing your life to those changes.
However, there are those of us that would have a lot of difficult choices to face were it necessary to chase a job to another part of world. When you are young or even without close family and friends, this isn't such a big deal, especially if you know you'll be coming back in a few years. But try uprooting a family and moving to Delhi or Kuala Lumpur. Then try to forget about the fighting, overpopulation and pollution!
I changed your "adapt" to "live with it", because that's what the VAST majority of IT professionals in the same situation will do. Not because they don't love computers, or pursuing some of the same dreams you might have, but because there are other realities that simply don't often enter the mind of an 18 yr. old.
Pursue your life with gusto and don't look back. But remember to always think in the other person's shoes.
Ah... the voice of youth! Let us all know how it goes 4 years from now when you are trying to find a job or compete with a firm from India when you try to start your own company. Then let us know how life is treating you when you have a mortgage, 2.5 kids, and an ex-wife to support. Did I mention the payments on your SUV?
IT folks all over this nation as well as Europe and Australia are worried and with good reason. Relatively High paying jobs are pouring through the drain to IndoChina. It's easy to say "live with it" when you are still living with your parents and have little financial responsibility. Of course, I could just be generalizing....
I have to say this is great news. I'm a long time employee, and I have skills that could take me to many companies, but I choose this one for many reasons.
Oracle started this bid and has continued it as a way of disrupting business, creating FUD, and trying to change PeopleSoft's market perception. I've worked with both products and I can tell you that there are very few who would claim Oracle's product, support or business tactics are better than PeopleSoft's. That's not saying that any ERP product doesn't have it's pitfalls, but our customers are some of the most loyal and it's not without good reason.
I'm all for the free market, but the proposed takeover would undoubtedly crush innovation and increase prices. It faces many regulatory hurdles, from a DOJ lawsuit, to a potential EU lawsuit on the same grounds and a States Attorneys General lawsuit should it go forward. These people are the same ones/. praises when they hammer away at Microsoft for monopolizing the market... why would anyone here not support them on the same grounds for moving against Oracle?
I'm of the belief that anyone who wants this to go through is either paid by Oracle, has strong ties to Oracle, or is a short term investor. Larry has a magical way of using the "system" to his advantage and he has only done this to cause market confusion, disrupt PeopleSoft's business and drive up his sagging market share.
I'm of the belief he NEVER wanted to buy PeopleSoft. If Oracle truly wanted us, why not do it 2+ years prior when we were against the ropes? He would have gotten us on the cheap and had a nice chunk of customers. No, if he really wanted to buy PSoft, he would have never badmouthed the product, claim he was dropping support or any of the other shenanigans he's pulled. He's scared of the combined force of JDEdwards and PeopleSoft and the customer's he's been losing to us for years.
By the way, many PeopleSoft employees are ex-Oracle ones and every single one of them I know has said they will never work for Oracle again. Even current Oracle employees apologize for their boss... what does that tell you?
In the end, I have a feeling this will bite him on the ass.
Okay, let's go from a bankrupt space program to one which despises us and will steal every bit of technology it can get to reinforce a non-democratically elected regime that is in many ways much worse than Soviet Russia in terms of human rights.
Microsoft hates a fair and competetive environment, especially with it's most intensive cash cow, Office (now that DOS is dead). Of course there is still the Windows Tax. Open Standards are against everything Microsoft believes in. It's Developers, Developers, Developers are encouraged to embrace and extend every known component that users find useful.
While I find it very appealing that Gateway and several other PC manufacturers are looking to cheaper alternatives for their low-end PC's, this probably won't make a dent for a long time to come.
unfortunately, even your console prediction is about a year late
Well... I have yet to see hard core porn will fully posable/actable characters in any gaming system including PC. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong
With engines like DOA, you could pretty much put together any porn scenario you like with as much reality or unreality as you care to have. No limits, no guilt. Like realistic Anime Porn with
Add in the ability to repeat scenes and export them or even burn them and you have your own little home-made Porn Video shop. Tell me it wouldn't sell....:-)
1) Sell console/PC game with fully controllable photorealistic hard core sex actors in real time with the ability to "record" the session for personal viewing or export to those who might be intersted.
2) Get a piece of the pie for exporting said recordings to friends and family
3) ????
4) Profit!
It's almost inevitable and I'm honestly surprised that someone hasn't already done this on a console. Might have to sell it with a mod chip on some systems if it won't be licensed, but who cares?:-)
Everything we see these days seems to be an incremental improvement or "synergy" type of product with nothing fantastic showing up.
Of course I see the eventual "StarTrekification" [Copyright currently under attack by Paramount] of about every modern day device we have. PDA's become phones become cameras, become mobile webservers for on the go Amateur Porn actors with built in audio, video, and Solitaire.
These Predictions are invariably insider information about products in the pipeline that were in the think tank not a long time ago and their usefulness is generally overplayed, but they are an easy, attention grabbing headline (you saw it on Slashdot didn't you?)
With all that said, here are a few things that will almost certainly happen on the technology front:
1) PDA/Phone/Camera combo's will do streaming video. No more lugging that mini-dv to your local Movie Pirate... just WiFi it. Hell... we could all watch a movie in real time from Mobile Pirates(tm).
2) FINALLY something useful - fuel cell batteries for everything
3) LCD's will big bigger and cheaper and somehow they'll figure out how to stop streaking in fast motion applications.
4) Foveon CMOS will make it into high-end prosumer palmcorders
5) DVDxR format will be released. Look for the DVD/R drive a year later. Oh, and the "end-all" DVD+-x/R drives from Sony should be due out about a year after that - don't get left behind, each new version is nominally more compatible than the last!
6) Portable Hologram units (ala Star Wars). 'Nuff said.
7) Virtual Porn on PS2/Xbox/Cube... Think Dead Or Alive X-treme Volleyball engine with a few more 'fun' features. This will be the killer app that finally brings Porn to it's intended audience in the way which we all really want - with full control, no lame acting, and in widescreen
8) THX 9.1 Surround Sound. Get it on your PC now!
9) Mac OS XI
10) AMD turns things around with their monster chip (Please... I have a lot of stock!)
I claim copyright on any and all ideas from this day forward... especially the Porn on the Gaming systems (maybe even the PC).
This is explained a bit differently in "The Code Book", but here goes:
If you and a friend are in a room and are separated by a black curtain, and there is the potential that there is actually 2 curtains with a 3rd Person inbetween, you can't be sure of a secure conversation. Now, let's throw in QC, and you say "I have something secure to tell you" across the room. If that message is listened to by a 3rd Party, QC will FOR A FACT inform your friend that the message was tampered with before he heard it.
How does this help secure your conversation? Let's say you have an infinite number of rooms with which to experiment. Every time your message is intercepted, you simply change rooms (or channels) and repeat your "I have something secure to tell you" message until it is not tampered with.
But, you say, a 3rd party could just wait to listen to the "important part" of the message. Could they? I could sit there and say my insecure message for days and each time I would know when it was listened to. How would a person know when to listen to the right message? They wouldn't know which one is secure. So effectively, if the first message is secure, the next message will be as well.
INAE either, but "passing through" and "[testing] in" are two different things. Going through the sonic barrier and testing within it are two different things. Going through is stressful... testing on the edge of mach 1 introduces amazing stresses. Something that flexes a lot more than a standard wing could set up harmonic vibrations which would shatter the hardware. Passing through would actually stablize after the initial shockwave.
We've seen some amazing things due to the innovation of flight. Carbon Fiber, Titanium, Many plastics, even the IC on Silicon. The list could go on for quite a while... if you took NASA and the Air Force out of the material science loop, we'd be living in an entirely different world.
Look for this idea to spawn a host of new things from more complex fly-by-wire systems and innovative materials development and use.
I love their monitors, but their drives? Worse than Western Digital. Their support truly sucks but the drive will be successfull and will trigger a flood from other manufacturers. So, wait it out for 2-3 months when other offerings at cheaper prices will abound.
A Honeypot for spammers? Sounds like an idea who's time has come.
The problem's are many, but the outcome would be fantastic. Create a Mail-dev/null program which looks like a "real" system and make it hackable. Keep the same doors the spammers would normally use. Make said program freely available to anyone and everyone. Make it that much more difficult for Spammers to find a working program to hack.
The idea here is a great one, but I have 2 suggestions for version 2.0 1) I would rather have the remote control up by my mouse for easily accessible seat adjustment. 2) The thing is a bit more than a chair obviously, but it would have worked better on a mobile platform maybe with "anchors" similar to a wheelchair that can be made to hold it's position.
Fair enough assessment. I also agree that the technology seemed to fit with the near future. But any security person worth his salt would lock out a "suspected" ID access immediately after identifying anything as grand as murder. There's no way his bio-id print would be in the system to allow him back into the "temple" once, let alone a second time in his ex-wife's hands.
Another Security let down is the lack of immediate flagging of a suspects ID... Cruise walks through a shopping mall, where presumably security would be easily as high as a mass transit system. However he's ID'd off of the train, but not while walking past several advertisments which gather his retinal scan. I guess they are just continuity issues, but that's what I was referring to as needing a bit more tech... that and the fact that they had to manually transfer the holographic tablet from one station to another. You'd think they would overcome sneakernet in fifty years. Hell, we already have bluetooth and 802.11!
IMHO, the problem is that G.L. has set himself up as king and can't find anyone who will say no. Everyone in that environment probably looks up to him as a god and an icon and they don't want to say no. If you were at ILM and Lucas said to make Jar Jar, you'd do it. Hell... I know I would! All this is self-reinforcing to the point that Lucas won't allow other opinions. He's just too involved and this is his baby from start to finish. I can understand it. At least he's listening to the fans SOME, but my guess is that the prequels will go down as shit movie making with no soul and only eye Candy.
No more days of reviewing the movies 100 times because they just don't get old (with the exception of the ROTJ Ewok/Mark Hamil acting Debacle)
Unfortunately I think you are correct in this assumption. However, the two have worked well in the past, so I'm still hopeful. Let Lucas stick to redesigning the movie making process and the techie side and let Spielberg do the direction. The two together really kick some ass. I felt like Minority Report could have use a bit better "techno" stuff and that Star Wars could use some actual acting and storyline.
Lucas has a pretty impressive vision and knows eye-candy better than about any director out there. But he's a terrible writer and he doesn't know how to direct actors. He has some top notch talent in his movies and unless they break free of the crap dialogue and directive vision of what that dialogue should sound like, they are screwed. I'd give anything to have Spielberg direct with Lucas doing his thing in the background... maybe we'd have an Indiana Jones style romp for E3.
Eh.. it's mostly nostalgia and to say "I was there", I guess. Didn't have to take the wind out of my sails though! I'm hopeful that you can still make out the building through all the graphics, but it was pretty ugly.
While it's true the footage may be used in the 3rd film (which I'm told is simply a continuation or the second "half" of the second film), I was told point blank that they were filming the sequence for Reload. That coming from the head site coordinator as well as the security guard. And then the Director came over, asked us not to use flash photography and explained they were filming a 14 min. sequence of a fight with Neo up the side of the southeast building for the second film due out in about a year.
Close... The actual amount Martin Place that they blocked off was pretty small. I would say a bit bigger than an apartment.:) On the map they had the area "sanitized" between Pitt and Elizabeth.
More to the point, the actual amount of area used was only a portion of a 2 lane street. The copter they used is a French made Squirrel with a nose mounted cam sphere. It has two engines... used because of close city quarters in case one fails. But the thing is about the length of 2 cars and only has 3 short blades. Pretty small but very slick looking.
I was onsite (on business in the city) and I can assure you that Keanu was not there. All in all it was a pretty boring few hours. I was in the best viewing spot just off the square near Elizabeth street and although the buildings were non-descript, the head security guy nearest me said the Brothers picked the building because it looked dark and sinister. I was further told that the sequence would later be filled in with a fight seen with Neo on a windy and rainy night, although they were filming in the late afternoon before losing light.
Since the chopper came in from a few streets away and flew to the square then then traveled up along the building, my guess is that Neo might be "flying" as he did at the end of Movie 1 and then fighting someone on the externals of the building. All Greenscreen of course.
They are filming 2 more sequences during the next 2 Sundays and the second one will be the largest street closure ever (surpassing Vanilla Sky's empty street scene). I won't be here for the big one where they will close down all of George Street, but I'm hoping to see some of the cast (Trinity anyone?) next Sunday.
Either way, it will be cool having pre-CGI footage of the scene as it will likely be a pivotal sequence.
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It is disrespectful, but it's hardly illegal or even unlawful, which I suspect you feel it should be despite your "regardless of politics" comment.
And using disrespect, or even actually holding the belief that he's not the POTUS, to make a point is definitely covered under freedom of speech. It speaks volumes about any writer's intent when opting for Mr. Bush or just Bush, over President Bush.
If the write is serious, he would use one of the above, but if they are just spouting propaganda, maybe Dubya, or George W, or something equally derogatory. Which is Also covered under free speech.
Though I doubt many people would care to address him personally as Mr. Bush, the office carries respect, even if the person holding it does not.
My company traditionally purchased their own equipment, but at one point was offered a "killer" deal. We were a major software company which was recently taken over (ahem). The leasing deal looked great on paper (i.e. the Bean Counters LOVED it). In practice, it sucked wind. Not the pleasant kind I find blowing by my window as I type this, but rather more of the offensive sewage variety. It created a maintenance nightmare, added overhead that required more staffing to deal with returns, getting off-lease equipment returned from people in the field, which required new leased equipment, a rebuild, transfer of files, etc. despite the fact that the machines were plenty good enough to handle the current software load for another year. By the time the dust settled, my department vowed never to lease anything so transient as user desktops/laptops. Some large cost items which made sense and didn't require extra staff, tracking, and hidden work requirements were left on-lease. All-in-all, the CPAs can figure out how to get you some bang for the buck either way via depreciation, tax breaks, and what not. Don't be sold on leasing because someone tells you it's a better deal financially. When we ran the numbers after all was said and done, it ended up costing us much more in PeoplePower and requirements to make it all work - and even then it still sucked. Own your own. Accept no substitute.
I'm all for the site earning enough to survive, but the information on /. is typically outdated unless it's really fringe.
You are obviously intelligent and well spoken. I won't waste my time defending my life, as it's a very good one!
My point was that you were generalizing how other people should react to a situation based on YOUR experience. We all have to adapt, that's a given and change is actually a good thing. I'm sure there will be opportunity abounding with regard to the computer and techno-job market for eternity in one form or another. I'd even say that the current job drain is an opportunity for the right people in the right situation.
I wasn't trying to indicate that MY Life was boring, unsatisfactory or even un-LIVED as you stated. I was trying to say that the voice of youth is often the voice of inexperience and single mindedness (not-unintelligent - as I was once a fairly gifted youth too). Re-read what I said and take away your literalism. I think you'll then see my point. At this stage in your life adaptation and change are great things and it's easy to swing your life to those changes.
However, there are those of us that would have a lot of difficult choices to face were it necessary to chase a job to another part of world. When you are young or even without close family and friends, this isn't such a big deal, especially if you know you'll be coming back in a few years. But try uprooting a family and moving to Delhi or Kuala Lumpur. Then try to forget about the fighting, overpopulation and pollution!
I changed your "adapt" to "live with it", because that's what the VAST majority of IT professionals in the same situation will do. Not because they don't love computers, or pursuing some of the same dreams you might have, but because there are other realities that simply don't often enter the mind of an 18 yr. old.
Pursue your life with gusto and don't look back. But remember to always think in the other person's shoes.
Ah... the voice of youth! Let us all know how it goes 4 years from now when you are trying to find a job or compete with a firm from India when you try to start your own company. Then let us know how life is treating you when you have a mortgage, 2.5 kids, and an ex-wife to support. Did I mention the payments on your SUV?
IT folks all over this nation as well as Europe and Australia are worried and with good reason. Relatively High paying jobs are pouring through the drain to IndoChina. It's easy to say "live with it" when you are still living with your parents and have little financial responsibility. Of course, I could just be generalizing....
I have to say this is great news. I'm a long time employee, and I have skills that could take me to many companies, but I choose this one for many reasons.
/. praises when they hammer away at Microsoft for monopolizing the market... why would anyone here not support them on the same grounds for moving against Oracle?
Oracle started this bid and has continued it as a way of disrupting business, creating FUD, and trying to change PeopleSoft's market perception. I've worked with both products and I can tell you that there are very few who would claim Oracle's product, support or business tactics are better than PeopleSoft's. That's not saying that any ERP product doesn't have it's pitfalls, but our customers are some of the most loyal and it's not without good reason.
I'm all for the free market, but the proposed takeover would undoubtedly crush innovation and increase prices. It faces many regulatory hurdles, from a DOJ lawsuit, to a potential EU lawsuit on the same grounds and a States Attorneys General lawsuit should it go forward. These people are the same ones
I'm of the belief that anyone who wants this to go through is either paid by Oracle, has strong ties to Oracle, or is a short term investor. Larry has a magical way of using the "system" to his advantage and he has only done this to cause market confusion, disrupt PeopleSoft's business and drive up his sagging market share.
I'm of the belief he NEVER wanted to buy PeopleSoft. If Oracle truly wanted us, why not do it 2+ years prior when we were against the ropes? He would have gotten us on the cheap and had a nice chunk of customers. No, if he really wanted to buy PSoft, he would have never badmouthed the product, claim he was dropping support or any of the other shenanigans he's pulled. He's scared of the combined force of JDEdwards and PeopleSoft and the customer's he's been losing to us for years.
By the way, many PeopleSoft employees are ex-Oracle ones and every single one of them I know has said they will never work for Oracle again. Even current Oracle employees apologize for their boss... what does that tell you?
In the end, I have a feeling this will bite him on the ass.
Or has the quality of "news-worthy" articles taken a plunge? I'm all for supporting the Linux gaming community, but is this really front page news?
Okay, let's go from a bankrupt space program to one which despises us and will steal every bit of technology it can get to reinforce a non-democratically elected regime that is in many ways much worse than Soviet Russia in terms of human rights.
Microsoft hates a fair and competetive environment, especially with it's most intensive cash cow, Office (now that DOS is dead). Of course there is still the Windows Tax. Open Standards are against everything Microsoft believes in. It's Developers, Developers, Developers are encouraged to embrace and extend every known component that users find useful.
While I find it very appealing that Gateway and several other PC manufacturers are looking to cheaper alternatives for their low-end PC's, this probably won't make a dent for a long time to come.
unfortunately, even your console prediction is about a year late
:-)
:-)
Well... I have yet to see hard core porn will fully posable/actable characters in any gaming system including PC. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong
With engines like DOA, you could pretty much put together any porn scenario you like with as much reality or unreality as you care to have. No limits, no guilt. Like realistic Anime Porn with
Add in the ability to repeat scenes and export them or even burn them and you have your own little home-made Porn Video shop. Tell me it wouldn't sell....
1) Sell console/PC game with fully controllable photorealistic hard core sex actors in real time with the ability to "record" the session for personal viewing or export to those who might be intersted.
2) Get a piece of the pie for exporting said recordings to friends and family
3) ????
4) Profit!
It's almost inevitable and I'm honestly surprised that someone hasn't already done this on a console. Might have to sell it with a mod chip on some systems if it won't be licensed, but who cares?
Everything we see these days seems to be an incremental improvement or "synergy" type of product with nothing fantastic showing up.
Of course I see the eventual "StarTrekification" [Copyright currently under attack by Paramount] of about every modern day device we have. PDA's become phones become cameras, become mobile webservers for on the go Amateur Porn actors with built in audio, video, and Solitaire.
These Predictions are invariably insider information about products in the pipeline that were in the think tank not a long time ago and their usefulness is generally overplayed, but they are an easy, attention grabbing headline (you saw it on Slashdot didn't you?)
With all that said, here are a few things that will almost certainly happen on the technology front:
1) PDA/Phone/Camera combo's will do streaming video. No more lugging that mini-dv to your local Movie Pirate... just WiFi it. Hell... we could all watch a movie in real time from Mobile Pirates(tm).
2) FINALLY something useful - fuel cell batteries for everything
3) LCD's will big bigger and cheaper and somehow they'll figure out how to stop streaking in fast motion applications.
4) Foveon CMOS will make it into high-end prosumer palmcorders
5) DVDxR format will be released. Look for the DVD/R drive a year later. Oh, and the "end-all" DVD+-x/R drives from Sony should be due out about a year after that - don't get left behind, each new version is nominally more compatible than the last!
6) Portable Hologram units (ala Star Wars). 'Nuff said.
7) Virtual Porn on PS2/Xbox/Cube... Think Dead Or Alive X-treme Volleyball engine with a few more 'fun' features. This will be the killer app that finally brings Porn to it's intended audience in the way which we all really want - with full control, no lame acting, and in widescreen
8) THX 9.1 Surround Sound. Get it on your PC now!
9) Mac OS XI
10) AMD turns things around with their monster chip (Please... I have a lot of stock!)
I claim copyright on any and all ideas from this day forward... especially the Porn on the Gaming systems (maybe even the PC).
This is explained a bit differently in "The Code Book", but here goes:
If you and a friend are in a room and are separated by a black curtain, and there is the potential that there is actually 2 curtains with a 3rd Person inbetween, you can't be sure of a secure conversation. Now, let's throw in QC, and you say "I have something secure to tell you" across the room. If that message is listened to by a 3rd Party, QC will FOR A FACT inform your friend that the message was tampered with before he heard it.
How does this help secure your conversation? Let's say you have an infinite number of rooms with which to experiment. Every time your message is intercepted, you simply change rooms (or channels) and repeat your "I have something secure to tell you" message until it is not tampered with.
But, you say, a 3rd party could just wait to listen to the "important part" of the message. Could they? I could sit there and say my insecure message for days and each time I would know when it was listened to. How would a person know when to listen to the right message? They wouldn't know which one is secure. So effectively, if the first message is secure, the next message will be as well.
INAE either, but "passing through" and "[testing] in" are two different things. Going through the sonic barrier and testing within it are two different things. Going through is stressful... testing on the edge of mach 1 introduces amazing stresses. Something that flexes a lot more than a standard wing could set up harmonic vibrations which would shatter the hardware. Passing through would actually stablize after the initial shockwave.
We've seen some amazing things due to the innovation of flight. Carbon Fiber, Titanium, Many plastics, even the IC on Silicon. The list could go on for quite a while... if you took NASA and the Air Force out of the material science loop, we'd be living in an entirely different world.
Look for this idea to spawn a host of new things from more complex fly-by-wire systems and innovative materials development and use.
I love their monitors, but their drives? Worse than Western Digital. Their support truly sucks but the drive will be successfull and will trigger a flood from other manufacturers. So, wait it out for 2-3 months when other offerings at cheaper prices will abound.
A Honeypot for spammers? Sounds like an idea who's time has come.
The problem's are many, but the outcome would be fantastic. Create a Mail-dev/null program which looks like a "real" system and make it hackable. Keep the same doors the spammers would normally use. Make said program freely available to anyone and everyone. Make it that much more difficult for Spammers to find a working program to hack.
The idea here is a great one, but I have 2 suggestions for version 2.0
1) I would rather have the remote control up by my mouse for easily accessible seat adjustment.
2) The thing is a bit more than a chair obviously, but it would have worked better on a mobile platform maybe with "anchors" similar to a wheelchair that can be made to hold it's position.
Fair enough assessment. I also agree that the technology seemed to fit with the near future. But any security person worth his salt would lock out a "suspected" ID access immediately after identifying anything as grand as murder. There's no way his bio-id print would be in the system to allow him back into the "temple" once, let alone a second time in his ex-wife's hands.
Another Security let down is the lack of immediate flagging of a suspects ID... Cruise walks through a shopping mall, where presumably security would be easily as high as a mass transit system. However he's ID'd off of the train, but not while walking past several advertisments which gather his retinal scan. I guess they are just continuity issues, but that's what I was referring to as needing a bit more tech... that and the fact that they had to manually transfer the holographic tablet from one station to another. You'd think they would overcome sneakernet in fifty years. Hell, we already have bluetooth and 802.11!
IMHO, the problem is that G.L. has set himself up as king and can't find anyone who will say no. Everyone in that environment probably looks up to him as a god and an icon and they don't want to say no. If you were at ILM and Lucas said to make Jar Jar, you'd do it. Hell... I know I would! All this is self-reinforcing to the point that Lucas won't allow other opinions. He's just too involved and this is his baby from start to finish. I can understand it. At least he's listening to the fans SOME, but my guess is that the prequels will go down as shit movie making with no soul and only eye Candy.
No more days of reviewing the movies 100 times because they just don't get old (with the exception of the ROTJ Ewok/Mark Hamil acting Debacle)
Unfortunately I think you are correct in this assumption. However, the two have worked well in the past, so I'm still hopeful. Let Lucas stick to redesigning the movie making process and the techie side and let Spielberg do the direction. The two together really kick some ass. I felt like Minority Report could have use a bit better "techno" stuff and that Star Wars could use some actual acting and storyline.
Mix gently over slow heat, serve!
Lucas has a pretty impressive vision and knows eye-candy better than about any director out there. But he's a terrible writer and he doesn't know how to direct actors. He has some top notch talent in his movies and unless they break free of the crap dialogue and directive vision of what that dialogue should sound like, they are screwed. I'd give anything to have Spielberg direct with Lucas doing his thing in the background... maybe we'd have an Indiana Jones style romp for E3.
Eh.. it's mostly nostalgia and to say "I was there", I guess. Didn't have to take the wind out of my sails though! I'm hopeful that you can still make out the building through all the graphics, but it was pretty ugly.
While it's true the footage may be used in the 3rd film (which I'm told is simply a continuation or the second "half" of the second film), I was told point blank that they were filming the sequence for Reload. That coming from the head site coordinator as well as the security guard. And then the Director came over, asked us not to use flash photography and explained they were filming a 14 min. sequence of a fight with Neo up the side of the southeast building for the second film due out in about a year.
Close... The actual amount Martin Place that they blocked off was pretty small. I would say a bit bigger than an apartment. :) On the map they had the area "sanitized" between Pitt and Elizabeth.
More to the point, the actual amount of area used was only a portion of a 2 lane street. The copter they used is a French made Squirrel with a nose mounted cam sphere. It has two engines... used because of close city quarters in case one fails. But the thing is about the length of 2 cars and only has 3 short blades. Pretty small but very slick looking.
I was onsite (on business in the city) and I can assure you that Keanu was not there. All in all it was a pretty boring few hours. I was in the best viewing spot just off the square near Elizabeth street and although the buildings were non-descript, the head security guy nearest me said the Brothers picked the building because it looked dark and sinister. I was further told that the sequence would later be filled in with a fight seen with Neo on a windy and rainy night, although they were filming in the late afternoon before losing light.
Since the chopper came in from a few streets away and flew to the square then then traveled up along the building, my guess is that Neo might be "flying" as he did at the end of Movie 1 and then fighting someone on the externals of the building. All Greenscreen of course.
They are filming 2 more sequences during the next 2 Sundays and the second one will be the largest street closure ever (surpassing Vanilla Sky's empty street scene). I won't be here for the big one where they will close down all of George Street, but I'm hoping to see some of the cast (Trinity anyone?) next Sunday.
Either way, it will be cool having pre-CGI footage of the scene as it will likely be a pivotal sequence.