I've read a lot of comments here that basically say, "Relax, it's just a movie. You're reading way too much of your own ideology into the movie. The Matrix, Star Wars, and Hamlet are all fiction, what the characters say or do don't have any meaning attached to them beyond how they relate to the movie."
I agree with this to the degree that some people do read too much into these things. And trust me, I'm not proposing that people take the "philospohy" of The Matrix as their rules to live by, but many people are only watching half the movie if they refuse to see that their is some symbolic meaning to what is happening on screen.
The name Jesus is often used in association with Neo, most explicitly when Choi, a drug user, thanks Neo for providing him with illicit software. "Hallelujah. You're my savior, man. My own personal Jesus Christ."
Writers put things into their works for a reason or do you think the above passage was just put in randomly without thought to its meaning. Look, I agree that everytime someone in the movie utter "Jesus" or "Oh my God" that it doesn't have to have some deep meaning. But if the work does have religous overtones then people are not crazy or reading too much into the movie when things like this pop up.
Just because the writer/director doesn't mention it in the Super Sized Special Edition Vioce-over track doesn't mean it's not an influence.
There are lots of time when cash is more convenient (not to mention paranoids who don't like to leave a paper trail of their purchases). When I'm at a club I where I might get a drink from 4 different bartenders during the course of the night I don't want to have to dig out a card and sign a receipt or punch in a pin number every time.
I'vr noticed recently that there are a lot of goth/punk kids hanging out at the malls (maybe it's not a recent development, but I don't get to the mall much). It just seems odd to me since I would think that both of the groups would find the middle-class consumer driven environment of the mall, filled with Gap stores and the like, distasteful.
Of course there aren't a whole lot of places for teens to hang out so I know why they are there, it still strikes me as odd though.
This is often mentioned for comparisons to other modes of travel but I don't think it's valid.
The risks of an accident for the shuttle are really on a per flight basis. The Columbia would likely have suffered the same fate whether it had been in orbit for one day or twenty. The distance that it traveled really had little impact on the outcome. The tragedy happened on reentry due to damage that was likely caused on lift-off. Both of these events are based on the number of flights it takes, not the number of miles it travels.
In a car however an accident is as likely (roughly speaking) at any point during a trip. It's as likely to happen around the corner from your house as it is 500 miles into a road trip. I think this is true for most convential types of transport (except maybe planes, maybe those statistics should also be on a per flight basis, I don't really know).
Certainly there are numerous things that Microsoft (sorry M$) can be criticized for but this open ended "story" is pathetic. I can't help but thnik of Mike Myers impersonating Barbara Streisand: "Let me give you a topic: Microsoft sucks. Discuss."
As far as moderators go...nearly every reply agreeing with the parent has been modded as troll, flamebait or offtopic. Thankfully there are enough moderators who have maintained some sanity to keep this thread alive for now.
Now we're at an impasse. I've studied and feel comfortable discussing historical theory but am pretty much ignorant about theories of music appreciation, but here goes (besides when has ignorance stopped a/.er anyway).
For historical arguments there is a basis of fact upon which an argument can be based. For that matter historical facts can be used for the development of theories as well. At some point, yes, opinion or interpretation is important and becomes the deciding factor for which theory each person decides is most valid. But in each case there is an historical record that can be used to back up the theory (regardless of whether you think it was economics, ideals, national pride, tradition, or whatever that is most important.)
So if you're firmly convinced that people would only go to war for their ideals then I may never convince you that the civil war was fought primarily for economic reasons. You may say that they were mainly fighting to defend their way of life and that economics, while a factor, is not enough to get people to go to war. We may never reconcile our opinion of which theory is more valid.
Now we're at an impasse. I've studied and feel comfortable discussing historical theory but am pretty much ignorant about theories of music appreciation, but here goes (besides when has ignorance stopped a/.er anyway).
For historical arguments there is a basis of fact upon which an argument can be based. For that matter historical facts can be used for the development of theories as well. At some point, yes, opinion or interpretation is important and becomes the deciding factor for which theory each person decides is most valid. But in each case there is an historical record that can be used to back up the theory (regardless of whether you think it was economics, ideals, national pride, tradition, or whatever.)
So if you're firmly convinced that people would only go to war for their ideals then I may never convince you that the civil war was fought primarily for economic reasons. You may say that they were mainly fighting to defend their way of life and that economics, while a factor, is not enough to get people to go to war. We may never reconcile our opinion of which theory is more valid.
I think this is what you are trying to get at regarding music. Don't merely say you do or don't like Britney Spears but be able to offer some defensible reason why you have that opinion. I'd be willing to agree with this the only problem is that I think for something like music there would be little agreement even on what standards should be used to judge music. Is it technical merits, innovation, tradition, emotional response, social message, performance, etc that makes music good? I just think there are too many levels of subjectivity to really say this is good music but that is trash. Granted, this is true for any of the humanities, but then I'm skeptical of these definitive standards in literature, plays and movies as well.
To a certain degree I'm playing devil's advocate here because I don't think it's unreasonable to say that Shakespeare is better than Tom Clancy or that the Beatles are better than N'Sync. I just tend to have this reaction when I read so-and-so is an artist but this other group is just a band. Most often it's just people putting down the opinions of others without going through the kind of analysis you talk about.
To a certain degree I'm playing devil's advocate here because I don't think it's unreasonable to say that Shakespeare is better than Tom Clancy or that the Beatles are better than N'Sync. I just tend to have this reaction when I read so-and-so is and artist but this other group is just a band. Most often it's just people putting down the opinions of others without going through the kind of analysis you talk about.
I'm really not trying to troll here but I'm sure there are plenty of people who would say that Mozart and Beethoven are artists but that the Velvet Underground is just noise. Everyone has their own tastes and for something like music it quality really is all relative.
I just get tired of listening to people say what I like is quality and what you like is trash. (By the way I'm not much of a fan of any of the groups/bands/artists that you mentioned).
1. The player will not succeed purely on intellectual prowess if he is dealt crap hands.
2. You and your friends are not a statistically significant sample
Statistically,over the long run, a player who makes the right plays (based on strategy, probability, etc) will be a winning player even if over the short run he gets beaten by a player drawing lucky cards.
I wouldn't have replied except that it was modded insightful
Video Poker is not the same as what is discussed in this book. In video poker you win based solely on what hand you get, not by beating an opponent. You are not playing against the computer. The computer is only their to randomly (I hope) deal out cards to the player.
I work for a construction company (heavy highway and bridges) and we've got a couple of Mavica cameras scattered between the main office and the field offices. We use them for pre-construction site visits, progress photos and accident investigations. They've held up well here, though obviously they have to be taken care of.
Granted, it's generally the project managers, engineers or foremen who use the cameras and are responsible for them. Any laborer can't come into the office to grab the camera to take a picture of their buddy driving the bulldozer for the first time. Remember many of these guys are responsible for expensive (and sometimes delicate) pieces of equipment and machinery on a daily basis, just explain to the people that the cameras need to be handled carefully.
Digital cameras may not be suitable if you are planning to have a foreman carry it around daily in the field, but from the original question it sounds like the cameras are used infrequently and could just be "checked out" of the office for the times they are used.
Is this technically a parody? I thought of parody as imitation, not copying, of the original. So Spaceballs or Bored of the Rings are parodies where it is obvious what the source material is but none of the characters, names or places are directly from the originals.
In this case the actual name of the character is being used in the cartoon. Now, if they'd used the same image and made up a new name I don't think AG would have a leg to stand on, but in the current form they may be within their rights.
I don't know the law on this, and maybe my understanding parody is not the same as a court would see it, but I think AG may be right.
I still do, although it's not just random browsing. For example, just in the last couple of weeks I've starting reading a number of different journals on/. . Or sometimes if I'm finding a site in Yahoo or through Google I might end up checking out a few other sites that pop up even if they're not directly on target.
I'd kind of compare it to book shopping. If I'm in the store I'll browse through the sections that interest me hoping to find something new, but I won't spend any time in areas I'm completely uninterested in.
The Travel Channel had something like this last night. The one scam was a team effort, a woman on the beach would ask a guy to come over and rub sun screen on her back and then her accomplice would go grab the stuff the guy left by his blanket.
It is this same military industrial complex that gave rise to so many of the technologies that we use today, such as e-mail. Something for the/. community to think about.
While this is true, it's not really the whole story. You can't say that without the Cold War or the Space Race that we would not have e-mail. There is just no way of knowing how things would have developed if the money spent on the military had been diverted into other research areas or even back into people's pockets. It is likely that many of the technologies that we now have would have been developed in any case and that we may even have made further advances in some areas (albeit while lagging in some other areas).
My point is not to argue that we should not have spent so much money on the military during the Cold War, as it was probably necessary, but that the spin-off technologies should merely be seen as a benefit of the spending, not a justification of it.
Furthermore, the problem with the military industrial complex was not only the money spent but also the impact that it had on all aspects of American life. Just to list a couple of examples: the secrecy of the government and its relationship with certain industries; the increased role that the military plays in shaping our foreign policy; and the role the government and the military have in determining how research is focused in both the public and private spheres.
This is a good point, but then the question is should he be put into a position where he is going to be tempted to do the very thing he was incarcerated for?
Would you put a rapist or child molester in charge of a girls cheerleading team? (Yes it's unfair to compare computer crimes to these violent crimes, but you get my point. Besides, I should be the coach of the cheerleading team)
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I agree with this to the degree that some people do read too much into these things. And trust me, I'm not proposing that people take the "philospohy" of The Matrix as their rules to live by, but many people are only watching half the movie if they refuse to see that their is some symbolic meaning to what is happening on screen.
Writers put things into their works for a reason or do you think the above passage was just put in randomly without thought to its meaning. Look, I agree that everytime someone in the movie utter "Jesus" or "Oh my God" that it doesn't have to have some deep meaning. But if the work does have religous overtones then people are not crazy or reading too much into the movie when things like this pop up.
Just because the writer/director doesn't mention it in the Super Sized Special Edition Vioce-over track doesn't mean it's not an influence.
There are lots of time when cash is more convenient (not to mention paranoids who don't like to leave a paper trail of their purchases). When I'm at a club I where I might get a drink from 4 different bartenders during the course of the night I don't want to have to dig out a card and sign a receipt or punch in a pin number every time.
Of course there aren't a whole lot of places for teens to hang out so I know why they are there, it still strikes me as odd though.
The risks of an accident for the shuttle are really on a per flight basis. The Columbia would likely have suffered the same fate whether it had been in orbit for one day or twenty. The distance that it traveled really had little impact on the outcome. The tragedy happened on reentry due to damage that was likely caused on lift-off. Both of these events are based on the number of flights it takes, not the number of miles it travels.
In a car however an accident is as likely (roughly speaking) at any point during a trip. It's as likely to happen around the corner from your house as it is 500 miles into a road trip. I think this is true for most convential types of transport (except maybe planes, maybe those statistics should also be on a per flight basis, I don't really know).
Certainly there are numerous things that Microsoft (sorry M$) can be criticized for but this open ended "story" is pathetic. I can't help but thnik of Mike Myers impersonating Barbara Streisand: "Let me give you a topic: Microsoft sucks. Discuss."
As far as moderators go...nearly every reply agreeing with the parent has been modded as troll, flamebait or offtopic. Thankfully there are enough moderators who have maintained some sanity to keep this thread alive for now.
when you see him fall on his ass trying to do bullet time kung-fu.
This is my favorite viewer. thisoldtoy.com
For historical arguments there is a basis of fact upon which an argument can be based. For that matter historical facts can be used for the development of theories as well. At some point, yes, opinion or interpretation is important and becomes the deciding factor for which theory each person decides is most valid. But in each case there is an historical record that can be used to back up the theory (regardless of whether you think it was economics, ideals, national pride, tradition, or whatever that is most important.)
So if you're firmly convinced that people would only go to war for their ideals then I may never convince you that the civil war was fought primarily for economic reasons. You may say that they were mainly fighting to defend their way of life and that economics, while a factor, is not enough to get people to go to war. We may never reconcile our opinion of which theory is more valid.
Now we're at an impasse. I've studied and feel comfortable discussing historical theory but am pretty much ignorant about theories of music appreciation, but here goes (besides when has ignorance stopped a /.er anyway).
For historical arguments there is a basis of fact upon which an argument can be based. For that matter historical facts can be used for the development of theories as well. At some point, yes, opinion or interpretation is important and becomes the deciding factor for which theory each person decides is most valid. But in each case there is an historical record that can be used to back up the theory (regardless of whether you think it was economics, ideals, national pride, tradition, or whatever.)
So if you're firmly convinced that people would only go to war for their ideals then I may never convince you that the civil war was fought primarily for economic reasons. You may say that they were mainly fighting to defend their way of life and that economics, while a factor, is not enough to get people to go to war. We may never reconcile our opinion of which theory is more valid.
I think this is what you are trying to get at regarding music. Don't merely say you do or don't like Britney Spears but be able to offer some defensible reason why you have that opinion. I'd be willing to agree with this the only problem is that I think for something like music there would be little agreement even on what standards should be used to judge music. Is it technical merits, innovation, tradition, emotional response, social message, performance, etc that makes music good? I just think there are too many levels of subjectivity to really say this is good music but that is trash. Granted, this is true for any of the humanities, but then I'm skeptical of these definitive standards in literature, plays and movies as well.
To a certain degree I'm playing devil's advocate here because I don't think it's unreasonable to say that Shakespeare is better than Tom Clancy or that the Beatles are better than N'Sync. I just tend to have this reaction when I read so-and-so is an artist but this other group is just a band. Most often it's just people putting down the opinions of others without going through the kind of analysis you talk about. To a certain degree I'm playing devil's advocate here because I don't think it's unreasonable to say that Shakespeare is better than Tom Clancy or that the Beatles are better than N'Sync. I just tend to have this reaction when I read so-and-so is and artist but this other group is just a band. Most often it's just people putting down the opinions of others without going through the kind of analysis you talk about.
I'm really not trying to troll here but I'm sure there are plenty of people who would say that Mozart and Beethoven are artists but that the Velvet Underground is just noise. Everyone has their own tastes and for something like music it quality really is all relative.
I just get tired of listening to people say what I like is quality and what you like is trash. (By the way I'm not much of a fan of any of the groups/bands/artists that you mentioned).
A bit OT, but at 9:15 pm Eastern there is a forum on Spam on CSPAN2. I'm not sure who the panelists are but I thought people here might be interested.
Oh, nevermind.
This doesn't stop anyone else on /. from posting.
2. You and your friends are not a statistically significant sample
Statistically ,over the long run, a player who makes the right plays (based on strategy, probability, etc) will be a winning player even if over the short run he gets beaten by a player drawing lucky cards.
Video Poker is not the same as what is discussed in this book. In video poker you win based solely on what hand you get, not by beating an opponent. You are not playing against the computer. The computer is only their to randomly (I hope) deal out cards to the player.
Plus Demolition Man's obvious rip-offs. Now that was quality sci-fi.
I work for a construction company (heavy highway and bridges) and we've got a couple of Mavica cameras scattered between the main office and the field offices. We use them for pre-construction site visits, progress photos and accident investigations. They've held up well here, though obviously they have to be taken care of.
Granted, it's generally the project managers, engineers or foremen who use the cameras and are responsible for them. Any laborer can't come into the office to grab the camera to take a picture of their buddy driving the bulldozer for the first time. Remember many of these guys are responsible for expensive (and sometimes delicate) pieces of equipment and machinery on a daily basis, just explain to the people that the cameras need to be handled carefully.
Digital cameras may not be suitable if you are planning to have a foreman carry it around daily in the field, but from the original question it sounds like the cameras are used infrequently and could just be "checked out" of the office for the times they are used.
And the Devs will take Ottowa out in 6 games in the Conference Finals :-)
Is this technically a parody? I thought of parody as imitation, not copying, of the original. So Spaceballs or Bored of the Rings are parodies where it is obvious what the source material is but none of the characters, names or places are directly from the originals.
In this case the actual name of the character is being used in the cartoon. Now, if they'd used the same image and made up a new name I don't think AG would have a leg to stand on, but in the current form they may be within their rights.
I don't know the law on this, and maybe my understanding parody is not the same as a court would see it, but I think AG may be right.
I'd kind of compare it to book shopping. If I'm in the store I'll browse through the sections that interest me hoping to find something new, but I won't spend any time in areas I'm completely uninterested in.
I'm only watching if the Macho Man Randy Savage (with Elizabeth) is in it, or maybe I'd settle for Jake "the Snake" Roberts, otherwise forget it.
The Travel Channel had something like this last night. The one scam was a team effort, a woman on the beach would ask a guy to come over and rub sun screen on her back and then her accomplice would go grab the stuff the guy left by his blanket.
I thought that had been a well known fact about politicians for ages.
While this is true, it's not really the whole story. You can't say that without the Cold War or the Space Race that we would not have e-mail. There is just no way of knowing how things would have developed if the money spent on the military had been diverted into other research areas or even back into people's pockets. It is likely that many of the technologies that we now have would have been developed in any case and that we may even have made further advances in some areas (albeit while lagging in some other areas).
My point is not to argue that we should not have spent so much money on the military during the Cold War, as it was probably necessary, but that the spin-off technologies should merely be seen as a benefit of the spending, not a justification of it.
Furthermore, the problem with the military industrial complex was not only the money spent but also the impact that it had on all aspects of American life. Just to list a couple of examples: the secrecy of the government and its relationship with certain industries; the increased role that the military plays in shaping our foreign policy; and the role the government and the military have in determining how research is focused in both the public and private spheres.
Would you put a rapist or child molester in charge of a girls cheerleading team? (Yes it's unfair to compare computer crimes to these violent crimes, but you get my point. Besides, I should be the coach of the cheerleading team)