CN was running Tenchi in Tokyo during the day. They got 2/3 the way thru it and dropped it in favor of the crappy Thundercats series. Assholes. It's not the first they've done this. CN is notorious for starting a series and not finishing it. At least they actually finished Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star this time. But I would like to see the Tenchi series come back and run to completion this time. The anime is the only reason I even watch CN, except for Space Ghost, Brak, Sealab, and AHF. American cartoons suck.
15 minutes is plenty of time to 'get with the program'. I mean come on, it's only an hour long. (actually closer to 40 minutes if you subtract the adverts.) The script is LAME! Let's review what happened in the first 15 minutes:
[bar scene]
A loud-mouth bar patron interrupts the band to celebrate the victory of the federation. Our hero gets annoyed by this and picks a fight with the loud-mouth patron. A fight breaks out with the female mechanic being the billy bad-ass of the group. The loud-mouth has lots of friends and the hero and his troup are soon outnumbered. The fight spills outside. The bad guys draw revolvers. (WTF?? Revolvers in 2512??) The hero's space ship appears from out of nowhere behind him to save the day. Bad guys go back into bar to have a drink. The hero and his group ride off into the sunset. THIS IS FUCKING BORING! Not to mention the ship popping in from nowhere has been done a bazillion times. (Remember the Harrier in True Lies? How about the Huey in The Matrix?)
Ok. Let's spice up the script with some real action shall we? We'll open as before:
[Bar scene]
Loud-mouth patron interrupts the band and spouts off about the victory of the federation. Hero walks over and picks a fight. Heated words are exchanged until...
Hero: Oh yeah?!? You and what army?
Loud Mouth: This army. most of the bar's patrons stand up in support of the loud-mouth.
Hero: Oh shit. A full scale brawl ensues. Our hero is soon overwhelmed. The female mechanic jumps in and starts kicking some serious ass. But there are too many for even her. The hero and his group flee the bar only to be cornered by a very tall cliff on one side and the 'army' on the other. Each side draws their weapons, but it's clear whose going to lose this one. Then the hero's ship appears from behind the cliff.
Loud-Mouth: Oh shit.
Ship's loud speaker: Drop your weapons or you'll be reduced to a smoking crater!
Loud-Mouth: You're bluffing! You ain't got the balls!
Ship: No Really. We're not bluffing. Drop your weapons!
Loud-mouth: Go fuck yourself! [loud-mouth turns to his army] We can take em. Blast their asses!
The 'army' opens fire with their hand phasors/blasters/whatever. The ship returns fire with a 100 TerraWatt plasma cannon which causes the bad guys to instantly turn to flame ala the dream sequence in Terminator2. Unfortunately, it also burns the bar down and half the town as well which just happened to be downrange of the cannon. There is a lot of cursing and screaming. The hero and the female mech return to the ship where they engage in a gratuitous sex scene while the rest of the crew takes pictures for their pr0n site. Meanwhile, back the ranch, the audience is seen going to the video store and picking up a copy of Cowboy BeBop which has better scripting and acting.
Cripes... Yet another hackneyed space western. And this is supposed to be new show? If it makes it more than a few weeks before getting pulled, I'll be surprised.
If this system truly works, they could have saved a lot of money by just building a working model on a test stand and hooking it to a dynamonitor. Since it takes about 15HP to push a car down the road at 60MPH or so, this would have been easy simulate under controlled, and more importantly, verifiable conditions.
The 'grandstanding' in a DeLorean looks like a prelude to a big investment scam.
A cd that can't be backed up is totally useless to me. No, I don't pirate. But I do have kids who like to play computer games. As anyone else who has kids will tell you, they are not exactly careful when handling CDs. At nearly $50 a pop, I can see very little reason to purchase a CD that isn't going to last more than a week or two around the kiddies.
I think they would have been better off if they dumped SCO unix and just concentrated on linux. SCO was never my favorite brand of Unix to work with. Too many bugs/patches required out of the box - even with the latest and greatest releases. They always seemed to be a year behind in updating their releases. Plus, they were very expensive and it didn't even come with a development system.
All they need is some red armor.
on
Electric Armor
·
· Score: 1
Poor lads at the DOD. If they only did their homework they'd know that Red Armor can defeat RPG's. Any Quake DM fan knows that. Throw in a shield belt and your all set.
I wouldn't trust my life with this. A shaped charge coated with a nonconductive coating designed to turn to a gas under the heat and pressure of the explosion would likely defeat this kind of armor. High-pressure gas is a pretty good insulator and is sometimes used to extinquish arcs in high-voltage relays.
Another possible counter-measure would be a binary shell. The first blast either shorts or blows away part of the armor so that the main charge can go thru unperturbed behind it.
The US robotwars truly sucks. The UK version is much better. But your right about the bots being pathetic. It's a long time complaint against Mentorn (the producers of RW) that they only allow bots in that have no chance of hurting the house robots. The teams are encouraged to dress up for TV, and the teams are also encouraged to make the bots flammable for the cameras.
Many of the bot builders refer to Carmen Electra as 'Crayon' Electra in that she's not the brightest crayon in the box. In general, many battlebot builders/fans come from a technical (or at least educated) background and are not exactly thrilled seeing their sport reduced to a WWF trailer-trash theme show.
I'd like to see more regional events. The best bet for those not wanting to put up with all the BS associated with competing at Battlebots should really try to attend one of the street fights that are springing up around the country. The rules are more relaxed and you won't have to sign away all your legal rights to your bot.
TV has changed a lot over the last decade or so. The quality of the programming has plummeted while the amount of ads crammed into every nook and cranny has sky rocketed. (My pet-peeve is the bug splat logo they insist plastering on every show.)
But what really ticks me off is that I'm paying for programming (Direct TV) and the paid programming has more adverts than the 'free' network channels. Then the MPAA has the gall to cry foul when I skip their commercials. "You're ripping us off!" Excuse the fuck out of me, but I paid for this programming already. Feel free to eat shit and die you greedy bastards.
"Now I need a monopolist's permission to view my own creations? The audacity is mind-boggling, and that the Justice Department is permitting it is simply astounding."
Consider this: M$ releases another revised EULA buried in some 'upgrade' which states that they now have legal rights to anything created using their OS and/or product line. Could this be far off?
Besides the obvious DRM crapola, there may be another motivation to this sudden 'need' for a new CD standard, in that the patents for the original CD format are nearing expiration. Presumably once the patents expire, then Sony will no longer be able to collect royalties on every CD sold.
Even if this new format is the greatest thing since sliced bread, I still won't touch it given the greed of the RIAA, etc.. Besides, better music at much better prices are available at the used record shops which is where I get my 'new' music now. So fuck Sony. Send SACD the way of the Betamax and the 8-track.
Dubya \duhb'-yah\ n1: A dim-witted individual. (syn. 'moron', 'dullard') 2: A leader who attacks freedom and liberty while pretencing to defend the same. (compare with hypocrite, tyrant) 3: An individual who is a pawn to lobbying interests. (syn. 'lacky', 'sell-out', 'spineless sock puppet') <George ~ Bush>
... a packet of KoolAid, 2 paper clips, 26 lbs of venison (road kill), some drier lint, and a winblows ME upgrade CD. And if they act now, I'll throw in a dozen AOL 5.0 CDs with 100 hours free as an added bonus.
Isn't America great? Where else can a complete idiot be elected president, destroy civil rights, and be hailed as a defender of freedom?
There has already been moves to make A/D converters a restricted item (like the one in your sound card). The idea of looping the audio output from one computer to another has not been lost on these jackasses. They're just working up to it.
No one's life, liberty, or property is safe while congress is in session.
My thoughts are if I were a company looking to pull of a coupe against the M$/Nvidia alliance, I would want to get my product adopted by as many people as possible, whether they be a mega game developer or joe blow working out of his garage writing the next Doom. It seems to me that it would be a lot easier to sell 10 units at $80 than one at $800 which would bring a broader exposure for my product. There's strength in numbers.
Never settle with words that which can be settled with a flamethrower.
OMG! That compiler is $800 (the one with P4 support). These guys have got a case of the M$ pricing delerium./Me thinks I save my money and buy a shiny new p4-2.8G instead.
"Never cuss a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes. Then if he gets mad, you'll have a headstart and he'll be barefoot."
Due to a conflict on Feb 1, 2019, please reschedule the destruction of the Earth by giant meteorite to November 3, 2025. The year 2019 through most of 2024 has already been scheduled for devistation by global warming and plagues of alien headcrabs.
I think you missed the point. I know that SGI sold the patent to M$. The real question is whether M$ is obligated to honor the prior licensing agreement SGI had with the open source community. The same goes for the JPEG dispute.
This is the second major IP bombshell to hit the computing community in the last few weeks. First, the implied threat of M$ playing the patent card with their acquisition of an openGL patent, and now this. This seems to be new tactic among greedy corporations which involves seeking out widely used patents whose owners have allowed free use by non-commercial entities, purchasing the patent, and then announcing new restrictions in a effort to cash in on it's popularity.
It seems to me that a patent that has been released into the public domain (at least for non-commercial use) should remain so if and when the patent is sold. I don't believe that there is any law requiring this, but anyone selling an 'open patent' should include a requirement that it remain open as terms of the sale to avoid this very situation.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if someone should decide to challenge a patent that was open only to be closed at a later date. Think about the series of events: Group A invents an image compression algorithm and grants me license to use the patent free of charge. I develop a group of products based on this agreement. Everything is cool until Group B buys the patent and says I can't use the patent anymore (or worse, demands back royalties). But wait, my products were based on a agreement I had with Group A, not Group B. Group B came in after the original agreement and is trying to change the terms of my agreement with Group A after I've executed the agreement. I would argue that Group B would be compelled to honor any agreements that Group A had in force at the time of the purchase as part of the package of buying the patent.
I think anime appeals to a lot of computer nerds simply because its rather esoteric - just like computer programming is to most folk. Of course now anime has gained wider acceptance so I guess that's not true any more. But I can offer this to anyone who has never seen the more sophisticated anime (Pokemon doesn't qualify), the story lines and character development is often far superior to any live action drama you're likely to see on prime time TV. It's much more imaginative, it's often science fiction set in the future, but not so far as to be unfamiliar which gives it nerd appeal, and the chicks are damn sexy. What more could you want?
==== Jim: I know, if we don't tell you, you're going to turn into an animal.
Slashdot Mirror
CN was running Tenchi in Tokyo during the day. They got 2/3 the way thru it and dropped it in favor of the crappy Thundercats series. Assholes. It's not the first they've done this. CN is notorious for starting a series and not finishing it. At least they actually finished Cowboy Bebop and Outlaw Star this time. But I would like to see the Tenchi series come back and run to completion this time. The anime is the only reason I even watch CN, except for Space Ghost, Brak, Sealab, and AHF. American cartoons suck.
[bar scene] A loud-mouth bar patron interrupts the band to celebrate the victory of the federation. Our hero gets annoyed by this and picks a fight with the loud-mouth patron. A fight breaks out with the female mechanic being the billy bad-ass of the group. The loud-mouth has lots of friends and the hero and his troup are soon outnumbered. The fight spills outside. The bad guys draw revolvers. (WTF?? Revolvers in 2512??) The hero's space ship appears from out of nowhere behind him to save the day. Bad guys go back into bar to have a drink. The hero and his group ride off into the sunset. THIS IS FUCKING BORING! Not to mention the ship popping in from nowhere has been done a bazillion times. (Remember the Harrier in True Lies? How about the Huey in The Matrix?)
Ok. Let's spice up the script with some real action shall we? We'll open as before:
[Bar scene] Loud-mouth patron interrupts the band and spouts off about the victory of the federation. Hero walks over and picks a fight. Heated words are exchanged until...
Hero: Oh yeah?!? You and what army?
Loud Mouth: This army.
most of the bar's patrons stand up in support of the loud-mouth.
Hero: Oh shit.
A full scale brawl ensues. Our hero is soon overwhelmed. The female mechanic jumps in and starts kicking some serious ass. But there are too many for even her. The hero and his group flee the bar only to be cornered by a very tall cliff on one side and the 'army' on the other. Each side draws their weapons, but it's clear whose going to lose this one. Then the hero's ship appears from behind the cliff.
Loud-Mouth: Oh shit.
Ship's loud speaker: Drop your weapons or you'll be reduced to a smoking crater!
Loud-Mouth: You're bluffing! You ain't got the balls!
Ship: No Really. We're not bluffing. Drop your weapons!
Loud-mouth: Go fuck yourself! [loud-mouth turns to his army] We can take em. Blast their asses!
The 'army' opens fire with their hand phasors/blasters/whatever. The ship returns fire with a 100 TerraWatt plasma cannon which causes the bad guys to instantly turn to flame ala the dream sequence in Terminator2. Unfortunately, it also burns the bar down and half the town as well which just happened to be downrange of the cannon. There is a lot of cursing and screaming. The hero and the female mech return to the ship where they engage in a gratuitous sex scene while the rest of the crew takes pictures for their pr0n site. Meanwhile, back the ranch, the audience is seen going to the video store and picking up a copy of Cowboy BeBop which has better scripting and acting.
Cripes... Yet another hackneyed space western. And this is supposed to be new show? If it makes it more than a few weeks before getting pulled, I'll be surprised.
The 'grandstanding' in a DeLorean looks like a prelude to a big investment scam.
A cd that can't be backed up is totally useless to me. No, I don't pirate. But I do have kids who like to play computer games. As anyone else who has kids will tell you, they are not exactly careful when handling CDs. At nearly $50 a pop, I can see very little reason to purchase a CD that isn't going to last more than a week or two around the kiddies.
I think they would have been better off if they dumped SCO unix and just concentrated on linux. SCO was never my favorite brand of Unix to work with. Too many bugs/patches required out of the box - even with the latest and greatest releases. They always seemed to be a year behind in updating their releases. Plus, they were very expensive and it didn't even come with a development system.
Poor lads at the DOD. If they only did their homework they'd know that Red Armor can defeat RPG's. Any Quake DM fan knows that. Throw in a shield belt and your all set.
Another possible counter-measure would be a binary shell. The first blast either shorts or blows away part of the armor so that the main charge can go thru unperturbed behind it.
RW wetdream: Son of Whyachi vs. Sir Killalot.
I'd like to see more regional events. The best bet for those not wanting to put up with all the BS associated with competing at Battlebots should really try to attend one of the street fights that are springing up around the country. The rules are more relaxed and you won't have to sign away all your legal rights to your bot.
But what really ticks me off is that I'm paying for programming (Direct TV) and the paid programming has more adverts than the 'free' network channels. Then the MPAA has the gall to cry foul when I skip their commercials. "You're ripping us off!" Excuse the fuck out of me, but I paid for this programming already. Feel free to eat shit and die you greedy bastards.
Even if this new format is the greatest thing since sliced bread, I still won't touch it given the greed of the RIAA, etc.. Besides, better music at much better prices are available at the used record shops which is where I get my 'new' music now. So fuck Sony. Send SACD the way of the Betamax and the 8-track.
Dubya \duhb'-yah\ n 1: A dim-witted individual. (syn. 'moron', 'dullard') 2: A leader who attacks freedom and liberty while pretencing to defend the same. (compare with hypocrite, tyrant) 3: An individual who is a pawn to lobbying interests. (syn. 'lacky', 'sell-out', 'spineless sock puppet') <George ~ Bush>
...another garbage course.
Another interesting site rejected by /. is here which features cross-country robot racing.
All hail Dubya! Bringing the worst of cold-war era eastern-block governments to a city near you.
It's real. Been there, done that. Though not as big as that one. I could get 8" flames off my fingers with the one I built.
Isn't America great? Where else can a complete idiot be elected president, destroy civil rights, and be hailed as a defender of freedom?
No one's life, liberty, or property is safe while congress is in session.
Never settle with words that which can be settled with a flamethrower.
"Never cuss a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes. Then if he gets mad, you'll have a headstart and he'll be barefoot."
Due to a conflict on Feb 1, 2019, please reschedule the destruction of the Earth by giant meteorite to November 3, 2025. The year 2019 through most of 2024 has already been scheduled for devistation by global warming and plagues of alien headcrabs.
Thanks,
Mother Nature.
10 minutes? Well that's just long enough to mute your typical commercial break. Perfect!
I think you missed the point. I know that SGI sold the patent to M$. The real question is whether M$ is obligated to honor the prior licensing agreement SGI had with the open source community. The same goes for the JPEG dispute.
It seems to me that a patent that has been released into the public domain (at least for non-commercial use) should remain so if and when the patent is sold. I don't believe that there is any law requiring this, but anyone selling an 'open patent' should include a requirement that it remain open as terms of the sale to avoid this very situation.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if someone should decide to challenge a patent that was open only to be closed at a later date. Think about the series of events: Group A invents an image compression algorithm and grants me license to use the patent free of charge. I develop a group of products based on this agreement. Everything is cool until Group B buys the patent and says I can't use the patent anymore (or worse, demands back royalties). But wait, my products were based on a agreement I had with Group A, not Group B. Group B came in after the original agreement and is trying to change the terms of my agreement with Group A after I've executed the agreement. I would argue that Group B would be compelled to honor any agreements that Group A had in force at the time of the purchase as part of the package of buying the patent.
===
All your patents are belong to us.
====
Jim: I know, if we don't tell you, you're going to turn into an animal.
Aisha: Who are you calling an animal?!?!