I'm all out of hope. I'm all out of energy. I'm all out of tears. The only thing I have left to me is rage.
If you voted for GWB, I vow to hold you personally responsible if/when my Marine brother is killed in Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan/Syria/North Korea. I will visit my righteous anger upon you. I will have my revenge. Ponder that as you return to your narrow lives of moral complacency.
For the rest of you who voted for Kerry or some progressive third party, we need to organize NOW! Our best bet is to move to the solidly blue upper midwest and secede from the union taking most of North America's supply of fresh water with us.
Yes, the above is slightly facetious, and meant to be taken not entirely seriously.
Except the part about the rage. And the true root of that rage is that last night I witnessed the death of this country. America will never recover, and it stands a good chance of taking the rest of the world down with it. As a patriot, I find that unthinkable. As a citizen, I find it untenable. As a human being and a woman, I see it as a threat to my very existence.
The thing is, I think the technology-independent prepetual storage device isn't particularly important. Really, you just need to preserve for a relatively long span of time the ability to play stuff back.
But media like paper or stone or even film either require no equipment to "play back" or the design and construction of said equipment is relatively transparent. Given a reel of film, which you can retrieve data from just by holding it up to a light source, constructing a projector is not too hard. Given a CD or DVD or piece of magnetic tape, the task is much harder. Of course this doesn't take into account the knowledge needed to decode languages one doesn't speak/read, but at least with stone and paper they are right there in front of you, with no intermediate decoding necessary.
I think there hasn't been nearly enough thought put into solid, durable, archival media yet. And I know that slap dash adoption of new fangled archival technology has resulted in data being irretrievably lost. Check out Nicholas Baker's book on the subject.
I can't top the original poster, but I once had a job driving a support vehicle for a bicycle trip. The route took us through the wilderness of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming... often many miles from the nearest habitation. So far so good, as it was beautiful country. But there were times when I thought my boss (the leader of the trip) was going to attack me and no matter how beautiful the wilderness was, I would have given anything to be within earshot of a police station or hospital, or at the very least someone who would pull the jerk off me.
Post-modernists are not questioning empirical truth so much as they are questioning the ability of language-- any language, even scientific jargon-- to state such a truth. Even Isaac Newton recognized that language is inadequate to science. If this inadequacy of language is even more evident in the "soft" non-scientific field of literary criticism, it is not the fault of post-modernists (OK, it's not entirely their fault), but is in fact a product of the nature of language itself.
The problem with copying to newer types of media (and I am speaking specifically of the case of film here) is that the newer media is often less stable and less likely to be accessible in the future. Film as we know it has been around for over a century and films from the late 1800's can still be projected. Compare that with the difficulty you would have accessing digital media like magnetic tapes or large floppy disks from not too long ago. As much as I love DVDs, I would never, ever want them considered as a viable archival alternative to film stock.
On another note, you mention microfilm and microfiche. These media are perfect examples of how a new-fangled storage medium can take over quickly, just becuause it is new-fangled, and then turn out to really suck in the end. Read Nicholas Baker's book Double Fold if you really want to get incensed about the loss of fantastic amounts of nuance and data from "outdated" forms of media like newspapers, magazines, and books.
I purchased my SUV for several reasons: Montana winters (4-wheel drive), cargo capacity for musical gear, room for additional passengers (though admittedly, I frequently drive in it alone), and easier access in and out (I am rather tall). At the time of purchase, there were really no hybrid equivalents that were capable of doing the things I needed my vehicle to do. If they can come out with a hybrid SUV with 4-wheel drive and good cargo capacity and power to carry the weight of my musical gear, then believe me, I will be one of the first in line to check it out!
I grew up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (at least as much snow as Buffalo, NY) and in Wisconsin (not as much snow... but enough). We always lived out in the country, approx. 7 miles to the nearest gas station and more than 15 to the nearest grocery store.
For almost my entire childhood my parents had a Dodge Aries. My parents used it to get back and forth to work and town 12 months out of the year. To this day when someone says to me, "I need an SUV because it snows where I live," I wish I had video of my dad climbing out the front window of our house into the snowbank, so he could dig out the front door to get it open, then digging out the rest of the driveway to get to the road, then driving to town in that Dodge K car. Handling snow is less about the car's inherent abilities than it is about the driver's learned ones.
And as for room, for stuff and people, we took long car trips in that car with five people, my parents (Dad is 6ft tall) and us three kids. Sure we had to use a car top carrier, but we made it. And I have fond memories of masking tape lines of demarcation on the back seat to keep us kids separated.
We never hauled a boat, too poor and uniterested to own one. But my friend Dave hauled his fishing boat for years with a Chevy Cavalier.
For the record, I currently drive a Subaru Legacy (the sedan, not the wagon) and I have yet to have to move something that I couldn't fit in it. (While that may not sound impressive, I just moved 1800 miles across the country with only what I could fit in my car.) I usually get 25-28 mpg and it has AWD... I even used it to ford a small/shallow river.
In conclusion, buy an SUV if you want, I certainly can't stop you. But if the reasons outlined above are true, you and the planet may be better off if you check out something like the Subaru Forester or Ford Escape Hybrid, as I believe other posters have suggested
I wish I had an explanation for you. In lieu of that here's an anecdote from my dad. He said he remembers that when CDs were still a glimmer on the horizion part of the buzz around them was the fact that they would be much cheaper to produce than cassettes and therefore would retail for far less. This was supposed to be one of the factors, another of which would be quality, that would convince people to switch over their music collections to CD. So where's my huge price break over cassettes? Let's just say it ended up in the same place as all the profits the recording industry missed out on while I was still downloading free music.
Yeah, most people hate telemarketing calls, but I've made a decision not to take it out on the person calling me. Be calm and nice, it won't kill you. Lot's of people have to fall back on Plan B (or C, D, E...) and I am one of them. I'm not a telemarketer, but I could be, and if that's what I had to do to pay the rent, I wouldn't hesitate. So when the telemarketers call, I say I'm not interested, tell them to have a nice day, and hang up. A whole fifteen seconds out of my life... and the telemarketer who I'm sure hates her/his job doesn't get crapped on by yet another person.
How about Gladiator as a counter example? The CGI was totally gratuitous: they put the Colosseum in the wrong place. Millions in the budget, but no $1.29 for a map of Rome, I don't get it.
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I'm all out of hope. I'm all out of energy. I'm all out of tears. The only thing I have left to me is rage.
If you voted for GWB, I vow to hold you personally responsible if/when my Marine brother is killed in Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan/Syria/North Korea. I will visit my righteous anger upon you. I will have my revenge. Ponder that as you return to your narrow lives of moral complacency.
For the rest of you who voted for Kerry or some progressive third party, we need to organize NOW! Our best bet is to move to the solidly blue upper midwest and secede from the union taking most of North America's supply of fresh water with us.
Yes, the above is slightly facetious, and meant to be taken not entirely seriously.
Except the part about the rage. And the true root of that rage is that last night I witnessed the death of this country. America will never recover, and it stands a good chance of taking the rest of the world down with it. As a patriot, I find that unthinkable. As a citizen, I find it untenable. As a human being and a woman, I see it as a threat to my very existence.
The thing is, I think the technology-independent prepetual storage device isn't particularly important. Really, you just need to preserve for a relatively long span of time the ability to play stuff back.
But media like paper or stone or even film either require no equipment to "play back" or the design and construction of said equipment is relatively transparent. Given a reel of film, which you can retrieve data from just by holding it up to a light source, constructing a projector is not too hard. Given a CD or DVD or piece of magnetic tape, the task is much harder. Of course this doesn't take into account the knowledge needed to decode languages one doesn't speak/read, but at least with stone and paper they are right there in front of you, with no intermediate decoding necessary.
I think there hasn't been nearly enough thought put into solid, durable, archival media yet. And I know that slap dash adoption of new fangled archival technology has resulted in data being irretrievably lost. Check out Nicholas Baker's book on the subject.
Well people here in the midwest also say borrow when they mean lend, and the fact that I hear it all the time doesn't make it any less annoying.
I can't top the original poster, but I once had a job driving a support vehicle for a bicycle trip. The route took us through the wilderness of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming... often many miles from the nearest habitation. So far so good, as it was beautiful country. But there were times when I thought my boss (the leader of the trip) was going to attack me and no matter how beautiful the wilderness was, I would have given anything to be within earshot of a police station or hospital, or at the very least someone who would pull the jerk off me.
Post-modernists are not questioning empirical truth so much as they are questioning the ability of language-- any language, even scientific jargon-- to state such a truth. Even Isaac Newton recognized that language is inadequate to science. If this inadequacy of language is even more evident in the "soft" non-scientific field of literary criticism, it is not the fault of post-modernists (OK, it's not entirely their fault), but is in fact a product of the nature of language itself.
The problem with copying to newer types of media (and I am speaking specifically of the case of film here) is that the newer media is often less stable and less likely to be accessible in the future. Film as we know it has been around for over a century and films from the late 1800's can still be projected. Compare that with the difficulty you would have accessing digital media like magnetic tapes or large floppy disks from not too long ago. As much as I love DVDs, I would never, ever want them considered as a viable archival alternative to film stock.
On another note, you mention microfilm and microfiche. These media are perfect examples of how a new-fangled storage medium can take over quickly, just becuause it is new-fangled, and then turn out to really suck in the end. Read Nicholas Baker's book Double Fold if you really want to get incensed about the loss of fantastic amounts of nuance and data from "outdated" forms of media like newspapers, magazines, and books.
I purchased my SUV for several reasons: Montana winters (4-wheel drive), cargo capacity for musical gear, room for additional passengers (though admittedly, I frequently drive in it alone), and easier access in and out (I am rather tall). At the time of purchase, there were really no hybrid equivalents that were capable of doing the things I needed my vehicle to do. If they can come out with a hybrid SUV with 4-wheel drive and good cargo capacity and power to carry the weight of my musical gear, then believe me, I will be one of the first in line to check it out!
I grew up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (at least as much snow as Buffalo, NY) and in Wisconsin (not as much snow... but enough). We always lived out in the country, approx. 7 miles to the nearest gas station and more than 15 to the nearest grocery store.
For almost my entire childhood my parents had a Dodge Aries. My parents used it to get back and forth to work and town 12 months out of the year. To this day when someone says to me, "I need an SUV because it snows where I live," I wish I had video of my dad climbing out the front window of our house into the snowbank, so he could dig out the front door to get it open, then digging out the rest of the driveway to get to the road, then driving to town in that Dodge K car. Handling snow is less about the car's inherent abilities than it is about the driver's learned ones.
And as for room, for stuff and people, we took long car trips in that car with five people, my parents (Dad is 6ft tall) and us three kids. Sure we had to use a car top carrier, but we made it. And I have fond memories of masking tape lines of demarcation on the back seat to keep us kids separated.
We never hauled a boat, too poor and uniterested to own one. But my friend Dave hauled his fishing boat for years with a Chevy Cavalier.
For the record, I currently drive a Subaru Legacy (the sedan, not the wagon) and I have yet to have to move something that I couldn't fit in it. (While that may not sound impressive, I just moved 1800 miles across the country with only what I could fit in my car.) I usually get 25-28 mpg and it has AWD... I even used it to ford a small/shallow river.
In conclusion, buy an SUV if you want, I certainly can't stop you. But if the reasons outlined above are true, you and the planet may be better off if you check out something like the Subaru Forester or Ford Escape Hybrid, as I believe other posters have suggested
I wish I had an explanation for you. In lieu of that here's an anecdote from my dad. He said he remembers that when CDs were still a glimmer on the horizion part of the buzz around them was the fact that they would be much cheaper to produce than cassettes and therefore would retail for far less. This was supposed to be one of the factors, another of which would be quality, that would convince people to switch over their music collections to CD. So where's my huge price break over cassettes? Let's just say it ended up in the same place as all the profits the recording industry missed out on while I was still downloading free music.
Yeah, most people hate telemarketing calls, but I've made a decision not to take it out on the person calling me. Be calm and nice, it won't kill you. Lot's of people have to fall back on Plan B (or C, D, E...) and I am one of them. I'm not a telemarketer, but I could be, and if that's what I had to do to pay the rent, I wouldn't hesitate. So when the telemarketers call, I say I'm not interested, tell them to have a nice day, and hang up. A whole fifteen seconds out of my life... and the telemarketer who I'm sure hates her/his job doesn't get crapped on by yet another person.
How about Gladiator as a counter example? The CGI was totally gratuitous: they put the Colosseum in the wrong place. Millions in the budget, but no $1.29 for a map of Rome, I don't get it.