Okay,
Maybe George Jetson has a great treadmill, which he takes his dog Astro on for a quick jog every day (depends on what this "crazy thing" is set to) for exercise, but if some folks didn't get the exercise of walking everywhere they can...
That 200 mark will be a little
low pretty soon.
Considering this company also makes those electric scooter-style wheelchairs (which may even cost more), I think Segway's goal is to increase obesity in the world so they can sell more of these darned things.
If you want to cruise to work and not look like a complete loser, try a skateboard, one of those scooters, or a variety of human-powered modes of slow transportation. At the very least, go on a televator strapped to a snowboard. More surface area on a televator means more traction, which means a higher top-speed. No shoes to catch, plus a stable base means no transition problems. And, when you are on a snowboard, falling down is cool anyway.
I think Star Trek has dwindling merit for entertainment. I would prefer a dizzying series of CG space combat footage with absolutely no story to "yet another time paradox/subspace anomaly episode." ST: Enterprise is exhibiting the Star Trek "signs of desperation" at the outset:
Decontamination rub-downs.
The Borg (a.k.a. crowd-pleaser ace in the hole.
Popular plot re-use (I'm waiting for a re-make of Trouble with Tribbles)
If Paramont has any brains at the helm, The Enterprise NX will shut down its warp reactor, and maybe we can hop aboard some other part of the vast Roddenberry world for six months to a year. Maybe its time we spent a season on the Vulcan homeworld, aboard a rather nondescript mining ship (complete with a pet cat), or a Romulan game show network. The door is wide open to explore anything other than a naval environment.
Imagine a "Golden Age of Sail" version of Star Trek. There's insubordination, dalliances with the natives, disease, and the occasional unexplained phenomena, topped off with altercations that bring a government to the brink of war. Sailing ships (especially pirate ships) were a commonplace multiethnic environment, just as Kirk's Enterprise (and all thereafter) are depicted. I'm imagining the clever banter while Ensigns Kim and Perris huff and puff in a longboat"
"Hey, (huff), uh Harry?"
"Yeah, what's up? (gasp)"
"This rowing is a real back-breaker."
"Tell me about it. When I get back Port, I am going to get to work on building that rotary oar idea I've had. I've been studying Archimedes' work on screws, and I think there's something there."
"When I get back to Port, I think I'll do my own study on screws!"
(contented pirate-cackling...)
We've all been to the Happiest Place on Earth, right? I recall that the Haunted Mansion had a moving walkway, which allowed you to join in on the even-faster-moving bubble cart chairs in a safe transition.
I also seem to recall this technology has been used in an open-top cart ride of some sort, where the entire cart is moved by a conveyor belt.
So, it seems to me, if they produced some sort of televator "skiff" (looks like a tall carnival bumper car) they could put a minimalist bench, or steadying bar for the elderly/inebriated/easily spooked. The only requirement would be that the thing went in a loop; perhaps not everyone was required to use it, either. I realize this is more expensive, but I think it would be cheaper than say 6 lawsuits or so. Think of it like the grocery carts with the "infant seats," there will always be a few. Plus, the added benefit of a cool rubbing noise during the belt transition would be a real plus. Probably almost as entertaining as seeing the first guy on a wheelchair trying out the existing televator:
"Hey, this thing is broken, I'm not going anywhere...(thud!) Oh, Hi!...(thud, thud thud) Now it's working, thanks everyone, you can get up now!"
If you want to take this idea a step further, make it an enclosed skiff, oodles more comfortable, charge a fee, and run the skiffs across the country. If you toss out the "supports people on foot" component, you can make the belts simpler, put them on inclines, run them much faster (might need a guide rail in windy outside regions), etc.
For added effect, if you made them buoyant and balanced, you could run them on the downhill stretch of the California Aqueduct through the "Grapevine pass" (if you took out the concrete berms). That'd be a real blast.
You know, the more I think about this, the better it sounds. Road repairs cost billions of dollars a year in the USA. The road damage comes from trying to maintain a continuous "pavement" of some sort, which is pounded on by the elements, and subjected to extreme weight and temperature changes. By instead maintaining a rolling lane, you can make repairs by "bringing the road" with you on a service vehicle, and attaching either a new belt or new rollers, making for very fast repairs. I don't know a ton about the electrical requirements, but it is conceivable that a segment could be self-sustaining with something like a low-maintenance heat pump, instead of an expensive windmill or solar panels. Shoot, we could finally find a use for all that rad waste: thermocouples.
Does anyone know the electrical requirements?
Without really getting into a re-cap of several centuries of military and political history, I'd like to point out that these Muslim invaders reached the gates of Paris around 700 AD, and your glib stereotype of Christian oppression is propagated only by the undereducated or American public schools, which one might argue is an equivalence set.
As long as we are going to get a smidge technical, let's turn to the Muslim holy book, the Q'uran:
The Prophet said, "Before long, you the Arabs will conquer many countries and cities. Qazvin, shall be one of such places. The person who takes part in that battle for forty nights or forty days, will be given a gold pillar in paradise encrusted with jades and rubies. He will enjoy residing in a palace, having seventy thousand gates, and each gate shall be attended by a houri (virgin girl for sex) and his wife." (Ibn-E-Majah, Vol. 2, p. 169)
I'm sure there's some relevant Nietsche quote that could fit in here nicely about the evils of religion, but I won't honor his memory.
I think the lesson overall is that religion has been central to the themes of many wars, but that with the fall of effective monarchy (except Thailand) where a "protector of the faith" king rules the land outright, our more contemporary governments, where the government does not control the religion, and its leadership is chosen by the masses, have given us many years of relatively peaceful times. Incidentally, Thomas Jefferson's discussion of separation between church and state is how I have just said, and is not bilateral, as the ACLU puts it, but then, if you haven't read up on the history of the Middle Ages, you haven't even heard of the Federalist Papers, much less investigated the validity of this "new doctrine" of 21st century atheist lawyers.
On the topic of video games, Big Idea Productions has multiple titles which are Christian-based. Sure, no ego-shooters, but the Mystery of Veggie Island is an excellent Christian title. Honestly, the lessons within that game are common to just good upbringing, they make no mention of specific theological distinctions, and teach the value of sharing and helping others.
As for door-to-door evangelism, I also find it annoying when a JW (Jehovah's Witness) or Mormon comes and starts a discussion with me, finds out I'm a Christian, yet still pursues to share the "doom and freaking gloom" message of end times, naively expecting I'm unread on the subject, and easily "scared" into going to a Kingdom Hall with them. I can't imagine how that sells to an atheist. There are more loving, personal ways to invite people to attend church, and consider a new life. They don't translate to action video games, however.
It is my hope, MacDaddy357, that you view this response as an invitation to explore the true history behind your views of the Crusades. Truly, you will find a far kinder balance of events than your perception has offered.
I was stuck with a term to describe Cable and Digital Satellite. A broadcast means "thrown broadly" which is totally off for a cable signal.
So, subscribed transmission? I'm at a loss for a good term.
Since I am good friends with a former Master Control Operator at the local ABC affiliate, FCC regulations do not have censorship for TV-band RF transmissions. Or, for that matter, AM and FM. It is the people who create the censorship. This topic surfaced when Schindler's List was broadcast on ABC, uncut. If you have seen the movie, you will recall crowds of naked people. Granted, it's black and white, and was not of erotic intent, but I can't see the FCC saying "well, that's different, it had artistic value."
Think about it. We see brutal massacres on television, no censorship there, live footage of people jumping to their deaths from the World Trade Center... There's no good taste left in broadcast TV. So eventually, we will see "Running Cuban," a show where brave families take on the treacherous journey between Cuba and the United States, on the most unsafe of watercrafts, fending off bloodthirsty sharks, all to escape the brutal tyranny of a washed up dictator. I don't know about you, but I could see former Governor Jesse Ventura (who was in Running Man) hosting this one. He shocked the world by going on a trade mission down there.
If you want a flying car, then visit The Volantor Website . It reminds me of the dozens of XPrize websites: several advancements, very creative, but nothing for sale or public use. I just hope at least half these companies/ideas don't go the way of the SegWay.
Censorship in the United States broadcast television is voluntary and cultural. Also, if every bprogram was rated Y14 LSV (for Vampire Violence, crude humor, and tedious use of four-letter words), your only buying market would be the teenage-college age demographic and the trash-poor WWF/E fan base. In short, you'd lose advertising customers fast.
Consider the ugly language in the LotR trilogy. It is even more impacting, imaginative, quotable even. The reason cussing is also called vulgar is because it is the commoner's way of talking. The movie would not be nearly so successful, were it to take the well-trodden path of words for excrement, sex or prostitution, anatomy, and technical terms of animal husbandry. Of course, in that scenario, it would have been directed by Adam Sandler.
The script of Gollum's acceptance speech is indicative of the LotR group's ability to fit the audience well. You know very well they would have had a similar version that wasn't so geared to the childish/modern-day-peasant mindset of "cussing is cool/entertaining."
For deleting expletives, I prefer the content reworked with a redub. It doesn't break the sound up so much (you can still hear it, though). Granted, hearing anyone utter "well, if that's the way you feel, you can kiss my eye" sounds stunted, discordant, and incongruous, yet still I find it far less hackneyed than the terse iterations of a narrow jumble of words whose only agreed definition is "offensive language."
Since I don't waste my money on paid broadcast TV (the general idea was to *not* have commercial advertisements), was the MTV award show censored when on MTV? Since when did movies have anything to do with Music Television, anyway? If they are censoring on MTV, that would suggest they are having ratings problems and can't compete with the Discovery Channel and the like... How could they compete with "Shark Week" anyway? I mean, what kind of reality show would that be? Oh wait. Running Man. If they televised the regular exodus out of Cuba, I'm sure that would come close, complete with sharks.
I attend the American College of Computer and Information Sciences. It is an online-only university. As such, some of your gripes about unavailability, idleness, they go away. My academic advisor has always been very prompt replying to my questions, and unlike the "general chat" forum you have described, there are actual chat lectures that go on, with time for questions and so forth. I think that ACCIS is particularly excellent in their ability to accomodate my educational needs. When I went to a UC college (never finished there), I paid extraordinary prices for a mumbled, broken-english professor who really just wanted to crawl back to his research lab anyway. On top of that, half the classes were taught by TA's who just graduated last year in the same subjects. At about $100 per credit hour, with a kind transfer ability, I'm in and out for far less. At ACCIS, there's no research going on, no other things to attend to, so the online education is their only business. As far as course complexity, I ranked it on par or better than my curriculum from the University of California. The math classes were more computer-science oriented than what I was used to, but having been in the field of software engineering for about 8 years now, it's far more useful on average, unless you are doing computer graphics (in which case all math is relevant, even the evil stuff).
Some guy, probably David Ingbretson if my memory serves me correctly, kept tabs on where Amigas showed up, for years.
Some links:
Hal Greenlee Interview Astronaut speaks at Amiga Tradeshow
"And Satan and the antichrist will be cast into the lake of fire, the second death, also known as the Blue Screen of Death."
Most of these views are based out of old book written by a prisoner about 1950 years ago, on some island in the Mediterranean Sea.
Well, actually, technically, two books. The other was written by a bureaucrat/sorceror in ancient Babylon, during the reign of King Darius. Both were and still are widely regarded as prophets and seers of the future and of another world/plane of existence. Both books have consistent prophecies, and the first prophet correctly predicted the fall of Babylon.
All I'm saying is, if it's all quiet on the West Bank, well, it might be a good time to stock up on canned goods. Saddam Hussein wants to rebuild Babylon, and hey, that's another sign! Since he's not dead, he has done better than Alexander the Great (who died quite young) and various other leaders from the Babylon/Baghdad area who tried to rebuild Babylon but were killed. Of course, Alexander the Great was no coward.
So, the US, France and the rest of the people who have tried have about 35 years to get this Israel-Palestine thing patched up.
If you'd like to read the prophecies, they are at:
The Book of Daniel
and The Revelation
As with most things of this sort, it's pretty wacky stuff, and some of it may be in poem form. It isn't vague like Nostradamus, it's just not very simplistic. Nostradamus I think is credited with saying that two Popes after the really old man from Poland, well, that's supposed to be the last.
I am *definitely* sure the world will end then. I mean, All those Unix servers, Amigas, some of the Macs, if people didn't fix it at Y2K, who is going to remember in such an odd year as 2038? If nothing else, it will bring NASA to a grinding halt, as I recall they do their launch control on Amigas still (someone fron NASA verify this?)
For all you peace-lovers, don't forget, Armageddon after 7 years of world peace, and then all Heaven and all Hell's gonna break loose!
This is ludicrist.
No one raises their child to speak only Klingon. I mean, if all they watch on TV is Star Trek, they are still going to pick up a human language, if not from the longue-wagging manner of some Trek characters, then at the very least will get something out of commercials!
It sounds to me like the mental institute is a real sink-hole for taxpayer dollars for this to become noteworthy.
Were I a mental health professional, I'd just ask the patient to help me learn Klingon.
The last cut in the trailer did scream Harry Potter, yikes! What would add to it is the addition of children uttering spells (which are either rhymes, Latin, or rhymes in Latin, it seems), weird ghastly creatures, and a big steam engine. Well, there are those two ghost creatures in the trailer, so I guess it's down to Latin and locomotives.
I find fault with a gamer's lifestyle. Video games consume waay too much time. An aversion to the decadent society, I suppose. There's nothing admirable about it. Don't tell me you go to family reunions and start blathering on to relatives you rarely see about how you spend 40 hours a week playing video games, and yet don't find the time to correspond with them. It's about priorities. Video games are immensely more important than writing a letter to grandma once a month?
BTW, I'm no saint, nor am I a gamer. I like collaborative environments a fair bit, and have been involved in them since Regenesis in '92, but it is more about making something with other people. Collaborative art/programming, not mob-slaying.
I am a semi-regular at one IRC channel. I consider it a rarity, but we have a 'bot named Darxide that can do dictionary look-ups for spelling, and another named Kai that does definition searches. As a result, our channel is decidedly not very tolerant of most misspellings. You get corrected, in other words. And as for dangling participles, there are a couple tired souls who do their best to make horrid jokes at every grammatical construct that offers an ambiguity worthy of humorous misinterpretation.
I have noticed my son comes home with "expressive" spelling in his kindergarten class. Whatever happened to flash cards and spelling tests? If he's going on IRC, he's going on my channel, where they do not tolerate the passable atrocities of public education. I think it is the high percentage of Swedes and Norwegians on the channel, who learned English as a second language, that account for the diligence.
Agreed.
I'm trying to imagine the parents of this respected psychologist saying "darn that kid, he should get outside and play with other kids." I have no respect for any psychologist who finds it acceptable for someone to sink 40 hours a week into a single video game. There's so much more to life than what comes on a 15-21 inch glowing screen with stereo speakers.
I wonder whether the guy would say it is healthy for people to spend 40 hours a week having sex? I mean, "it's not an addiction, they just really like it?" 40 hours a week drinking or watching porn "it's not an addiction, they just really like it?" Okay, this guy obviously didn't read the slashdot article about the kid in Asia who died from dehydration/sleep deprivation/constipation because he played video games for 80 hours straight.
Let's not forget that psychologists around the world think pedophilia is healthy for both parties. Is it any wonder that people who first get into psychology do so because of the "profound effect it has had on close family members?"
A case has been made that this psychologist is a nutcase. 40 hours a week playing Yahoo! Towers is not an addiction, it is a nightmare. If you want social interaction at odd hours of the night, get a night job at a gas station. Pick the right neighborhood, and I guarantee you it will be exciting.
-- Vexar (the original)
I agree, it's not an open language, but the environment is largely free for non-commercial purposes. This is the second time someone has known of REBOL and told me to look at Python, so I think it may be time that I do.
Still, you can't deny the ease at which one can write a useful internet application. The comment of the Anonymous poster suggests there's still a resistance to languages that are not strictly iterative. I think a program really should be reducible to a FSM with structure/object definitions and interfaces. Here's to coding in Visio!
I'm unimpressed with this article. He's clearly a goober, as shown with some of his periphery, and thus, he's not thinking straight on obvious levels.
Sure, he knows some languages, and there's no reason he should mention them all, but come on... datatypes, nnd interpreted versus compiled languages? That's truly uninspired and sophmoric. Sure, he has a point about Moore's Law, but the thing that works against Moore's Law is the complexity of the task.
The #1 issue with programming I have is its inability to concisely communicate complex thought. One might argue that a language is all about grammar. Well, grammar is all about precise syntax, except in some rare, but inspiring languages, where it is fast and loose.
I, for one, really hope there aren't traditional programming languages in 100 years. Certainly not orders of magnitude more. It'd mean that people just 'gave up' trying to create general purpose AI. HTML, for example, went from a text markup language to an awful ghetto-wall jumble in about 10 years, with embedded languages and functionality. It is painfully clear to me that as our systems become more complex, our human ability to render the language unintelligible seems to increase.
The only inpsired language effort I've seen of late is REBOL, which is an interpreted effort that runs on something like 11 operating systems, and has inherent TCP/IP, sound, and graphics support. Although syntax is a bit unusual to a programmer, it is highly configurable. People are writing mail clients with a real GUI in ~100 lines of code. Sure, it may not have the ability of Outlook to run embedded viruses in attached files, but I'm betting you could add that in under 10 lines.
I think REBOL is the near future, just like 10 years ago, I thought the Amiga is the future. Trouble is, who dictates the future? Marketing. So, how much will marketing slow us down? Will it take 100 years to get acceptance for something like REBOL, or will we just see the ghetto-tagged edifices of.NET (what is.NET?), and the approaching incoherence of HTML?
Try looking at your code sometime from a narrative vantage. Is it fluent? Structured? Balanced? Poetic? Or clever and crafty, tricky, and obtuse, like a mystic spell or linguistic riddle?
-Vexar (The original)
Fellow Geeks,
Go visit the American Library Association's website sometime: www.ala.org Librarians are a mixed bag of people, naturally, but when you get right down to it, they service a huge point of presence on the internet, for those who use it. Where I live, there was a substantial, multi-segment news investigation about the libraries downtown being used for wanking off in public.
The ALA uses the first Amendment as an opportunity for exploitation. Heaven forbid they prevent people from going to porn sites, and wanking off, 20 feet from the children's book area. Read this: http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=CIP A&templ ate=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentI D=21667
Apparently, it's "Unconstitutional" to block porn sites in public libraries. You know what they say, people who get jobs that are around children, some of them are child molesters...
Slashdot Mirror
Considering this company also makes those electric scooter-style wheelchairs (which may even cost more), I think Segway's goal is to increase obesity in the world so they can sell more of these darned things.
If you want to cruise to work and not look like a complete loser, try a skateboard, one of those scooters, or a variety of human-powered modes of slow transportation. At the very least, go on a televator strapped to a snowboard. More surface area on a televator means more traction, which means a higher top-speed. No shoes to catch, plus a stable base means no transition problems. And, when you are on a snowboard, falling down is cool anyway.
If Paramont has any brains at the helm, The Enterprise NX will shut down its warp reactor, and maybe we can hop aboard some other part of the vast Roddenberry world for six months to a year. Maybe its time we spent a season on the Vulcan homeworld, aboard a rather nondescript mining ship (complete with a pet cat), or a Romulan game show network. The door is wide open to explore anything other than a naval environment.
Imagine a "Golden Age of Sail" version of Star Trek. There's insubordination, dalliances with the natives, disease, and the occasional unexplained phenomena, topped off with altercations that bring a government to the brink of war. Sailing ships (especially pirate ships) were a commonplace multiethnic environment, just as Kirk's Enterprise (and all thereafter) are depicted. I'm imagining the clever banter while Ensigns Kim and Perris huff and puff in a longboat"
"Hey, (huff), uh Harry?"
"Yeah, what's up? (gasp)"
"This rowing is a real back-breaker."
"Tell me about it. When I get back Port, I am going to get to work on building that rotary oar idea I've had. I've been studying Archimedes' work on screws, and I think there's something there."
"When I get back to Port, I think I'll do my own study on screws!"
(contented pirate-cackling...)
We've all been to the Happiest Place on Earth, right? I recall that the Haunted Mansion had a moving walkway, which allowed you to join in on the even-faster-moving bubble cart chairs in a safe transition. ...(thud, thud thud) Now it's working, thanks everyone, you can get up now!"
I also seem to recall this technology has been used in an open-top cart ride of some sort, where the entire cart is moved by a conveyor belt.
So, it seems to me, if they produced some sort of televator "skiff" (looks like a tall carnival bumper car) they could put a minimalist bench, or steadying bar for the elderly/inebriated/easily spooked. The only requirement would be that the thing went in a loop; perhaps not everyone was required to use it, either. I realize this is more expensive, but I think it would be cheaper than say 6 lawsuits or so. Think of it like the grocery carts with the "infant seats," there will always be a few. Plus, the added benefit of a cool rubbing noise during the belt transition would be a real plus. Probably almost as entertaining as seeing the first guy on a wheelchair trying out the existing televator:
"Hey, this thing is broken, I'm not going anywhere...(thud!) Oh, Hi!
If you want to take this idea a step further, make it an enclosed skiff, oodles more comfortable, charge a fee, and run the skiffs across the country. If you toss out the "supports people on foot" component, you can make the belts simpler, put them on inclines, run them much faster (might need a guide rail in windy outside regions), etc.
For added effect, if you made them buoyant and balanced, you could run them on the downhill stretch of the California Aqueduct through the "Grapevine pass" (if you took out the concrete berms). That'd be a real blast.
You know, the more I think about this, the better it sounds. Road repairs cost billions of dollars a year in the USA. The road damage comes from trying to maintain a continuous "pavement" of some sort, which is pounded on by the elements, and subjected to extreme weight and temperature changes. By instead maintaining a rolling lane, you can make repairs by "bringing the road" with you on a service vehicle, and attaching either a new belt or new rollers, making for very fast repairs. I don't know a ton about the electrical requirements, but it is conceivable that a segment could be self-sustaining with something like a low-maintenance heat pump, instead of an expensive windmill or solar panels. Shoot, we could finally find a use for all that rad waste: thermocouples.
Does anyone know the electrical requirements?
Without really getting into a re-cap of several centuries of military and political history, I'd like to point out that these Muslim invaders reached the gates of Paris around 700 AD, and your glib stereotype of Christian oppression is propagated only by the undereducated or American public schools, which one might argue is an equivalence set. As long as we are going to get a smidge technical, let's turn to the Muslim holy book, the Q'uran: The Prophet said, "Before long, you the Arabs will conquer many countries and cities. Qazvin, shall be one of such places. The person who takes part in that battle for forty nights or forty days, will be given a gold pillar in paradise encrusted with jades and rubies. He will enjoy residing in a palace, having seventy thousand gates, and each gate shall be attended by a houri (virgin girl for sex) and his wife." (Ibn-E-Majah, Vol. 2, p. 169) I'm sure there's some relevant Nietsche quote that could fit in here nicely about the evils of religion, but I won't honor his memory. I think the lesson overall is that religion has been central to the themes of many wars, but that with the fall of effective monarchy (except Thailand) where a "protector of the faith" king rules the land outright, our more contemporary governments, where the government does not control the religion, and its leadership is chosen by the masses, have given us many years of relatively peaceful times. Incidentally, Thomas Jefferson's discussion of separation between church and state is how I have just said, and is not bilateral, as the ACLU puts it, but then, if you haven't read up on the history of the Middle Ages, you haven't even heard of the Federalist Papers, much less investigated the validity of this "new doctrine" of 21st century atheist lawyers. On the topic of video games, Big Idea Productions has multiple titles which are Christian-based. Sure, no ego-shooters, but the Mystery of Veggie Island is an excellent Christian title. Honestly, the lessons within that game are common to just good upbringing, they make no mention of specific theological distinctions, and teach the value of sharing and helping others. As for door-to-door evangelism, I also find it annoying when a JW (Jehovah's Witness) or Mormon comes and starts a discussion with me, finds out I'm a Christian, yet still pursues to share the "doom and freaking gloom" message of end times, naively expecting I'm unread on the subject, and easily "scared" into going to a Kingdom Hall with them. I can't imagine how that sells to an atheist. There are more loving, personal ways to invite people to attend church, and consider a new life. They don't translate to action video games, however. It is my hope, MacDaddy357, that you view this response as an invitation to explore the true history behind your views of the Crusades. Truly, you will find a far kinder balance of events than your perception has offered.
So, subscribed transmission? I'm at a loss for a good term.
Since I am good friends with a former Master Control Operator at the local ABC affiliate, FCC regulations do not have censorship for TV-band RF transmissions. Or, for that matter, AM and FM. It is the people who create the censorship. This topic surfaced when Schindler's List was broadcast on ABC, uncut. If you have seen the movie, you will recall crowds of naked people. Granted, it's black and white, and was not of erotic intent, but I can't see the FCC saying "well, that's different, it had artistic value."
Think about it. We see brutal massacres on television, no censorship there, live footage of people jumping to their deaths from the World Trade Center... There's no good taste left in broadcast TV. So eventually, we will see "Running Cuban," a show where brave families take on the treacherous journey between Cuba and the United States, on the most unsafe of watercrafts, fending off bloodthirsty sharks, all to escape the brutal tyranny of a washed up dictator. I don't know about you, but I could see former Governor Jesse Ventura (who was in Running Man) hosting this one. He shocked the world by going on a trade mission down there.
NO idea what happened, other than I messed it up (and I used the preview button)
If you want a flying car, then visit The Volantor Website . It reminds me of the dozens of XPrize websites: several advancements, very creative, but nothing for sale or public use. I just hope at least half these companies/ideas don't go the way of the SegWay.
Consider the ugly language in the LotR trilogy. It is even more impacting, imaginative, quotable even. The reason cussing is also called vulgar is because it is the commoner's way of talking. The movie would not be nearly so successful, were it to take the well-trodden path of words for excrement, sex or prostitution, anatomy, and technical terms of animal husbandry. Of course, in that scenario, it would have been directed by Adam Sandler.
The script of Gollum's acceptance speech is indicative of the LotR group's ability to fit the audience well. You know very well they would have had a similar version that wasn't so geared to the childish/modern-day-peasant mindset of "cussing is cool/entertaining."
For deleting expletives, I prefer the content reworked with a redub. It doesn't break the sound up so much (you can still hear it, though). Granted, hearing anyone utter "well, if that's the way you feel, you can kiss my eye" sounds stunted, discordant, and incongruous, yet still I find it far less hackneyed than the terse iterations of a narrow jumble of words whose only agreed definition is "offensive language."
Since I don't waste my money on paid broadcast TV (the general idea was to *not* have commercial advertisements), was the MTV award show censored when on MTV? Since when did movies have anything to do with Music Television, anyway? If they are censoring on MTV, that would suggest they are having ratings problems and can't compete with the Discovery Channel and the like... How could they compete with "Shark Week" anyway? I mean, what kind of reality show would that be? Oh wait. Running Man. If they televised the regular exodus out of Cuba, I'm sure that would come close, complete with sharks.
I attend the American College of Computer and Information Sciences. It is an online-only university. As such, some of your gripes about unavailability, idleness, they go away. My academic advisor has always been very prompt replying to my questions, and unlike the "general chat" forum you have described, there are actual chat lectures that go on, with time for questions and so forth. I think that ACCIS is particularly excellent in their ability to accomodate my educational needs. When I went to a UC college (never finished there), I paid extraordinary prices for a mumbled, broken-english professor who really just wanted to crawl back to his research lab anyway. On top of that, half the classes were taught by TA's who just graduated last year in the same subjects. At about $100 per credit hour, with a kind transfer ability, I'm in and out for far less. At ACCIS, there's no research going on, no other things to attend to, so the online education is their only business. As far as course complexity, I ranked it on par or better than my curriculum from the University of California. The math classes were more computer-science oriented than what I was used to, but having been in the field of software engineering for about 8 years now, it's far more useful on average, unless you are doing computer graphics (in which case all math is relevant, even the evil stuff).
Some guy, probably David Ingbretson if my memory serves me correctly, kept tabs on where Amigas showed up, for years. Some links: Hal Greenlee Interview
Astronaut speaks at Amiga Tradeshow
"And Satan and the antichrist will be cast into the lake of fire, the second death, also known as the Blue Screen of Death."
Most of these views are based out of old book written by a prisoner about 1950 years ago, on some island in the Mediterranean Sea. Well, actually, technically, two books. The other was written by a bureaucrat/sorceror in ancient Babylon, during the reign of King Darius. Both were and still are widely regarded as prophets and seers of the future and of another world/plane of existence. Both books have consistent prophecies, and the first prophet correctly predicted the fall of Babylon. All I'm saying is, if it's all quiet on the West Bank, well, it might be a good time to stock up on canned goods. Saddam Hussein wants to rebuild Babylon, and hey, that's another sign! Since he's not dead, he has done better than Alexander the Great (who died quite young) and various other leaders from the Babylon/Baghdad area who tried to rebuild Babylon but were killed. Of course, Alexander the Great was no coward. So, the US, France and the rest of the people who have tried have about 35 years to get this Israel-Palestine thing patched up. If you'd like to read the prophecies, they are at: The Book of Daniel
and The Revelation As with most things of this sort, it's pretty wacky stuff, and some of it may be in poem form. It isn't vague like Nostradamus, it's just not very simplistic. Nostradamus I think is credited with saying that two Popes after the really old man from Poland, well, that's supposed to be the last.
I am *definitely* sure the world will end then. I mean, All those Unix servers, Amigas, some of the Macs, if people didn't fix it at Y2K, who is going to remember in such an odd year as 2038? If nothing else, it will bring NASA to a grinding halt, as I recall they do their launch control on Amigas still (someone fron NASA verify this?) For all you peace-lovers, don't forget, Armageddon after 7 years of world peace, and then all Heaven and all Hell's gonna break loose!
This is ludicrist. No one raises their child to speak only Klingon. I mean, if all they watch on TV is Star Trek, they are still going to pick up a human language, if not from the longue-wagging manner of some Trek characters, then at the very least will get something out of commercials! It sounds to me like the mental institute is a real sink-hole for taxpayer dollars for this to become noteworthy. Were I a mental health professional, I'd just ask the patient to help me learn Klingon.
The last cut in the trailer did scream Harry Potter, yikes! What would add to it is the addition of children uttering spells (which are either rhymes, Latin, or rhymes in Latin, it seems), weird ghastly creatures, and a big steam engine. Well, there are those two ghost creatures in the trailer, so I guess it's down to Latin and locomotives.
I find fault with a gamer's lifestyle. Video games consume waay too much time. An aversion to the decadent society, I suppose. There's nothing admirable about it. Don't tell me you go to family reunions and start blathering on to relatives you rarely see about how you spend 40 hours a week playing video games, and yet don't find the time to correspond with them. It's about priorities. Video games are immensely more important than writing a letter to grandma once a month? BTW, I'm no saint, nor am I a gamer. I like collaborative environments a fair bit, and have been involved in them since Regenesis in '92, but it is more about making something with other people. Collaborative art/programming, not mob-slaying.
Sounds like my comment hit a nerve with someone.
I am a semi-regular at one IRC channel. I consider it a rarity, but we have a 'bot named Darxide that can do dictionary look-ups for spelling, and another named Kai that does definition searches. As a result, our channel is decidedly not very tolerant of most misspellings. You get corrected, in other words. And as for dangling participles, there are a couple tired souls who do their best to make horrid jokes at every grammatical construct that offers an ambiguity worthy of humorous misinterpretation. I have noticed my son comes home with "expressive" spelling in his kindergarten class. Whatever happened to flash cards and spelling tests? If he's going on IRC, he's going on my channel, where they do not tolerate the passable atrocities of public education. I think it is the high percentage of Swedes and Norwegians on the channel, who learned English as a second language, that account for the diligence.
Agreed. I'm trying to imagine the parents of this respected psychologist saying "darn that kid, he should get outside and play with other kids." I have no respect for any psychologist who finds it acceptable for someone to sink 40 hours a week into a single video game. There's so much more to life than what comes on a 15-21 inch glowing screen with stereo speakers. I wonder whether the guy would say it is healthy for people to spend 40 hours a week having sex? I mean, "it's not an addiction, they just really like it?" 40 hours a week drinking or watching porn "it's not an addiction, they just really like it?" Okay, this guy obviously didn't read the slashdot article about the kid in Asia who died from dehydration/sleep deprivation/constipation because he played video games for 80 hours straight. Let's not forget that psychologists around the world think pedophilia is healthy for both parties. Is it any wonder that people who first get into psychology do so because of the "profound effect it has had on close family members?" A case has been made that this psychologist is a nutcase. 40 hours a week playing Yahoo! Towers is not an addiction, it is a nightmare. If you want social interaction at odd hours of the night, get a night job at a gas station. Pick the right neighborhood, and I guarantee you it will be exciting. -- Vexar (the original)
I agree, it's not an open language, but the environment is largely free for non-commercial purposes. This is the second time someone has known of REBOL and told me to look at Python, so I think it may be time that I do. Still, you can't deny the ease at which one can write a useful internet application. The comment of the Anonymous poster suggests there's still a resistance to languages that are not strictly iterative. I think a program really should be reducible to a FSM with structure/object definitions and interfaces. Here's to coding in Visio!
That scared the crap out of me. I need to wipe myself. Is it just our American skools churning out the mushy butter-brains, or is it a global effect?
I'm unimpressed with this article. He's clearly a goober, as shown with some of his periphery, and thus, he's not thinking straight on obvious levels. Sure, he knows some languages, and there's no reason he should mention them all, but come on... datatypes, nnd interpreted versus compiled languages? That's truly uninspired and sophmoric. Sure, he has a point about Moore's Law, but the thing that works against Moore's Law is the complexity of the task. The #1 issue with programming I have is its inability to concisely communicate complex thought. One might argue that a language is all about grammar. Well, grammar is all about precise syntax, except in some rare, but inspiring languages, where it is fast and loose. I, for one, really hope there aren't traditional programming languages in 100 years. Certainly not orders of magnitude more. It'd mean that people just 'gave up' trying to create general purpose AI. HTML, for example, went from a text markup language to an awful ghetto-wall jumble in about 10 years, with embedded languages and functionality. It is painfully clear to me that as our systems become more complex, our human ability to render the language unintelligible seems to increase. The only inpsired language effort I've seen of late is REBOL, which is an interpreted effort that runs on something like 11 operating systems, and has inherent TCP/IP, sound, and graphics support. Although syntax is a bit unusual to a programmer, it is highly configurable. People are writing mail clients with a real GUI in ~100 lines of code. Sure, it may not have the ability of Outlook to run embedded viruses in attached files, but I'm betting you could add that in under 10 lines. I think REBOL is the near future, just like 10 years ago, I thought the Amiga is the future. Trouble is, who dictates the future? Marketing. So, how much will marketing slow us down? Will it take 100 years to get acceptance for something like REBOL, or will we just see the ghetto-tagged edifices of .NET (what is .NET?), and the approaching incoherence of HTML?
Try looking at your code sometime from a narrative vantage. Is it fluent? Structured? Balanced? Poetic? Or clever and crafty, tricky, and obtuse, like a mystic spell or linguistic riddle?
-Vexar (The original)
Fellow Geeks,P A&templ ate=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentI D=21667
Go visit the American Library Association's website sometime: www.ala.org
Librarians are a mixed bag of people, naturally, but when you get right down to it, they service a huge point of presence on the internet, for those who use it. Where I live, there was a substantial, multi-segment news investigation about the libraries downtown being used for wanking off in public.
The ALA uses the first Amendment as an opportunity for exploitation. Heaven forbid they prevent people from going to porn sites, and wanking off, 20 feet from the children's book area. Read this:
http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=CI
Apparently, it's "Unconstitutional" to block porn sites in public libraries. You know what they say, people who get jobs that are around children, some of them are child molesters...
-Vexar