IIRC, the original BSG also had Cylon wars in it's past, it's distant past at that.
Originally the Cylons where a lizard like race that had a war with the twelve colonies. They were loosing so they built a LOT of robot warriors to help them win, and built some much more sophisticated types to help run the robots.
Well the more sophisticated types decided the Lizards were a waste of space in the war so they took them out then stopped and re-grouped before setting up the twelve colonies. They offered a peace deal, but with the help of a human traitor (Balthazar) used that 'peace treaty ceremony' as a ruse to catch the humans by suprise.
If you try at all, you can find a previous use of almost any plot. Including 'groundhog day' and it's cousins.
I don't so much judge anymore on an original plot or even story, but rather on an original telling.
One of the best sf authors of all time(imho), Heinlein, said the difference between a good story teller and a great one is how well they file off the serial numbers.
Find an original story or plot, and odds are you've eigther found A) the older know version, or b) someone will know of an older use of the same plot/story.
Actually he kinda did. He said something about not taking order from a something dispariging 'teacher' to Apollo when he told him about her being president.
Actually it's a good sign they can get away with cheaper props without wrecking the suspension of disbelief. You can afford to do a lot more where it count's if most of your props cost $10-$40 rather than $500-$5000.
Neilson ratings matter because they are the 'proof' to advertisers that thier advertisements are being seen.
If instead of (or better yet in addition to) e-mailing (or much better yet snail mailing) the producers of BSG and other shows you enjoy, send that mail to the ADVERTISERS. Send polite mail saying something to the effect of "Thank you for your sponsorship of BSG on the Sci-Fi channel. I'm glad to see such quality tv in the genre for once will most certainly keep in mind who the sponsors of this fine program are when I should next be in need of XYZ items" (subbing XYZ for whatever kind of thing the sponsor makes).
Doing this in sufficient numbers PROVES to advertisers they are NOT wasting thier money and increases the odds of them paying more if needed to keep the show on the air. Especially if the letter is at least a little tailored to show it wasn't bassically a form letter. And of course spending the time and effort on a snail-mail letter must multiply quite a bit, not that e-mail is a waste, just less effecient (in part because it's too easy, and too easy to dissmiss). Whith snail mail, especially if adressed to a specific individual or officer of the company, it's harder to auto-response circular file it as long as there is no way to tell it appart from mail that might be something more important (such as a bill, lawsuit, biz offer of some sort, etc.).
Bottom line, if you like a show, tell the advertisers who pay for it. Telling the producers is good too, so they don't jump the shark, but get them the money first.
Well all I've seen sofar is the 3hr re-cut of the mini-series. But Originally I was afraid of the same thing that worries you.
I was afraid they'd flat out rape the original series kinda how Starship Troopers got raped when they made a totally unrelated (despite what they said) movie by the same name.
You know it's not that. They actually apear to have done a good job.
My advice (fwiw) is to go ahead and give it a try. Worst case scenario you waste a few hours and get to say "yep I was right, they screwed it over". Best case senario is "wow, they actually got it right".
Frankly I think it may be a bit better than the original series which I like. The later series/movies kinda jumped the shark (Flying motorcycles and a 'scout troup'?!?!?!?!?)
What I'd like to know is whether it's going to reach broadcast tv or not, no cable here and satalite is iffy at best (lots of high hills with significant metal content).
Actually many banner ads are in frames that load from 3rd party sights. You can still get the cookie. Unless some very recent update fixes this (I stopped using IE before SP2 so It's possible) it's still a valid issue.
Also IE does allow third partie cookies for some other instances. If they have a privacy policy, not if the have a GOOD privacy policy, just if they have one, it could easily be "what privacy, you get no privacy here". That and no personal info is in the cookie. Assuming IE can (correctly) tell what that info is.
So for joe user, IE doesn't really block third party cookies except on uncommon cases where he gets lucky, or the third party cookie sight is run by idiots. I'm shure sites like doubleclick and such have no problem getting thier cookies on most machines running IE.
Don't know who the Fantastic Four are?!?!
I can only guess that you live in a country/region where for some odd reason Marvel didn't ship as many F.F. comics as thier other lines.
Kinda wierd idea though considering it was a pretty important title. It was the FF the got Marvel back into the Super Hero bussiness in the early 60's, they had gone to monster/horror type stuff when the superhero comics became on of the 'satan worshiping/mind controll/reason teenagers behave like teenagers' things of thier time (much (A)D&D of the 80's or rock and roll, etc.)
To give you a clue to the FF's influence I suggest you look at both Darth Vaders outfit and Dr. Victor Dooms outfit, then consider Dr. Doom predates Darth Vader by over a decade.
Here's an interesting page google turned up: http://www.toonopedia.com/fant4.htm.
You know, I may dissagree with some of the reasons the two of you are angry. I think Kerry would have been as bad or worse than Bush. I don't think Bush is a complete idiot, or deliberately lied about the wmd's. But I do think he's not interested in reduceing the governments burden on it's citizens and is way to happy to sign rights limiting legislation we niegther need nor want.
But a your post well deserves the insightfull mod. One should not just say "this is wrong" and go back to thier easy chair to watch more bread and circuses on tv, but be active if they trully feel something must be done rather than just complain and moan. Perhaps the person you responded is active, perhaps not, but I know where the odds are.
We (I most definately include myself here sadly enough) are way to complacent to only whine about things and someone else to fix it. Guesse who that someone else has to be (well you show you know, but how many others 'get' it?)?
I honestly think if people would stop being sheep and actually think and act for themselves, and take an active role in things, some improvement would be inevitable.
I would rather votes go to the libertarian party myself, but expecting eigther of the two major parties to fix what's broken in our country is kinda like asking a murderer to save you from a rapist.
oops, brain is dead (it's late and I had dental work done today).
It apears to be beta, so with optimization it might just be fast enough (at least on high end machines with mpeg decode hardware for some of the work), certianly alot sooner than five years if it gets any developement and/or adoption.
I was going to suggest it might be o.k. if the decompression times were brief enough, even though compression times were high. But looking at the chart I see decompression apears to take longer.
In five years though, especially with hardware (de)compressors, it might be a good thing.
Tried following your link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle- form/202-7261916-1283852
It didn't work for me(slashdot puts in the break after the second -, it's not really there) all I got was:
Help
Browser Bug?
Attention: There appears to be a bug in the web browser you are currently using. Here are some ways to get around the problem:
* To return to the page you were previously on: --click the BACK button on your browser's navigation bar until you reach the desired page.
* To checkout --click on the shopping cart icon at the top of the page and proceed through the checkout process using the standard server (instead of the secure server). You can phone or fax the credit card information to us.
Your Web browser is Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0.
Why on earth (well in the US at least) is a congress-critters 'rep' in large bassed on how many laws and bills thier responsible for?
If it was an inverse relationship of some sort (good greif he got 18 laws passed and tried another 12, let's get rid of him!) it would make sense.
But as it is the more laws/bills a senator or representative has on his/her resume, the higher thier lauded.
I suggest we look more towards electing those that get laws repealed. And no matter which way we look at it look at WHAT was in the law (and not just it's name, which is usually bogus). There is a big difference between someone who manages to push through a dmca style law, and one who pushes through something like Equal Oportunity, or repeals the bad parts of the 'patriot' act.
Minor aside.
It's now KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silvers, and A&W(the resturaunts, not the soda IIRC).
They used to be Tricon something, but YUM foods IIRC is the new corprate name (and ticker symbol iirc) for the 'spin off'. That's in quotes because Pepsi still owns a huge chunk (possibly over 50%) of the stock.
Been a while so details are fuzzy, I no longer work for Yum, but did during the name change and aquisitions.
Carefull what you wish, one a little to close give the whole planet a very bad sunburn.
Of course if it happens in our lifetime we won't have to deal with*, and hopefully those that do will get the dysonsphere's force shields up soon enough.
* Unless it's REALLY close, in witch case we still won't have to deal with, we won't even know it. just a bright flash and it's all over.
Actually as I understand it (IanaCosmologist or simular) for a sufficiently large black hole it is indeed possible, I've heard it hypothesized that's exactly what the universe is.
However these supergiant reds are several orders of magnitude to small IIRC.
For what he suggested the central mass would likely be a few dozen times that of the milky way if not the local cluster.
If Stphen Hawkins is a/. reader I'm shure he could explain it better. Or come to think of it just about anyone studying this in college.
Well except in part for the vid card. I've got an ati aiw9600, and with mandrake 10.0 It runs, but no 3d acceleration. And of course no vid in or out or anything. Just the basics.
The Mandrake 'move' cd just dies when it tries to load x.
While I do like the aiw functions, my next linux setup will involve an nvidia card(old gforce 2mx card I have spare) and 1.6ghz duron on a spare nforce2 mboard.
My next vid card on main system may be an nvidia as well. I'd really like to try a 64bit distro.
The have requested however that all future mines be non-hidden. Eigther with some sort of visual identifier or audible warning noise or both.
Yeah it makes no sense to me eigther. What do want sirens and red lights? I nice large DON'T STEP HERE, LANDMINE sign?
Let's face it, any sufficiently large group has a collective iq equal the average IQ divided by the number of people in the group. Governments however use the lowest iq rather than average.
This could be the real reason why the founding fathers tried to protect some rights from government interference.
Speaking of the pizza delivery guy.
I was a manager at a pizza delivery place when 9/11 happened (heard the news on my way to work).
A couple days later we got a delivery order from a nearby government building (mapping agency, coincidently) and the driver came back just a tad rattled. He had nearly overshot the FIRST white stop line (double gate system). The guard told him it was good he'd made the stop. When he joked back about getting arrested the guard simply said "that's not what would have happened" and pointed to the top of one of the buildings, there my driver saw a sniper and another on a different building. After he was done looking the guard then informed him "you can see those two because they want it known they mean bussiness, the others are well hidden, don't miss the second guard check". He didn't.
Actualy it's the second amendment that protects our right to own and bear arms. And not just firearms, but arms of all sorts ("any sword of the soldier, however terrible").
As far as what happens when it get really out of hand, well that's how we wound up a soveriegn nation rather than a collection of colonies.
Though people are kinda like frogs when it comes to bad government, turn up the heat slowly enough and no one notices till it's all over.
I can't say my knowledge about Fry's is up to date, as I live in the midwest.
That said a friend of mine moved to Sandiago in the late 90's and got a job there. He worked his way up in tech till he was second banna at his store there. Then he jumped to a lower level sales job, seems sales pays a LOT more than tech support, even though it took him a year to make it up to his old level in the new department.
The reason sales pays ALOT more? slightly higher salary AND commission.
Just what little I knew 4 years ago. Haven't heard much about work from him since my last visit out there for my grandmother's funeral.
That makes sense. Thanks.
I thought it had to be some incompatability in the data they needed when called, didn't know about the trade-offs between the two mechanisms.
Simple, in the first case money and goods change hands (so to speak) several times. Money is taken from the buyer, and a cd is taken from the seller.
In the second, since NOTHING (nothing physical that is*) changes hands, nothing is taken from anyone.
Mycroft *I'm ignoring the electrons/photons involved in the tranfer of info here for simplification.
Slashdot Mirror
IIRC, the original BSG also had Cylon wars in it's past, it's distant past at that.
Originally the Cylons where a lizard like race that had a war with the twelve colonies. They were loosing so they built a LOT of robot warriors to help them win, and built some much more sophisticated types to help run the robots.
Well the more sophisticated types decided the Lizards were a waste of space in the war so they took them out then stopped and re-grouped before setting up the twelve colonies. They offered a peace deal, but with the help of a human traitor (Balthazar) used that 'peace treaty ceremony' as a ruse to catch the humans by suprise.
Mycroft
If you try at all, you can find a previous use of almost any plot. Including 'groundhog day' and it's cousins.
I don't so much judge anymore on an original plot or even story, but rather on an original telling.
One of the best sf authors of all time(imho), Heinlein, said the difference between a good story teller and a great one is how well they file off the serial numbers.
Find an original story or plot, and odds are you've eigther found A) the older know version, or b) someone will know of an older use of the same plot/story.
Mycroft
Actually he kinda did. He said something about not taking order from a something dispariging 'teacher' to Apollo when he told him about her being president.
Mycroft
Actually it's a good sign they can get away with cheaper props without wrecking the suspension of disbelief. You can afford to do a lot more where it count's if most of your props cost $10-$40 rather than $500-$5000.
Mycroft
Neilson ratings matter because they are the 'proof' to advertisers that thier advertisements are being seen.
If instead of (or better yet in addition to) e-mailing (or much better yet snail mailing) the producers of BSG and other shows you enjoy, send that mail to the ADVERTISERS. Send polite mail saying something to the effect of "Thank you for your sponsorship of BSG on the Sci-Fi channel. I'm glad to see such quality tv in the genre for once will most certainly keep in mind who the sponsors of this fine program are when I should next be in need of XYZ items" (subbing XYZ for whatever kind of thing the sponsor makes).
Doing this in sufficient numbers PROVES to advertisers they are NOT wasting thier money and increases the odds of them paying more if needed to keep the show on the air. Especially if the letter is at least a little tailored to show it wasn't bassically a form letter. And of course spending the time and effort on a snail-mail letter must multiply quite a bit, not that e-mail is a waste, just less effecient (in part because it's too easy, and too easy to dissmiss). Whith snail mail, especially if adressed to a specific individual or officer of the company, it's harder to auto-response circular file it as long as there is no way to tell it appart from mail that might be something more important (such as a bill, lawsuit, biz offer of some sort, etc.).
Bottom line, if you like a show, tell the advertisers who pay for it. Telling the producers is good too, so they don't jump the shark, but get them the money first.
Mycroft
Well all I've seen sofar is the 3hr re-cut of the mini-series. But Originally I was afraid of the same thing that worries you.
I was afraid they'd flat out rape the original series kinda how Starship Troopers got raped when they made a totally unrelated (despite what they said) movie by the same name.
You know it's not that. They actually apear to have done a good job.
My advice (fwiw) is to go ahead and give it a try. Worst case scenario you waste a few hours and get to say "yep I was right, they screwed it over". Best case senario is "wow, they actually got it right".
Frankly I think it may be a bit better than the original series which I like. The later series/movies kinda jumped the shark (Flying motorcycles and a 'scout troup'?!?!?!?!?)
What I'd like to know is whether it's going to reach broadcast tv or not, no cable here and satalite is iffy at best (lots of high hills with significant metal content).
Mycroft
Executive payroll is an expense. Profits are what's left over after expenses. (yes this is a gross simplification)
Mycroft
Actually many banner ads are in frames that load from 3rd party sights. You can still get the cookie. Unless some very recent update fixes this (I stopped using IE before SP2 so It's possible) it's still a valid issue.
Also IE does allow third partie cookies for some other instances. If they have a privacy policy, not if the have a GOOD privacy policy, just if they have one, it could easily be "what privacy, you get no privacy here". That and no personal info is in the cookie. Assuming IE can (correctly) tell what that info is.
So for joe user, IE doesn't really block third party cookies except on uncommon cases where he gets lucky, or the third party cookie sight is run by idiots. I'm shure sites like doubleclick and such have no problem getting thier cookies on most machines running IE.
Mycroft
Don't know who the Fantastic Four are?!?!
I can only guess that you live in a country/region where for some odd reason Marvel didn't ship as many F.F. comics as thier other lines.
Kinda wierd idea though considering it was a pretty important title. It was the FF the got Marvel back into the Super Hero bussiness in the early 60's, they had gone to monster/horror type stuff when the superhero comics became on of the 'satan worshiping/mind controll/reason teenagers behave like teenagers' things of thier time (much (A)D&D of the 80's or rock and roll, etc.)
To give you a clue to the FF's influence I suggest you look at both Darth Vaders outfit and Dr. Victor Dooms outfit, then consider Dr. Doom predates Darth Vader by over a decade.
Here's an interesting page google turned up: http://www.toonopedia.com/fant4.htm.
Mycroft
You know, I may dissagree with some of the reasons the two of you are angry. I think Kerry would have been as bad or worse than Bush. I don't think Bush is a complete idiot, or deliberately lied about the wmd's. But I do think he's not interested in reduceing the governments burden on it's citizens and is way to happy to sign rights limiting legislation we niegther need nor want.
But a your post well deserves the insightfull mod. One should not just say "this is wrong" and go back to thier easy chair to watch more bread and circuses on tv, but be active if they trully feel something must be done rather than just complain and moan. Perhaps the person you responded is active, perhaps not, but I know where the odds are.
We (I most definately include myself here sadly enough) are way to complacent to only whine about things and someone else to fix it. Guesse who that someone else has to be (well you show you know, but how many others 'get' it?)?
I honestly think if people would stop being sheep and actually think and act for themselves, and take an active role in things, some improvement would be inevitable.
I would rather votes go to the libertarian party myself, but expecting eigther of the two major parties to fix what's broken in our country is kinda like asking a murderer to save you from a rapist.
Mycroft
oops, brain is dead (it's late and I had dental work done today).
It apears to be beta, so with optimization it might just be fast enough (at least on high end machines with mpeg decode hardware for some of the work), certianly alot sooner than five years if it gets any developement and/or adoption.
Mycroft
I was going to suggest it might be o.k. if the decompression times were brief enough, even though compression times were high. But looking at the chart I see decompression apears to take longer.
In five years though, especially with hardware (de)compressors, it might be a good thing.
Mycroft
It didn't work for me(slashdot puts in the break after the second -, it's not really there) all I got was:
Dunno if it was the link or Firefox or Amazon
Mycroft
Why on earth (well in the US at least) is a congress-critters 'rep' in large bassed on how many laws and bills thier responsible for?
If it was an inverse relationship of some sort (good greif he got 18 laws passed and tried another 12, let's get rid of him!) it would make sense.
But as it is the more laws/bills a senator or representative has on his/her resume, the higher thier lauded.
I suggest we look more towards electing those that get laws repealed. And no matter which way we look at it look at WHAT was in the law (and not just it's name, which is usually bogus). There is a big difference between someone who manages to push through a dmca style law, and one who pushes through something like Equal Oportunity, or repeals the bad parts of the 'patriot' act.
Mycroft
Minor aside.
It's now KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silvers, and A&W(the resturaunts, not the soda IIRC).
They used to be Tricon something, but YUM foods IIRC is the new corprate name (and ticker symbol iirc) for the 'spin off'. That's in quotes because Pepsi still owns a huge chunk (possibly over 50%) of the stock.
Been a while so details are fuzzy, I no longer work for Yum, but did during the name change and aquisitions.
Mycroft
Carefull what you wish, one a little to close give the whole planet a very bad sunburn.
Of course if it happens in our lifetime we won't have to deal with*, and hopefully those that do will get the dysonsphere's force shields up soon enough.
* Unless it's REALLY close, in witch case we still won't have to deal with, we won't even know it. just a bright flash and it's all over.
Mycroft
Actually as I understand it (IanaCosmologist or simular) for a sufficiently large black hole it is indeed possible, I've heard it hypothesized that's exactly what the universe is. /. reader I'm shure he could explain it better. Or come to think of it just about anyone studying this in college.
However these supergiant reds are several orders of magnitude to small IIRC.
For what he suggested the central mass would likely be a few dozen times that of the milky way if not the local cluster.
If Stphen Hawkins is a
Mycroft
Well except in part for the vid card. I've got an ati aiw9600, and with mandrake 10.0 It runs, but no 3d acceleration. And of course no vid in or out or anything. Just the basics.
The Mandrake 'move' cd just dies when it tries to load x.
While I do like the aiw functions, my next linux setup will involve an nvidia card(old gforce 2mx card I have spare) and 1.6ghz duron on a spare nforce2 mboard.
My next vid card on main system may be an nvidia as well. I'd really like to try a 64bit distro.
Mycroft
The have requested however that all future mines be non-hidden. Eigther with some sort of visual identifier or audible warning noise or both.
Yeah it makes no sense to me eigther. What do want sirens and red lights? I nice large DON'T STEP HERE, LANDMINE sign?
Let's face it, any sufficiently large group has a collective iq equal the average IQ divided by the number of people in the group. Governments however use the lowest iq rather than average.
This could be the real reason why the founding fathers tried to protect some rights from government interference.
Mycroft
Speaking of the pizza delivery guy.
I was a manager at a pizza delivery place when 9/11 happened (heard the news on my way to work).
A couple days later we got a delivery order from a nearby government building (mapping agency, coincidently) and the driver came back just a tad rattled. He had nearly overshot the FIRST white stop line (double gate system). The guard told him it was good he'd made the stop. When he joked back about getting arrested the guard simply said "that's not what would have happened" and pointed to the top of one of the buildings, there my driver saw a sniper and another on a different building. After he was done looking the guard then informed him "you can see those two because they want it known they mean bussiness, the others are well hidden, don't miss the second guard check". He didn't.
Mycroft
Actualy it's the second amendment that protects our right to own and bear arms. And not just firearms, but arms of all sorts ("any sword of the soldier, however terrible").
As far as what happens when it get really out of hand, well that's how we wound up a soveriegn nation rather than a collection of colonies.
Though people are kinda like frogs when it comes to bad government, turn up the heat slowly enough and no one notices till it's all over.
Mycroft
More likely he's on NO list. Especially if he's avoided having a driver's license and stuck with cash jobs.
Mycroft
I can't say my knowledge about Fry's is up to date, as I live in the midwest.
That said a friend of mine moved to Sandiago in the late 90's and got a job there. He worked his way up in tech till he was second banna at his store there. Then he jumped to a lower level sales job, seems sales pays a LOT more than tech support, even though it took him a year to make it up to his old level in the new department.
The reason sales pays ALOT more? slightly higher salary AND commission.
Just what little I knew 4 years ago. Haven't heard much about work from him since my last visit out there for my grandmother's funeral.
Mycroft
That makes sense. Thanks.
I thought it had to be some incompatability in the data they needed when called, didn't know about the trade-offs between the two mechanisms.
Mycroft
Simple, in the first case money and goods change hands (so to speak) several times. Money is taken from the buyer, and a cd is taken from the seller.
In the second, since NOTHING (nothing physical that is*) changes hands, nothing is taken from anyone.
Mycroft
*I'm ignoring the electrons/photons involved in the tranfer of info here for simplification.