> I went with non-vague symptoms, and the doctor said "I could prescribe you some drugs if you'd like, but I think you'll do better without any drugs. Instead, I want you to do some outside exercise every day."
That's actually really good advice. Goes to show, there are still some doctors out there who's primary motivation is to heal, not necessarily to prescribe drugs.
Ok, so if i'm reading this right, the buggy-whip manufacturers want the US Government to require that every automobile be sold with a buggy whip in the glove compartment, in case the owner ever wanted to hitch a horse to his car. This is done not to sell more buggy whips long after their general usefulness to society has passed, but to give consumers more choices. After all, buggies have wheels, automobiles have wheels, they're practically the same, really.
The assumption here is that they'd be using more powerful transmitters in the school to compensate for the opaqueness of the walls. My experience with large scale wireless setups is that they don't use more powerful transmitters, they use more transmitters. So the student has more chance of an unimpeded view of a wireless antenna than he would if the walls were drywall.
Fair enough. But consider where the wireless router is located in most homes -- right by the computer, where the kid spends most of his waking hours looking at pr0n... sorry, doing homework and updating facebook. Within inches, not feet, of the primary antenna. Remember how the inverse-square law applies to signal strength.
I'm trying to make the original charge work in my head, but I just can't. I suspect a competent, well-versed lawyer could take this apart in court. To wit:
"The building contractors estimate that the average distance from antenna to student is (let's make up a number) 20 feet. Mrs Smith, does your family have internet at home?"
"Why, yes."
"Do you have wireless at home?"
"No. Wireless is evil. It makes my child sick."
"But your child does not get sick at home."
"No. That proves it."
"Mrs. Smith, how to do you access the internet?"
"Oh, I have a laptop."
"And what color is the cord you use to plug into the internet?"
"I don't understand. All I have is a power cord."
"So, you're saying that you use wireless internet at home?"
"Heaven's no. I'm told it's something called wifi."
"Thank you Mrs. Smith. One more question: When Comcast installed your broadband, they put a box called a cable modem somewhere. Where would that be?"
"Right by the computer."
"Is that the same computer your child uses for homework and games?"
"Yes. It's hard sometimes to get him away from it."
It's a nice little scene, and I'd liked to have seen it in Jedi.
...but it's too late now. Even if he incorporated the scene into the film, I suspect that he'd not be able to resist funking up the film a bit more with additional digital effects, and I have no desire to see that.
For that matter, I don't know if I could sit through the original Jedi again. The Ewoks GRATED on me the first time through, and repeated viewings just made it worse.
I have this fantasy where Lucas somehow loses control over the films, and all six of them are recut and the FX completely redone under the supervision of someone with taste. The original three would grow in running time, (except perhaps Jedi, which needed about half the Ewok scenes cut) and the three prequels would shrink to two films. Space battles would get simpler, ground battles would be completely redone with better points of view and better camera work (with the exception of the arena scene, which stood on it's own). The first film would have less slobber and less cuteness. Jake Lloyd's part would be a walk-on, and Hayden Christensen's screen time would be cut by about a third. Principle actors would be called back to rework some of that terrible dialog, and to come up with a less moronic reason for Amidala's passing.
Yes, they did. Phantom Menace got three nominations, two for sound and one for visual effects, and the other two got one each, for visual effects and makeup. I'm a little amazed that II got one for visual effects when III did not, as I thought there was way too much motion blur and too many effects that didn't work in II, and III had some scenes that were breathtaking. But I'm not on the committee.
None of the prequels won in any category. In contrast, the original Star Wars won seven awards.
Now let's go back to what I said. "They're too crowded, too noisy, ineptly paced, badly directed, and have some of the worst dialog in modern cinema."
A film can be crowded and noisy and still get nominated for effects and sound. (I would submit that a film nominated for those awards might be crowded and noisy almost by definition.) Lucasfilms does quality work in this area -- ask anyone.
As to being ineptly paced, badly directed, and chock full o' bad performances, apparently the Oscar board agreed, as none of the prequels got nominations in any of these areas.
In another thread, I opined that Lucas has not had an original thought in a quarter century. The pattern of nominations and awards for the six films would seem to prove that.
I'd ask, do kids get sick at home? Most broadband routers these days are wireless, and on by default. No wait, the kids don't get sick at home in presumably significant numbers. So what's the difference between home wireless and school wireless?
> Just because you have fond childhood memories of the originals doesn't mean the prequels suck.
That's absolutely true. I totally agree. Fond memories of the originals do not mean the prequels suck.
The prequels suck entirely on their own. They're too crowded, too noisy, ineptly paced, badly directed, and have some of the worst dialog in modern cinema. Lucas managed to squeeze bad performances out of good actors, and atrocious performances out of mediocre actors. (Kind of a Stanley Kubrick in reverse...)
The prequels were tragic, unintentional camp and Lucas still doesn't get the joke. If you watch the behind-the-scenes footage for Phantom Menace, there was a time when you could see Lucas was starting to come to the realization that he can no longer tell a coherent story. But he decided to bluff his way through it, and he still is.
Lucas will try to jerk us around some more but there really isn't anything more of value to see. Ever since Episode One Lucas seems to be nursing a grudge against his fans. "You don't like JarJar? Well prepare to see a lot more of him!" Now "you still think Han should have shot first? Well we're splicing in additional scenes showing he didn't!" Maybe even since Return of the Jedi, when geeks who were supposed to be praising him as a god instead got a little too snarky about certain spear-wielding teddy bears. (A show of hands: Who saw "Ewoks: The battle of Endor"? Yeah. Have your eyes stopped bleeding yet?)
Fer crissake, skim Lucas' imdb entry, and try to pick out anything he's written or directed in the last quarter century that wasn't a shameless, heartless, lifeless rip-off of Star Wars or Indiana Jones. The guy hasn't had a fresh idea since the early '80's.
Give it a rest. Everyone, please just give it a rest. Let Lucas pee in his own sandbox on his own dime. You know the added clarity of Blu-ray will not make up for the additional liberties he's going to take with your childhood memories. Let us demonstrate that collective geekhood can say no to Star Wars. For God's sake, let it go. Find another up-and-coming director to patronize, one who isn't yet barn-sour and can still produce a fresh idea.
The advantages of el trains and monorail systems is that they don't compete with street traffic. The advantage of buses is that they can pass each other -- one stalled car doesn't take the whole line down as currently happens with light rail. Elevated bus lanes seems to me the best of both worlds.
Regarding earthquakes, elevated roadways are a mature technology. Nothing is 100% safe -- if you're looking for absolute safety we'd never build anything -- but built to today's standards, elevated roadways shouldn't be any less safe than any of the other tall structures hanging over you -- overpasses, skyscrapers, bridges, etc.
Parenthetically, light rail on the street is the worst of both worlds. The disadvantages of light rail (the system moves as a whole or not at all) with the disadvantages of buses (the system competes with street traffic). When I was living in San Jose, cars being t-boned by light rail in low speed collisions was so common that people started scrawling under the ubiquitous "Taking 217 cars off the road" the addition "One car at a time".
> Once you realize (or admit) that government is a business with a primary goal of generating profit, from that point on everything government does will make perfect sense.
What? I mean... what?? If Government was a business it would have been defunct decades ago. What business can print it's own money? In what business do you get to keep your job no matter how bad a job you do? What business (besides the auto companies, which are practically government owned now) can go into debt more each year and still stay in business?
...but I'm not sure what Ballmer is going to sell in that space.
I should say I am not a fan of the ipad. I think it's too expensive for what it does, and I make it a practice not to buy any computing device that doesn't have an external storage port (SD card in this case).
To me, the issue is not the hardware -- anyone can make an ipad-like devices -- it's the software, and Microsoft is not prepared to compete in this area, for several reasons.
Pad-like devices tend to be low power, relatively low performance devices. Microsoft had similar problems competing in the netbook arena, which they solved partially by giving XP more time to live and partially by redefining the netbook as a more powerful, more expensive device with corresponding less battery life, incidentally removing all the factors that made netbooks interesting, but that's another story. A winders pad would necessarily have to be a PC of at least low-end desktop CPU and memory resources with a touchscreen running an OS designed to be used with a keyboard and mouse. I'm thinking (a) it'll run hot, (b) for short periods of time, and (c) the most satisfying experience will be with it docked. It'll essentially be a rather expensive low end PC with some pad-like qualities.
Alternately, Microsoft could go with a pad-like device that's essentially a big smartphone without the phone guts, (which is essentially what the iPad is) but the only thing they have that plays in that space is Windows Mobile. Does anyone seriously think that Windows Mobile can go head-to-head with iOS?
What Microsoft really needs to do to compete in this arena is to design a new OS from the ground up that's specifically geared to this kind of device. Very specifically, Microsoft needs to realize that a Start button is not a good paradigm for any device that has a touch screen as it's primary interface.
But it looks like (a) Microsoft doesn't have any intention of doing anything other than reposition existing products, and (b) there's no evidence that Microsoft still has the wherewithal to write a new operating system.
The logical competition for the iPad will be devices running Android, for a couple reasons: First, Android plays better than anything from Microsoft on lower-performance hardware, second, Android is designed to have primarily a touchscreen interface, unlike anything Microsoft has, and third, the people at Google understands this space to an extent Ballmer never could.
Do I want to see Android beat out Apple? Of course not. I want them to run neck-and-neck, competing with each other on features, usability and price, with us consumers reaping the reward. Microsoft will be a poor third, competing by leveraging their business relations rather than, you know, producing a product people want to buy.
> I don't think that there is any serious question in anyone's mind where things are going to be in a couple of years. Black Berry is going to be a smoldering wreckage relegated to a slowly shrinking business client base, Windows 7 Mobile Series (or whatever stupid name they gave it) and Palm will be gimped in the single digits, and Apple and Android will be within 10% of each other with the leader being anyone's guess (fight amongst yourselves fanbois).
I'm currently a Blackberry user, but I'm not a fanatic about it. I have one because it had the best keyboard (subjectively) and it has push email, upon which my job depends, and it's dead nuts reliable. I briefly tried a Windows Mobile phone, sent it back. It's just plain not reliable enough for business use. Sorry, it's just not. The thing would lock up silently and I'd miss email, and worse, calls. You don't do that very often in my business before the boss wonders what he's paying you for.
Similarly, although many at work have those cute iphone gadgets, they don't work as well as a phone, which is kind-of important in business, (and this trend, with the 4G, seems to be getting worse) so they were not in the running.
I checked out a couple Android phones a few months ago, and the keyboards sucked and they didn't have push email. So other than the coolness of having a phone with the little green mascot, there was no reason for me to switch.
So... is there now? I'm not in love with the Blackberry. It does the job. And it's a job I very much need my phone to continue doing.
Does Android have push email?
Does any phone running Android have a decent keyboard for someone who does most of their communication via email from their handheld device? I can just about touch-type on the Tour. I can't get even close on the Droid.
How are the Android phones for general reliability? My Windows Mobile phone needed daily resets. Sometimes the *#&$@# audio driver would hang and the "*@#&$# phone wouldn't @#*$&# ring The first time I missed a call from my boss I returned the phone. The Blackberry will always ring, will always connect, and has only dropped maybe two calls in the last six months. How do the Android phones compare?
See, for business, it's really not about having something cute and sexy. It's about being absolutely reliable, and reducing communication lag to as close to zero as is technically possible. The moment Android (or any other platform) can provide this, I'll be happy to consider it.
That said, my 16yo daughter is trading in her BB 8900 for a Galaxy S tomorrow. But she doesn't have the same requirements as I.
Slashdot Mirror
> I went with non-vague symptoms, and the doctor said "I could prescribe you some drugs if you'd like, but I think you'll do better without any drugs. Instead, I want you to do some outside exercise every day."
That's actually really good advice. Goes to show, there are still some doctors out there who's primary motivation is to heal, not necessarily to prescribe drugs.
Ok, so if i'm reading this right, the buggy-whip manufacturers want the US Government to require that every automobile be sold with a buggy whip in the glove compartment, in case the owner ever wanted to hitch a horse to his car. This is done not to sell more buggy whips long after their general usefulness to society has passed, but to give consumers more choices. After all, buggies have wheels, automobiles have wheels, they're practically the same, really.
The assumption here is that they'd be using more powerful transmitters in the school to compensate for the opaqueness of the walls. My experience with large scale wireless setups is that they don't use more powerful transmitters, they use more transmitters. So the student has more chance of an unimpeded view of a wireless antenna than he would if the walls were drywall.
Fair enough. But consider where the wireless router is located in most homes -- right by the computer, where the kid spends most of his waking hours looking at pr0n... sorry, doing homework and updating facebook. Within inches, not feet, of the primary antenna. Remember how the inverse-square law applies to signal strength.
I'm trying to make the original charge work in my head, but I just can't. I suspect a competent, well-versed lawyer could take this apart in court. To wit:
"The building contractors estimate that the average distance from antenna to student is (let's make up a number) 20 feet. Mrs Smith, does your family have internet at home?"
"Why, yes."
"Do you have wireless at home?"
"No. Wireless is evil. It makes my child sick."
"But your child does not get sick at home."
"No. That proves it."
"Mrs. Smith, how to do you access the internet?"
"Oh, I have a laptop."
"And what color is the cord you use to plug into the internet?"
"I don't understand. All I have is a power cord."
"So, you're saying that you use wireless internet at home?"
"Heaven's no. I'm told it's something called wifi."
"Thank you Mrs. Smith. One more question: When Comcast installed your broadband, they put a box called a cable modem somewhere. Where would that be?"
"Right by the computer."
"Is that the same computer your child uses for homework and games?"
"Yes. It's hard sometimes to get him away from it."
"Defense rests."
It's a nice little scene, and I'd liked to have seen it in Jedi.
For that matter, I don't know if I could sit through the original Jedi again. The Ewoks GRATED on me the first time through, and repeated viewings just made it worse.
I have this fantasy where Lucas somehow loses control over the films, and all six of them are recut and the FX completely redone under the supervision of someone with taste. The original three would grow in running time, (except perhaps Jedi, which needed about half the Ewok scenes cut) and the three prequels would shrink to two films. Space battles would get simpler, ground battles would be completely redone with better points of view and better camera work (with the exception of the arena scene, which stood on it's own). The first film would have less slobber and less cuteness. Jake Lloyd's part would be a walk-on, and Hayden Christensen's screen time would be cut by about a third. Principle actors would be called back to rework some of that terrible dialog, and to come up with a less moronic reason for Amidala's passing.
But it's just a fantasy.
Yes, they did. Phantom Menace got three nominations, two for sound and one for visual effects, and the other two got one each, for visual effects and makeup. I'm a little amazed that II got one for visual effects when III did not, as I thought there was way too much motion blur and too many effects that didn't work in II, and III had some scenes that were breathtaking. But I'm not on the committee.
None of the prequels won in any category. In contrast, the original Star Wars won seven awards.
Now let's go back to what I said. "They're too crowded, too noisy, ineptly paced, badly directed, and have some of the worst dialog in modern cinema."
A film can be crowded and noisy and still get nominated for effects and sound. (I would submit that a film nominated for those awards might be crowded and noisy almost by definition.) Lucasfilms does quality work in this area -- ask anyone.
As to being ineptly paced, badly directed, and chock full o' bad performances, apparently the Oscar board agreed, as none of the prequels got nominations in any of these areas.
In another thread, I opined that Lucas has not had an original thought in a quarter century. The pattern of nominations and awards for the six films would seem to prove that.
I'd ask, do kids get sick at home? Most broadband routers these days are wireless, and on by default. No wait, the kids don't get sick at home in presumably significant numbers. So what's the difference between home wireless and school wireless?
> Just because you have fond childhood memories of the originals doesn't mean the prequels suck.
That's absolutely true. I totally agree. Fond memories of the originals do not mean the prequels suck.
The prequels suck entirely on their own. They're too crowded, too noisy, ineptly paced, badly directed, and have some of the worst dialog in modern cinema. Lucas managed to squeeze bad performances out of good actors, and atrocious performances out of mediocre actors. (Kind of a Stanley Kubrick in reverse...)
The prequels were tragic, unintentional camp and Lucas still doesn't get the joke. If you watch the behind-the-scenes footage for Phantom Menace, there was a time when you could see Lucas was starting to come to the realization that he can no longer tell a coherent story. But he decided to bluff his way through it, and he still is.
Too bad. That would be worth seeing.
And from where?
Lucas will try to jerk us around some more but there really isn't anything more of value to see. Ever since Episode One Lucas seems to be nursing a grudge against his fans. "You don't like JarJar? Well prepare to see a lot more of him!" Now "you still think Han should have shot first? Well we're splicing in additional scenes showing he didn't!" Maybe even since Return of the Jedi, when geeks who were supposed to be praising him as a god instead got a little too snarky about certain spear-wielding teddy bears. (A show of hands: Who saw "Ewoks: The battle of Endor"? Yeah. Have your eyes stopped bleeding yet?)
Fer crissake, skim Lucas' imdb entry, and try to pick out anything he's written or directed in the last quarter century that wasn't a shameless, heartless, lifeless rip-off of Star Wars or Indiana Jones. The guy hasn't had a fresh idea since the early '80's.
Give it a rest. Everyone, please just give it a rest. Let Lucas pee in his own sandbox on his own dime. You know the added clarity of Blu-ray will not make up for the additional liberties he's going to take with your childhood memories. Let us demonstrate that collective geekhood can say no to Star Wars. For God's sake, let it go. Find another up-and-coming director to patronize, one who isn't yet barn-sour and can still produce a fresh idea.
Kind-of goes along with my strong suspicion that for the great majority blu-ray is a marketing ploy and not a genuine need.
> It's just a different orifice of the same company.
That's my new favorite saying.
> Is there a reason an out of game object is stored within the game like this?
My guess is because it increases the profits of CCP.
> The transportation problem with cities is that they're mostly a 2D circle.
I would say that the problem with cities (at least in the US) is that they're mostly a 2D mesh, which is worse.
The advantages of el trains and monorail systems is that they don't compete with street traffic. The advantage of buses is that they can pass each other -- one stalled car doesn't take the whole line down as currently happens with light rail. Elevated bus lanes seems to me the best of both worlds.
Regarding earthquakes, elevated roadways are a mature technology. Nothing is 100% safe -- if you're looking for absolute safety we'd never build anything -- but built to today's standards, elevated roadways shouldn't be any less safe than any of the other tall structures hanging over you -- overpasses, skyscrapers, bridges, etc.
Parenthetically, light rail on the street is the worst of both worlds. The disadvantages of light rail (the system moves as a whole or not at all) with the disadvantages of buses (the system competes with street traffic). When I was living in San Jose, cars being t-boned by light rail in low speed collisions was so common that people started scrawling under the ubiquitous "Taking 217 cars off the road" the addition "One car at a time".
> Once you realize (or admit) that government is a business with a primary goal of generating profit, from that point on everything government does will make perfect sense.
What? I mean... what?? If Government was a business it would have been defunct decades ago. What business can print it's own money? In what business do you get to keep your job no matter how bad a job you do? What business (besides the auto companies, which are practically government owned now) can go into debt more each year and still stay in business?
Target practice?
I should say I am not a fan of the ipad. I think it's too expensive for what it does, and I make it a practice not to buy any computing device that doesn't have an external storage port (SD card in this case).
To me, the issue is not the hardware -- anyone can make an ipad-like devices -- it's the software, and Microsoft is not prepared to compete in this area, for several reasons.
Pad-like devices tend to be low power, relatively low performance devices. Microsoft had similar problems competing in the netbook arena, which they solved partially by giving XP more time to live and partially by redefining the netbook as a more powerful, more expensive device with corresponding less battery life, incidentally removing all the factors that made netbooks interesting, but that's another story. A winders pad would necessarily have to be a PC of at least low-end desktop CPU and memory resources with a touchscreen running an OS designed to be used with a keyboard and mouse. I'm thinking (a) it'll run hot, (b) for short periods of time, and (c) the most satisfying experience will be with it docked. It'll essentially be a rather expensive low end PC with some pad-like qualities.
Alternately, Microsoft could go with a pad-like device that's essentially a big smartphone without the phone guts, (which is essentially what the iPad is) but the only thing they have that plays in that space is Windows Mobile. Does anyone seriously think that Windows Mobile can go head-to-head with iOS?
What Microsoft really needs to do to compete in this arena is to design a new OS from the ground up that's specifically geared to this kind of device. Very specifically, Microsoft needs to realize that a Start button is not a good paradigm for any device that has a touch screen as it's primary interface.
But it looks like (a) Microsoft doesn't have any intention of doing anything other than reposition existing products, and (b) there's no evidence that Microsoft still has the wherewithal to write a new operating system.
The logical competition for the iPad will be devices running Android, for a couple reasons: First, Android plays better than anything from Microsoft on lower-performance hardware, second, Android is designed to have primarily a touchscreen interface, unlike anything Microsoft has, and third, the people at Google understands this space to an extent Ballmer never could.
Do I want to see Android beat out Apple? Of course not. I want them to run neck-and-neck, competing with each other on features, usability and price, with us consumers reaping the reward. Microsoft will be a poor third, competing by leveraging their business relations rather than, you know, producing a product people want to buy.
Let me know when they provide audio tracks in Thermian.
> I don't think that there is any serious question in anyone's mind where things are going to be in a couple of years. Black Berry is going to be a smoldering wreckage relegated to a slowly shrinking business client base, Windows 7 Mobile Series (or whatever stupid name they gave it) and Palm will be gimped in the single digits, and Apple and Android will be within 10% of each other with the leader being anyone's guess (fight amongst yourselves fanbois).
I'm currently a Blackberry user, but I'm not a fanatic about it. I have one because it had the best keyboard (subjectively) and it has push email, upon which my job depends, and it's dead nuts reliable. I briefly tried a Windows Mobile phone, sent it back. It's just plain not reliable enough for business use. Sorry, it's just not. The thing would lock up silently and I'd miss email, and worse, calls. You don't do that very often in my business before the boss wonders what he's paying you for.
Similarly, although many at work have those cute iphone gadgets, they don't work as well as a phone, which is kind-of important in business, (and this trend, with the 4G, seems to be getting worse) so they were not in the running.
I checked out a couple Android phones a few months ago, and the keyboards sucked and they didn't have push email. So other than the coolness of having a phone with the little green mascot, there was no reason for me to switch.
So... is there now? I'm not in love with the Blackberry. It does the job. And it's a job I very much need my phone to continue doing.
Does Android have push email?
Does any phone running Android have a decent keyboard for someone who does most of their communication via email from their handheld device? I can just about touch-type on the Tour. I can't get even close on the Droid.
How are the Android phones for general reliability? My Windows Mobile phone needed daily resets. Sometimes the *#&$@# audio driver would hang and the "*@#&$# phone wouldn't @#*$&# ring The first time I missed a call from my boss I returned the phone. The Blackberry will always ring, will always connect, and has only dropped maybe two calls in the last six months. How do the Android phones compare?
See, for business, it's really not about having something cute and sexy. It's about being absolutely reliable, and reducing communication lag to as close to zero as is technically possible. The moment Android (or any other platform) can provide this, I'll be happy to consider it.
That said, my 16yo daughter is trading in her BB 8900 for a Galaxy S tomorrow. But she doesn't have the same requirements as I.
Bravo!
(deep breath) It's JUST a PHONE, people. That felt good.