Geeks have been traditionally forgiving of split-infinitives. Lexicographers and sociologists believe this dates from Kirk's voice-over "To Boldly Go..." in the original Star Trek series.
And while you're out there laying waste to dopey acronyms, could you maybe put a bullet through that totally pretentious and apropos of nothing "War-" prefix used to designate the catalogs and cataloguers of un-secured wireless networks?
Me, I'll take good writing and characters I care about, thanks.
Is it Geek-Friendly 'cause it's Science Fiction? Most of the good SF I have read does not translate well into the Geek ouevre of Wookies and Mind-Melds and big-boobied Borg babies in catsuits. The best SF, in my experience usually does not translate easily into episodic TV at all.
Are you calling Firefly "good geek TV" because it is both SF and intelligent? Someone mentioned someplace (maybe on this board) how wonderful FireFly would be because there would be no sound heard when things exploded in space. Well, Oh boy, Roy! Sounds like a best-Drama Emmy candidate to me! Let me race upstairs to set my Tivo...! Hopefully, the writing will extend beyond the use, or non-use, of special effects.
Which is not to say that I don't have high hopes for the show as well. I'm a huge fan of Buffy -- another show Whedon created -- but not because someone "finally got vampires right." I just find it extraordinarily well written, with believeable characters well acted.
Is Buffy "geeky?" Whom do I ask to find out? You?
>as good as we hope.
"We?" Who's "we?" Linux SysAdmins? SlashDot Editors? Buffy Fans? You and your room-mates? Surely you don't expect all SlashDot readers to ever be on the same page on any single topic, do you?
I hope, for Mr. Whedon's sakes, Firefly catches a buzz which extends far, far beyond the parameters of "geek-itude."
C'mon, this is not a "cyber thing," this is not a "techno-generation gap" (jeezus, who writes like that?), this is just a plain old "dem crazy kids" thing.
Every generation's teenagers (and, it seems, their only slightly older journalists) like to think there is something uniquely outre and wonderful that has inspired their slang. Jazz, beatnik society, ascendent drug culture, Saxon invasion, whatever, every age had its new lingo "come from somewhere." And every new lingo had its detractors in the halls of Academe grumbling in their tweeds about "the crazy way kids communicate these days." And, in the long run, only undergraduate sociologists really care.
As for this being yet another topic that has zero business whatsoever on Slashdot...
PUH-LEEZE, girlfriend! Let's just not go there, 'kay?
Damn! Just when you think that the SlashDot editorial team has managed to pull themselves out of the quagmire of juvenile bias against anything originating from Redmond, "michael" drags them back in...
I have a Microsoft keyboard, joystick, and game console, and have been tres pleased with them all. All of these objects have been competitively priced, and have never conflicted with any of the other objects in my house. Geez, even my XBox gets along fabulously with my $ony TV. Go figure!
So, based upon my real life experience as a technically-minded albeit happily mainstream consumer, I'm tickled that MS is getting into the wireless game. It will accelerate adoption of that type of connectivity a hundred fold, which will in turn drive access/bandwidth fees down.
I mean, fellas, really! Is anyone over college age still subscribing to this "Microsoft as Evil Empire" cartoon?
Pithy, yet still juvenile sarcasm and condescension, punctuated with a trite-fully geeky emoticon, all with a total absence of any positive contribution.
Pick up the phone, it's Bill Gates. His company is thinking about putting out their own distro of Linux and he wants to know if you'll come on board as head of customer service.
Linux R00lz, d00d!!!!!!!!
Seriously, so much for the once legendary community of enthusiastic help and cooperation Linux newbies could expect online. Or maybe it's still out there, just no longer to be found on dear ol' jaded-and-now-morphing-into-something-else SlashDot.
...compared to the other online movie download services?
THAT's the only legitimate mode of comparison. WB thinks the convenience of having a movie delivered online, versus having to drive to a videostore to purchase, and then return, is worth the "overinflated" price. They may be right (they are in my family's case, apparently not in yours).
The point is, they are doing it. And that sends the message to the P2P thieves: "OK, Now What?"
As a point of historical reference, I worked for a major premium cable channel back in the early '80's when satellite security technologies were first introduced. When that happened, many of the rural citizens who had been receiving, albeit illegally, programming for free went berserk. They complained to their congresspeople, who -- amazingly to most of us in the industry -- sided or were at least sympathetic with the pirates! The argument was, basically, these citizens have been accustomed to receiving programming on their big ugly dishes, the cable industry has not taken the technical initiative to wire up their neighborhoods, you cannot just come in and take it away. So, the networks huddled and the "backyard dish market" was born, making the encrypted programming available to citizens via integrated receiver-decoders for their big dishes. Sure, the pirates kept on pirating ("I'm used to 'Free,' this is too expensive!"), but the FBI rained down on them like a storm of lead. The monies and initiatives that were birthed during that time are what have yielded the sea change in content distribution we know as DirecTV.
Is DirecTV expensive, it's prices "insanely overinflated?" Maybe. Maybe not. But there is no question, even among the P2P apologists, and especially in Congress, that hacking around their encrypted transmissions is illegal.
This is what WB is hoping to accomplish: remove all moral ambiguity regarding file-sharing/piracy.
...and make a buck or two, of course. As are we all.
Maybe it's just me, but someone who deliberately misspells a company name comes across as a 14 year old and almost immediately wants me to completely dismiss the point they're making.
Well said.
Whether or not it is a SlashDot Editor's right/responsibility to correct the spellings when they are deliberately and childishly changed may be open to debate, but the fact that their continued use diminish the credibility of posters, forum, and movement is not.
Would not surpise me. Dimunition of copyright protection, coupled with widespread acceptance of his new codec standard , and he becomes the new "owner" of the "new MP3."
...of course, if his clandestine efforts to reduce copyright holders' protection fails, he still profits by having positioned corona or chrome or whatever it's called as a secure industrial-level standard to the Entertainment cabals.
Why does a device's Operating System or manufacturer make it automatically and inherently "good" or "evil?" Might you not consider judging the machine on its own merits?
"Linux (good)... Sony (evil)... [insert Star Trek/Star Wars analogy]"
Posters on this board are really becoming parodies of themselves! C'mon, you're supposed to be tech guys, analysts, smart people... These knee-jerk and emotional "Pro-Linux/Anti-Corporate" judgements make y'all sound like 14 year old girls discussing the latest fashions.
Ummm, pardon me, but you said "Star Wars Movie" and "Important" in the same sentence...
From my vantage point, which I suspect is a little more weathered than yours, I am hard pressed to find more gravitas in either Star Wars or N'Synch. I think I recall finding toys for both included inside my seven year old's Happy Meals at one point or another.
The Space Program, now that's a different story. Seems to me the more pop stars and celebrities we can get into space, the more public attention these initiatives get, the faster you'll get your Space Princesses and Starship Captains for real...
...and importantly, please provide us with your definition of "average artist?"
Techno-Niblet Moby has proposed that fans of a particular type of music are more likely to avail themselves of P2P systems and indulge in what is popularly described as piracy. Do you agree? If so, should the music industry approach their P2P problem gradually, audience segment by audience segment, or should the Revolution occur all at once, with Sinatra and Linkin Park fans all rowing the canoe simulataneously?
Could you ever conceive of a day when all sides manage to agree upon a legitimate online distribution system for music? If so, would the inherently less expensive online delivery modes do away with CD's in the way that CD's did away with vinyl? If so, could you conceive of that having a negative impact upon older and/or less affluent/connected music fans (such as we imagine yours may very well be...) ?
>How the hell are folks going to destroy the game market by messing with MS?
Because the introduction of the Xbox has ennervated the games industry, like it or not. Console prices have dropped, competition for exclusive game development and distribution is fierce, and the envelope for game quality is getting pushed monthly, on all sides. The industry itself is one of Wall Street's major stars this past year, but the big winner has been Joe Consumer.
Didn't have to be MS, could have been anybody big and scary enough to slap the complacent Sony and Nintendo upside their noggins. The fact that it _is_ Ultimate Digital Boogeyman MS has only charged the festivities with more happy insanity. Won't get into the jingoistic US vs. Japan stuff, 'cause that's not my mindset, but you can see how that component could create a buzz in some circles as well...
If "The Mighty MS" fails at this (and I really don't think they will, linux-installing slashdotters notwithstanding), what company will rise up to take it place? None (in their right mind) soon, thereby shrinking the industry, driving the prices up, and narrowing the selection of games. Great for Sony shareholders, not so for the game-playing public.
If MS were wildly successful in this venture, it might even encourage other companies to get into the act, and create even more competition.
...and that's a good thing, or so SlashDot has told me...
Lets drive them out of the console market an hurt them so much they dont come back.
Urmm, why...?
I mean, as far as console industry economics go, the more choices a consumer has, the lower the hardware prices and the wider selection of games. For less than $200 a console, there's no reason not to own them all, and be able to benefit from every game published.
For the Record, I _Like_ BTVS, and Adore Faith!
on
Faith Returns to Buffy
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
...but this story still has no place on SlashDot, mit or mitout one's TV category checked.
In their gradual shift towards mainstreaming this site, the editors lurched forward a bit too quickly. Expect to see compensatory Calculus and Quantum Mechanics stories for the next week...
(Not to mention that, to anyone who follows TV news on the sites devoted to such, Miss Dushku's return to the show is really, really old news.)
You cross the line at the point where you pay someone to do the edit for you. Actually, you don't cross the line, per se, the poor schmuck you've convinced to do your editing has.
This situation comes up not infrequently in the post-production industry. Some guy walks into a professional editing house with a bunch of dubs he's made from tapes he's rented and wants the edit house to assist him into making them into something else. The professional edit house respectfully turns him away everytime. Antagonizing the boot-legging Joe Sixpack just ain't worth the downside of running afoul of the legit entertainment industry (which is where the real money is).
Again, this is not a topic of speculation and debate, this is as black and white as anything you'll read about on this board. Clean Flicks could not be more wrong, no matter how much they cloak their illegal activities in a mantle of morality.
> I've seen news stories on this. What you go on to describe is a DVD containing alternate edits as sanctioned by the Studio. This is comparable to the inclusion of the Airline Edit version on the DVD. The film's director has either approved this edit and/or signed away the right to its creation to the studio.
It is a different case with Clean Flicks, who are creating and editing dubs of the features without studio or creator sanction. I mean, never mind the creative issues, think of the Quality Control issues! Who at the studio has approved the dub facility grinding out these clean flavors?
>Do you have kids? Yes, I have kids. Four of them. They're all asleep now as I write this. When I'm done here online, I'm going upstairs to play some Xbox games that I deem a little too violent for my kids. If I still have some energy left, maybe I'll watch some of my PG-13 or R-rated anime that I don't view when the kids are awake. I'm like a gazillion other parents. That's why there is a rating system for both games and vids: not so I know which entertainments to pay my church to edit, but which entertainments to _buy_, and which to watch with whom in my household.
The good news is that there is not an NHL Franchise's chance in Hell that Clean Flicks will still be in business next year at this time. The DGA and the MPAA is all over them, and no court in this century is going to afford CF an iota of credibility. Clean Flicks could not be more in the wrong.
General Reminder: You do not have a God-gven right to entertainment, free, "clean," or otherwise. If you deem viewing the latest Arnold flick as part of the cultural literacy of your generation, so be it, but there's only one version of it. Watch it, or don't. THAT is your choice.
I wish all the "cracks" of our e-mail systems were so easily fixable.
My observation is that people have become addicted to e-mail, whether personal or professional.
It amuses me to think that many of the people who slag the poor cigarette smokers for taking their productivity-siphoning nic breaks are themselves logging into their personal e-mail accounts, I-M services, or message boards constantly throughout the work day.
But because this can be done while staring at a monitor, as opposed to shivering in the parking lot, it is overlooked. Or, based upon the post that has sparked this conversation, was overlooked until now.
Interact with co-workers at work. Interact with your personal contacts off-hours. Full stop, end-of-story. It seems so incredibly simple to me, that any other angle just seems a rationalization for one's e-mail/Web addiction.
...and I understand that there are 12-step programs to cure that now...
Re:Why not add a link to the patch as well, Slashd
on
Microsoft News Update
·
· Score: 1
You're an ass, too As I was saying, all that's missing is a little adult supervision.
If we have indeed established that SlashDot has no ambitions and aspirations, and/or is genetically incapable of making a credible leap/leap into credibility, then I would say that their course into Mediocrity is set firmly and their sailing should be smooth.
I believe, however, that Taco et. al. have bigger ideas, and are probably more embarrassed by the juvenile anti-MS tubthumping of some of their associates than we will ever be privy to -- especially in light of Microsoft's position as an advertiser here.
stop whining about what you get for free. Well, obviously, it was not a whine. I haven't whined in over 40 years. But more importantly, you are 100 percent off base about the economics of SlashDot. Almost everything on the Web is free; SlashDot's competition charges no fees. Much of SlashDot's competition for my tech news reading time employ professional, accountable journalists. SlashDot is not growing by virtue of its Linux-cum-Boba Fett geek niche; it is clearly casting its net wider (as it must, if it does not want to be relegated to the list of vanity and curiosity sites). With all that free competition, not to mention original content vying for eyeballs, my guess is that SlashDot is actively concerned about "tweaking," if not necessarily "polishing," its image.
What do YOU think, Azghoul? At the next SlashDot staff meeting (or earlier), are the Editor-in-Chief and the more senior editors slapping michael on the back saying, "Hey, don't worry about it, kid, ya done good," or are they lovingly, gently, nurturingly, but firmly coaching him to be a little more careful next time?
...because ultimately, it's not about what you or I want for SlashDot, but what the editors want for themselves.
Re:Why not add a link to the patch as well, Slashd
on
Microsoft News Update
·
· Score: 1
That's what comments and moderation are for
No, actually that's what adult supervision is for. That "michael" needs some has been clearly apparent.
For SlashDot to make a credible leap from clipping service/sandbox to journalism, the editor-in-chief, or someone in an overview role who does not spend most of his time aggregating content, needs to be more involved in the day-to-day.
Slashdot Mirror
Geeks have been traditionally forgiving of split-infinitives. Lexicographers and sociologists believe this dates from Kirk's voice-over "To Boldly Go..." in the original Star Trek series.
Clue check, Mr. Jefferson:
For those of us who market the bandwidth, create the games, and raise children to be technically savvy and responsible adults, You're Joe Sixpack.
Keep warping those priorities, son; baby needs a new pair of shoes...
> This stupid acronym really needs to die.
And while you're out there laying waste to dopey acronyms, could you maybe put a bullet through that totally pretentious and apropos of nothing "War-" prefix used to designate the catalogs and cataloguers of un-secured wireless networks?
Me, I'll take good writing and characters I care about, thanks.
Is it Geek-Friendly 'cause it's Science Fiction? Most of the good SF I have read does not translate well into the Geek ouevre of Wookies and Mind-Melds and big-boobied Borg babies in catsuits. The best SF, in my experience usually does not translate easily into episodic TV at all.
Are you calling Firefly "good geek TV" because it is both SF and intelligent? Someone mentioned someplace (maybe on this board) how wonderful FireFly would be because there would be no sound heard when things exploded in space. Well, Oh boy, Roy! Sounds like a best-Drama Emmy candidate to me! Let me race upstairs to set my Tivo...! Hopefully, the writing will extend beyond the use, or non-use, of special effects.
Which is not to say that I don't have high hopes for the show as well. I'm a huge fan of Buffy -- another show Whedon created -- but not because someone "finally got vampires right." I just find it extraordinarily well written, with believeable characters well acted.
Is Buffy "geeky?" Whom do I ask to find out? You?
>as good as we hope.
"We?" Who's "we?" Linux SysAdmins? SlashDot Editors? Buffy Fans? You and your room-mates? Surely you don't expect all SlashDot readers to ever be on the same page on any single topic, do you?
I hope, for Mr. Whedon's sakes, Firefly catches a buzz which extends far, far beyond the parameters of "geek-itude."
C'mon, this is not a "cyber thing," this is not a "techno-generation gap" (jeezus, who writes like that?), this is just a plain old "dem crazy kids" thing.
Every generation's teenagers (and, it seems, their only slightly older journalists) like to think there is something uniquely outre and wonderful that has inspired their slang. Jazz, beatnik society, ascendent drug culture, Saxon invasion, whatever, every age had its new lingo "come from somewhere." And every new lingo had its detractors in the halls of Academe grumbling in their tweeds about "the crazy way kids communicate these days." And, in the long run, only undergraduate sociologists really care.
As for this being yet another topic that has zero business whatsoever on Slashdot...
PUH-LEEZE, girlfriend! Let's just not go there, 'kay?
Let's hope not.
Damn! Just when you think that the SlashDot editorial team has managed to pull themselves out of the quagmire of juvenile bias against anything originating from Redmond, "michael" drags them back in...
I have a Microsoft keyboard, joystick, and game console, and have been tres pleased with them all. All of these objects have been competitively priced, and have never conflicted with any of the other objects in my house. Geez, even my XBox gets along fabulously with my $ony TV. Go figure!
So, based upon my real life experience as a technically-minded albeit happily mainstream consumer, I'm tickled that MS is getting into the wireless game. It will accelerate adoption of that type of connectivity a hundred fold, which will in turn drive access/bandwidth fees down.
I mean, fellas, really! Is anyone over college age still subscribing to this "Microsoft as Evil Empire" cartoon?
I think he was kidding/attempting satire.
(Please someone confirm he was kidding/attempting satire...!)
>How sad :)
Well, that about was just about perfect!
Pithy, yet still juvenile sarcasm and condescension, punctuated with a trite-fully geeky emoticon, all with a total absence of any positive contribution.
Pick up the phone, it's Bill Gates. His company is thinking about putting out their own distro of Linux and he wants to know if you'll come on board as head of customer service.
Linux R00lz, d00d!!!!!!!!
Seriously, so much for the once legendary community of enthusiastic help and cooperation Linux newbies could expect online. Or maybe it's still out there, just no longer to be found on dear ol' jaded-and-now-morphing-into-something-else SlashDot.
THAT's the only legitimate mode of comparison. WB thinks the convenience of having a movie delivered online, versus having to drive to a videostore to purchase, and then return, is worth the "overinflated" price. They may be right (they are in my family's case, apparently not in yours).
The point is, they are doing it. And that sends the message to the P2P thieves: "OK, Now What?"
As a point of historical reference, I worked for a major premium cable channel back in the early '80's when satellite security technologies were first introduced. When that happened, many of the rural citizens who had been receiving, albeit illegally, programming for free went berserk. They complained to their congresspeople, who -- amazingly to most of us in the industry -- sided or were at least sympathetic with the pirates! The argument was, basically, these citizens have been accustomed to receiving programming on their big ugly dishes, the cable industry has not taken the technical initiative to wire up their neighborhoods, you cannot just come in and take it away. So, the networks huddled and the "backyard dish market" was born, making the encrypted programming available to citizens via integrated receiver-decoders for their big dishes. Sure, the pirates kept on pirating ("I'm used to 'Free,' this is too expensive!"), but the FBI rained down on them like a storm of lead. The monies and initiatives that were birthed during that time are what have yielded the sea change in content distribution we know as DirecTV.
Is DirecTV expensive, it's prices "insanely overinflated?" Maybe. Maybe not. But there is no question, even among the P2P apologists, and especially in Congress, that hacking around their encrypted transmissions is illegal.
This is what WB is hoping to accomplish: remove all moral ambiguity regarding file-sharing/piracy.
Maybe it's just me, but someone who deliberately misspells a company name comes across as a 14 year old and almost immediately wants me to completely dismiss the point they're making.
Well said.
Whether or not it is a SlashDot Editor's right/responsibility to correct the spellings when they are deliberately and childishly changed may be open to debate, but the fact that their continued use diminish the credibility of posters, forum, and movement is not.
Hey, what a coincidence! I think people like me are in the minority, also! I, too, wish there were more people like me!
We must be a lot alike, don'cha think?
Um, don't eat it, then.
Ohhhhhhh, you were looking out for MY best interests! Hey, that's sweet of you, but, gosh, you don't have to do that, I'll be fine, thanks.
Would not surpise me. Dimunition of copyright protection, coupled with widespread acceptance of his new codec standard , and he becomes the new "owner" of the "new MP3."
He's no fool, that's for damn sure...
Why does a device's Operating System or manufacturer make it automatically and inherently "good" or "evil?" Might you not consider judging the machine on its own merits?
... [insert Star Trek /Star Wars analogy]"
"Linux (good)... Sony (evil)
Posters on this board are really becoming parodies of themselves! C'mon, you're supposed to be tech guys, analysts, smart people... These knee-jerk and emotional "Pro-Linux/Anti-Corporate" judgements make y'all sound like 14 year old girls discussing the latest fashions.
Ummm, pardon me, but you said "Star Wars Movie" and "Important" in the same sentence...
From my vantage point, which I suspect is a little more weathered than yours, I am hard pressed to find more gravitas in either Star Wars or N'Synch. I think I recall finding toys for both included inside my seven year old's Happy Meals at one point or another.
The Space Program, now that's a different story. Seems to me the more pop stars and celebrities we can get into space, the more public attention these initiatives get, the faster you'll get your Space Princesses and Starship Captains for real...
...and importantly, please provide us with your definition of "average artist?"
Techno-Niblet Moby has proposed that fans of a particular type of music are more likely to avail themselves of P2P systems and indulge in what is popularly described as piracy. Do you agree? If so, should the music industry approach their P2P problem gradually, audience segment by audience segment, or should the Revolution occur all at once, with Sinatra and Linkin Park fans all rowing the canoe simulataneously?
Could you ever conceive of a day when all sides manage to agree upon a legitimate online distribution system for music? If so, would the inherently less expensive online delivery modes do away with CD's in the way that CD's did away with vinyl? If so, could you conceive of that having a negative impact upon older and/or less affluent/connected music fans (such as we imagine yours may very well be...) ?
Because the introduction of the Xbox has ennervated the games industry, like it or not. Console prices have dropped, competition for exclusive game development and distribution is fierce, and the envelope for game quality is getting pushed monthly, on all sides. The industry itself is one of Wall Street's major stars this past year, but the big winner has been Joe Consumer.
Didn't have to be MS, could have been anybody big and scary enough to slap the complacent Sony and Nintendo upside their noggins. The fact that it _is_ Ultimate Digital Boogeyman MS has only charged the festivities with more happy insanity. Won't get into the jingoistic US vs. Japan stuff, 'cause that's not my mindset, but you can see how that component could create a buzz in some circles as well...
If "The Mighty MS" fails at this (and I really don't think they will, linux-installing slashdotters notwithstanding), what company will rise up to take it place? None (in their right mind) soon, thereby shrinking the industry, driving the prices up, and narrowing the selection of games. Great for Sony shareholders, not so for the game-playing public.
If MS were wildly successful in this venture, it might even encourage other companies to get into the act, and create even more competition.
Lets drive them out of the console market an hurt them so much they dont come back.
Urmm, why...?
I mean, as far as console industry economics go, the more choices a consumer has, the lower the hardware prices and the wider selection of games. For less than $200 a console, there's no reason not to own them all, and be able to benefit from every game published.
...but this story still has no place on SlashDot, mit or mitout one's TV category checked.
In their gradual shift towards mainstreaming this site, the editors lurched forward a bit too quickly. Expect to see compensatory Calculus and Quantum Mechanics stories for the next week...
(Not to mention that, to anyone who follows TV news on the sites devoted to such, Miss Dushku's return to the show is really, really old news.)
You cross the line at the point where you pay someone to do the edit for you. Actually, you don't cross the line, per se, the poor schmuck you've convinced to do your editing has.
This situation comes up not infrequently in the post-production industry. Some guy walks into a professional editing house with a bunch of dubs he's made from tapes he's rented and wants the edit house to assist him into making them into something else. The professional edit house respectfully turns him away everytime. Antagonizing the boot-legging Joe Sixpack just ain't worth the downside of running afoul of the legit entertainment industry (which is where the real money is).
Again, this is not a topic of speculation and debate, this is as black and white as anything you'll read about on this board. Clean Flicks could not be more wrong, no matter how much they cloak their illegal activities in a mantle of morality.
> I've seen news stories on this.
What you go on to describe is a DVD containing alternate edits as sanctioned by the Studio. This is comparable to the inclusion of the Airline Edit version on the DVD. The film's director has either approved this edit and/or signed away the right to its creation to the studio.
It is a different case with Clean Flicks, who are creating and editing dubs of the features without studio or creator sanction. I mean, never mind the creative issues, think of the Quality Control issues! Who at the studio has approved the dub facility grinding out these clean flavors?
>Do you have kids?
Yes, I have kids. Four of them. They're all asleep now as I write this. When I'm done here online, I'm going upstairs to play some Xbox games that I deem a little too violent for my kids. If I still have some energy left, maybe I'll watch some of my PG-13 or R-rated anime that I don't view when the kids are awake. I'm like a gazillion other parents. That's why there is a rating system for both games and vids: not so I know which entertainments to pay my church to edit, but which entertainments to _buy_, and which to watch with whom in my household.
The good news is that there is not an NHL Franchise's chance in Hell that Clean Flicks will still be in business next year at this time. The DGA and the MPAA is all over them, and no court in this century is going to afford CF an iota of credibility. Clean Flicks could not be more in the wrong.
General Reminder: You do not have a God-gven right to entertainment, free, "clean," or otherwise. If you deem viewing the latest Arnold flick as part of the cultural literacy of your generation, so be it, but there's only one version of it. Watch it, or don't. THAT is your choice.
I wish all the "cracks" of our e-mail systems were so easily fixable.
My observation is that people have become addicted to e-mail, whether personal or professional.
It amuses me to think that many of the people who slag the poor cigarette smokers for taking their productivity-siphoning nic breaks are themselves logging into their personal e-mail accounts, I-M services, or message boards constantly throughout the work day.
But because this can be done while staring at a monitor, as opposed to shivering in the parking lot, it is overlooked. Or, based upon the post that has sparked this conversation, was overlooked until now.
Interact with co-workers at work. Interact with your personal contacts off-hours. Full stop, end-of-story. It seems so incredibly simple to me, that any other angle just seems a rationalization for one's e-mail/Web addiction.
As I was saying, all that's missing is a little adult supervision.
If we have indeed established that SlashDot has no ambitions and aspirations, and/or is genetically incapable of making a credible leap/leap into credibility, then I would say that their course into Mediocrity is set firmly and their sailing should be smooth.
I believe, however, that Taco et. al. have bigger ideas, and are probably more embarrassed by the juvenile anti-MS tubthumping of some of their associates than we will ever be privy to -- especially in light of Microsoft's position as an advertiser here.
stop whining about what you get for free.
Well, obviously, it was not a whine. I haven't whined in over 40 years. But more importantly, you are 100 percent off base about the economics of SlashDot. Almost everything on the Web is free; SlashDot's competition charges no fees. Much of SlashDot's competition for my tech news reading time employ professional, accountable journalists. SlashDot is not growing by virtue of its Linux-cum-Boba Fett geek niche; it is clearly casting its net wider (as it must, if it does not want to be relegated to the list of vanity and curiosity sites). With all that free competition, not to mention original content vying for eyeballs, my guess is that SlashDot is actively concerned about "tweaking," if not necessarily "polishing," its image.
What do YOU think, Azghoul? At the next SlashDot staff meeting (or earlier), are the Editor-in-Chief and the more senior editors slapping michael on the back saying, "Hey, don't worry about it, kid, ya done good," or are they lovingly, gently, nurturingly, but firmly coaching him to be a little more careful next time?
No, actually that's what adult supervision is for. That "michael" needs some has been clearly apparent.
For SlashDot to make a credible leap from clipping service/sandbox to journalism, the editor-in-chief, or someone in an overview role who does not spend most of his time aggregating content, needs to be more involved in the day-to-day.
Hey, That's Great!!
Here's a cookie.