My hatred of Java has nothing to do with speed. The platform has become a giant morass of 'enterprisey' 'solutions' that create more need for more 'solutions'. And all Java 'solutions' must somehow involve XML, because it's standard, and enterprisey.
It's sad; the poor British always try so hard to be nice to every whinging minority. They feel guilty for their ancestors having a great empire that beat some sense into many backwards peoples.
That's no way to talk about the Americans. Oh, hang on... it is. Guess we didn't hold on to that one long enough to beat much sense into them;)
Wasn't that part of the humour too? You could see the wires holding up the spaceship sometimes!
I always thought that was intentional as well. Sort of a "screw it; nobody has to worry about suspension of disbelief here" moment to poke fun at the special effects based shows/movies.
While they may have done something like that on occasion- probably to poke fun at an old monster movie they were parodying as you imply, for the most part it was just a symptom of the budget and I'm sure they did their best without worrying excessively about it.
Red Dwarf was never *that* bad by the standards of the time (except possibly in the first series, and even that was more minimalist than cheap because they weren't *trying* to do expensive effects). It probably just looked like it to Americans spoiled by Battlestar Galactica type budgeted shows.
I know a lot of people find the low-budget look to shows like Doctor Who amusing in retrospect, but while they were probably on a visibly low budget even then, that wasn't the point at the time. Certainly wasn't when I was watching it as a kid- it was only during the original series' final year or two when a combination of me growing up and the budget being cut even further (apparently) made at least one cheap prop obvious, and it wasn't that funny.
Colin Baker said pretty much the same thing, that all the smartasses going on about how they loved the cheap effects and stuff never thought that at the time.
Do they have to spend less because it's not "finished" or perhaps more because that un-finished look takes more effort or what?
No, that's a BBC sci-fi budget for you. Seriously.
That is not what jumping the shark means. Jumping the shark is when a show does something so out of character that the basic premise of the show is destroyed.
I don't know that it isn't often more subtle than that. Sometimes the JTS moment isn't obvious as such at the time; it's only clear in retrospect as the inflection point at which the show changed direction for the worse and began a downward spiral.
After seeing one episode (Demons & Angels) I was hooked. I was thrilled when Season 1 released on DVD and I watched it through that Saturday afternoon. However, it didn't seem to hold up over the years. I was watching a mediocre British comedy, and quite confused.
Funny that you mentioned it was the first series. I don't know what it is, but it feels way older than the ones that follow, even series 2 which was (apparently) broadcast within six months of the first finishing.
It has a noticably different look and feel; very minimalist and studio based with battleship-grey sets. Now, to be fair, this is the only series I didn't see at the time, and the others probably have the benefit of that. Still, I can watch stuff from even the early 1980s and though I can rationally see it's of its time, it clicks with me.
Whereas the first series of Red Dwarf... I wouldn't say it looks dated or cheap so much as it reminds you that actually, yes this is 20 years old and 20 years is a *long* time... in a way that the not-much-newer series 2 doesn't. In some ways the first series feels even older than it is.
Another aspect is that although there's some good comedy there, it hasn't quite settled in to the comfortable groove yet.
ITV is notoriously lacking in any kind of comedy whatsoever. Or if they do come up with something another channel steals it, as happened with Men Behaving Badly.
ITV axed Men Behaving Badly after two series and the BBC picked it up after that- they didn't "steal" it. Plus, it only really took off after the BBC got it and had the guts to put it on later (I might be wrong, but I'm sure that ITV used to show it before the 9PM watershed).
It's too late for this now, but why didn't they require all major TV stations transmitting on analogue to overlay a continuous message informing people of the impending switch off starting around three months before the actual date?
That way, no-one who watched TV regularly (like more than once every three months!) could claim that they'd missed it. They still get to watch what they wanted to watch, which is better than suddenly being hit by a blank screen.
As far as the traditional hard drives under discussion go- not any more. There were around 18 months between the launch of the first 1TB drive and the first 1.5TB model. Hard drive size increases are nowhere near what they were during the 1990s and early 2000s where they would increase by 2.5-3x (if not more) during a similar length of time. Over longer periods, the exponential effects make this a massive difference.
(This is the speed that flash memory devices are roughly growing at at the present time; they're increasing way faster than hard drives).
Please, this is still what I said about overestimating their importance. What you said may apply to PCs and laptops, but I don't think people would look for advice on MP3 players in that way.
People buy iPods as much because they're fashion items, not because their tame local geek advises them to.
And- with respect- I don't think you know as much about mavens and influencing people as you seem to think. The telephone numbers are likely intended to give them a more customer-friendly reputation. People don't buy most cosmetics and toiletries "logically", taking advice from people who know all the facts.
That may be the way you'd like it to be, and some would argue that it *should* be that way, but like it or not, that's not real life- that's a geek's perspective. At best you're assuming that people shop for everything like you do- or like they shop for computers.
Why else would they pay twice the price for Head and Shoulders when Tesco's own brand works just as well? Cosmetic products are generally marketed via pseudo-science and association with glamorous people and luxury. The cosmetics and toiletries industry are in a mutually-beneficial (and ethically dubious) relationship with fashion magazines and the like to hype up their products. It's more important that they're seen and associated with Hollywood stars and so on.
It makes me cringe watching something like Smallville that pulls so much crap as far as hacking goes.
But it doesn't stretch credibility that the guy who plays Clark Kent looks *blatantly* like he was chosen for his pretty-but-not-too-threatening looks to appeal to the girls-in-their-early-teens demographic?!
Not saying I'm a fan of Superman or that I've even sat down and watched Smallville, but the guy looked like he was chosen for his appearance rather than any dramatic fit or resemblance to any previous rendition of Superman.
I guess we need new batteries in the sympathy meter because it's showing a big, fat ZERO right now.
<smartass>If the situation this hypothetical sympathy meter was measuring was as you implied, it would read zero even if there *were* batteries in it.:)</smartass>
How about you take your Fucked up NWO ideas and move to China. Oh wiat you sound like a Bildeburger plant - Now we have outed you!
Hell, yeah. Those creepy secretive fucks are trying to influence world opinion by posting AC comments on Slashdot!
About the only plausible conspiracy surrounding this comment is that it's a setup to make NWO types look stupid. Or maybe it's a setup by the NWO types to make the anti-NWO types look like the kind of people who'd set up a poor quality fake to knock it down. Or maybe it's.... ah, sod it.
Oh wiat you sound like a Bildeburger plant
Is that a plant that grows Bildeburgers? I want one of those!
I think brown could be an interesting and different colour choice in the hands of someone with a modicum of design flair. If only because it's a relatively uncommon colour for consumer electronics- and things in general- nowadays.
Sure, you can make the obvious comparison, but lots of other things are brown, and it doesn't stop women stuffing their faces with chocolate for example. Personally, I'd have bought the brown Aspire One if I'd been able to get it at the same price as the white model.
The problem is that the Zune looked boring and cheap in the first place and in that situation the brown just made it worse.
As for the DRM, yeah- what a joke. Not that the problem was DRM in itself- it didn't stop Joe Public buying the iPod- but that MS's DRM is a confusing mess. For example, the fact that the mockingly named "Plays for Sure" didn't(!) on the Zune, the fact that- IIRC- they started remarketing such things homogenously as Vista compatible and... I've lost track of WTF they were doing myself.
The other points may be valid, but- much as I hate to say it- this is irrelevant for 99.9% of the mass market I assume MS were going for.
If they'd made it possible to reflash, a zillion Linux weenies would have bought the devices just to put Rockbox on them.
No, they probably wouldn't have because it's an MS product.
And the hacker/modder/enthusiast market always overestimates its own importance anyway. Sorry to say this, but you're a relatively tiny percentage. Even if it had been massively successful in that small niche it would still have flopped relative to the mass market iPod.
Nothing wrong with spotting a niche and successfully filling it, of course. However, if your motives- and marketing budget- aim for success with the great unwashed hordes, then niche success is still a flop.
I disagree with your analogy. To me its:
My friends that want to con people out of money by selling them junk endorsed by a celebrity harware reviewer, (i.e. me). But I [etc, etc]
I don't get this- can you please stick to the tried-and-tested misleading analogies comparing complex sociological and political issues to automobiles? Thanks!
No, I was referring to the GGP's implied suggestion that we could all just declare our data worth $500,000 or whatever and simply sue and win against the spammers using existing legislation.
What we need is a "My Data is worth $5000.00 to me" so IF you use my data,
YOU OWE ME $5000.00 per disclosure.
IF My data is worth anything, it is worth MORE to me than you.
Turn the idiots in to a collection agency and ruin their credit, etc.
Simple.
You're right- it's really that simple! And not just another minor variant on that stupid quasi-legalistic solution that IANALs on Slashdot propose every time a topic like this comes up.
This is the geek equivalent of guys who mouth off in pubs about how politicians are stupid and how their simple ideas would put the world to rights.
If it was really that simple, someone would have done it already- if only for the money.
This is the big problem with nuking anywhere. The fallout drifts and will affect friendly countries right next door. One of the reasons we were scared about nuclear weapons based in Cuba is that if we nuked them to stop a launch we would also be nuking ourselves.
Many undergrad Artificial Intelligence classes routinely show "The Measure of a Man" to discuss sentience in manufactured beings.
Could that be because the people in charge of these courses and faculties are ageing Star Trek fans who grew up with the show and may be just a *teensy* bit biased in its favour?:)
Also in tonight's bulletin- Smartasses trying to score cheap points on Internet message boards by making fun of people whose first language probably isn't English. Are they dicks?
Also, we find out how shit hot *they* are in other languages... or maybe not.
Slashdot Mirror
Java 6 has been out for a long time.
This is about Java EE. The spec that application servers implement (EJB, etc). Not the JVM version.
Yeah, well here's an insightful and funny comment on (I assume) J2EE:-
My hatred of Java has nothing to do with speed. The platform has become a giant morass of 'enterprisey' 'solutions' that create more need for more 'solutions'. And all Java 'solutions' must somehow involve XML, because it's standard, and enterprisey.
It's sad; the poor British always try so hard to be nice to every whinging minority. They feel guilty for their ancestors having a great empire that beat some sense into many backwards peoples.
That's no way to talk about the Americans. Oh, hang on... it is. Guess we didn't hold on to that one long enough to beat much sense into them ;)
Wasn't that part of the humour too? You could see the wires holding up the spaceship sometimes!
I always thought that was intentional as well. Sort of a "screw it; nobody has to worry about suspension of disbelief here" moment to poke fun at the special effects based shows/movies.
While they may have done something like that on occasion- probably to poke fun at an old monster movie they were parodying as you imply, for the most part it was just a symptom of the budget and I'm sure they did their best without worrying excessively about it.
Red Dwarf was never *that* bad by the standards of the time (except possibly in the first series, and even that was more minimalist than cheap because they weren't *trying* to do expensive effects). It probably just looked like it to Americans spoiled by Battlestar Galactica type budgeted shows.
I know a lot of people find the low-budget look to shows like Doctor Who amusing in retrospect, but while they were probably on a visibly low budget even then, that wasn't the point at the time. Certainly wasn't when I was watching it as a kid- it was only during the original series' final year or two when a combination of me growing up and the budget being cut even further (apparently) made at least one cheap prop obvious, and it wasn't that funny.
Colin Baker said pretty much the same thing, that all the smartasses going on about how they loved the cheap effects and stuff never thought that at the time.
Do they have to spend less because it's not "finished" or perhaps more because that un-finished look takes more effort or what?
No, that's a BBC sci-fi budget for you. Seriously.
That is not what jumping the shark means. Jumping the shark is when a show does something so out of character that the basic premise of the show is destroyed.
I don't know that it isn't often more subtle than that. Sometimes the JTS moment isn't obvious as such at the time; it's only clear in retrospect as the inflection point at which the show changed direction for the worse and began a downward spiral.
After seeing one episode (Demons & Angels) I was hooked. I was thrilled when Season 1 released on DVD and I watched it through that Saturday afternoon. However, it didn't seem to hold up over the years. I was watching a mediocre British comedy, and quite confused.
Funny that you mentioned it was the first series. I don't know what it is, but it feels way older than the ones that follow, even series 2 which was (apparently) broadcast within six months of the first finishing.
It has a noticably different look and feel; very minimalist and studio based with battleship-grey sets. Now, to be fair, this is the only series I didn't see at the time, and the others probably have the benefit of that. Still, I can watch stuff from even the early 1980s and though I can rationally see it's of its time, it clicks with me.
Whereas the first series of Red Dwarf... I wouldn't say it looks dated or cheap so much as it reminds you that actually, yes this is 20 years old and 20 years is a *long* time... in a way that the not-much-newer series 2 doesn't. In some ways the first series feels even older than it is.
Another aspect is that although there's some good comedy there, it hasn't quite settled in to the comfortable groove yet.
ITV is notoriously lacking in any kind of comedy whatsoever. Or if they do come up with something another channel steals it, as happened with Men Behaving Badly.
ITV axed Men Behaving Badly after two series and the BBC picked it up after that- they didn't "steal" it. Plus, it only really took off after the BBC got it and had the guts to put it on later (I might be wrong, but I'm sure that ITV used to show it before the 9PM watershed).
It's too late for this now, but why didn't they require all major TV stations transmitting on analogue to overlay a continuous message informing people of the impending switch off starting around three months before the actual date?
That way, no-one who watched TV regularly (like more than once every three months!) could claim that they'd missed it. They still get to watch what they wanted to watch, which is better than suddenly being hit by a blank screen.
Michael Myers as Bryant
Michael Myers from Halloween? Sounds great!
They could get Jason from the Friday the 13th movies to play Gaff.
Storage generally doubles every year.
As far as the traditional hard drives under discussion go- not any more. There were around 18 months between the launch of the first 1TB drive and the first 1.5TB model. Hard drive size increases are nowhere near what they were during the 1990s and early 2000s where they would increase by 2.5-3x (if not more) during a similar length of time. Over longer periods, the exponential effects make this a massive difference.
(This is the speed that flash memory devices are roughly growing at at the present time; they're increasing way faster than hard drives).
I thoguht CSI NY was a sitcom.
Nice one :) Though it does force the question as to what that makes CSI:Miami. David Caruso's character and acting are so ludicrous it defies belief...
Please, this is still what I said about overestimating their importance. What you said may apply to PCs and laptops, but I don't think people would look for advice on MP3 players in that way.
People buy iPods as much because they're fashion items, not because their tame local geek advises them to.
And- with respect- I don't think you know as much about mavens and influencing people as you seem to think. The telephone numbers are likely intended to give them a more customer-friendly reputation. People don't buy most cosmetics and toiletries "logically", taking advice from people who know all the facts.
That may be the way you'd like it to be, and some would argue that it *should* be that way, but like it or not, that's not real life- that's a geek's perspective. At best you're assuming that people shop for everything like you do- or like they shop for computers.
Why else would they pay twice the price for Head and Shoulders when Tesco's own brand works just as well? Cosmetic products are generally marketed via pseudo-science and association with glamorous people and luxury. The cosmetics and toiletries industry are in a mutually-beneficial (and ethically dubious) relationship with fashion magazines and the like to hype up their products. It's more important that they're seen and associated with Hollywood stars and so on.
It makes me cringe watching something like Smallville that pulls so much crap as far as hacking goes.
But it doesn't stretch credibility that the guy who plays Clark Kent looks *blatantly* like he was chosen for his pretty-but-not-too-threatening looks to appeal to the girls-in-their-early-teens demographic?!
Not saying I'm a fan of Superman or that I've even sat down and watched Smallville, but the guy looked like he was chosen for his appearance rather than any dramatic fit or resemblance to any previous rendition of Superman.
I guess we need new batteries in the sympathy meter because it's showing a big, fat ZERO right now.
<smartass>If the situation this hypothetical sympathy meter was measuring was as you implied, it would read zero even if there *were* batteries in it. :)</smartass>
How about you take your Fucked up NWO ideas and move to China. Oh wiat you sound like a Bildeburger plant - Now we have outed you!
Hell, yeah. Those creepy secretive fucks are trying to influence world opinion by posting AC comments on Slashdot!
About the only plausible conspiracy surrounding this comment is that it's a setup to make NWO types look stupid. Or maybe it's a setup by the NWO types to make the anti-NWO types look like the kind of people who'd set up a poor quality fake to knock it down. Or maybe it's.... ah, sod it.
Oh wiat you sound like a Bildeburger plant
Is that a plant that grows Bildeburgers? I want one of those!
<homer>Mmm..... Bilde burger....</homer>
I think brown could be an interesting and different colour choice in the hands of someone with a modicum of design flair. If only because it's a relatively uncommon colour for consumer electronics- and things in general- nowadays.
Sure, you can make the obvious comparison, but lots of other things are brown, and it doesn't stop women stuffing their faces with chocolate for example. Personally, I'd have bought the brown Aspire One if I'd been able to get it at the same price as the white model.
The problem is that the Zune looked boring and cheap in the first place and in that situation the brown just made it worse.
As for the DRM, yeah- what a joke. Not that the problem was DRM in itself- it didn't stop Joe Public buying the iPod- but that MS's DRM is a confusing mess. For example, the fact that the mockingly named "Plays for Sure" didn't(!) on the Zune, the fact that- IIRC- they started remarketing such things homogenously as Vista compatible and... I've lost track of WTF they were doing myself.
(c) no way to put your own firmware on.
The other points may be valid, but- much as I hate to say it- this is irrelevant for 99.9% of the mass market I assume MS were going for.
If they'd made it possible to reflash, a zillion Linux weenies would have bought the devices just to put Rockbox on them.
No, they probably wouldn't have because it's an MS product.
And the hacker/modder/enthusiast market always overestimates its own importance anyway. Sorry to say this, but you're a relatively tiny percentage. Even if it had been massively successful in that small niche it would still have flopped relative to the mass market iPod.
Nothing wrong with spotting a niche and successfully filling it, of course. However, if your motives- and marketing budget- aim for success with the great unwashed hordes, then niche success is still a flop.
I disagree with your analogy. To me its: My friends that want to con people out of money by selling them junk endorsed by a celebrity harware reviewer, (i.e. me). But I [etc, etc]
I don't get this- can you please stick to the tried-and-tested misleading analogies comparing complex sociological and political issues to automobiles? Thanks!
No, I was referring to the GGP's implied suggestion that we could all just declare our data worth $500,000 or whatever and simply sue and win against the spammers using existing legislation.
Microsoft is the one that had the final word on labeling standards for "Vista capable".
Does this mean that they're "Vista culpable"?
What we need is a "My Data is worth $5000.00 to me" so IF you use my data, YOU OWE ME $5000.00 per disclosure. IF My data is worth anything, it is worth MORE to me than you. Turn the idiots in to a collection agency and ruin their credit, etc. Simple.
You're right- it's really that simple! And not just another minor variant on that stupid quasi-legalistic solution that IANALs on Slashdot propose every time a topic like this comes up.
This is the geek equivalent of guys who mouth off in pubs about how politicians are stupid and how their simple ideas would put the world to rights.
If it was really that simple, someone would have done it already- if only for the money.
As far as I'm aware "atmospheric" simply denotes tests that take place within the atmosphere, including those that occur at ground level.
After someone has walked all over your machine it's the only way to be sure, unless you have known good backups.
I thought nuking it from orbit was the only way to be sure...
This is the big problem with nuking anywhere. The fallout drifts and will affect friendly countries right next door. One of the reasons we were scared about nuclear weapons based in Cuba is that if we nuked them to stop a launch we would also be nuking ourselves.
You were still performing atmospheric bomb tests on a site just 65 miles away from Las Vegas into the 1960s.
Many undergrad Artificial Intelligence classes routinely show "The Measure of a Man" to discuss sentience in manufactured beings.
Could that be because the people in charge of these courses and faculties are ageing Star Trek fans who grew up with the show and may be just a *teensy* bit biased in its favour? :)
In other news, plural inferior to singular. :)
Also in tonight's bulletin- Smartasses trying to score cheap points on Internet message boards by making fun of people whose first language probably isn't English. Are they dicks?
Also, we find out how shit hot *they* are in other languages... or maybe not.