Somehow my brain mixed Wag the Dog with Primary Colors.
However, the movie itself involved a president going to war to divert attention from a sex scandal. The movie came out years after Paula Jones filed in court and after Monica Lewinsky was already in the news. Regardless of what the BOOK was about, the MOVIE had a striking resemblance to events that the then-current president was embroiled in.
Yes, it's EXACTLY like that. Except for the part where everything you just said is completely fucking wrong.
In absolutely no way is this like anything you just suggested. These guys were paying for a service and had that service terminated for a reason they won't disclose. Presumably, because Exxon contacted them regarding it.
This issue involves free speech, trademark and parody at the very least.
Just to summarize, my point is that while The Simpsons may not technically take place in Oregon, it is absolutely, without a doubt, completely based on Oregon. GTA's Liberty City obviously isn't New York, but it is most certain based on New York.
I would say that the state from which the creator of The Simpsons was born and raised and is the basis for the more or less generic cartoon Springfield certainly deserves a Kwik-E-Mart. Not having one there is a ridiculous oversight.
On the other hand... I'm sure people will feel it's hard to feel slighted by the guys behind a cartoon that hasn't been funny in a decade (I'm not even sure if they still make the show anymore, frankly).
Anyway - really - saying that Springfield is "anytown" is only vaguely accurate. Kind of like when you see a movie with a president who is a Generic President, but is OBVIOUSLY based on Reagan or Clinton or Bush, depending on the film.
That's all I meant. Perhaps saying it literally takes place in Springfield OR was misleading, of course.
Yes, of course that's what he has always said to placate the masses, but it's quite clearly based in Springfield-ish Oregon. The powerplant is quite obviously the Trojan Nuclear Plant. Rev. Lovejoy is named after the street in Portland. Krusty the Klown is somewhat intentionally infused with local kid-show-host Ramblin' Rod.
Of course there are similarities with a lot of other cities, but with all the acknowledged ties to the state, plus Matt coming from Springfield... That's like saying "GTA IV doesn't take place in New York... It takes place in... uh... Liberty City".
Don't be a retard. Nobody knows their neighbors and you are most certainly not going to meet your neighbors at the store you shop for groceries at. People like different stores for different reasons and often will drive past a closer one to get to their preferred store. Not to mention, the closest supermarket is probably not next door. It's probably a few blocks away. Maybe even a mile or two. So unless by "meet your neighbors", you mean "run into people that live up to five or ten miles away from me", then sure.
And if your source of interaction and human contact is the local grocery store... maybe you should be ordering your groceries over the internet and use those hours you'll save every week or month to actually go get a life and have real interactions with real people that don't involve standing in line and having to listen to their shitty little snot-nose cry and whine and throw a tantrum because they won't buy them a bag of Skittles.
Seriously, man. You're posting on Slashdot and you don't understand that the "tribe" is no longer you and the people on your street, but you and the people you know through various connections (going out, online, etc) who have similar interests as you?
What a fucking oversight -- no Kwik-E-Mart in Portland Fucking Oregon.
How the hell do they screw that one up?!
* The Simpsons live in Springfield, Oregon. * Matt Groening was born in Springfield, Oregon. * Most of the locations and characters are pulled from Portland and other areas of Oregon.
But the closest Kwik-E-Mart? No, not in Portland. It's in fucking SEATTLE?!
Who needs shopping carts? If you want to redefine the shopping experience - try avoiding the shopping experience.
I haven't been to a grocery store since late 1999, thanks to Peapod, Webvan, Safeway, Albertsons, Kingsoopers and others who have had internet based grocery shopping and into-your-kitchen delivery for most of a decade now.
Why, in the year 2007, someone would willingly subject themselves to wasting the gas and time to drive to the store, wander the aisles and navigate the idiots, their kids, long lines, shoddy carts, carrying bags out to the car, driving home, unloading the groceries . . . I have no idea. And most people spend a few hours doing that every damn week.
My shopping experiences consists of entering a URL, clicking on a saved order, submitting it and then making sure I'm home when the groceries are delivered during a two-hour window on the day of my choosing. I spend a whole five minutes at the most doing my shopping. And then the store brings my groceries to me... right into my kitchen and puts them on the counter.
Isn't ours? Don't they have similar testimonies about the Philadelphia project, ghosts, dragons, dinosaurs, faeries, unicorns, and women IT professionals? (and I'm sure some will read this, so its just a joke, don't get mad... my office is all guys:(... ) When did ghosts, dragons, dinosaurs, faeries and unicorns start reading Slashdot?
I don't see how this has any weight whatsoever. These fools also believe in a big magic sky man and baby jesus and a lot of people claim to be watched over by angels or talk with god or have had near death experiences or lived past lives or have knowledge of some uber secret government plot to kill JFK.
There is nothing here that is "more than obvious" other than there are a bunch of supposedly high ranking people claiming that there is a government cover-up about aliens. So what?! Give me solid proof or a president coming out and stating it in a public address and maybe I'll start to buy into it.
And really, some dude's deathbed confession?! That's the most worthless thing ever. If you're dying, what in the hell do you have to fear from making absurdly false statements?
I have no doubt that there is a great possibility of advanced life outside of our solar system. However, I see no solid reason to believe that they've come across the universe to earth, crashed here, abducted people and that it's all been covered up by international uber global government conspiracies.
You could trot 10,000 people in front of me. It wouldn't make any difference. Most Americans believe in a lot of stupid stuff and a HUGE percentage of people claim that they personally have seen a UFO, been abducted by a UFO or that they believe in angels or an afterlife or near death experiences or past lives.
A person's word is hardly worth anything, for the most part.
I'm sure they'd gladly advertise anything Michael Moore wanted to pay for, too.
And really, I don't see what the whole hype nor all the concern is about. Really, did you need some entertainment-oriented Michael Moore documentary to tell you that the health care system is generally fucked?
Wow, it'll be 6 or 7 usable ghz of computing power! WOW! We're a whole 1.4% of the way to that 500ghz CPU power that we were talking about in yesterdays article! Can you smell it? The future is coming!
That statement would seem to contradict itself. Software drives the demand for more computing power. Not the other way around. There will not be software that demands a 500ghz system for a very long time. I'm not a game developer, but I sincerely doubt you could find any developer who could make use of and peg-out a full 500ghz on the end-user client for a game right now. And of course, that's presuming that everything else (memory, FSB, drives, etc evolved to avoid bottlenecking the massive system).
Oh, and if you increase the screen resolution that much, you're going to be talking about a $20,000 monitor. Not something anyone but the most insanely rich gamer will buy -- even beyond the hardcore and well-funded gamer. In order for such speed to be utilized and useful, developers have to have a current or near need for it and the rest of the software and hardware has to improve significantly to keep up with it.
Until this thread here, I have never heard the suggestion that hardware drives the need for bigger software. Ever.
One hundred times in the last ten years is an enormous stretch. And note that I said "in the next decade". Even if our computing needs for a high end gamer double in the next ten years increases at double or triple the rate, we won't need this kind of speed for more than a decade from now.
I would suggest that the statement that software expands to fill the resources made available to it is largely backwards. Or at least should be clarified: The demands of new software that consumers want to use drives the demand for production and availability of more powerful hardware.
I think you will find that it will be far more than ten years before the gaming and mainstream markets need a "500ghz CPU" and that no manufacturer will release anything significantly faster than today's performance benchmarks. Even if they could provide a desktop with a "500ghz CPU" type of experience today, they would not. The money isn't in the end of maximizing the total product potential. It's in exploiting the profits to be made from each annual incremental addition to the product line. Just enough to show up the competition, but not enough to blow them away by a factor of five, ten or a hundred.
Agreed. They are obviously presenting this as a user/consumer chip for the desktop. Hence the comparison to its speed over a desktop. This might be of great interest to the NSA and other government agencies that do domestic spying and for companies like Google, but what is even the high-end gamer going to need a chip 100 times faster than today's machines for any time in the next decade? And of course, it will be about a decade before this is even affordable for a consumer, anyway.
Maybe we can call it "blackout", since that's what these will probably do after sucking the power they need.
And wouldn't it be appropriate to label this story as the press release that it is?
I'm relieved that I wasn't the only person who instantly thought going ATM had been more popular in recent years, but certainly had to be older than 40 years. At times, one needs to be assured that they aren't the only disgusting bastard around.
No, your brain really does have to adjust. It reminds me of when I tried to play Counterstrike a few years ago after having played a lot of Counterstrike: Source. While I was able to play it with no problem when it came out, returning to it after several years was difficult because it no longer appeared to have depth to it. It looked like a flat cartoon with no dimensionality. It was a strange experience.
And that was the same experience I had when I tried to play WoW a few months ago. My first thought was "I don't remember it looking this crappy" followed by "wow, it almost doesn't even look three dimensional".
And yes, Vanguard is a deeper game. Enormous world. Great crafting. Far more character creation and less forgiving of stupidity in one's style of play. However, it's still just another level treadmill and is very much derivitive of WoW (right down to every inch of the interface and combat system). But the point is that WoW is old and like every MMORPG that has been, is or will be - it will lose steam as new players have little interest in joining an older game and people who have been playing the game decide it's time to try something new.
Not to mention all of the people who finally grow out of the fisher-price stage and want to try something a little more complex than a Tomagotchi with a maul and hoofs after several years.
I know that Blizzard is working on something as we speak. I don't know the details about it and I haven't asked the people I know who are involved (why ask when you know they're not going to tell, right?) - but it isn't going to be the current iteration of WoW, surely... and that will render the database useless and cut off the revenue generation rather quickly.
Even if it has another three years left in the game... How are they possibly going to generate at least $1.2 million (about what you would need to justify the purchase at all) in only three yeras? Just from banner ads!?
First, I don't think that fits the definition of irony. It doesn't even fit the definition of hypocrisey. Perhaps the phrase "it is fitting that one would decry the internet's over commercialization by posting on the internet".
Also, I didn't make or desire to make a buck doing it. So . . . no.
More importantly, how are they going to continue to make money? WoW is pretty old. When was the last time anyone logged in? It takes away for your eyes to adjust and make sense of it. At first, it just looks like a 2D game, before you are immersed enough to realize that it's just poorly done 3D cartoonish graphics.
The game is something like three or four years old. I doubt it's going to be around long enough for them to get their million bucks back and then some. Especially no with other games that have more depth, variety and much better graphics circling about (like Vanguard, for example - though that's boring as hell as well - but it loooks great).
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously, you've never shopped at a Kum & Go.
Somehow my brain mixed Wag the Dog with Primary Colors.
However, the movie itself involved a president going to war to divert attention from a sex scandal. The movie came out years after Paula Jones filed in court and after Monica Lewinsky was already in the news. Regardless of what the BOOK was about, the MOVIE had a striking resemblance to events that the then-current president was embroiled in.
Yes, it's EXACTLY like that. Except for the part where everything you just said is completely fucking wrong.
In absolutely no way is this like anything you just suggested. These guys were paying for a service and had that service terminated for a reason they won't disclose. Presumably, because Exxon contacted them regarding it.
This issue involves free speech, trademark and parody at the very least.
Yes, the movie was called Wag the Dog and it was based on Bill Clinton.
Just to summarize, my point is that while The Simpsons may not technically take place in Oregon, it is absolutely, without a doubt, completely based on Oregon. GTA's Liberty City obviously isn't New York, but it is most certain based on New York.
I would say that the state from which the creator of The Simpsons was born and raised and is the basis for the more or less generic cartoon Springfield certainly deserves a Kwik-E-Mart. Not having one there is a ridiculous oversight.
On the other hand... I'm sure people will feel it's hard to feel slighted by the guys behind a cartoon that hasn't been funny in a decade (I'm not even sure if they still make the show anymore, frankly).
Anyway - really - saying that Springfield is "anytown" is only vaguely accurate. Kind of like when you see a movie with a president who is a Generic President, but is OBVIOUSLY based on Reagan or Clinton or Bush, depending on the film.
That's all I meant. Perhaps saying it literally takes place in Springfield OR was misleading, of course.
Yes, of course that's what he has always said to placate the masses, but it's quite clearly based in Springfield-ish Oregon. The powerplant is quite obviously the Trojan Nuclear Plant. Rev. Lovejoy is named after the street in Portland. Krusty the Klown is somewhat intentionally infused with local kid-show-host Ramblin' Rod.
Of course there are similarities with a lot of other cities, but with all the acknowledged ties to the state, plus Matt coming from Springfield... That's like saying "GTA IV doesn't take place in New York... It takes place in... uh... Liberty City".
Don't be a retard. Nobody knows their neighbors and you are most certainly not going to meet your neighbors at the store you shop for groceries at. People like different stores for different reasons and often will drive past a closer one to get to their preferred store. Not to mention, the closest supermarket is probably not next door. It's probably a few blocks away. Maybe even a mile or two. So unless by "meet your neighbors", you mean "run into people that live up to five or ten miles away from me", then sure.
And if your source of interaction and human contact is the local grocery store... maybe you should be ordering your groceries over the internet and use those hours you'll save every week or month to actually go get a life and have real interactions with real people that don't involve standing in line and having to listen to their shitty little snot-nose cry and whine and throw a tantrum because they won't buy them a bag of Skittles.
Seriously, man. You're posting on Slashdot and you don't understand that the "tribe" is no longer you and the people on your street, but you and the people you know through various connections (going out, online, etc) who have similar interests as you?
What a fucking oversight -- no Kwik-E-Mart in Portland Fucking Oregon.
How the hell do they screw that one up?!
* The Simpsons live in Springfield, Oregon.
* Matt Groening was born in Springfield, Oregon.
* Most of the locations and characters are pulled from Portland and other areas of Oregon.
But the closest Kwik-E-Mart? No, not in Portland. It's in fucking SEATTLE?!
Who needs shopping carts? If you want to redefine the shopping experience - try avoiding the shopping experience.
I haven't been to a grocery store since late 1999, thanks to Peapod, Webvan, Safeway, Albertsons, Kingsoopers and others who have had internet based grocery shopping and into-your-kitchen delivery for most of a decade now.
Why, in the year 2007, someone would willingly subject themselves to wasting the gas and time to drive to the store, wander the aisles and navigate the idiots, their kids, long lines, shoddy carts, carrying bags out to the car, driving home, unloading the groceries . . . I have no idea. And most people spend a few hours doing that every damn week.
My shopping experiences consists of entering a URL, clicking on a saved order, submitting it and then making sure I'm home when the groceries are delivered during a two-hour window on the day of my choosing. I spend a whole five minutes at the most doing my shopping. And then the store brings my groceries to me... right into my kitchen and puts them on the counter.
This explains Barry Bonds.
Dale Earnhardt drove cars for a living and still smashed into a wall and burst into flames.
I don't see how this has any weight whatsoever. These fools also believe in a big magic sky man and baby jesus and a lot of people claim to be watched over by angels or talk with god or have had near death experiences or lived past lives or have knowledge of some uber secret government plot to kill JFK.
There is nothing here that is "more than obvious" other than there are a bunch of supposedly high ranking people claiming that there is a government cover-up about aliens. So what?! Give me solid proof or a president coming out and stating it in a public address and maybe I'll start to buy into it.
And really, some dude's deathbed confession?! That's the most worthless thing ever. If you're dying, what in the hell do you have to fear from making absurdly false statements?
I have no doubt that there is a great possibility of advanced life outside of our solar system. However, I see no solid reason to believe that they've come across the universe to earth, crashed here, abducted people and that it's all been covered up by international uber global government conspiracies.
You could trot 10,000 people in front of me. It wouldn't make any difference. Most Americans believe in a lot of stupid stuff and a HUGE percentage of people claim that they personally have seen a UFO, been abducted by a UFO or that they believe in angels or an afterlife or near death experiences or past lives.
A person's word is hardly worth anything, for the most part.
I'm sure they'd gladly advertise anything Michael Moore wanted to pay for, too.
And really, I don't see what the whole hype nor all the concern is about. Really, did you need some entertainment-oriented Michael Moore documentary to tell you that the health care system is generally fucked?
I have the balls to stand up to the RIAA.
The hundreds of thousands of dollars for legal feels and representation? Not so much.
And at this point, I'm not aware of any game other than Supreme Commander that will actually make use of quad core (and boy does it need it).
Wow, it'll be 6 or 7 usable ghz of computing power! WOW! We're a whole 1.4% of the way to that 500ghz CPU power that we were talking about in yesterdays article! Can you smell it? The future is coming!
*snicker*
That statement would seem to contradict itself. Software drives the demand for more computing power. Not the other way around. There will not be software that demands a 500ghz system for a very long time. I'm not a game developer, but I sincerely doubt you could find any developer who could make use of and peg-out a full 500ghz on the end-user client for a game right now. And of course, that's presuming that everything else (memory, FSB, drives, etc evolved to avoid bottlenecking the massive system).
Oh, and if you increase the screen resolution that much, you're going to be talking about a $20,000 monitor. Not something anyone but the most insanely rich gamer will buy -- even beyond the hardcore and well-funded gamer. In order for such speed to be utilized and useful, developers have to have a current or near need for it and the rest of the software and hardware has to improve significantly to keep up with it.
Until this thread here, I have never heard the suggestion that hardware drives the need for bigger software. Ever.
One hundred times in the last ten years is an enormous stretch. And note that I said "in the next decade". Even if our computing needs for a high end gamer double in the next ten years increases at double or triple the rate, we won't need this kind of speed for more than a decade from now.
I would suggest that the statement that software expands to fill the resources made available to it is largely backwards. Or at least should be clarified: The demands of new software that consumers want to use drives the demand for production and availability of more powerful hardware.
I think you will find that it will be far more than ten years before the gaming and mainstream markets need a "500ghz CPU" and that no manufacturer will release anything significantly faster than today's performance benchmarks. Even if they could provide a desktop with a "500ghz CPU" type of experience today, they would not. The money isn't in the end of maximizing the total product potential. It's in exploiting the profits to be made from each annual incremental addition to the product line. Just enough to show up the competition, but not enough to blow them away by a factor of five, ten or a hundred.
Agreed. They are obviously presenting this as a user/consumer chip for the desktop. Hence the comparison to its speed over a desktop. This might be of great interest to the NSA and other government agencies that do domestic spying and for companies like Google, but what is even the high-end gamer going to need a chip 100 times faster than today's machines for any time in the next decade? And of course, it will be about a decade before this is even affordable for a consumer, anyway.
Maybe we can call it "blackout", since that's what these will probably do after sucking the power they need.
And wouldn't it be appropriate to label this story as the press release that it is?
Yes.
I'm relieved that I wasn't the only person who instantly thought going ATM had been more popular in recent years, but certainly had to be older than 40 years. At times, one needs to be assured that they aren't the only disgusting bastard around.
No, your brain really does have to adjust. It reminds me of when I tried to play Counterstrike a few years ago after having played a lot of Counterstrike: Source. While I was able to play it with no problem when it came out, returning to it after several years was difficult because it no longer appeared to have depth to it. It looked like a flat cartoon with no dimensionality. It was a strange experience.
And that was the same experience I had when I tried to play WoW a few months ago. My first thought was "I don't remember it looking this crappy" followed by "wow, it almost doesn't even look three dimensional".
And yes, Vanguard is a deeper game. Enormous world. Great crafting. Far more character creation and less forgiving of stupidity in one's style of play. However, it's still just another level treadmill and is very much derivitive of WoW (right down to every inch of the interface and combat system). But the point is that WoW is old and like every MMORPG that has been, is or will be - it will lose steam as new players have little interest in joining an older game and people who have been playing the game decide it's time to try something new.
Not to mention all of the people who finally grow out of the fisher-price stage and want to try something a little more complex than a Tomagotchi with a maul and hoofs after several years.
I know that Blizzard is working on something as we speak. I don't know the details about it and I haven't asked the people I know who are involved (why ask when you know they're not going to tell, right?) - but it isn't going to be the current iteration of WoW, surely... and that will render the database useless and cut off the revenue generation rather quickly.
Even if it has another three years left in the game... How are they possibly going to generate at least $1.2 million (about what you would need to justify the purchase at all) in only three yeras? Just from banner ads!?
First, I don't think that fits the definition of irony. It doesn't even fit the definition of hypocrisey. Perhaps the phrase "it is fitting that one would decry the internet's over commercialization by posting on the internet".
Also, I didn't make or desire to make a buck doing it. So . . . no.
More importantly, how are they going to continue to make money? WoW is pretty old. When was the last time anyone logged in? It takes away for your eyes to adjust and make sense of it. At first, it just looks like a 2D game, before you are immersed enough to realize that it's just poorly done 3D cartoonish graphics.
The game is something like three or four years old. I doubt it's going to be around long enough for them to get their million bucks back and then some. Especially no with other games that have more depth, variety and much better graphics circling about (like Vanguard, for example - though that's boring as hell as well - but it loooks great).