Touche! That's why I come to the dot, for the clever repartee!
Look, d00d, I'm not some kind of grammer cop. I only correct people who make their gramatical errors in the course of a snobbish dismissal of other people's educations.
There are many compelling reasons to get a degree that have nothing to do with learning. I think the reason I put college off for years was that older people kept telling me to find something I was "passionate" about, and I did - but none of those things offered a realistic chance to earn a living. Most of the jobs that pay well, it turns out, are decidedly NOT fun. That's why you have to pay people so much to do them.
So I say, don't tell this guy that he needs to love what he does. He needs to make money and feed himself. He can be passionate about watching football on sunday like everyone else.
Do you honestly think that the person to whom you replied has an IQ between 51 and 70? Oh no, I see, you were simply name-calling. Lovely. Go tell your wife what you just did, you need a time out
I don't agree with your assessment of the author's intelligence. The fact is that making video games is essentialy "show biz" in some people's minds, and that means that they will make extraordinary sacrifices to be part of it.
As someone who has actually worked for EA (as a temp, but still, they let me inside the redwood shores compound) I can say that many people in their 20's are willing to live in a house that they share with 3 other guys in order to be part of the gaming industry. Plenty of guys in their 30's and 40's, too! This might come as a shock to you, but not all geeks are married.
Not all benefits can be measured in dollars and cents. The fact that they really enjoy the products they create is worth a lot to these people. That's how EA gets away with it. The phenomenon is regrettable, but it happens in all facets of the entertainment industry. People even sometimes do things a lot worse that working like a slave to get in the door at these places. That's Show Biz!
So to ole "rovingeyes", let me say, I'm sorry that you hate your job at Dunder Mifflin so much, and I'm sorry that Peg and the kids aren't grateful, but don't call people names. It's rude.
That's a very good reason, and it's what I assumed at first, except that the movie specifically says that the alliance denies the existance of the reavers. This makes sense because they are responsible for the reavers in the first place. They are trying to cover the incident up at any cost. So why leave all this evidence around?
And I'll be really impressed if you can come up with a sensible reason why the reavers don't kill each other in bathroom-related disputes. Or over who takes out the garbage. Or whatever. My roomie and I can barely stay civil, and we're not cooped up in a space ship. Did anyone see Das Boot? It's rough when you're in cramped conditions with a bunch of smelly d00ds. Even if you're not homicidal with rage.
There is no way to explain why beings who are literally frothing with homicidal rage do not turn on each other. Or how they manage to be coherent enough to make repairs to a space ship.
And while we're on the subject, why does the 'empire' not simply go exterminate them?
I'm not sure what sort of lifestyle you're used to, but for me, 400 dollars is never "paying modestly". I have to trade a week of my life to get some one to give me that amount of money. So I never part with four Franklins unless I'm getting something in return that is really, really good. I'm happy for you that your personal fortune is so vast. That is not the case for many others.
So what do I get for my money?
A piece of hardware that replicates the functions of the PC I already have. I use my PC for lots of things, not just playing games. I really can't just skip the PC and use my console instead. It can't do half the things my computer can do. So, if I want to play these console games, I need to buy an additional piece of hardware that serves no additional function. That's just plain crazy.
Standardization has existed in the PC game industry for a long time. Microsoft enforces standards with an iron fist. There's no need for consoles to get developers to use Direct X. They have been for years. And even if they don't, there are other ways to create and promote standards. You might have read a little something about this kind of thing here on slashdot.
I couldn't agree more on the whole "vegging in front of the couch" argument. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but it's not against the law to put your computer in front of a couch, just as though it were a small TVl. I do, and it works great. So I'm not sure what you're talking about there.
As far as the cost of keeping my PC current, it's close to zero. Like I said before, I needed the PC for other functions already. And practically any game will play on a modest system these days. Game manufacturers understand that the greater your hardware requirements, the smaller your potential pool of customers. Yes, there will always be a latest and greatest generation of games that is unavailable to me, but those same games are always unavailable to console gameers as well.
So why are you so eager to apologize for the corporate hegemoney that is trying to get us to spend all this money on hardware we don't need, all in the name of DRM and protecting their content?
The economic success of the US is not based on our low tax rate for the ultra rich. That's simply a gross over simplification. Our economic success is based on our good infrastructure, innovative ideas, hard work, sheer size, diverse population, and many other factors. It just doesn't follow to suggest that if we had lower CEO salaries or higher taxes for the ultra wealthy, great ideas like the micro proccessor or PC would have been invented in another country.
Forget about all of the facts and figures for a second and let me present you with an argument that has just one number: 440. That's the length, in feet, of MS founder Paul Allen's biggest yacht. It's not his only yacht, nor his only extravagant expense, not by a long shot. But forget exactly how many other boats he owns, how many people crew his boats, what he pays them, how much his gas costs, and all of the other numbers. Just answer this for me: does it seem fair for one man to control so much wealth in a nation where children go hungry every day?
I think you need to do more research on the distribution of wealth, because you contradict yourself. You say that it's "insane" for 10% of people to own 90% of listed companies shares. This implies that you believe that, in a larger sense, it would be wrong for a small minority of citizens to control the vast majority of wealth. On that much, we agree.
But while more ordinary people own shares than before, this is not the same as having wealth. In the old days, owning shares literally meant a share of the profits, in the form of dividends. Nowadays, most companies do not pay dividends, or if they do, they pay out only a tiny fraction of the profits. That means that stock ownership isn't really ownership, in the truest sense of the word. If I owned Acme Widget company in it's entirety, you can bet that I would get 100% of the profit. If own one millionth of Microsoft, do I get one millionth of the profit? I certainly do not. What I get instead is a piece of the speculative market for MS shares. And as the lancing of the dotcom bubble proved, the stock market is not a perpetual wealth generating machine - not for anyone who is not at the top rung of the corporate ladder.
By focusing on ownership of corporate shares, you have failed to consider the larger question of distribution of wealth in general. I recommend this site:
It graphs the distribution of income in this country by representing the population of the US as living on a football field, with their annual income represented by a stack of 100 dollar bills. The median family dwells exactly on the 50 yard line, and makes about 40 thousand dollars a year. That stack of Benjamins is just 1.5 inches high. The family on the 95 yard line earns about $100,000 per year, a stack of $100 bills about 4 inches high. At the 99 yard line the income is about $300,000, a stack of $100 bills about a foot high.
And then a really odd thing happens. The stacks of bills don't keep getting a little bit higher. They start to shoot straight up into the sky(the L shaped "curve" that the site's title refers to). So how high does that stack get at the 100th yard, in Bill Gates territory? It's a stack of 100 dollar bills 30 miles high.
That's the best explaination I've heard yet, but it just doesn't seem too jedi of them to give up. They just mope around the hovel for 20 years, making rocks float around and eating that crappy gruel? Sad.
Maybe they could see into the future enough to know that training Luke from a young age would lead to his discovery by Vader. Once they waited, Vader was busy with other things. Still, if I'm Vader, and I know that the force runs in families, I'd be tearing the galaxy apart looking for my kid, and I'd start with my own home world. I'd torture the heck out of Lars, just in case he knew something. He knew that Amidala died, but he had no reason to assume that the baby died.
The plot hole that really gets me (and this guy does a good job of dispelling several potential holes) is why not just train Luke and Leia in the ways of the force from day one.
And why not have a more proactive approach to taking Vader and the Emperor out? Why wait until he's built his ultimate weapon, and only then try get Ben to somehow do something about it? If Luke and Leia had been properly trained, they could have tryed to assasinate the Emperor and Vader simultaneously, before the deathstar was operational, and thus behead the empire before a planet (Alderaan) ends up getting destroyed. Bloody sloppy.
The same thing occured to me, and I think there are two ways out of it. One, no one ever said that construction on the second deathstar began right after the first one was destroyed. They could have started much earlier, just to have a backup. Also, it's possible that the first one was delayed by unforeseen engineering challenges. No one had ever built such a device before. But once they had made one, they were experienced deathstar builders, and so were able to built the second much faster.
It's not even the gore so much, but the psychological horror that gave me nightmares (and I'm 33 year old man). That pov shot where the visor slides over his face is just chilling. He's a prisoner of his mistakes. It was the most powerful moment of the PT, to me... until the NOOOOOOO ruined it.
That was a truly awful moment in cinema history. I'm mostly a prequel trilogy apologist... but that was just bad. I did like how Vader lurched off his plaform just like Frankenstein's monster. The little shoutouts to old movies are cool.
The kid is correct. Lucas has said in the past that the original trilogy is told from the point of view of the droids. That's not nearly as true of the prequel trilogy, but nevertheless, the droids are the only characters to figure prominently in all six movies, especially Artoo.
All true, but isn't there a good chance that the eventual redemption of Vader means more, since the kid watched the little fella grow up? Isn't Vader now a much more three dimensional character for the whole original trilogy now? I can understand you point, but there are also benefits to doing it the other way.
Shawn
Ok, a different timeline is one thing, but the word "before" just can't be correct. The whole enterprise series by definition takes place long after the time of Cochran and Company. Not before - after.
I understand what you're saying... you mean that from the point of view of Archer and crew, the past has not yet been sullied by the intrustion of the Borg and Picard. I'm not really sure what difference that makes though, since it's been established that Picard and co "fixed" the past so that it was close enough to what had originally occured that there were no significant differences.
That being the case, then why does it matter if Archer is in the same timeline or not? It's a given that the future can be changed... we've seen that again and again. So anything that happens to Archer has ramifications for all subsequent events. But if Berman was so bold as to say that events had become so messed up that all of the things in previous shows didn't happen, wouldn't we then have to form a mob and KILL him?
Shawn
A trekkie who has had sex with actual girls... and has the pictures to prove it.
I worked at a company that made scanners several years back, and like most high tech firms, they didn't handle their own rebates. They hired a special rebate company to do it. A good number of people just plain fail to mail in their rebate forms, and that's how the rebate folks make their money. The statistic that was quoted to me at the time was that for a 50 dollar rebate, only 50 percent of the people managed to mail their forms in. For a ten dollar rebate, only ten perent of customers mailed their stuff in. I have no idea how true that was, but it seemed to make sense, given the fact that I've never mailed a rebate coupon in at all, for any amount.
Rebates are an entirely sleazy practice, but then again, what isn't in big business these days? It's just another example of how corporate america makes people jump through hoops to get basic service, in the hopes that most people will just give up.
I just pretend the rebates don't exist, in the hopes that they'll go away. I look only at the price that I'm paying going out the door - if that doesn't work for me, I buy something else.
Shawn
Slashdot Mirror
I think that calling yourself "mensa babe" constitutes flamebait.
Touche! That's why I come to the dot, for the clever repartee!
Look, d00d, I'm not some kind of grammer cop. I only correct people who make their gramatical errors in the course of a snobbish dismissal of other people's educations.
There are many compelling reasons to get a degree that have nothing to do with learning. I think the reason I put college off for years was that older people kept telling me to find something I was "passionate" about, and I did - but none of those things offered a realistic chance to earn a living. Most of the jobs that pay well, it turns out, are decidedly NOT fun. That's why you have to pay people so much to do them.
So I say, don't tell this guy that he needs to love what he does. He needs to make money and feed himself. He can be passionate about watching football on sunday like everyone else.
Jobs, and school, are not really about enjoyment.
Obviously you didn't go to any university at all, or you wouldn't be ending your sentences with prepositions.
Do you honestly think that the person to whom you replied has an IQ between 51 and 70? Oh no, I see, you were simply name-calling. Lovely. Go tell your wife what you just did, you need a time out
I don't agree with your assessment of the author's intelligence. The fact is that making video games is essentialy "show biz" in some people's minds, and that means that they will make extraordinary sacrifices to be part of it.
As someone who has actually worked for EA (as a temp, but still, they let me inside the redwood shores compound) I can say that many people in their 20's are willing to live in a house that they share with 3 other guys in order to be part of the gaming industry. Plenty of guys in their 30's and 40's, too! This might come as a shock to you, but not all geeks are married.
Not all benefits can be measured in dollars and cents. The fact that they really enjoy the products they create is worth a lot to these people. That's how EA gets away with it. The phenomenon is regrettable, but it happens in all facets of the entertainment industry. People even sometimes do things a lot worse that working like a slave to get in the door at these places. That's Show Biz!
So to ole "rovingeyes", let me say, I'm sorry that you hate your job at Dunder Mifflin so much, and I'm sorry that Peg and the kids aren't grateful, but don't call people names. It's rude.
That's a very good reason, and it's what I assumed at first, except that the movie specifically says that the alliance denies the existance of the reavers. This makes sense because they are responsible for the reavers in the first place. They are trying to cover the incident up at any cost. So why leave all this evidence around?
And I'll be really impressed if you can come up with a sensible reason why the reavers don't kill each other in bathroom-related disputes. Or over who takes out the garbage. Or whatever. My roomie and I can barely stay civil, and we're not cooped up in a space ship. Did anyone see Das Boot? It's rough when you're in cramped conditions with a bunch of smelly d00ds. Even if you're not homicidal with rage.
There is no way to explain why beings who are literally frothing with homicidal rage do not turn on each other. Or how they manage to be coherent enough to make repairs to a space ship.
And while we're on the subject, why does the 'empire' not simply go exterminate them?
I'm not sure what sort of lifestyle you're used to, but for me, 400 dollars is never "paying modestly". I have to trade a week of my life to get some one to give me that amount of money. So I never part with four Franklins unless I'm getting something in return that is really, really good. I'm happy for you that your personal fortune is so vast. That is not the case for many others. So what do I get for my money? A piece of hardware that replicates the functions of the PC I already have. I use my PC for lots of things, not just playing games. I really can't just skip the PC and use my console instead. It can't do half the things my computer can do. So, if I want to play these console games, I need to buy an additional piece of hardware that serves no additional function. That's just plain crazy. Standardization has existed in the PC game industry for a long time. Microsoft enforces standards with an iron fist. There's no need for consoles to get developers to use Direct X. They have been for years. And even if they don't, there are other ways to create and promote standards. You might have read a little something about this kind of thing here on slashdot. I couldn't agree more on the whole "vegging in front of the couch" argument. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but it's not against the law to put your computer in front of a couch, just as though it were a small TVl. I do, and it works great. So I'm not sure what you're talking about there. As far as the cost of keeping my PC current, it's close to zero. Like I said before, I needed the PC for other functions already. And practically any game will play on a modest system these days. Game manufacturers understand that the greater your hardware requirements, the smaller your potential pool of customers. Yes, there will always be a latest and greatest generation of games that is unavailable to me, but those same games are always unavailable to console gameers as well. So why are you so eager to apologize for the corporate hegemoney that is trying to get us to spend all this money on hardware we don't need, all in the name of DRM and protecting their content?
The economic success of the US is not based on our low tax rate for the ultra rich. That's simply a gross over simplification. Our economic success is based on our good infrastructure, innovative ideas, hard work, sheer size, diverse population, and many other factors. It just doesn't follow to suggest that if we had lower CEO salaries or higher taxes for the ultra wealthy, great ideas like the micro proccessor or PC would have been invented in another country.
Forget about all of the facts and figures for a second and let me present you with an argument that has just one number: 440. That's the length, in feet, of MS founder Paul Allen's biggest yacht. It's not his only yacht, nor his only extravagant expense, not by a long shot. But forget exactly how many other boats he owns, how many people crew his boats, what he pays them, how much his gas costs, and all of the other numbers. Just answer this for me: does it seem fair for one man to control so much wealth in a nation where children go hungry every day?
I think you need to do more research on the distribution of wealth, because you contradict yourself. You say that it's "insane" for 10% of people to own 90% of listed companies shares. This implies that you believe that, in a larger sense, it would be wrong for a small minority of citizens to control the vast majority of wealth. On that much, we agree. But while more ordinary people own shares than before, this is not the same as having wealth. In the old days, owning shares literally meant a share of the profits, in the form of dividends. Nowadays, most companies do not pay dividends, or if they do, they pay out only a tiny fraction of the profits. That means that stock ownership isn't really ownership, in the truest sense of the word. If I owned Acme Widget company in it's entirety, you can bet that I would get 100% of the profit. If own one millionth of Microsoft, do I get one millionth of the profit? I certainly do not. What I get instead is a piece of the speculative market for MS shares. And as the lancing of the dotcom bubble proved, the stock market is not a perpetual wealth generating machine - not for anyone who is not at the top rung of the corporate ladder.
By focusing on ownership of corporate shares, you have failed to consider the larger question of distribution of wealth in general. I recommend this site:
http://www.lcurve.org/
It graphs the distribution of income in this country by representing the population of the US as living on a football field, with their annual income represented by a stack of 100 dollar bills. The median family dwells exactly on the 50 yard line, and makes about 40 thousand dollars a year. That stack of Benjamins is just 1.5 inches high. The family on the 95 yard line earns about $100,000 per year, a stack of $100 bills about 4 inches high. At the 99 yard line the income is about $300,000, a stack of $100 bills about a foot high.
And then a really odd thing happens. The stacks of bills don't keep getting a little bit higher. They start to shoot straight up into the sky(the L shaped "curve" that the site's title refers to). So how high does that stack get at the 100th yard, in Bill Gates territory? It's a stack of 100 dollar bills 30 miles high.
Does that seem sane or insane to you, Robert?
That's the best explaination I've heard yet, but it just doesn't seem too jedi of them to give up. They just mope around the hovel for 20 years, making rocks float around and eating that crappy gruel? Sad.
Maybe they could see into the future enough to know that training Luke from a young age would lead to his discovery by Vader. Once they waited, Vader was busy with other things. Still, if I'm Vader, and I know that the force runs in families, I'd be tearing the galaxy apart looking for my kid, and I'd start with my own home world. I'd torture the heck out of Lars, just in case he knew something. He knew that Amidala died, but he had no reason to assume that the baby died.
The plot hole that really gets me (and this guy does a good job of dispelling several potential holes) is why not just train Luke and Leia in the ways of the force from day one. And why not have a more proactive approach to taking Vader and the Emperor out? Why wait until he's built his ultimate weapon, and only then try get Ben to somehow do something about it? If Luke and Leia had been properly trained, they could have tryed to assasinate the Emperor and Vader simultaneously, before the deathstar was operational, and thus behead the empire before a planet (Alderaan) ends up getting destroyed. Bloody sloppy.
The same thing occured to me, and I think there are two ways out of it. One, no one ever said that construction on the second deathstar began right after the first one was destroyed. They could have started much earlier, just to have a backup. Also, it's possible that the first one was delayed by unforeseen engineering challenges. No one had ever built such a device before. But once they had made one, they were experienced deathstar builders, and so were able to built the second much faster.
It's not even the gore so much, but the psychological horror that gave me nightmares (and I'm 33 year old man). That pov shot where the visor slides over his face is just chilling. He's a prisoner of his mistakes. It was the most powerful moment of the PT, to me... until the NOOOOOOO ruined it.
That was a truly awful moment in cinema history. I'm mostly a prequel trilogy apologist... but that was just bad. I did like how Vader lurched off his plaform just like Frankenstein's monster. The little shoutouts to old movies are cool.
The kid is correct. Lucas has said in the past that the original trilogy is told from the point of view of the droids. That's not nearly as true of the prequel trilogy, but nevertheless, the droids are the only characters to figure prominently in all six movies, especially Artoo.
You are more bound to side with the good folks who:
- killed kids
- enslaved the wookies
- destroyed the weaponless planet Alderaan
- yada yada yada
You MUST be a Republican. Heil Bush!
All true, but isn't there a good chance that the eventual redemption of Vader means more, since the kid watched the little fella grow up? Isn't Vader now a much more three dimensional character for the whole original trilogy now? I can understand you point, but there are also benefits to doing it the other way. Shawn
Ok, a different timeline is one thing, but the word "before" just can't be correct. The whole enterprise series by definition takes place long after the time of Cochran and Company. Not before - after.
I understand what you're saying... you mean that from the point of view of Archer and crew, the past has not yet been sullied by the intrustion of the Borg and Picard. I'm not really sure what difference that makes though, since it's been established that Picard and co "fixed" the past so that it was close enough to what had originally occured that there were no significant differences.
That being the case, then why does it matter if Archer is in the same timeline or not? It's a given that the future can be changed... we've seen that again and again. So anything that happens to Archer has ramifications for all subsequent events. But if Berman was so bold as to say that events had become so messed up that all of the things in previous shows didn't happen, wouldn't we then have to form a mob and KILL him?
Shawn
A trekkie who has had sex with actual girls... and has the pictures to prove it.
I worked at a company that made scanners several years back, and like most high tech firms, they didn't handle their own rebates. They hired a special rebate company to do it. A good number of people just plain fail to mail in their rebate forms, and that's how the rebate folks make their money. The statistic that was quoted to me at the time was that for a 50 dollar rebate, only 50 percent of the people managed to mail their forms in. For a ten dollar rebate, only ten perent of customers mailed their stuff in. I have no idea how true that was, but it seemed to make sense, given the fact that I've never mailed a rebate coupon in at all, for any amount. Rebates are an entirely sleazy practice, but then again, what isn't in big business these days? It's just another example of how corporate america makes people jump through hoops to get basic service, in the hopes that most people will just give up. I just pretend the rebates don't exist, in the hopes that they'll go away. I look only at the price that I'm paying going out the door - if that doesn't work for me, I buy something else. Shawn