Culture influences what you think of as "attractive" as much as anything else...Given the preceding, why is it unfair that parents (whose interest is in seeing their kids marry and produce the next generation) would be worried about their kids being told that homosexuality was "perfectly normal", "acceptable", or something else?
There's a major flaw in your theory:
I'm a male, and I have been since childhood constantly bombarded with cultural ideals of beautiful women. As a result, for the most part, I tend to agree with other males that are part of the same culture as to what constitutes a beautiful woman. Similarly, females have been since childhood constantly bombarded with cultural ideals for beautiful men. Thus, they tend to somewhat agree on what constitutes an attractive male.
Here's the catch. As a male, I have seen the same "cultural propaganda" as the females around me. However, when I see the culturally accepted attractive male, I don't become aroused. There's a simple reason for that: I'm not gay. It's a similar situation for women. They can recognize a culturally accepted beautiful woman when they see her, but the heterosexual ones don't become aroused. Instead, they try to emulate her. For the homosexual population a similar situation exists, except that they are only aroused by the same gender instead of the opposite one: even though they were exposed to the exact same culture you and I were exposed to.
Sure, culture influences attractiveness, but there are obviously limits.
Why, if homosexuality is "fixed", are pro-gay groups working so hard to get books promoting their lifestyle into kindergartens if not that they're trying to propagandize kids the same way and pick up some numbers?
I can think of two very obvious reasons, both much more likely than your conspiracy theory (especially since I can't think of any reason why a homosexual person would have a need or desire to ensure the existence of homosexuals in the next generation...it certainly doesn't help their dating pool, so why the hell would they care?):
The first is that it sucks being discriminated against, and it's much easier to prevent bigoted behavior if you properly educate your child. It's basically the same reason why people of older generations are more likely to be racists. They were born in a world where that was the way things were, and it's difficult to change your ways.
The second is that it will prevent confusion if kids know how to behave around the child with "two fathers" or "two mothers." It's unfair for such a child to be ostracized for something they have no control over.
Oh no, I got it. Obama has no control over state and local taxes. However, he should has specified that when he said "...not ANY of your taxes..." He could have said, "...not any of your FEDERAL taxes." or "not any of your INCOME taxes." He didn't.
Who the HELL are you talking about? Who is this Obama and why is he in charge of anything tax related?
Actually, I got it. You mean President Barack Obama. However, you never specified that when you said, "Obama." You could have said "United State President Barack Obama." You didn't. You said, "Obama."
Dude, seriously. When the candidate for a federal office says the word "tax" the fact that it is a federal tax is assumed by everyone.
Where I am not at when driving nor when I run out of power.
Oh, please. How often do you fill your tank up? About once a week? With the electric car you get to recharge every night and every single day you go out with a full charge.
If you regularly drive more than 300 miles a day (the Model S range), then the electric car is not for you, but you're in the minority. Everybody else doesn't have that issue.
Gee, I wonder what is easier - changing out the pumps/tanks in a bunch of gas stations spread all over or running the kind of power lines you'd need across the entire country to support fast charge anywhere in the US?
Like I said here why is fast charging that big of a deal anyway? Even if it were impossible to fast charge under any circumstances, and it always took eight hours, most people would still be even less inconvenienced then they are now: they'd never have to go to a gas station, and they'd probably never be in a situation where they're running out of power. No change in the infrastructure needed (other than possibly more power plants to keep up with increased demand for power).
In the end, it's all electricity, and it's all about practicality of conversion.
Precisely. In my opinion it's way more practical to go all electrical. I agree that there are situations where the electric car isn't great, such as for long trips, at least in the beginning until the electric car has caught on and / or technology improves. But you know what? It takes care of 99% of normal use cases.
Well, the one advantage of hydrogen is refilling times. It is very straightforward to refill a hydrogen tank quickly and be off on your way (though some safety issues do exist).
I agree with your points, and they are good ones, but I do have to wonder if fast charging really is a necessity. With a 300 mile range, the vast majority of people wouldn't have a problem just charging the car while they sleep, slowly.
It's true, it makes traveling difficult. However, once electric cars catch on for a local use car, the infrastructure built might look less like substation-like fast-charging electric stations and more like hotels with 110V plugs at every spot in their garage, and you pay an inflated flat fee a day for them to turn that plug on. Again, you'd charge it slowly, overnight.
The battery for the Model S is supposedly easily replaceable within 5 minutes (although I bet that's a bit of an exaggeration, just due to sheer size and weight of the thing). Still, it makes battery swapping possible. Yes, you'd need to standardize size, connector, and rating. Then again, you can't get away from standardization. You'd need to standardize the type of H2 connector, in the same way we have a standard for filling gas and diesel.
Wow, if it is such a great investment, how much have you loaned them?
I would personally love to buy some stock, but they're not publicly traded. While every other American car company is trying to figure out why everyone is buying foreign, Tesla is selling more cars than they can build.
he's admitted that he would have trashed the Roadster even if everything had been flawless because he sees hydrogen as being the future
That is so fucking ignorant it's not even funny. Unless he's talking about hydrogen combustion which everyone agrees is a just a stepping stone to fuel cells and not the end goal, then hydrogen cars ARE electric cars. The fuel cell generates power, which gets stored in batteries and large capacitors, which get used in the same way as an all-electric car would use the power.
Do you know what the difference is? The difference is that everyone already has electricity available in their homes, but hydrogen requires a whole new infrastructure to be built. That and the added inefficiency of using electricity to produce the hydrogen that will be transported to the fueling stations only to be converted back into electricity in the car. I never understood why anyone would even consider hydrogen for fueling cars, much less prefer it.
ask your self why children's books that try to discuss homosexuality delicately are delisted, but racy explicit romances is not.
My guess is that nobody will mistake a racy explicit romance for a children book, buy it and give it to a child.
Any reason why you didn't quote the entire relevant section you were responding to, other than trying to be deliberately dishonest? Allow me:
And to all those who say they are just creating an adult section, ask your self why children's books that try to discuss homosexuality delicately are delisted, but racy explicit romances is not.
(emphasis mine)
Are children's books supposed to be in the adult section now?
Try playing the game of football with a defense strategy from baseball. I bet you lose every time.
Then maybe you shouldn't play their game at all.
Look pal, I think you're wrong that the only way to "win" is to lower ourselves to their level. But even if you were right and our choices were to either win by becoming what we hate the most or lose honorably, I choose to lose honorably.
We're fighting against them precisely because they don't do things like respecting human rights. If we stop doing it, then why are we fighting at all?
I don't get this sentiment. If the Internet has shown us anything, it is the fans are the most critical audience. If the movie had been bad, there would have been a riot.
Fans are very critical, but typically not immediately after watching the movie. It takes a few days for the hype to die down before you're able to critically assess a movie (unless it's a steaming pile of crap like Nemesis).
However, even if the new movie is as bad as Nemesis, they had several things to keep the excitement high. They were all trek fans (were there for Wrath of Khan) who were surprised with the opportunity to see the movie before anyone else, with Leonard Nimoy present.
Hell, I saw people clapping at the end of Phantom Menace, and there were no actors from the movie there.* They were doing that just because it had been so long since they saw a new Star Wars movie, and they were so excited, that just seeing people swing lightsabers was enough to get them excited. It took a few days before they actually thought about the movie and came to the realization that, "hold on...it actually sucked. Wtf was up with that Jar Jar fellow?"
*I hate it when people do that in theaters. Who are they applauding? You clap in a play because there are live actors who can appreciate knowing you enjoyed their performance. I've also seen people clap on airplanes when we touch down on the runaway, and also don't understand that. Are they applauding the pilot? Because he needs to do a bit more than to manage a successful landing to actually deserve applause. If he manages to do it with no engines on the Hudson River on the other hand, then I'll join in.
That's not the point. I was obviously going bigger, but I could also have had a link to a picture of a circle and gotten that effect. The point is that the filters are limiting content that is not part of the "problem."
I like the moderation / meta-moderation system for two reasons: it's human controlled, so context matters, as opposed to "there's too much whitespace" and because it doesn't actually remove the post, so people who want to browse at -1 and see all those posts, garbage included, are free to do so.
Limiting what you can post, or how often you can post probably does help diminish the amount of garbage that gets posted. However, I don't think it's worth the price, and I think the moderation solution handles that problem well enough.
Originally I was going to post an ascii art circle, followed by the phrase, "You know, for the kids."
I could not get past the damn lameness filter (" Filter error: Please use less whitespace"), which has apparently gotten "better", because simply posting lots of normal-looking paragraphs later wasn't enough to override the "percentage" of whitespace, or whatever.
So now I'm forced to start a rant: why the hell is there a lameness filter? Doesn't the moderation system take care of the problem the filter is trying to solve, placing all the otherwise offtopic posts at -1 where no reasonable person will ever see them? And while on the topic of things that have gotten worse with time, what's with the new system that forces you to wait a certain amount of time in between posts? That's really annoying when I'm participating in a topic I know a lot about, and have a lot to say (ok, that only happens with Star Trek articles, but more knowledgeable people than I must run into this problem all the time).
Sigh...sorry about the rant. I had a post which I thought would be quite funny, with a reference that demanded more than simple text, and feel that I was robbed of the opportunity.
What I do think is annoying is when Mac gets seen as the sort of... Most Reliable, Fastest, Best Laptop when it really isn't necessarily...
You get no argument from me, there. There's a lot of hype around Apple, and if you look around you'll see plenty of posts where I criticize the company. I also don't have a problem with people saying, "Apple only sells expensive computers" or even the more general, "Macs are expensive." I just think it's misleading when some people (and I didn't mean you), start their spiels about how, "buying a mac is stupid. You're just paying a 'mac tax.'" I think that's disingenuous, because it's not unique to Apple, it's a consequence of buying a high-end computer, and that happens to be what Apple sells.
Basically, I agree with you. People should do research on what they buy. It's their money after all. If they just want something that will do the job, they will most likely be happier buying something cheaper, not from apple.
You reference Tesla... it's a little different, isn't it? Only people that have the money AND are interested in spending it that way are going to by a Tesla car, it's a niche market.
It wasn't my intention to compare Apple to Tesla. I was just making a point that Tesla is trying to leverage the same mechanism that causes the mid-range video cards to perform as well as the high-end video cards from last year, for example. People are buying computers with the high-end video-card, which funds the development of the technology, which causes even better cards to come along, and makes the technology cheaper because of demand.
Besides, I think the main difference here, and why Apple markets it to everyone, is that it's a lot easier to come up with $2,000 for a computer than it is to come up with $100,000 for a car. So they can reel in the people who aren't doing their research and con them into buying a more expensive laptop then they necessarily need. You can't con someone on a $50,000 / year salary into buying a $100,000, at least not as easily:)
When I pointed out the oddity of that choice, I was told that even if they used their native language (Portuguese, in this case), that the conversation would be peppered with English words anyway, so it was just as easy to use English for the whole discussion.
I can vouch for that. Years ago, I was speaking to a friend from Brazil over aim. He doesn't speak English, so the entire conversation was in Portuguese. However, when we started talking about technical things, I simply didn't have the necessary Portuguese vocabulary. So I started trying literal translations and hoping it would get close enough to the real term that he'd recognize it. Specifically, I was trying to find the word for "firewall" and the conversation went something like this:
Me: "Parede de incendio?" ("wall for fires?") Him: "nao." ("no") Me: "Parede a prova de fogo?" ("fireproofed wall?") Him: "Estamos falando de computadores, certo?" ("We're talking about computers, right?") me: "Parede de fogo?" ("wall of fire") Him: "que??" ("what??") Me: "A coisa que protege computadores de acesso externo!" ("The thing that protects computers from external access"--I didn't want to introduce other terms like "ports" in the discussion, because I also didn't know how to translate that) Him: "Ah, quer dizer um firewall." ("Ah, you mean a firewall.")
To me one of the the biggest issues with Mercedes is that they don't really offer a full range of vehicles. So if for instance somebody wants a pickup truck they are out of luck. Or a dirt bike. What they do make I think is competitive in those markets. But an expanded lineup would really help.
The GGP and the GP had some very interesting points. For what I use a laptop for, a MacBook Pro is just overkill. It's too much machine and there's no reason to spend the money for it. The other laptops makers offer lower end models that are the right fit for me. If Apple did the same, I would consider them, but they don't.
I see. What you're saying is that a Mercedes isn't too much machine for your daily commute to work, and that's why you bought one.
Your idea "picking on the fanboi" was an epic fail, dude. You just reinforced his point. If what you need is a truck or a dirt bike, you shouldn't be looking to buy a Mercedes. Similarly, if what you need can be had in a cheaper laptop, don't buy an Apple. If, on the other hand, you want the extra power because you need it / want it / must compensate for your small dick, you can buy the Apple, the Mercedes, the high-end Sony laptop, or the Aston Martin.
The point of the article and of the poster you were responding to was not that everyone should buy an Apple. It's that spec for spec, the Apple is competitively priced. If you don't need those specs, then you're absolutely right, you shouldn't be buying that computer, be it an Apple or a Sony, or a Dell, or an HP.
There is no "apple tax" there are only expensive high-end computers of all brands. And if you want and can afford them, there's nothing wrong with that. They're subsidizing the development of faster components that will eventually make it down to the affordable, more bang for the buck range you're interest in. So you should thank those people.
Let's say the MacBook CAN justify its $2800 pricetag (i.e., it's not overpriced hardware, it's just good/expensive hardware and a lot of it). Ok, so the question is, is a $2800 laptop necessary?
That's a good question that everyone should ask, but it has nothing to do with a Mac Tax. It's a "high-end computer tax." If Apple is making a business of only selling high-end computers, that's the market they've chosen, nothing wrong with that. Now if you want to say that macs are overpriced, you need to compare equivalently specs, you can't say, "look, the other company sells a less powerful laptop for cheaper." Of course they do, if their less powerful laptop was more expensive than a high-end computer, everyone would buy high-end computers!
I also don't really understand why there's all this hate against people who choose to buy high-end computers. It's true that they're not getting the most bang for the buck, but if it weren't for those buyers financing the high performance parts, the mid-range computers wouldn't advance as quickly. Basically, the reason you can get a very fast machine for cheaper today is precisely because of those people who buy the expensive high-end parts. It's the same concept Tesla Motors is trying to leverage. They can't build an affordable electric car, so they build a car for the rich. Those buyers fund the development of the technology and eventually they'll be able to build an affordable electric car.
If they want them, and can afford them, who are you to tell you they're wrong? Especially when you're indirectly benefiting from their choice.
Are you sure? While comedies have started delving into the R-rated territory more and more...
Caddyshack, Stripes, Tootsie?
it seems like action and horror movies have dropped down into the PG-13 range to try to get a larger audience.
The tolerance level for individual ratings have just increased (which is generally a good thing). The Dark Knight was PG-13, but back in 1999 The Matrix was rated R. Similarly, I have no idea how Kevin Smith managed to get Zack and Miri down from NC-17 to R, but he did.
There's no way Watchmen would have been made ten years ago, at least not in a way as faithful as it was made today. The studio would know that it would get rated NC-17, and NC-17 movies just don't bring in the cash necessary for a movie with a budget of that size.
Well, feel free to disregard my opinion, but I preferred Ellison's script.
I'm really not disregarding your opinion, or the AC's. It just doesn't influence my own opinion of the script. There were a few other people who replied to the thread and talked about some of the reasons as to why some of us consider the aired story better. They summarize my own opinions quite well.
If you want to tell me what about Ellison's script makes you prefer it, I'd enjoy the discussion. What I told the AC is simply that winning a WGA award isn't going to change the fact that I dislike it. You telling me you prefer it isn't going to change that fact, and my telling you that I think it was a horrible script isn't going to make you dislike it.
That's beside the point, though, because if the contract specified that he would be paid residuals, then he should be paid residuals. If the parent corporation is going to continue to market and rake in money from the script that he is credited with, then they need to play by the rules they agreed to. These are the only ways to force companies to behave ethically.
In the end, the courts are going to decide the letter of the contract. However, if you're talking about "behaving ethically," any residuals that Ellison is legally entitled to, he should ask that they be given to Gene L. Coon and DC Fontana. The actual TV Episode was written by them. Sure, it was based on what he wrote, but it was so different, and he was so unhappy with it, that he considered disowning it. Additionally, he's claiming there's a problem with new Star Trek books that use the characters from that episode, but he doesn't see a problem when he uses Star Trek characters to publish his original screenplay. Really, if every individual writer for a tv series retained rights to any character he introduces, that would be insane. Ethically, Harlan Ellison isn't on the right side here.
If we were talking about royalties from his published version, that would be a different story.
Actually, I remember the credits on that episode quite clearly. It was not written by Harlan Ellison. It was written by Cordwainer Bird. Though one could consider CB as an alter-ego.
No, you don't remember that episode clearly, although I think I know what developed your false memory. Harlan did consider disowning the episode and using his pseudonym of Cordwainer Bird, but he didn't actually do it.
What prompted me to reply as I did was your stating your opinion as fact: "It was horrible". Your opinion notwithstanding, it apparently wasn't, in the eyes of his peers at the time.
I personally consider the statement "it was horrible" to be inherently defined as an opinion, especially when followed by the statement that "I read the original script once," which clarified the basis of the opinion. I didn't mean to imply that "nobody likes it" which would indeed be a statement of fact. However, if I wasn't sufficiently clear, sorry about that. I disliked it, and I thought it was horrible when compared to what was actually aired. If you like it, that's great.
Had you been more honest, you'd have acknowledged that as well, rather than simply dismissing it outright because you didn't like it.
I remember seeing Harlan Ellison talk about this particular point. He was so adamant regarding why logical Spock was the only one able to do this, and how the show's producers totally ruined the script when they rewrote it so Kirk had to let her die. But in my mind the rewrite is perfect in the way it defines Kirk's character in a nutshell - the ultimate devotion to duty and "what's right" above all else, and the self-imposed purgatory that comes with it.
I couldn't have said that better. You nailed my interpretation of that moment.
Yeah, it was so horrible that "Harlan Ellison's original version won a Writers Guild of America Award for best dramatic hour-long script."
I don't know about you, but I don't let the WGA or anyone else decide for me which scripts I like or dislike. Did you read it, or are just look it up to see if it had won any awards?
I don't understand why such misinformed crap gets modded up.
Other than our disagreement about the quality of the original script, which is purely a matter of opinion, was anything factually incorrect my post? He's trying to get residuals for a script that has little resemblance to what he actually wrote, and for which he actually considered disowning because he disliked it so much. He does that, I assume, because the TV show which he dislikes, earned a lot more money than the book he published with the version he did like.
On one hand, we have the tired old story of a writer/creative not receiving due credit for his work. On the other hand, said creative is possibly the most obnoxious asshole still living that I've known of.
Well, let me simplify things by giving you a bit more information. City on the Edge of Forever wasn't written by Harlan Ellison. Oh, Harlan Ellison did write a TOS episode called City on the Edge of Forever, which included a drug dealer, multiple humanoids guardians of forever, a pirate ship that replaces the Enterprise when the timeline gets changed, the bad guy being stuck in a supernova explosion, and a Captain Kirk who doesn't actually make the decision to let Edith Keeler die, thus forcing Spock to step up to that role.
I read the original script once. It was horrible. The adapted script took the Edith Keeler character and the overall general idea, then made the script good. Harlan Edison made a lot of noise about them spoiling his brilliant script, and then later published the original. Now he has the gall to say that, 'The Trek fans who know my City screenplay understand just exactly why I'm bare-fangs-of-Adamantium about this.' No. The Trek fans who know his original screenplay think he should thank the studio for paying him for his original script and for letting him keep the credit as writer. He doesn't deserve a penny of residuals for the actual episode. Forty years later, he really shouldn't get anything anyway, but if he is entitled to something, its royalties from his published original version.
You can't correlate things that way. You can't say "Little Johnny is only getting Cs in English" and then declare his teacher sucks, any more than you could make the declaration that his teacher's fantastic if he's getting Bs. You don't look at a single student, you look at a body of students over time. If an English teacher consistently produces an above-average number of well-performing students, and this trend continues over a couple of years, then you can start making at least some sort of preliminary statistical statements.
You still can't make the correlation even by looking at a body of students. Looking at just the grades, how do you differentiate between the teacher whose students are averaging a B versus the teacher whose students are averaging a B after a curve?
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting thought.
Culture influences what you think of as "attractive" as much as anything else...Given the preceding, why is it unfair that parents (whose interest is in seeing their kids marry and produce the next generation) would be worried about their kids being told that homosexuality was "perfectly normal", "acceptable", or something else?
There's a major flaw in your theory:
I'm a male, and I have been since childhood constantly bombarded with cultural ideals of beautiful women. As a result, for the most part, I tend to agree with other males that are part of the same culture as to what constitutes a beautiful woman. Similarly, females have been since childhood constantly bombarded with cultural ideals for beautiful men. Thus, they tend to somewhat agree on what constitutes an attractive male.
Here's the catch. As a male, I have seen the same "cultural propaganda" as the females around me. However, when I see the culturally accepted attractive male, I don't become aroused. There's a simple reason for that: I'm not gay. It's a similar situation for women. They can recognize a culturally accepted beautiful woman when they see her, but the heterosexual ones don't become aroused. Instead, they try to emulate her. For the homosexual population a similar situation exists, except that they are only aroused by the same gender instead of the opposite one: even though they were exposed to the exact same culture you and I were exposed to.
Sure, culture influences attractiveness, but there are obviously limits.
Why, if homosexuality is "fixed", are pro-gay groups working so hard to get books promoting their lifestyle into kindergartens if not that they're trying to propagandize kids the same way and pick up some numbers?
I can think of two very obvious reasons, both much more likely than your conspiracy theory (especially since I can't think of any reason why a homosexual person would have a need or desire to ensure the existence of homosexuals in the next generation...it certainly doesn't help their dating pool, so why the hell would they care?):
The first is that it sucks being discriminated against, and it's much easier to prevent bigoted behavior if you properly educate your child. It's basically the same reason why people of older generations are more likely to be racists. They were born in a world where that was the way things were, and it's difficult to change your ways.
The second is that it will prevent confusion if kids know how to behave around the child with "two fathers" or "two mothers." It's unfair for such a child to be ostracized for something they have no control over.
Oh no, I got it. Obama has no control over state and local taxes. However, he should has specified that when he said "...not ANY of your taxes..." He could have said, "...not any of your FEDERAL taxes." or "not any of your INCOME taxes." He didn't.
Who the HELL are you talking about? Who is this Obama and why is he in charge of anything tax related?
Actually, I got it. You mean President Barack Obama. However, you never specified that when you said, "Obama." You could have said "United State President Barack Obama." You didn't. You said, "Obama."
Dude, seriously. When the candidate for a federal office says the word "tax" the fact that it is a federal tax is assumed by everyone.
Where I am not at when driving nor when I run out of power.
Oh, please. How often do you fill your tank up? About once a week? With the electric car you get to recharge every night and every single day you go out with a full charge.
If you regularly drive more than 300 miles a day (the Model S range), then the electric car is not for you, but you're in the minority. Everybody else doesn't have that issue.
Gee, I wonder what is easier - changing out the pumps/tanks in a bunch of gas stations spread all over or running the kind of power lines you'd need across the entire country to support fast charge anywhere in the US?
Like I said here why is fast charging that big of a deal anyway? Even if it were impossible to fast charge under any circumstances, and it always took eight hours, most people would still be even less inconvenienced then they are now: they'd never have to go to a gas station, and they'd probably never be in a situation where they're running out of power. No change in the infrastructure needed (other than possibly more power plants to keep up with increased demand for power).
In the end, it's all electricity, and it's all about practicality of conversion.
Precisely. In my opinion it's way more practical to go all electrical. I agree that there are situations where the electric car isn't great, such as for long trips, at least in the beginning until the electric car has caught on and / or technology improves. But you know what? It takes care of 99% of normal use cases.
Well, the one advantage of hydrogen is refilling times. It is very straightforward to refill a hydrogen tank quickly and be off on your way (though some safety issues do exist).
I agree with your points, and they are good ones, but I do have to wonder if fast charging really is a necessity. With a 300 mile range, the vast majority of people wouldn't have a problem just charging the car while they sleep, slowly.
It's true, it makes traveling difficult. However, once electric cars catch on for a local use car, the infrastructure built might look less like substation-like fast-charging electric stations and more like hotels with 110V plugs at every spot in their garage, and you pay an inflated flat fee a day for them to turn that plug on. Again, you'd charge it slowly, overnight.
The battery for the Model S is supposedly easily replaceable within 5 minutes (although I bet that's a bit of an exaggeration, just due to sheer size and weight of the thing). Still, it makes battery swapping possible. Yes, you'd need to standardize size, connector, and rating. Then again, you can't get away from standardization. You'd need to standardize the type of H2 connector, in the same way we have a standard for filling gas and diesel.
Wow, if it is such a great investment, how much have you loaned them?
I would personally love to buy some stock, but they're not publicly traded. While every other American car company is trying to figure out why everyone is buying foreign, Tesla is selling more cars than they can build.
he's admitted that he would have trashed the Roadster even if everything had been flawless because he sees hydrogen as being the future
That is so fucking ignorant it's not even funny. Unless he's talking about hydrogen combustion which everyone agrees is a just a stepping stone to fuel cells and not the end goal, then hydrogen cars ARE electric cars. The fuel cell generates power, which gets stored in batteries and large capacitors, which get used in the same way as an all-electric car would use the power.
Do you know what the difference is? The difference is that everyone already has electricity available in their homes, but hydrogen requires a whole new infrastructure to be built. That and the added inefficiency of using electricity to produce the hydrogen that will be transported to the fueling stations only to be converted back into electricity in the car. I never understood why anyone would even consider hydrogen for fueling cars, much less prefer it.
ask your self why children's books that try to discuss homosexuality delicately are delisted, but racy explicit romances is not.
My guess is that nobody will mistake a racy explicit romance for a children book, buy it and give it to a child.
Any reason why you didn't quote the entire relevant section you were responding to, other than trying to be deliberately dishonest? Allow me:
And to all those who say they are just creating an adult section, ask your self why children's books that try to discuss homosexuality delicately are delisted, but racy explicit romances is not.
(emphasis mine)
Are children's books supposed to be in the adult section now?
Try playing the game of football with a defense strategy from baseball. I bet you lose every time.
Then maybe you shouldn't play their game at all.
Look pal, I think you're wrong that the only way to "win" is to lower ourselves to their level. But even if you were right and our choices were to either win by becoming what we hate the most or lose honorably, I choose to lose honorably.
We're fighting against them precisely because they don't do things like respecting human rights. If we stop doing it, then why are we fighting at all?
I don't get this sentiment. If the Internet has shown us anything, it is the fans are the most critical audience. If the movie had been bad, there would have been a riot.
Fans are very critical, but typically not immediately after watching the movie. It takes a few days for the hype to die down before you're able to critically assess a movie (unless it's a steaming pile of crap like Nemesis).
However, even if the new movie is as bad as Nemesis, they had several things to keep the excitement high. They were all trek fans (were there for Wrath of Khan) who were surprised with the opportunity to see the movie before anyone else, with Leonard Nimoy present.
Hell, I saw people clapping at the end of Phantom Menace, and there were no actors from the movie there.* They were doing that just because it had been so long since they saw a new Star Wars movie, and they were so excited, that just seeing people swing lightsabers was enough to get them excited. It took a few days before they actually thought about the movie and came to the realization that, "hold on...it actually sucked. Wtf was up with that Jar Jar fellow?"
*I hate it when people do that in theaters. Who are they applauding? You clap in a play because there are live actors who can appreciate knowing you enjoyed their performance. I've also seen people clap on airplanes when we touch down on the runaway, and also don't understand that. Are they applauding the pilot? Because he needs to do a bit more than to manage a successful landing to actually deserve applause. If he manages to do it with no engines on the Hudson River on the other hand, then I'll join in.
That's not the point. I was obviously going bigger, but I could also have had a link to a picture of a circle and gotten that effect. The point is that the filters are limiting content that is not part of the "problem."
I like the moderation / meta-moderation system for two reasons: it's human controlled, so context matters, as opposed to "there's too much whitespace" and because it doesn't actually remove the post, so people who want to browse at -1 and see all those posts, garbage included, are free to do so.
Limiting what you can post, or how often you can post probably does help diminish the amount of garbage that gets posted. However, I don't think it's worth the price, and I think the moderation solution handles that problem well enough.
Originally I was going to post an ascii art circle, followed by the phrase, "You know, for the kids."
I could not get past the damn lameness filter (" Filter error: Please use less whitespace"), which has apparently gotten "better", because simply posting lots of normal-looking paragraphs later wasn't enough to override the "percentage" of whitespace, or whatever.
So now I'm forced to start a rant: why the hell is there a lameness filter? Doesn't the moderation system take care of the problem the filter is trying to solve, placing all the otherwise offtopic posts at -1 where no reasonable person will ever see them? And while on the topic of things that have gotten worse with time, what's with the new system that forces you to wait a certain amount of time in between posts? That's really annoying when I'm participating in a topic I know a lot about, and have a lot to say (ok, that only happens with Star Trek articles, but more knowledgeable people than I must run into this problem all the time).
Sigh...sorry about the rant. I had a post which I thought would be quite funny, with a reference that demanded more than simple text, and feel that I was robbed of the opportunity.
What I do think is annoying is when Mac gets seen as the sort of ... Most Reliable, Fastest, Best Laptop when it really isn't necessarily...
You get no argument from me, there. There's a lot of hype around Apple, and if you look around you'll see plenty of posts where I criticize the company. I also don't have a problem with people saying, "Apple only sells expensive computers" or even the more general, "Macs are expensive." I just think it's misleading when some people (and I didn't mean you), start their spiels about how, "buying a mac is stupid. You're just paying a 'mac tax.'" I think that's disingenuous, because it's not unique to Apple, it's a consequence of buying a high-end computer, and that happens to be what Apple sells.
Basically, I agree with you. People should do research on what they buy. It's their money after all. If they just want something that will do the job, they will most likely be happier buying something cheaper, not from apple.
You reference Tesla ... it's a little different, isn't it? Only people that have the money AND are interested in spending it that way are going to by a Tesla car, it's a niche market.
It wasn't my intention to compare Apple to Tesla. I was just making a point that Tesla is trying to leverage the same mechanism that causes the mid-range video cards to perform as well as the high-end video cards from last year, for example. People are buying computers with the high-end video-card, which funds the development of the technology, which causes even better cards to come along, and makes the technology cheaper because of demand.
Besides, I think the main difference here, and why Apple markets it to everyone, is that it's a lot easier to come up with $2,000 for a computer than it is to come up with $100,000 for a car. So they can reel in the people who aren't doing their research and con them into buying a more expensive laptop then they necessarily need. You can't con someone on a $50,000 / year salary into buying a $100,000, at least not as easily :)
When I pointed out the oddity of that choice, I was told that even if they used their native language (Portuguese, in this case), that the conversation would be peppered with English words anyway, so it was just as easy to use English for the whole discussion.
I can vouch for that. Years ago, I was speaking to a friend from Brazil over aim. He doesn't speak English, so the entire conversation was in Portuguese. However, when we started talking about technical things, I simply didn't have the necessary Portuguese vocabulary. So I started trying literal translations and hoping it would get close enough to the real term that he'd recognize it. Specifically, I was trying to find the word for "firewall" and the conversation went something like this:
Me: "Parede de incendio?" ("wall for fires?")
Him: "nao." ("no")
Me: "Parede a prova de fogo?" ("fireproofed wall?")
Him: "Estamos falando de computadores, certo?" ("We're talking about computers, right?")
me: "Parede de fogo?" ("wall of fire")
Him: "que??" ("what??")
Me: "A coisa que protege computadores de acesso externo!" ("The thing that protects computers from external access"--I didn't want to introduce other terms like "ports" in the discussion, because I also didn't know how to translate that)
Him: "Ah, quer dizer um firewall." ("Ah, you mean a firewall.")
To me one of the the biggest issues with Mercedes is that they don't really offer a full range of vehicles. So if for instance somebody wants a pickup truck they are out of luck. Or a dirt bike. What they do make I think is competitive in those markets. But an expanded lineup would really help.
The GGP and the GP had some very interesting points. For what I use a laptop for, a MacBook Pro is just overkill. It's too much machine and there's no reason to spend the money for it. The other laptops makers offer lower end models that are the right fit for me. If Apple did the same, I would consider them, but they don't.
I see. What you're saying is that a Mercedes isn't too much machine for your daily commute to work, and that's why you bought one.
Your idea "picking on the fanboi" was an epic fail, dude. You just reinforced his point. If what you need is a truck or a dirt bike, you shouldn't be looking to buy a Mercedes. Similarly, if what you need can be had in a cheaper laptop, don't buy an Apple. If, on the other hand, you want the extra power because you need it / want it / must compensate for your small dick, you can buy the Apple, the Mercedes, the high-end Sony laptop, or the Aston Martin.
The point of the article and of the poster you were responding to was not that everyone should buy an Apple. It's that spec for spec, the Apple is competitively priced. If you don't need those specs, then you're absolutely right, you shouldn't be buying that computer, be it an Apple or a Sony, or a Dell, or an HP.
There is no "apple tax" there are only expensive high-end computers of all brands. And if you want and can afford them, there's nothing wrong with that. They're subsidizing the development of faster components that will eventually make it down to the affordable, more bang for the buck range you're interest in. So you should thank those people.
Let's say the MacBook CAN justify its $2800 pricetag (i.e., it's not overpriced hardware, it's just good/expensive hardware and a lot of it). Ok, so the question is, is a $2800 laptop necessary?
That's a good question that everyone should ask, but it has nothing to do with a Mac Tax. It's a "high-end computer tax." If Apple is making a business of only selling high-end computers, that's the market they've chosen, nothing wrong with that. Now if you want to say that macs are overpriced, you need to compare equivalently specs, you can't say, "look, the other company sells a less powerful laptop for cheaper." Of course they do, if their less powerful laptop was more expensive than a high-end computer, everyone would buy high-end computers!
I also don't really understand why there's all this hate against people who choose to buy high-end computers. It's true that they're not getting the most bang for the buck, but if it weren't for those buyers financing the high performance parts, the mid-range computers wouldn't advance as quickly. Basically, the reason you can get a very fast machine for cheaper today is precisely because of those people who buy the expensive high-end parts. It's the same concept Tesla Motors is trying to leverage. They can't build an affordable electric car, so they build a car for the rich. Those buyers fund the development of the technology and eventually they'll be able to build an affordable electric car.
If they want them, and can afford them, who are you to tell you they're wrong? Especially when you're indirectly benefiting from their choice.
Type-R??
Are you sure? While comedies have started delving into the R-rated territory more and more...
Caddyshack, Stripes, Tootsie?
it seems like action and horror movies have dropped down into the PG-13 range to try to get a larger audience.
The tolerance level for individual ratings have just increased (which is generally a good thing). The Dark Knight was PG-13, but back in 1999 The Matrix was rated R. Similarly, I have no idea how Kevin Smith managed to get Zack and Miri down from NC-17 to R, but he did.
There's no way Watchmen would have been made ten years ago, at least not in a way as faithful as it was made today. The studio would know that it would get rated NC-17, and NC-17 movies just don't bring in the cash necessary for a movie with a budget of that size.
Well, feel free to disregard my opinion, but I preferred Ellison's script.
I'm really not disregarding your opinion, or the AC's. It just doesn't influence my own opinion of the script. There were a few other people who replied to the thread and talked about some of the reasons as to why some of us consider the aired story better. They summarize my own opinions quite well.
If you want to tell me what about Ellison's script makes you prefer it, I'd enjoy the discussion. What I told the AC is simply that winning a WGA award isn't going to change the fact that I dislike it. You telling me you prefer it isn't going to change that fact, and my telling you that I think it was a horrible script isn't going to make you dislike it.
That's beside the point, though, because if the contract specified that he would be paid residuals, then he should be paid residuals. If the parent corporation is going to continue to market and rake in money from the script that he is credited with, then they need to play by the rules they agreed to. These are the only ways to force companies to behave ethically.
In the end, the courts are going to decide the letter of the contract. However, if you're talking about "behaving ethically," any residuals that Ellison is legally entitled to, he should ask that they be given to Gene L. Coon and DC Fontana. The actual TV Episode was written by them. Sure, it was based on what he wrote, but it was so different, and he was so unhappy with it, that he considered disowning it. Additionally, he's claiming there's a problem with new Star Trek books that use the characters from that episode, but he doesn't see a problem when he uses Star Trek characters to publish his original screenplay. Really, if every individual writer for a tv series retained rights to any character he introduces, that would be insane. Ethically, Harlan Ellison isn't on the right side here.
If we were talking about royalties from his published version, that would be a different story.
Actually, I remember the credits on that episode quite clearly. It was not written by Harlan Ellison. It was written by Cordwainer Bird. Though one could consider CB as an alter-ego.
No, you don't remember that episode clearly, although I think I know what developed your false memory. Harlan did consider disowning the episode and using his pseudonym of Cordwainer Bird, but he didn't actually do it.
What prompted me to reply as I did was your stating your opinion as fact: "It was horrible". Your opinion notwithstanding, it apparently wasn't, in the eyes of his peers at the time.
I personally consider the statement "it was horrible" to be inherently defined as an opinion, especially when followed by the statement that "I read the original script once," which clarified the basis of the opinion. I didn't mean to imply that "nobody likes it" which would indeed be a statement of fact. However, if I wasn't sufficiently clear, sorry about that. I disliked it, and I thought it was horrible when compared to what was actually aired. If you like it, that's great.
Had you been more honest, you'd have acknowledged that as well, rather than simply dismissing it outright because you didn't like it.
Have you read my sig? :)
I remember seeing Harlan Ellison talk about this particular point. He was so adamant regarding why logical Spock was the only one able to do this, and how the show's producers totally ruined the script when they rewrote it so Kirk had to let her die. But in my mind the rewrite is perfect in the way it defines Kirk's character in a nutshell - the ultimate devotion to duty and "what's right" above all else, and the self-imposed purgatory that comes with it.
I couldn't have said that better. You nailed my interpretation of that moment.
Yeah, it was so horrible that "Harlan Ellison's original version won a Writers Guild of America Award for best dramatic hour-long script."
I don't know about you, but I don't let the WGA or anyone else decide for me which scripts I like or dislike. Did you read it, or are just look it up to see if it had won any awards?
I don't understand why such misinformed crap gets modded up.
Other than our disagreement about the quality of the original script, which is purely a matter of opinion, was anything factually incorrect my post? He's trying to get residuals for a script that has little resemblance to what he actually wrote, and for which he actually considered disowning because he disliked it so much. He does that, I assume, because the TV show which he dislikes, earned a lot more money than the book he published with the version he did like.
With your nick, I shall take you at your word. ^_^
Hah. Well, despite my name, I've made mistakes in the past and I probably should have provided a reference
And here's the book I mentioned he published.
On one hand, we have the tired old story of a writer/creative not receiving due credit for his work. On the other hand, said creative is possibly the most obnoxious asshole still living that I've known of.
Well, let me simplify things by giving you a bit more information. City on the Edge of Forever wasn't written by Harlan Ellison. Oh, Harlan Ellison did write a TOS episode called City on the Edge of Forever, which included a drug dealer, multiple humanoids guardians of forever, a pirate ship that replaces the Enterprise when the timeline gets changed, the bad guy being stuck in a supernova explosion, and a Captain Kirk who doesn't actually make the decision to let Edith Keeler die, thus forcing Spock to step up to that role.
I read the original script once. It was horrible. The adapted script took the Edith Keeler character and the overall general idea, then made the script good. Harlan Edison made a lot of noise about them spoiling his brilliant script, and then later published the original. Now he has the gall to say that, 'The Trek fans who know my City screenplay understand just exactly why I'm bare-fangs-of-Adamantium about this.' No. The Trek fans who know his original screenplay think he should thank the studio for paying him for his original script and for letting him keep the credit as writer. He doesn't deserve a penny of residuals for the actual episode. Forty years later, he really shouldn't get anything anyway, but if he is entitled to something, its royalties from his published original version.
You can't correlate things that way. You can't say "Little Johnny is only getting Cs in English" and then declare his teacher sucks, any more than you could make the declaration that his teacher's fantastic if he's getting Bs. You don't look at a single student, you look at a body of students over time. If an English teacher consistently produces an above-average number of well-performing students, and this trend continues over a couple of years, then you can start making at least some sort of preliminary statistical statements.
You still can't make the correlation even by looking at a body of students. Looking at just the grades, how do you differentiate between the teacher whose students are averaging a B versus the teacher whose students are averaging a B after a curve?