All the major players, with all the money, want software patents. Even if they don't get it this year, they will get it next year, or the next. They are not going to stop until they get it.
But his movies are WAY too pretentious to have fun! I love stupid fun movies. I watched Starsky & Hutch a couple of days ago and it was a great movie to simply turn off your brain and have fun. But Ben Stiller knows it was not supposed to be high art. It never hit you over the head about the alleged dangers of suburban conformity in the way Edward Scissorhands.
My problem with Burton is that each and every one of his movies is covered with a veneer of surrealism. Because of that, nothing in his movies seem real. His movies have no characters, merely caricatures. And because they're not real, it's impossible to have any emotional attachment to them. They're just pretty images on a screen.
There was a time I thought he'd drop the totally fake looking sets, create some real characters, and most importantly, add a human element to his films. But I've given up on that a long time ago.
Edward Scissorhands?! I've read Hallmark cards that were less obvious and had more subtlety than that piece of cinematic crap. Burton is just SO obvious about every point he wants to make, it's like he assumes the audience members are complete morons and won't get it unless he beats them over the head with it. And considering his fan base, maybe he's right.
What's the big f-ing deal about Tim Burton? The guy has NEVER directed a good movie.
Let's look at his "art": Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Planet of the Apes, Mars Attacks!, I could go on and on, but I'll stop before anyone gets sick.
Tim Burton has got to be the most overrated directors of all time.
I have an account through usa.net. I only give it out to people I trust, i.e., friends and family.
These people gain trust by first using temporary accounts I set up from my ISP (I should point out that usa.net now allows you to create 8 such accounts.) If anyone betrays my trust when using their temp account, e.g., signing me up for crap, giving out my email without permission, sending me "funny" crap, I cut them off. Their temp account is deleted and they never get a new one.
For the internet I set up temporary accounts, e.g., one for Amazon.com and a different one for newegg.com. That way I know exactly who is selling or giving away my account information. For example I started getting spam from an account I set up solely for PCMag's forums, needless to say I now use a fake email address there.
With this system when I do get spam, all I have to do is to delete the account. And because my main account is only used by a very tight group, it NEVER receives spam. Not in the over three years I've used it.
In the past three years I've probably gotten a total of three spams. Which I consider pretty good by any standard.
"Your average consumer does NOT care about 'higher resolution.'"
I agree, if high resolution, by itself, is so important, consumers would be staring out their windows in droves. You certainly cannot get better resolution than reality. People are not staring out of their windows because there is no content to see.
Yeah, it would definitely be a better organizational tool than having 500 discs laying around. And the living room would look cleaner as it wouldn't need shelf space to store all those discs.
I wish I had enough money where I could spend nearly a years salary just to get rid of a shelf!
Actually, the word "shelled" is ambiguous. On one hand it could mean that the peanuts have their shells removed, thus they have no shells. On the other hand it could mean that have been shelled, in that they have a shell on them.
Either that, or I'm just too much of a moron to admit I screwed up.
I don't know about you, but I do a lot of work FINDING my cordless phone. And once I do find it and make my call, I'm more prone to walk around the house while I talk, as I'm not tied to a cord. I'm not sure how having one makes you lazy.
And I'm not sure how your other examples fit in either because they are not excruciatingly expensive compared to their non-lazy alternatives.
Shelled peanuts don't cost three times as much as shelled peanuts. Disposable diapers actually cost less than the time and resources spent washing diapers. It's the same with the others.
It's not false advertising for a company to sell its trademark. It happens all the time. Have you seen all the Harley Davison crap out there? It's pretty obvious that the owners of Harley Davison treats its trademark like most people treat toilet paper.
And besides, IBM has not made its own computers for years. They're all made in China by third parties. IBM merely slaps its name on them. As does Dell, HP, etc. Nothing is really changing.
I had a friend who teaches high school. I went to see him after class. An irate mother was there complaining that my friend gave her son a bad grade in English. My friend was telling the mom that the kid wasn't doing any of his work.
I'm not making this up, the mother actually said the following: "Why does he need to learn English anyway?!"
If parents in the US don't want their kids learning something as useful as their native language, I have a feeling that learning math isn't much of a priority either.
Look at Africa. AIDS is so rampant there that no one uses protection for sex. The feeling is that you're going to get it anyway, so why bother doing anything about it.
The main problem isn't really lack of education, it's that ignorant computer users do not WANT to be educated. I'm guessing that most computer literate people here have tried to teach ignorant computer users tips only to be utterly ignored. E.g., even if you get one to buy an anti-virus program, he'll NEVER actually update it.
If a user clicks on a banner ad Firefox should immediately be deleted. Anyone stupid enough to actually click on banner ads doesn't deserve to use Firefox.
Congress doesn't care if a contractor gets actual results. All they care about is milking the various contractors for re-election contributions. Those who give the most get the contracts. That is so obvious that even a rocket-scientist should be able to figure it out.
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All the major players, with all the money, want software patents. Even if they don't get it this year, they will get it next year, or the next. They are not going to stop until they get it.
But his movies are WAY too pretentious to have fun! I love stupid fun movies. I watched Starsky & Hutch a couple of days ago and it was a great movie to simply turn off your brain and have fun. But Ben Stiller knows it was not supposed to be high art. It never hit you over the head about the alleged dangers of suburban conformity in the way Edward Scissorhands.
My problem with Burton is that each and every one of his movies is covered with a veneer of surrealism. Because of that, nothing in his movies seem real. His movies have no characters, merely caricatures. And because they're not real, it's impossible to have any emotional attachment to them. They're just pretty images on a screen.
There was a time I thought he'd drop the totally fake looking sets, create some real characters, and most importantly, add a human element to his films. But I've given up on that a long time ago.
Edward Scissorhands?! I've read Hallmark cards that were less obvious and had more subtlety than that piece of cinematic crap. Burton is just SO obvious about every point he wants to make, it's like he assumes the audience members are complete morons and won't get it unless he beats them over the head with it. And considering his fan base, maybe he's right.
Yeah, they all clearly suck other than Nightmare Before Christmas, which Burton did NOT direct.
Do you honestly consider Batman a great movie?! Have you actually seen a movie with REAL acting, REAL writing, and REAL cinematography?!
Maybe I'm just getting old and I just don't "get" two dimensional characters pretending to act in front of obviously fake sets.
What's the big f-ing deal about Tim Burton? The guy has NEVER directed a good movie.
Let's look at his "art": Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Planet of the Apes, Mars Attacks!, I could go on and on, but I'll stop before anyone gets sick.
Tim Burton has got to be the most overrated directors of all time.
No Doc Ock jokes?!
I guess you've never heard of 9/11.
Kill all the lawyers!
On the forefront of new technology and not just jumping on someone else's bandwagon.
... for about three years. Here is my plan.
I have an account through usa.net. I only give it out to people I trust, i.e., friends and family.
These people gain trust by first using temporary accounts I set up from my ISP (I should point out that usa.net now allows you to create 8 such accounts.) If anyone betrays my trust when using their temp account, e.g., signing me up for crap, giving out my email without permission, sending me "funny" crap, I cut them off. Their temp account is deleted and they never get a new one.
For the internet I set up temporary accounts, e.g., one for Amazon.com and a different one for newegg.com. That way I know exactly who is selling or giving away my account information. For example I started getting spam from an account I set up solely for PCMag's forums, needless to say I now use a fake email address there.
With this system when I do get spam, all I have to do is to delete the account. And because my main account is only used by a very tight group, it NEVER receives spam. Not in the over three years I've used it.
In the past three years I've probably gotten a total of three spams. Which I consider pretty good by any standard.
... if I had to choose between a "cool" electronic toys and a 5 bedroom house sitting on 5 acres, I'd chose the latter without a second thought.
"Your average consumer does NOT care about 'higher resolution.'"
I agree, if high resolution, by itself, is so important, consumers would be staring out their windows in droves. You certainly cannot get better resolution than reality. People are not staring out of their windows because there is no content to see.
Yeah, it would definitely be a better organizational tool than having 500 discs laying around. And the living room would look cleaner as it wouldn't need shelf space to store all those discs.
I wish I had enough money where I could spend nearly a years salary just to get rid of a shelf!
Actually, the word "shelled" is ambiguous. On one hand it could mean that the peanuts have their shells removed, thus they have no shells. On the other hand it could mean that have been shelled, in that they have a shell on them.
Either that, or I'm just too much of a moron to admit I screwed up.
I don't know about you, but I do a lot of work FINDING my cordless phone. And once I do find it and make my call, I'm more prone to walk around the house while I talk, as I'm not tied to a cord. I'm not sure how having one makes you lazy.
And I'm not sure how your other examples fit in either because they are not excruciatingly expensive compared to their non-lazy alternatives.
Shelled peanuts don't cost three times as much as shelled peanuts. Disposable diapers actually cost less than the time and resources spent washing diapers. It's the same with the others.
At $27,000 at 500 DVD, that $54 dollars a disc. Since $54 per disc is about three times the cost of the DVD, I'm not sure of the advantage.
It's certainly not to save the disc by avoiding using it, because at $54 per disc it'd be cheaper to simply buy a second copy and not open it.
Are we simply that lazy that it's worth paying three times the cost of the disc rather than to get up and stick it in yourself?
It's perfectly legal to discuss evolution in the US as long as you're in a designated Free Speech Zone!
It's not false advertising for a company to sell its trademark. It happens all the time. Have you seen all the Harley Davison crap out there? It's pretty obvious that the owners of Harley Davison treats its trademark like most people treat toilet paper.
And besides, IBM has not made its own computers for years. They're all made in China by third parties. IBM merely slaps its name on them. As does Dell, HP, etc. Nothing is really changing.
I had a friend who teaches high school. I went to see him after class. An irate mother was there complaining that my friend gave her son a bad grade in English. My friend was telling the mom that the kid wasn't doing any of his work.
I'm not making this up, the mother actually said the following: "Why does he need to learn English anyway?!"
If parents in the US don't want their kids learning something as useful as their native language, I have a feeling that learning math isn't much of a priority either.
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." Luke 14:26
Look at Africa. AIDS is so rampant there that no one uses protection for sex. The feeling is that you're going to get it anyway, so why bother doing anything about it.
The main problem isn't really lack of education, it's that ignorant computer users do not WANT to be educated. I'm guessing that most computer literate people here have tried to teach ignorant computer users tips only to be utterly ignored. E.g., even if you get one to buy an anti-virus program, he'll NEVER actually update it.
If a user clicks on a banner ad Firefox should immediately be deleted. Anyone stupid enough to actually click on banner ads doesn't deserve to use Firefox.
The bad news: Pursuant to the binding contract language on the back of the ticket, you actually have to eat it!
You're right, I wasn't cynical enough. Thanks for depressing me even more!
Congress doesn't care if a contractor gets actual results. All they care about is milking the various contractors for re-election contributions. Those who give the most get the contracts. That is so obvious that even a rocket-scientist should be able to figure it out.