It's like Tolstoi. At one point he had this big change of heart, said all the work he had done in the past was crap, and said he would destroy it all if he could. What if he had? No War and Peace, no Anna Karenina.
Slashdot updating anything? You must be out of your mind. Slashdot is years and years behind just about every other forum out there. Heck, even Gamespy has a better forum. If Slashdot ever decided that things needed updating, the mere quantity of how much they would have to update would crush their noble apsirations into pitiful pulps and their lofty egotistical mods into babbering simpletons. They made a minor change in how the profiles are done (which seems to be the only update they have don in years) and they seemed to think that made them hot cookies. It would destroy their egos if they were to find out the system they are using was abandoned by every other self respecting site in the late 90's.
Deficits were ended, briefly, during the last period of significant growth.
Actually they didn't thanks to the boondoggle that is the social security plan. Every year what happens is the money collected in social security taxes is first used to pay off this years benefits and the rest becomes government bonds. Even during the so-called "budget surpluses', our government was doing this. What happens when you figure in these government bonds? It turns out we have had massive budget defecits since FDR was in office. And what happens when the money taken in by social security no longer is enough to handle the pay outs of the program? Some of those government bonds have to be called in.
So what does this mean? The money that was to be set aside to help deal with the baby boomer situation is not there. Instead we have an account full of IOU's (government bonds) that the government placed there when they raided the fund to pay off year after year of budget deficits. Every year this happens and will continue to until the point when the taxes coming in no longer pay for the pay outs that have to go out. At which point the government will have to raise taxes to pay off these government bonds to make up the difference. Simply put, the government is going to have start taxing you to pay off the loans from money the government borrowed off of you.
Or what about that really stupid episode where Kirk and et. al. find some planet full of American Indians who worship the US flag or something? I think we'd all agree that one ought to be dropped out of the story arc.
I don't. The episode you are speaking of is The Omega Glory and is not about indians whorshipping a flag. In the story, one of the federation's captains had beamed down to a planet where the people live hundreds of years. Those who beamed back had died along with carrying the infection with them to the rest of the crew who also died. The Enterpirse arrives and Kirk beams down to investigate before he is made aware of this though. The orginal people it turned out had been like 20th century Earth but had wiped themselves out with a nuclear war. In the end he finds the natives long life was natural and hence the search for the fountain of youth was useless. The show was meant to show three things. The first was the communists in the end would be destroyed completely. The second was that the ideals of liberty and justice would never die, not even after a nuclear war, they were eternal values. The third was that the search for eternal youth to escape the inevitability of death was ultimately always futile.
If your analysis is the closest you have payed attention to the series then no wonder you don't seem to like it. Maybe if we include a super shallow plot and pad it with special effects, like the current Enterprise series, it might hold your attention long enough for you to like it. The series of those times wasn't the piece of shit dramas people watch now where we are stuck with flat storylines that are just about characters, instead each episode had its points. It was very much like Gunsmoke and the Twilight Zone. Ultimately, it wasn't the characters that were important, it was the stories. This is the main reason why Enterprise is so bad. The series is just about the characters, not the stories.
We fans have to realize that when the writers generated the orginal stories back in the 1960s, they had to take into mind the current politics in the US, what advertisers wanted, what the network wanted, what budget they had, last seasons ratings, etc.
When the orginal series writers generated stories, it was to show us something. I haven't seen squat from Enterprise. A lot of the orginal series were timeless tales that are still relevant. That is what you need to realize. Its liek the Twilight Zone. Just because its fifty years old doesn't mean it doesn't have lessons to teach us and things to say that are relevant. Just because Shakespeare wrote in the 1600's, doesn't make his work less relevant. It wasn't the characters that made Star Trek good. It wasn't the special effects. It wasn't the acting. It was the stories. They had a point and what's more they were well written. Enterprise isn't. And until they realize this, there show will go nowhere with the real fans of Star Trek. If you want to watch characters instead of stories go watch a soap opera, leave Star Trek as it was.
But even in B&B's lame attempts at subsituting characters and soap operas for real stories, they have failed. This continuity garbage is crap to cover up the fact they didn't do their homework.
In the future, with better, cheaper effects it might be possible to take the old StarTrek episodes, run them though a PC and make them look like they have whatever the latest in effects can do and maybe even adjust the plots to create a more unified set of stories.
The ultimate proof that you don't understand Star Trek at all. But look on the upside, maybe Berman and Bragga will now hire you to write for them.
I on the other hand as a true trekker/trekkie had no problem remember all of them plus all the episodes of the orginal series (no kidding). You must bow down to my leetness.
DeBeers is a monoploy that artificially inflates prices and creates an artifical scarcity. Simple as that. And now that these materials have a tech purpose in computer machinery, the monoply is inevitably doomed. They missed the boat on syntehic diamonds and are going to get creamed. Even if they can't sell em to ppl at the same price as natural diamonds (which are a lot more common than DeBeers wants you to think) the tech market will keep them in business and DeBeers will be crushed. Why pay $1,000,000 for a natural diamond when you can get an equal that not only you can't tell the difference with but may even look better for a mere $100?
It probably is a useless effort. They tried this in the 80's with hackers. They'd bust them evey two years and within weeks new people would show up. The more they did it, the quicker people came back. Now look at the hacking scene.
Just becuase the way Kirk died in generations sucked. In fact, Generations sucked. Maybe Capt. Sulu as the main character on some special mission with the rest on board and playing key roles.
I've been reading up on this outsourcing for awhile and I've come to the conclusion that it is really only a symptom of a greater problem. Our system has sabotaged itself. From what I have read, there are three reasons why we should not support off outsourcing and why it is a problem.
1. It is a market externality. Lou Dobbs had someone write about this. Basically, it is when a company can get all the benefit with only partial cost from a decision. Take a chemical company that drops waste into the local river. It causes cancer downstream. However, in a purely capatilistic market this is a good thing for the company. Why? Becuase they can get the drop in cost without having to pay for the treatment of the people downstream who get cancer. They get all the benefits of lowered costs without any of the bad side-effects of the decision. That is why we have legislation: to deal with such situations.
2. Education - The free marketers have made one invalid assumption. They assume that since these lower paying and less demanding jobs are going overseas, we'll be able to train for higher level ones. But one look at our schools compared to those of other countries and it becomes obvious that will not be the case. Our school system is horrid. How will it train these new knowledge workers with a education system like ours? It won't. It will go to countries that have better education systems. So we'll reduce the number of low paying jobs, thereby reducing the number of people who can afford to better educate their children, while investing in the education of people elsewhere. Smart move. Make everyone else's population smarter than yours and then expect good jobs to come here.
3. Monopolies, the buying out of america, etc - Under this stands healthcare and standard of living. We are paying far more than the services we pay for are worth. Now, we'll get a bunch of capitalist showing up and saying that: the market determines worth. Not anymore. What determines worth is how effeciently a company can abuse the market and its regulations to its own benefit. You have monopolies in health care. An intellectual policy that is completely out of control. Tax shelters and greed that corrupts. Our government is no longer owned by the people, it is owned by political parties that live off of us like parasites and are in the pockets of industry. The government has grown to a size that is ridiculous. The ancient romans payed about 7% taxes total. When you figure in indirect taxes, we pay about 50% taxes. We take out what are effectively loans to pay for tax cuts so that we can buy chinese imports - stimulating the chinese economy but not helping ours out much at all. We have gone from wanting to live well to wanting to live like gluttons. Corporate accountability has disappeared.
So biotech going overseas is really inevitable. We are losing our innovative advantage by the day. Our education gets worse. Our bueracray gets larger and more ineffective. We are being betrayed by our industry and our leaders. So let's continue to complain. It won't help. Our congressman who understand don't listen and those are few compared to those who simply don't understand what is going on. Biotech and every industry will continue to go elsewhere as long as there is somewhere where else where they can more easily take advantage of the system. Money has become a goal rather than a means. We no longer have any grasp of what personal security once was. We are apprehensive for good reason. Can anyone see how this leads to a better future? I can't. I can see how a few people will be a lot richer but I don't see how we'll be better off.
We need to think about what we want and how we'll get it. We can't afford to blindly trust captialism anymore. Especially when capitalism is full of ppl who will cheat every chance they get. We need to find out what we want and how to work for it rather than to mindlessly try to uphold the status quo cause all things must change.
Had a friend who did consulting work for the legitimate part of the dude's business. The guy just said figure out how much doing this or that will cost me and don't worry about the legality of it. So he would come up with the proposals etc, and suddenly the local govt would make it legal in that case for the plan to be carried out. You just knew the dude was getting the plan and bribing the local govt to allow it. Same with M$. They figure out waht they want, how to do it, and then make it legal or at least pay the fines to get away with it.
No that's how long it took. You had endless boring dialogue, shitty weapons (don't like the crossbow, how bout crossbow + 1?), and the experience was dismal. It really did take 8-10 horus to level up. Even when you forgot the story and just played the maps (plus you had to get equipment, go back o town and sell it, go back to map etc.. The stroy was great but it was like reading a novel.
Still, in games like Baldur's Gate where it takes 8-10 hours of playing to level up just once it gets kind of boring (theough lack of new equipment figures in). You need variety in a game and leveling up provides that by providing new and more powerful spells/abilities and gives you access to new armor/weapons. If you had to play through an entire act in Diablo 2 with only one level up, would you have a kickass time? Can you imagine any game that would allow you too? (Well, Deus Ex but that's due to new weapons...) Even the most exciting rpg story gets boring if everytime you have to fight its exactly the same cause you have the exact same character.
In addition, you have to look at replay value. Once you get through the story once, why would you want to replay it if you can only barely change your character. Being able to change the character lot allows a lot more replay. Only 8 levels in 40 hours means you probably won't still be playing that game for another 40.
My poitn was usability. If windows can run everything (even linux programs if M$ decides too) and Linux can only run a smaller set of apps, it wil never have the usability of windows. Since most users only care that it runs the programs they want, why would they ever even consider using linux? Everything runs on the OS that came preinstalled. That was my point. If linux wants to overtake M$, it is going to have to have to offer something windows can't. In other words, make a format that MS can't duplicate. Else you'll never beat Microsoft cause microsoft will always run more stuff.
I wouldn't be so happy about that. The last time a great empire collapsed, the western world was plunged into an 1000 year dark age. Same happens with most empires. Happened to the Mycenaneans too. Remember the lines about the revolution from The Postman (the book) - ppl were exhuberent to find themselves plunged into a world they had dreamed of only to find the reality of it was worse than they could possibly have imagined.
Don't think it is just with computer issues, but rather, MOST issues. Everyone has an opinion on something, most are uninformed and made out of ignorance.
"True knowledge lies in knowing that you know nothing" - Socrates
Which is one of the reasons Linux may never catch on. The format of M$'s products have parts that are proprietary - no one but M$ knows how to interpet those parts. As a result, no linux products will ever work 100% with M$ products. However, since linux is open source and the formats are totally in the open, M$ can make their products easily work with Linux. End result: Linux will never have the usability of windows. Even if someone came out with a great new product for linux, M$ could simply change their OS so that it also works on windows. I hate to say it, but for Linux to catch on, open source has got to go. Other than that? Maybe if Apple started allowing their OS to run on non-apple computers, we might have a real alternative or maybe IBM can come up with something (Sun just sold out to M$ so they are out of the fight), but Linux? At this poitn it still can't compete at the level of the average user.
By trying to go faster you are forced to wait out the light so you get where you are going later than you would have had you driven the speed limit. Every time. Which sucks. So you learn. Fast.
Yep. You learn how to run red lights as well as speed. Not only have you failed to solve the problem, you have actually made it worse.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is Lucas has already sworn that he will never release the orginals on DVD. Ever.
It's like Tolstoi. At one point he had this big change of heart, said all the work he had done in the past was crap, and said he would destroy it all if he could. What if he had? No War and Peace, no Anna Karenina.
You forgot the effeminate men and strong powerful but still good looking women.
Slashdot updating anything? You must be out of your mind. Slashdot is years and years behind just about every other forum out there. Heck, even Gamespy has a better forum. If Slashdot ever decided that things needed updating, the mere quantity of how much they would have to update would crush their noble apsirations into pitiful pulps and their lofty egotistical mods into babbering simpletons. They made a minor change in how the profiles are done (which seems to be the only update they have don in years) and they seemed to think that made them hot cookies. It would destroy their egos if they were to find out the system they are using was abandoned by every other self respecting site in the late 90's.
You forgot about Thermal depolymerization.
Deficits were ended, briefly, during the last period of significant growth.
Actually they didn't thanks to the boondoggle that is the social security plan. Every year what happens is the money collected in social security taxes is first used to pay off this years benefits and the rest becomes government bonds. Even during the so-called "budget surpluses', our government was doing this. What happens when you figure in these government bonds? It turns out we have had massive budget defecits since FDR was in office. And what happens when the money taken in by social security no longer is enough to handle the pay outs of the program? Some of those government bonds have to be called in.
So what does this mean? The money that was to be set aside to help deal with the baby boomer situation is not there. Instead we have an account full of IOU's (government bonds) that the government placed there when they raided the fund to pay off year after year of budget deficits. Every year this happens and will continue to until the point when the taxes coming in no longer pay for the pay outs that have to go out. At which point the government will have to raise taxes to pay off these government bonds to make up the difference. Simply put, the government is going to have start taxing you to pay off the loans from money the government borrowed off of you.
God, I love america.
Or those of the B Ark from Hitchhiker's Guide. From middle management you come and to middle management you will return.
Or what about that really stupid episode where Kirk and et. al. find some planet full of American Indians who worship the US flag or something? I think we'd all agree that one ought to be dropped out of the story arc.
I don't. The episode you are speaking of is The Omega Glory and is not about indians whorshipping a flag. In the story, one of the federation's captains had beamed down to a planet where the people live hundreds of years. Those who beamed back had died along with carrying the infection with them to the rest of the crew who also died. The Enterpirse arrives and Kirk beams down to investigate before he is made aware of this though. The orginal people it turned out had been like 20th century Earth but had wiped themselves out with a nuclear war. In the end he finds the natives long life was natural and hence the search for the fountain of youth was useless. The show was meant to show three things. The first was the communists in the end would be destroyed completely. The second was that the ideals of liberty and justice would never die, not even after a nuclear war, they were eternal values. The third was that the search for eternal youth to escape the inevitability of death was ultimately always futile.
If your analysis is the closest you have payed attention to the series then no wonder you don't seem to like it. Maybe if we include a super shallow plot and pad it with special effects, like the current Enterprise series, it might hold your attention long enough for you to like it. The series of those times wasn't the piece of shit dramas people watch now where we are stuck with flat storylines that are just about characters, instead each episode had its points. It was very much like Gunsmoke and the Twilight Zone. Ultimately, it wasn't the characters that were important, it was the stories. This is the main reason why Enterprise is so bad. The series is just about the characters, not the stories.
We fans have to realize that when the writers generated the orginal stories back in the 1960s, they had to take into mind the current politics in the US, what advertisers wanted, what the network wanted, what budget they had, last seasons ratings, etc.
When the orginal series writers generated stories, it was to show us something. I haven't seen squat from Enterprise. A lot of the orginal series were timeless tales that are still relevant. That is what you need to realize. Its liek the Twilight Zone. Just because its fifty years old doesn't mean it doesn't have lessons to teach us and things to say that are relevant. Just because Shakespeare wrote in the 1600's, doesn't make his work less relevant. It wasn't the characters that made Star Trek good. It wasn't the special effects. It wasn't the acting. It was the stories. They had a point and what's more they were well written. Enterprise isn't. And until they realize this, there show will go nowhere with the real fans of Star Trek. If you want to watch characters instead of stories go watch a soap opera, leave Star Trek as it was.
But even in B&B's lame attempts at subsituting characters and soap operas for real stories, they have failed. This continuity garbage is crap to cover up the fact they didn't do their homework.
In the future, with better, cheaper effects it might be possible to take the old StarTrek episodes, run them though a PC and make them look like they have whatever the latest in effects can do and maybe even adjust the plots to create a more unified set of stories.
The ultimate proof that you don't understand Star Trek at all. But look on the upside, maybe Berman and Bragga will now hire you to write for them.
I on the other hand as a true trekker/trekkie had no problem remember all of them plus all the episodes of the orginal series (no kidding). You must bow down to my leetness.
DeBeers is a monoploy that artificially inflates prices and creates an artifical scarcity. Simple as that. And now that these materials have a tech purpose in computer machinery, the monoply is inevitably doomed. They missed the boat on syntehic diamonds and are going to get creamed. Even if they can't sell em to ppl at the same price as natural diamonds (which are a lot more common than DeBeers wants you to think) the tech market will keep them in business and DeBeers will be crushed. Why pay $1,000,000 for a natural diamond when you can get an equal that not only you can't tell the difference with but may even look better for a mere $100?
It probably is a useless effort. They tried this in the 80's with hackers. They'd bust them evey two years and within weeks new people would show up. The more they did it, the quicker people came back. Now look at the hacking scene.
Just becuase the way Kirk died in generations sucked. In fact, Generations sucked. Maybe Capt. Sulu as the main character on some special mission with the rest on board and playing key roles.
I've been reading up on this outsourcing for awhile and I've come to the conclusion that it is really only a symptom of a greater problem. Our system has sabotaged itself. From what I have read, there are three reasons why we should not support off outsourcing and why it is a problem.
1. It is a market externality. Lou Dobbs had someone write about this. Basically, it is when a company can get all the benefit with only partial cost from a decision. Take a chemical company that drops waste into the local river. It causes cancer downstream. However, in a purely capatilistic market this is a good thing for the company. Why? Becuase they can get the drop in cost without having to pay for the treatment of the people downstream who get cancer. They get all the benefits of lowered costs without any of the bad side-effects of the decision. That is why we have legislation: to deal with such situations.
2. Education - The free marketers have made one invalid assumption. They assume that since these lower paying and less demanding jobs are going overseas, we'll be able to train for higher level ones. But one look at our schools compared to those of other countries and it becomes obvious that will not be the case. Our school system is horrid. How will it train these new knowledge workers with a education system like ours? It won't. It will go to countries that have better education systems. So we'll reduce the number of low paying jobs, thereby reducing the number of people who can afford to better educate their children, while investing in the education of people elsewhere. Smart move. Make everyone else's population smarter than yours and then expect good jobs to come here.
3. Monopolies, the buying out of america, etc - Under this stands healthcare and standard of living. We are paying far more than the services we pay for are worth. Now, we'll get a bunch of capitalist showing up and saying that: the market determines worth. Not anymore. What determines worth is how effeciently a company can abuse the market and its regulations to its own benefit. You have monopolies in health care. An intellectual policy that is completely out of control. Tax shelters and greed that corrupts. Our government is no longer owned by the people, it is owned by political parties that live off of us like parasites and are in the pockets of industry. The government has grown to a size that is ridiculous. The ancient romans payed about 7% taxes total. When you figure in indirect taxes, we pay about 50% taxes. We take out what are effectively loans to pay for tax cuts so that we can buy chinese imports - stimulating the chinese economy but not helping ours out much at all. We have gone from wanting to live well to wanting to live like gluttons. Corporate accountability has disappeared.
So biotech going overseas is really inevitable. We are losing our innovative advantage by the day. Our education gets worse. Our bueracray gets larger and more ineffective. We are being betrayed by our industry and our leaders. So let's continue to complain. It won't help. Our congressman who understand don't listen and those are few compared to those who simply don't understand what is going on. Biotech and every industry will continue to go elsewhere as long as there is somewhere where else where they can more easily take advantage of the system. Money has become a goal rather than a means. We no longer have any grasp of what personal security once was. We are apprehensive for good reason. Can anyone see how this leads to a better future? I can't. I can see how a few people will be a lot richer but I don't see how we'll be better off.
We need to think about what we want and how we'll get it. We can't afford to blindly trust captialism anymore. Especially when capitalism is full of ppl who will cheat every chance they get. We need to find out what we want and how to work for it rather than to mindlessly try to uphold the status quo cause all things must change.
Had a friend who did consulting work for the legitimate part of the dude's business. The guy just said figure out how much doing this or that will cost me and don't worry about the legality of it. So he would come up with the proposals etc, and suddenly the local govt would make it legal in that case for the plan to be carried out. You just knew the dude was getting the plan and bribing the local govt to allow it. Same with M$. They figure out waht they want, how to do it, and then make it legal or at least pay the fines to get away with it.
Are the drivers compatible with the orginal Theif?
No that's how long it took. You had endless boring dialogue, shitty weapons (don't like the crossbow, how bout crossbow + 1?), and the experience was dismal. It really did take 8-10 horus to level up. Even when you forgot the story and just played the maps (plus you had to get equipment, go back o town and sell it, go back to map etc.. The stroy was great but it was like reading a novel.
Still, in games like Baldur's Gate where it takes 8-10 hours of playing to level up just once it gets kind of boring (theough lack of new equipment figures in). You need variety in a game and leveling up provides that by providing new and more powerful spells/abilities and gives you access to new armor/weapons. If you had to play through an entire act in Diablo 2 with only one level up, would you have a kickass time? Can you imagine any game that would allow you too? (Well, Deus Ex but that's due to new weapons...) Even the most exciting rpg story gets boring if everytime you have to fight its exactly the same cause you have the exact same character. In addition, you have to look at replay value. Once you get through the story once, why would you want to replay it if you can only barely change your character. Being able to change the character lot allows a lot more replay. Only 8 levels in 40 hours means you probably won't still be playing that game for another 40.
My poitn was usability. If windows can run everything (even linux programs if M$ decides too) and Linux can only run a smaller set of apps, it wil never have the usability of windows. Since most users only care that it runs the programs they want, why would they ever even consider using linux? Everything runs on the OS that came preinstalled. That was my point. If linux wants to overtake M$, it is going to have to have to offer something windows can't. In other words, make a format that MS can't duplicate. Else you'll never beat Microsoft cause microsoft will always run more stuff.
I wouldn't be so happy about that. The last time a great empire collapsed, the western world was plunged into an 1000 year dark age. Same happens with most empires. Happened to the Mycenaneans too. Remember the lines about the revolution from The Postman (the book) - ppl were exhuberent to find themselves plunged into a world they had dreamed of only to find the reality of it was worse than they could possibly have imagined.
Games. Computers that aren't $1000 more expensive than thier PC counterparts would also help.
Don't think it is just with computer issues, but rather, MOST issues. Everyone has an opinion on something, most are uninformed and made out of ignorance.
"True knowledge lies in knowing that you know nothing" - Socrates
Linux has to work with MS products
Which is one of the reasons Linux may never catch on. The format of M$'s products have parts that are proprietary - no one but M$ knows how to interpet those parts. As a result, no linux products will ever work 100% with M$ products. However, since linux is open source and the formats are totally in the open, M$ can make their products easily work with Linux. End result: Linux will never have the usability of windows. Even if someone came out with a great new product for linux, M$ could simply change their OS so that it also works on windows. I hate to say it, but for Linux to catch on, open source has got to go. Other than that? Maybe if Apple started allowing their OS to run on non-apple computers, we might have a real alternative or maybe IBM can come up with something (Sun just sold out to M$ so they are out of the fight), but Linux? At this poitn it still can't compete at the level of the average user.
Do you buy different brands of toothpaste or do you stick to one brand? Answer that and you have answered why people continue to use windows et al.
By trying to go faster you are forced to wait out the light so you get where you are going later than you would have had you driven the speed limit. Every time. Which sucks. So you learn. Fast.
Yep. You learn how to run red lights as well as speed. Not only have you failed to solve the problem, you have actually made it worse.
At the current rate, the Earth will have been swallowed up by the red giant phase of Sol before it escapes Earth orbit.