I'd say that the Tron: Legacy doesn't require you to have an imagination, it just requires you to nod your head and agree to all of the stupid stuff that happens in the movie.
Here's the best review I've read on Tron: Legacy.
http://tronlegacyreview.wordpress.com/
It catalogs all of the significant problems with Legacy.
Sure, on the surface, this seems like a good idea. Bring the president into the 21st century with an encrypted device for communication. The problem? EVERYTHING the president does is recorded and aside from classified/top secret stuff, supposed to be available for the public record. Obama gets around this by using this encrypted device. Who's he calling, or texting on his blackberry? We'll never know. Truth is, he's the PRESIDENT, he has hundreds of people constantly following him around, assisting him. He does not need a blackberry.
You are wrong. Sure, Scientology does not have access directly to ebay to delete auctions, but with the VeRO program it's virtually the same thing. Ebay does not scrutinize ANY request that a VeRO member would make. Scientologists can send take down notices for things unrelated to their cabal. They could even send take down notices for IP that is NOT EVEN THEIRS. They, for example, could start claming that auctions for Orgone Accumulators violate their "patents" and although both the "thetan meter" and the argone accumulator are works of scientific fiction, eBay would comply with the take down request and remove the "offending" auctions.
I would go so far to say that the church of Scientology could even start sending out take down notices for TRON auctions and ebay would pull them, even though the IP is owned by Disney.
oh, and a big fuck you to whomever modded me as flamebait. The ACLU has defended the worst scum on the earth under the guise of 'civil rights' for decades.
I like how everyone has ignored that this little ass nothing company still managed to suck $25 million out of Ebay. The MercExchange people were stupid. They should have started their own auction site at the very least and then waited a few years and THEN cried foul. The judge saw that the company technically did nothing and saw no reason to stop eBay from using the patent, as MercExchange certainly was not using it. Oh, and fuck FeeBay. They had one of the best things going, but they shat upon their sellers time and time again until all the good people left or were suspended for no reason. I think I am going to patent how to run an organization evily and then sue paypal for stealing my business model.:)
Has anyone actually tried to get out of their contract with At&t after getting an Iphone yet? Will it still work as an Ipod after the sim card is deactivated?
How long till someone hacks the software and starts holding people's Iphone's hostage for a fee?
OMG you are so right! I found it hilarious when "Mad eye Moody" was actually a clone and that the real mad eye was a good guy! Great twist there Rowlings.
It's a shame that broadcasters, more specifically, the affiliates, are having to pay an enormous amount of money to upgrade all of their equipment to broadcast in HD, when in less than 10 years "broadcasting" television will be a moot point. What is the point of all the regulation and brouhaha and money spent on what amounts to six channels worth of content? Most of the "big four" have started to put their shows for free viewing (with commercials) on their home page. I never watched one episode of "30 rock" off of my cable box this past year, I watched it on NBC's "on demand" site. The same goes for Prison Break and My name is Earl. I download via torrents, all of the shows I can't get, like "Peep Show" and "Life on Mars," but even then the BBC and Channel 4 offer the episodes for free on their respective websites for download (only to UK though).
The biggest hurdle in "internet tv" is that ubiquitous "Black Box" that consumer electronics manufacturers have been searching for decades to decades to find. The 360 and the PS3 are the first iteration in what will be the future. The 360 is offering essentially basic cable to 360 owners this fall and I am certain that the PS3 will have something similar, especially since Sony owns a huge catalogue of films.
One -little- item just about everyone has overlooked so far: One single slot machine paid out over $500,000 and obviously did not do it in a short time period. The time period is not stated in the article, but since there were multiple "suspects" I can only assume that whomever won, played it cool and did not get greedy. Regardless, the casino's SECURITY should have caught this anomaly, let alone the slot techs. Also, I don't buy the "faulty" software bit either. The slot was obviously NOT tested, as it did not even recognize US currency.
Lastly, the "suspects" should not have to give back their winnings as there is no way to distinguish between actual winnings and the errant credits; I.E. gamblers are greedy and are going to see if they can win the jackpot with their free credits.
There is a new rumor that the 360 will drop to $199 for the core and $250 for the "real" 360. If this rumor holds true, then Sony might as well pack it in, as there is no way a $599 system will be able to compete against a system that is 90% it's capability at more than 1/3rd the price. Sony Bots have been touting the "Incredible capability" of the PS3 and what an awesome value it is. My biggest question is why the PS3 is not significantly better than the 360, especially given the year's lead time? I own a PS3 and a 360, so don't mark me as a flamebait.
I am still smarting after this past Christmas day when my friends (all in their 30's, who have owned every game system ever, like me) came over to see the PS3 and play Resistance: Fall of Man. They could not stop laughing at me and the game. The consensus was, "You paid $800 for this?!"
It's not that "kids" today have trouble memorizing anything, it's that the amount of data that all of has to sort through has become obscene. Some of my friends have hundreds of phone numbers in their contact book. How many people, aside from high profile Hollywood agents/actors/directors had hundreds of phone numbers for all of their friends/contacts?
I think this new "memory loss" can be attributed to information overload more than people getting stupider.
Pardon my conspiracy theory, but hasn't the government been spying on us, well, forever? Sure, legally it's a faux pas, but an "Echelon" type system must exist by now if it has not been with us since the dawn of the computer age.
I say privacy is pretty much a thing of the past. Everyone wants everything NOW and WIRELESS. Pretty much in the next 10 years just about everything will be wireless. This means that a conversations/data will be able to be plucked out of the air by just about anyone (as is being done now.)
Sony's biggest faux pas has been the choice of the Blu-Ray drive over more ram and the choice to use non-unified ram. 256mb just does not cut it today. If Sony would have had a standard dvd-rom drive and a gig of ram, the difference would have been evident between the 360 and the PS3. As it stands right now, and for the future, the PS3 is just as good as if not slightly "worse" than the 360.
I cannot believe anyone would take Neilsen seriously in this day and age, especially in regards to any sort of internet ranking system.
The "total time spent on a site" is a very innacurate way to rank web pages. Take for instance Fark.com. It is a site that primarily links to other sites. I spend not very much time on fark, as I am clicking on the links to other sites. I check with fark.com about thirty times each day for new news, but according to the big "N" that does not mean shite.
I worked at Cingular customer service, in a call center, for over a year during the TDMA nightmare years and 1/3rd the calls were from legitimate billing errors and screw ups due to roaming (that was in the vagueness days where true nationwide roaming cost a fortune), another 1/3rd of the calls were to cancel, or switch plans and the other 1/3rd were from angry customers who were blatantly lied to at the retail store and given free "add ons" that either were pulled off by the auditing department or simply did not work (like trying to add national roaming onto a strictly local plan).
As a customer of Cingular since the switch to GSM I have had ZERO billing errors and I have been all over the country and have never gotten one roaming charge on my Cingular/Att bill.
I can now go into my account on the internet and add and remove features and change my plan, which is just fantastic.
As for Sprint dropping "problem" customers, I am all for that! The whole "firing the customer" is something new that has sprung up in the past ten years and I think in some cases it should be done. The thinking is that you are wasting time helping a customer that consistently has problems with your service as he/she is already badmouthing you to everyone they know and in the end you most likely will leave anyway. Put simply, your resources are better spent helping your normal "bread and butter" customers that spending inordinate time and resources on "a-hole" customers.
Granted, this is not saying that the customers are in the wrong, but it stands to reason if a customer has to call over 25 times in a month for the same reason; Sprint should have escalated those calls after the third call.
Also, some responsibility has to be put on the customers. I certainly would not stand for my bill to be screwed up to the extent where I would have to call 3 times, let alone 25 times; I would have found a way to get out of that contract.
As for Customer Service, it's the same with all of the carriers. You are never going to get consistently good customer service anymore. The call centers in America have a horrendous turnover rate which impacts service greatly.
I have noticed a new trend lately; outsourcing to the Philippines. The last time I had to call a company for tech support the person on the other end had a slight accent, but otherwise was spot on "American," and was familiar with American culture/t.v. show/music/etc. It was a refreshing break from the Indian call centers of late.
Tron is my favourite movie of all time. It is mistakingly labeled sci-fi, but really it's total fantasy. Sure the actors are stiff, the plot is by the numbers and downright silly, but the world created by Steven Lisburger and company really has not been equaled in 25 years. Tron is by far the most labor intensive special effects movie EVER made (pre-digital). Every frame in the computer world had to be processed at least five separate times, with all of the elements. Tron did not set back computer animation by several years as others have incorrectly stated. The truth of the matter was that computer animation was simply too costly, and the technology, including software, to make realistic computer animation simply did not exist till the late 80's. The pinnacle of realistic computer animation was used in the movie "The Last Starfighter," and it simply was cheaper, and more realistic to use models than computer animation.
It was not until Terminator 2 that computer graphics were used in a movie realistically and that had nothing to do with the failure of Tron.
To me, Tron is one of the "feel good" movies of the 80's and accomplished so many things on so many levels that I really can't criticize it.
I highly recommend the reading of the "Rape of Ma Bell" written by two ex-AT&T engineers who were around during the halcyon days of Ma Bell. You can download it for free at: http://www.porticus.org/bell/rapeofmabell.htm It is an extremely thorough book that makes a good point that perhaps the breakup of Ma Bell could have possibly been the worst thing ever done "for the greater good." In short AT&T was punished for being too successful. Instead of creating an environment that was condusive to competition via minor regulation, the FCC busted up a very efficient organization in the attempt a competitive environment for the consumer, but really was just punishing AT&T for being too good at what it did.
An argument could be made, "Hey if they did not break up the phone company, then we would still be paying through the nose for long distance and still renting phones!" Well, who's to say that competition would not have come along anyway, especially if "everyone" was so pist off with the old curmudgeon that AT&T was always portrayed as.
I was shopping for home improvement stuff today and I put my hand on a 8x3 huge sheet of granite and was amazed at how much energy and heat was in that relatively thin piece. It got me to thinking why there has never been a real push for solar energy technology. Yes, in the past it has been cost prohibitive, but I guess I am asking why there has never been a "nuclear" level push behind solar tech and why isn't there a real push now that we have the technology available? I mean, come on, it's free, endless* energy!:)
Censorship is a beauty only held in the eye of the beholder. Take for example the "Nappy headed Ho's" off the cuff remark by Imus. Press conferences were held, meetings with the governor and Imus were held, the "Ho's" in question went on Oprah, and also Jesse Jackson wants the word "Nigger" actually banned. BUT, some jagoff can produce a dvd/post on the internet calling for the DEATHS of the Jews, and actually incite violence against another race and religion, but nobody cares. There is no such thing as a totally "free" society. Saying you hate Jews and calling them pigs is one thing. Inciting others to kill, or attack a religion or race is not something that should be allowed but is, especially if the "free speech" advocates are Islamic Extremists.
The soldiers from the original Half Life was the first time I was like "WTF!!" More specifically, it was when I took cover behind a barricade and I heard one of the soldiers say, "Over there," and then I saw a grenade come flying over the barricade at my feet. Yeah, I know it's not super A.I. but 10 years ago it was pretty impressive. Odd that HL2's A.I. is not as good as the first one.
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I'd say that the Tron: Legacy doesn't require you to have an imagination, it just requires you to nod your head and agree to all of the stupid stuff that happens in the movie. Here's the best review I've read on Tron: Legacy. http://tronlegacyreview.wordpress.com/ It catalogs all of the significant problems with Legacy.
Sure, on the surface, this seems like a good idea. Bring the president into the 21st century with an encrypted device for communication. The problem? EVERYTHING the president does is recorded and aside from classified/top secret stuff, supposed to be available for the public record. Obama gets around this by using this encrypted device. Who's he calling, or texting on his blackberry? We'll never know. Truth is, he's the PRESIDENT, he has hundreds of people constantly following him around, assisting him. He does not need a blackberry.
You are wrong. Sure, Scientology does not have access directly to ebay to delete auctions, but with the VeRO program it's virtually the same thing. Ebay does not scrutinize ANY request that a VeRO member would make. Scientologists can send take down notices for things unrelated to their cabal. They could even send take down notices for IP that is NOT EVEN THEIRS. They, for example, could start claming that auctions for Orgone Accumulators violate their "patents" and although both the "thetan meter" and the argone accumulator are works of scientific fiction, eBay would comply with the take down request and remove the "offending" auctions. I would go so far to say that the church of Scientology could even start sending out take down notices for TRON auctions and ebay would pull them, even though the IP is owned by Disney.
oh, and a big fuck you to whomever modded me as flamebait. The ACLU has defended the worst scum on the earth under the guise of 'civil rights' for decades.
No, I'm glad the ACLU is defending something worth defending instead of defending child molesters, NAMBLA, or Muslim terrorist organizations for once.
I like how everyone has ignored that this little ass nothing company still managed to suck $25 million out of Ebay. The MercExchange people were stupid. They should have started their own auction site at the very least and then waited a few years and THEN cried foul. The judge saw that the company technically did nothing and saw no reason to stop eBay from using the patent, as MercExchange certainly was not using it. Oh, and fuck FeeBay. They had one of the best things going, but they shat upon their sellers time and time again until all the good people left or were suspended for no reason. I think I am going to patent how to run an organization evily and then sue paypal for stealing my business model. :)
Has anyone actually tried to get out of their contract with At&t after getting an Iphone yet? Will it still work as an Ipod after the sim card is deactivated? How long till someone hacks the software and starts holding people's Iphone's hostage for a fee?
OMG you are so right! I found it hilarious when "Mad eye Moody" was actually a clone and that the real mad eye was a good guy! Great twist there Rowlings.
It's a shame that broadcasters, more specifically, the affiliates, are having to pay an enormous amount of money to upgrade all of their equipment to broadcast in HD, when in less than 10 years "broadcasting" television will be a moot point. What is the point of all the regulation and brouhaha and money spent on what amounts to six channels worth of content? Most of the "big four" have started to put their shows for free viewing (with commercials) on their home page. I never watched one episode of "30 rock" off of my cable box this past year, I watched it on NBC's "on demand" site. The same goes for Prison Break and My name is Earl. I download via torrents, all of the shows I can't get, like "Peep Show" and "Life on Mars," but even then the BBC and Channel 4 offer the episodes for free on their respective websites for download (only to UK though). The biggest hurdle in "internet tv" is that ubiquitous "Black Box" that consumer electronics manufacturers have been searching for decades to decades to find. The 360 and the PS3 are the first iteration in what will be the future. The 360 is offering essentially basic cable to 360 owners this fall and I am certain that the PS3 will have something similar, especially since Sony owns a huge catalogue of films.
One -little- item just about everyone has overlooked so far: One single slot machine paid out over $500,000 and obviously did not do it in a short time period. The time period is not stated in the article, but since there were multiple "suspects" I can only assume that whomever won, played it cool and did not get greedy. Regardless, the casino's SECURITY should have caught this anomaly, let alone the slot techs. Also, I don't buy the "faulty" software bit either. The slot was obviously NOT tested, as it did not even recognize US currency.
Lastly, the "suspects" should not have to give back their winnings as there is no way to distinguish between actual winnings and the errant credits; I.E. gamblers are greedy and are going to see if they can win the jackpot with their free credits.
There is a new rumor that the 360 will drop to $199 for the core and $250 for the "real" 360. If this rumor holds true, then Sony might as well pack it in, as there is no way a $599 system will be able to compete against a system that is 90% it's capability at more than 1/3rd the price. Sony Bots have been touting the "Incredible capability" of the PS3 and what an awesome value it is. My biggest question is why the PS3 is not significantly better than the 360, especially given the year's lead time? I own a PS3 and a 360, so don't mark me as a flamebait. I am still smarting after this past Christmas day when my friends (all in their 30's, who have owned every game system ever, like me) came over to see the PS3 and play Resistance: Fall of Man. They could not stop laughing at me and the game. The consensus was, "You paid $800 for this?!"
It's not that "kids" today have trouble memorizing anything, it's that the amount of data that all of has to sort through has become obscene. Some of my friends have hundreds of phone numbers in their contact book. How many people, aside from high profile Hollywood agents/actors/directors had hundreds of phone numbers for all of their friends/contacts? I think this new "memory loss" can be attributed to information overload more than people getting stupider.
Why go through all of the hulabaloo and time copying a dvd when a relatively perfect copy can be downloaded off of the internet encoded in DIVX/XVID?
Pardon my conspiracy theory, but hasn't the government been spying on us, well, forever? Sure, legally it's a faux pas, but an "Echelon" type system must exist by now if it has not been with us since the dawn of the computer age. I say privacy is pretty much a thing of the past. Everyone wants everything NOW and WIRELESS. Pretty much in the next 10 years just about everything will be wireless. This means that a conversations/data will be able to be plucked out of the air by just about anyone (as is being done now.)
You do realize that your xbox is still under warranty for at least another year? Microsoft extended the warranty of all 360s for three years.
Sony's biggest faux pas has been the choice of the Blu-Ray drive over more ram and the choice to use non-unified ram. 256mb just does not cut it today. If Sony would have had a standard dvd-rom drive and a gig of ram, the difference would have been evident between the 360 and the PS3. As it stands right now, and for the future, the PS3 is just as good as if not slightly "worse" than the 360.
I cannot believe anyone would take Neilsen seriously in this day and age, especially in regards to any sort of internet ranking system. The "total time spent on a site" is a very innacurate way to rank web pages. Take for instance Fark.com. It is a site that primarily links to other sites. I spend not very much time on fark, as I am clicking on the links to other sites. I check with fark.com about thirty times each day for new news, but according to the big "N" that does not mean shite.
I worked at Cingular customer service, in a call center, for over a year during the TDMA nightmare years and 1/3rd the calls were from legitimate billing errors and screw ups due to roaming (that was in the vagueness days where true nationwide roaming cost a fortune), another 1/3rd of the calls were to cancel, or switch plans and the other 1/3rd were from angry customers who were blatantly lied to at the retail store and given free "add ons" that either were pulled off by the auditing department or simply did not work (like trying to add national roaming onto a strictly local plan).
As a customer of Cingular since the switch to GSM I have had ZERO billing errors and I have been all over the country and have never gotten one roaming charge on my Cingular/Att bill.
I can now go into my account on the internet and add and remove features and change my plan, which is just fantastic.
As for Sprint dropping "problem" customers, I am all for that! The whole "firing the customer" is something new that has sprung up in the past ten years and I think in some cases it should be done. The thinking is that you are wasting time helping a customer that consistently has problems with your service as he/she is already badmouthing you to everyone they know and in the end you most likely will leave anyway. Put simply, your resources are better spent helping your normal "bread and butter" customers that spending inordinate time and resources on "a-hole" customers.
Granted, this is not saying that the customers are in the wrong, but it stands to reason if a customer has to call over 25 times in a month for the same reason; Sprint should have escalated those calls after the third call.
Also, some responsibility has to be put on the customers. I certainly would not stand for my bill to be screwed up to the extent where I would have to call 3 times, let alone 25 times; I would have found a way to get out of that contract.
As for Customer Service, it's the same with all of the carriers. You are never going to get consistently good customer service anymore. The call centers in America have a horrendous turnover rate which impacts service greatly.
I have noticed a new trend lately; outsourcing to the Philippines. The last time I had to call a company for tech support the person on the other end had a slight accent, but otherwise was spot on "American," and was familiar with American culture/t.v. show/music/etc. It was a refreshing break from the Indian call centers of late.
Tron is my favourite movie of all time. It is mistakingly labeled sci-fi, but really it's total fantasy. Sure the actors are stiff, the plot is by the numbers and downright silly, but the world created by Steven Lisburger and company really has not been equaled in 25 years. Tron is by far the most labor intensive special effects movie EVER made (pre-digital). Every frame in the computer world had to be processed at least five separate times, with all of the elements. Tron did not set back computer animation by several years as others have incorrectly stated. The truth of the matter was that computer animation was simply too costly, and the technology, including software, to make realistic computer animation simply did not exist till the late 80's. The pinnacle of realistic computer animation was used in the movie "The Last Starfighter," and it simply was cheaper, and more realistic to use models than computer animation. It was not until Terminator 2 that computer graphics were used in a movie realistically and that had nothing to do with the failure of Tron. To me, Tron is one of the "feel good" movies of the 80's and accomplished so many things on so many levels that I really can't criticize it.
I really don't know how to say this without being flamebait, but Tron is a classic and burn in hell. :)
I highly recommend the reading of the "Rape of Ma Bell" written by two ex-AT&T engineers who were around during the halcyon days of Ma Bell. You can download it for free at: http://www.porticus.org/bell/rapeofmabell.htm It is an extremely thorough book that makes a good point that perhaps the breakup of Ma Bell could have possibly been the worst thing ever done "for the greater good." In short AT&T was punished for being too successful. Instead of creating an environment that was condusive to competition via minor regulation, the FCC busted up a very efficient organization in the attempt a competitive environment for the consumer, but really was just punishing AT&T for being too good at what it did. An argument could be made, "Hey if they did not break up the phone company, then we would still be paying through the nose for long distance and still renting phones!" Well, who's to say that competition would not have come along anyway, especially if "everyone" was so pist off with the old curmudgeon that AT&T was always portrayed as.
I was shopping for home improvement stuff today and I put my hand on a 8x3 huge sheet of granite and was amazed at how much energy and heat was in that relatively thin piece. It got me to thinking why there has never been a real push for solar energy technology. Yes, in the past it has been cost prohibitive, but I guess I am asking why there has never been a "nuclear" level push behind solar tech and why isn't there a real push now that we have the technology available? I mean, come on, it's free, endless* energy! :)
I am curious as to how the RIAA has not been investigated for Racketeering and outright fraud? Why is nobody in the government investigating the RIAA?
Censorship is a beauty only held in the eye of the beholder. Take for example the "Nappy headed Ho's" off the cuff remark by Imus. Press conferences were held, meetings with the governor and Imus were held, the "Ho's" in question went on Oprah, and also Jesse Jackson wants the word "Nigger" actually banned. BUT, some jagoff can produce a dvd/post on the internet calling for the DEATHS of the Jews, and actually incite violence against another race and religion, but nobody cares. There is no such thing as a totally "free" society. Saying you hate Jews and calling them pigs is one thing. Inciting others to kill, or attack a religion or race is not something that should be allowed but is, especially if the "free speech" advocates are Islamic Extremists.
The soldiers from the original Half Life was the first time I was like "WTF!!" More specifically, it was when I took cover behind a barricade and I heard one of the soldiers say, "Over there," and then I saw a grenade come flying over the barricade at my feet. Yeah, I know it's not super A.I. but 10 years ago it was pretty impressive. Odd that HL2's A.I. is not as good as the first one.