blame the anti nuke crowd for causing the mess. I mean we all dont want nukes but alas, we have them. so we need to take care of them, and the people maintaining them
Especially in these times, with so many small but well funded organizations looking to get control of one.
Right. Manned by a pair of people inside a bunker that would take days to breach from the outside -- by design. One of the goes nuts and kills the other, he's got plenty of time to rig shit. Someone on the surface would have to notice this, and then get maintenance crews to the site(s) and into the silo(s) to physically disable the launchers. Every step in that chain is measured in multiple HOURS -- assuming anyone outside even notices before a missile comes flyin' out.
I suspect that at one time there were measures to prevent these scenarios, but perhaps not anymore.
I get it. Hipsters drink strong coffee, dress in black, and won't listen to a band unless nobody has heard of them. Hippies dress more colorful and listen to more trendy music. I suspect hippies have sex more often. Neither realize that each group is wearing a uniform and following a crowd, despite any claim to being counterculture.
Modern hipsters appear to delight in being as poor and bitchy a customer as humanly possible. In an earlier time, they would have a high mortality rate.
Especially if I get stuck behind one at Starbucks.
If you're in a Starbucks, you're a hipster.
I disagree. I don't order frilly drinks -- I'm there to get the largest regular coffee they serve, to go. I'll go to whatever stand is more convenient considering where I'm traveling at the time. Starbucks is ubiquitous so they're often the choice. I don't get coffee from fast food restaurants anymore, because after Liebeck vs McD's, you can't get coffee at any fast food place that is warmer than tepid (and their coffee sucks anyway). 180 - 190 degrees is the proper serving temperature for coffee, dammit, and for that you have to go to a real coffee shop.
Not rocket science -- we saw the same thing in the sixties. Association with a movement -- "hipster" in this case, "hippie" back then -- although intending noncomformity, in truth only means conforming with a different set of rules. Or as Frank Zappa said decades ago, "Everyone in this room is wearing a uniform, and don't kid yourself".
But -- and I don't think that having married a hippy has colored my judgement -- hipsters are a LOT more annoying. Especially if I get stuck behind one at Starbucks.
I remember an old story in which someone at one of those bases would periodically stand between the two launch keys, which are intentionally placed far apart so that it takes two people to turn them simultaneously, and try to stretch his arms far enough so that he could launch the missile. Anybody remember what that story was?
I don't know that one, but it occurred to me seeing those switches that they could be open to a hard hack -- a mechanism on a bar that attaches to both keys and allows one person to turn them simultaneously.
That being said, I think the security isn't just that the keys are far apart, but that the room is manned 24/7 to prevent someone from trying a workaround.
Unfortunately, you failed to use one of the five approved slashdot "humor" templates, and so it has not been recognised as a joke by the literal minded wombats here.
Yeah, you're right. I keep forgetting, these are the people who think The Big Bang Theory is offensive. And that's funny in itself.
Skype and conference, yes, but the common phone replaced with the common videophone? Didn't happen, despite finally having the technology to make it happen. The reason being, the need for such a service was hugely overestimated.
1) Definitely a first world problem. If enough people walked away, something would change. I didn't say it wouldn't be inconvenient in the mean time. When I dropped Comcast back in the day, I stuck with DSL for a couple years until FIOS became available. The slower speed was worth it to not have to deal with Comcast.
2) If people continued to stay away, the banks would eventually fail. Why would the government continue to support them if nobody was using them?
If a shitty feature is imposed on Google+, is anyone around to see it? In terms of being a desolate wasteland devoid of real users, Google+ is definitely leading the pack, and FB is (sadly) about 5-10 years behind.
This leads me into one of my favorite rants. I really liked Latitude. When my daughter first started driving, dating, doing stuff on her own, there was tremendous peace of mind to be able to pop up Google Maps on the phone and see where she was. It saved either of us having to call to check in. When she got stuck for whatever reason, I could easily find her even if she wasn't sure where she was. In my mind, this one feature justified paying for her smartphone.
Then, Google killed Latitude and incorporated the feature into G+, in a narcissistic attempt to draw people into, as you pointed out, the wasteland. It wasn't worth dealing with G+ if we only needed the features of Latitude, so we reluctantly stopped using it. I miss it, but not enough to use Google Plus.
In my opinion, this was just Google management being jerks. Latitude is a reasonable feature for Google Maps to have. Entirely besides the uselessness of G+, having map-like capabilities divided between two dissimilar applications is just stupid.
There is truth in the rollover -- "a technology that is '20 years away' will be 20 years away indefinitely.". We've all seen examples of that in our lifetimes. (fusion, flying cars, universal health care)
I think there is some sort of threshold -- perhaps "50 years away" where the technology accelerates away from us. So that it'll be 55 years away from 10 years from now, and so on, becoming less and less attainable over time. There needs to be a cool name for this.
That is actually pretty hilarious, about video phones. It was supposedly, for decades, one of the greatest new features that couldn't be done well for bandwidth and equipment cost reasons, and when finally everyone had a 4G phone with a front-facing camera, we found that nope, nobody cares about video phones.
...unseen by me. I don't want to sit through video. I *can* read, although it seems like most Facebook denizens can't write.
When I poke a link to a news item, if it leads to a video, rather than waiting for the commercial to load and play, and the talking heads to stop self promoting and get to the point, I've long since dismissed the tab and found the news item somewhere else as text.
The more Facebook forces video, the less interesting it is.
And of course, Google will copy everything Facebook does, so G+ will be screwed also.
I'm going back to Usenet. run-on puns were better than this. (It was just a capital-K to get rid of them.)
> there was never any reason to continue any story after RotJ. the story is complete.
I understand the feeling. Vader's story is complete. But what's interesting to me (if they can tell it in a compelling way, and not, for instance, like the crapfest that was the prequels) is what Luke's experiences (the majority of which was caused by Vader) did to him. Luke represents the final splash damage of Anakin's wasted life. It's a thread that shouldn't be left dangling.
Put another way, the story left to tell is how the characters recovered (or didn't) and rebuilt after what happened in the first films. And I don't mean just tearing down statues.
> Hell, the most common trope the Star Wars universe is the idea of redeeming some character from the Dark Side, which is ultimately an allusion to, or inspired by, the character arc of Anakin/Vader.
...and it's a good concept, and was used to very dramatic effect in Return of the Jedi. (And somewhat made up for all the ewoks nonsense earlier in the film.)
But the effect was somewhat destroyed by Anakin's portrayal as a spoiled jerk in the prequels. You got a sense, by the merciful end of whatever the third prequel was called, that Anakin really REALLY needed to die. Like, right now. He appeared to have no redeemable quantities whatsoever, and you couldn't wait for his appendages to be removed in garishly done CGI.
So, looking back, or forward (that's the trouble with time travel, you can never... sorry wrong show) to Vader's change of heart and betrayal of the emperor, it comes off less as his good side (properly foreshadowed) coming through, but rather that he couldn't decide whether to continue to cast his lot with the emperor at the expense of his son, or carry out his earlier Plan B, which was to "rule the galaxy as father and son". Or that he was just being wishy-washy.
See, as portrayed in the original series, you could imagine Vader finding some redemption. But as portrayed in the prequels, you couldn't see that happening. He was the worst of self-absorbed jerks.
A better writer/director would have portrayed Anakin/Vader more as a person doing what he thought was right, and ending up making a mess that he regretted. Not regretting because it got his limbs severed, but because he felt some kind of genuine remorse for the actions he felt necessary. (And no, having Jones shout out a corny "Nooooooooooooo" at the end isn't sufficient.)
There was a lot of potential in the concept for a really compelling story. But instead we got lots and lots of quirky digital effects.
Now, some people say that Lucas was always a hack, and he just got lucky with Star Wars (the original film). I don't think so. I think he was a true visionary. But... something happened to him, starting in the 1980's, and he.. I dunno... lost his muse. And by then was so powerful that nobody on the crew dared say "Um, George, this is crap."
Slashdot Mirror
blame the anti nuke crowd for causing the mess. I mean we all dont want nukes but alas, we have them. so we need to take care of them, and the people maintaining them
Especially in these times, with so many small but well funded organizations looking to get control of one.
Right. Manned by a pair of people inside a bunker that would take days to breach from the outside -- by design. One of the goes nuts and kills the other, he's got plenty of time to rig shit. Someone on the surface would have to notice this, and then get maintenance crews to the site(s) and into the silo(s) to physically disable the launchers. Every step in that chain is measured in multiple HOURS -- assuming anyone outside even notices before a missile comes flyin' out.
I suspect that at one time there were measures to prevent these scenarios, but perhaps not anymore.
> Hipsters are the white noise of civilization and culture.
I *love* that. May I borrow it?
I get it. Hipsters drink strong coffee, dress in black, and won't listen to a band unless nobody has heard of them. Hippies dress more colorful and listen to more trendy music. I suspect hippies have sex more often. Neither realize that each group is wearing a uniform and following a crowd, despite any claim to being counterculture.
Modern hipsters appear to delight in being as poor and bitchy a customer as humanly possible. In an earlier time, they would have a high mortality rate.
Especially if I get stuck behind one at Starbucks.
If you're in a Starbucks, you're a hipster.
I disagree. I don't order frilly drinks -- I'm there to get the largest regular coffee they serve, to go. I'll go to whatever stand is more convenient considering where I'm traveling at the time. Starbucks is ubiquitous so they're often the choice. I don't get coffee from fast food restaurants anymore, because after Liebeck vs McD's, you can't get coffee at any fast food place that is warmer than tepid (and their coffee sucks anyway). 180 - 190 degrees is the proper serving temperature for coffee, dammit, and for that you have to go to a real coffee shop.
bottom line: everyone wears a uniform. i have my Hannah Montana underwear....somewhere.
I burned mine when Cyrus went off the rails.
Not rocket science -- we saw the same thing in the sixties. Association with a movement -- "hipster" in this case, "hippie" back then -- although intending noncomformity, in truth only means conforming with a different set of rules. Or as Frank Zappa said decades ago, "Everyone in this room is wearing a uniform, and don't kid yourself".
But -- and I don't think that having married a hippy has colored my judgement -- hipsters are a LOT more annoying. Especially if I get stuck behind one at Starbucks.
I remember an old story in which someone at one of those bases would periodically stand between the two launch keys, which are intentionally placed far apart so that it takes two people to turn them simultaneously, and try to stretch his arms far enough so that he could launch the missile. Anybody remember what that story was?
I don't know that one, but it occurred to me seeing those switches that they could be open to a hard hack -- a mechanism on a bar that attaches to both keys and allows one person to turn them simultaneously.
That being said, I think the security isn't just that the keys are far apart, but that the room is manned 24/7 to prevent someone from trying a workaround.
(gritted teeth) It. Was. A. Joke.
Unfortunately, you failed to use one of the five approved slashdot "humor" templates, and so it has not been recognised as a joke by the literal minded wombats here.
Yeah, you're right. I keep forgetting, these are the people who think The Big Bang Theory is offensive. And that's funny in itself.
Thanks really. If video games make you violent, you're the problem. Thanks for stating the obvious.
I'd argue that was true for any object people commonly blame for their own violent behavior.
All male gamers are still rapists though, right?
Well, yes, of course.
I would actually have expected a reverse link -- violent video games having a cathartic effect.
Oh wait, according to TFA, there is a reverse link.
I would actually have expected a reverse link -- violent video games having a cathartic effect.
Skype and conference, yes, but the common phone replaced with the common videophone? Didn't happen, despite finally having the technology to make it happen. The reason being, the need for such a service was hugely overestimated.
(gritted teeth) It. Was. A. Joke.
1) Definitely a first world problem. If enough people walked away, something would change. I didn't say it wouldn't be inconvenient in the mean time. When I dropped Comcast back in the day, I stuck with DSL for a couple years until FIOS became available. The slower speed was worth it to not have to deal with Comcast.
2) If people continued to stay away, the banks would eventually fail. Why would the government continue to support them if nobody was using them?
If a shitty feature is imposed on Google+, is anyone around to see it? In terms of being a desolate wasteland devoid of real users, Google+ is definitely leading the pack, and FB is (sadly) about 5-10 years behind.
This leads me into one of my favorite rants. I really liked Latitude. When my daughter first started driving, dating, doing stuff on her own, there was tremendous peace of mind to be able to pop up Google Maps on the phone and see where she was. It saved either of us having to call to check in. When she got stuck for whatever reason, I could easily find her even if she wasn't sure where she was. In my mind, this one feature justified paying for her smartphone.
Then, Google killed Latitude and incorporated the feature into G+, in a narcissistic attempt to draw people into, as you pointed out, the wasteland. It wasn't worth dealing with G+ if we only needed the features of Latitude, so we reluctantly stopped using it. I miss it, but not enough to use Google Plus.
In my opinion, this was just Google management being jerks. Latitude is a reasonable feature for Google Maps to have. Entirely besides the uselessness of G+, having map-like capabilities divided between two dissimilar applications is just stupid.
Oblig xkcd...
http://xkcd.com/678/
There is truth in the rollover -- "a technology that is '20 years away' will be 20 years away indefinitely.". We've all seen examples of that in our lifetimes. (fusion, flying cars, universal health care)
I think there is some sort of threshold -- perhaps "50 years away" where the technology accelerates away from us. So that it'll be 55 years away from 10 years from now, and so on, becoming less and less attainable over time. There needs to be a cool name for this.
All it takes for facebook to fail is for ordinary users walking away in sufficient numbers.
Pretty much true for anything.
He did. Why do you think 3PO's parts were delivered to Chewie after 3PO wandered somewhere he shouldn't have and got blowed up?
I hadn't thought of that. It's an interesting interpretation, and helps close what I thought was a plot hole.
That is actually pretty hilarious, about video phones. It was supposedly, for decades, one of the greatest new features that couldn't be done well for bandwidth and equipment cost reasons, and when finally everyone had a 4G phone with a front-facing camera, we found that nope, nobody cares about video phones.
When I poke a link to a news item, if it leads to a video, rather than waiting for the commercial to load and play, and the talking heads to stop self promoting and get to the point, I've long since dismissed the tab and found the news item somewhere else as text.
The more Facebook forces video, the less interesting it is.
And of course, Google will copy everything Facebook does, so G+ will be screwed also.
I'm going back to Usenet. run-on puns were better than this. (It was just a capital-K to get rid of them.)
> there was never any reason to continue any story after RotJ. the story is complete.
I understand the feeling. Vader's story is complete. But what's interesting to me (if they can tell it in a compelling way, and not, for instance, like the crapfest that was the prequels) is what Luke's experiences (the majority of which was caused by Vader) did to him. Luke represents the final splash damage of Anakin's wasted life. It's a thread that shouldn't be left dangling.
Put another way, the story left to tell is how the characters recovered (or didn't) and rebuilt after what happened in the first films. And I don't mean just tearing down statues.
> Hell, the most common trope the Star Wars universe is the idea of redeeming some character from the Dark Side, which is ultimately an allusion to, or inspired by, the character arc of Anakin/Vader.
But the effect was somewhat destroyed by Anakin's portrayal as a spoiled jerk in the prequels. You got a sense, by the merciful end of whatever the third prequel was called, that Anakin really REALLY needed to die. Like, right now. He appeared to have no redeemable quantities whatsoever, and you couldn't wait for his appendages to be removed in garishly done CGI.
So, looking back, or forward (that's the trouble with time travel, you can never... sorry wrong show) to Vader's change of heart and betrayal of the emperor, it comes off less as his good side (properly foreshadowed) coming through, but rather that he couldn't decide whether to continue to cast his lot with the emperor at the expense of his son, or carry out his earlier Plan B, which was to "rule the galaxy as father and son". Or that he was just being wishy-washy.
See, as portrayed in the original series, you could imagine Vader finding some redemption. But as portrayed in the prequels, you couldn't see that happening. He was the worst of self-absorbed jerks.
A better writer/director would have portrayed Anakin/Vader more as a person doing what he thought was right, and ending up making a mess that he regretted. Not regretting because it got his limbs severed, but because he felt some kind of genuine remorse for the actions he felt necessary. (And no, having Jones shout out a corny "Nooooooooooooo" at the end isn't sufficient.)
There was a lot of potential in the concept for a really compelling story. But instead we got lots and lots of quirky digital effects.
Now, some people say that Lucas was always a hack, and he just got lucky with Star Wars (the original film). I don't think so. I think he was a true visionary. But... something happened to him, starting in the 1980's, and he.. I dunno... lost his muse. And by then was so powerful that nobody on the crew dared say "Um, George, this is crap."
I didn't say the engine room was the best example. It was one of many and one in particular that stuck out for me. Your mileage as always may vary.