As I believe was pointed out in other comments, I think Alice Hill no longer has any association with Slashdot. In other words, she's an early adopter of "FUCK BETA". >:(
I'm in Canada. I've not had cable television since 2005, about the time some series I was watching ended. Didn't think the vast wasteland was worth the expense for a tiny number of good shows.
Being in Canada, I've become endured to many Internet videos that are television clips being blocked here on American websites, due to someone else holding the rights to broadcast that content in Canada. For some, I tracked down the Canada rights holder to watch (eg. The Comedy Network for a lot of comedy stuff) but most often I just didn't bother with it.
A few months ago, I started watching television on the Internet, including things like "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." and "The Crazy Ones". Sure, I had to find out who had the rights in Canada and where on their website, but once I had the link I bookmarked it. I was watching more television than I had in 8 years.
Then from mid-October to mid-December I had a serious health issue occupy my time, but that resolved well. So about December 19, late at night, I decided to get caught up, as best as I could. Found out I'd missed 3 new episodes of "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." Went to watch that.
"Sign in with your television provider." And everything else, with that and other programs, had some variant of that.
I've not had Netflicks. I've never gotten shows from a torrent site. And I wasn't about to at O-dark-stupid in the morning. But it got me to thinking.
I figured this was the signs of a sea-change in the television/cable business and like many little people I got side-swiped. Sure I was getting it for free. But all those big corporations had set it up to give it to me for free. And now, without any warning, it was gone.
But I'm not getting cable television, 'cause it's still an overpriced wasteland. I'll find another way. They can take their "television provider" and stick it where the Sun don't shine. >:(
Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine. I don't even recall there being a tape or video. It was probably in one of my drunken stupors, probably about a year ago.
I just read Command and Control over the weekend, an amazing and eye-opening read. Turns out those detonation systems were far too fragile and susceptible to unusual environments: ie. crashes and burning. Many could have had one or more lens elements detonated by enough induced current. The worse case--a frag hitting the cusp where 3 lens elements met--wasn't even though of until sometime in the late 1950's as far as I can recall. And those could have led to a partial-yield nuclear explosion.
Truly safe nuclear weapons--with safety equivalent or better than say regular conventional munitions--weren't developed or deployed until the late 1980's to 1990's. And there were a lot of accidents, from "simple" ones like dropping bombs short distances to crashes where the very hazardous plutonium and beryllium metal were exposed and burned. In some ways it's only because of shear luck and what safety and dedication there was in all nuclear forces that there wasn't an accidental detonation.
I get tired of having to repeat this warning every time this idea is rediscovered, but those are NOT wasted codons, and this scheme could hardly fail to cause catastrophic consequences if it gets into the wild. Over the years people have been discovering there is less and less 'junk' DNA, and everything in the code has a meaning. The stop codons are in all probability different. and someone is going to say 'oops' in a few years, when we wipe out all or part of life on earth.
Completely agree, except that the stop codons don't have to be different. They can just be likely to have a mistranscription and having 3 of such similar nature is to guard against this and make sure transcription actually stops.
They are creating alien life, with the potential for organisms based on alternatives to the standard set of amino acids. I have no idea what all the implications of that will be.
The community moved on to LibreOffice after Oracle bought Sun and gained control of OpenOffice. The motivating fears were later confirmed by subsequent actions.
The whole mountain giant sequence was an exercise in excessive CGI combined with some unexplainable contempt for continuity. At some point during production someone had to think "wtf is this?"
That scene is from the book, but like a lot was exaggerated in the film. I think it would have been better following the book more closely by making the rain more opaque and the giants' battle more noise and uncertain glimpses in the lightning flashes rather than the right-on-top of them death-defying action. And the undermountain battle was a bit too much going through a Rube Goldberg machine.
I did like how the film has the dwarves more true to their heroic nature rather than just the bumbling fools they mostly are in the book prior to Erebor, as well as Bilbo finding his inner resolve sooner as well. But I agree Peter Jackson is starting to verge into George Lucas territory. I really hope he has people around him who will honestly criticise his work.
As I believe was pointed out in other comments, I think Alice Hill no longer has any association with Slashdot. In other words, she's an early adopter of "FUCK BETA". >:(
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
But your Beta abomination is the cause of most of the comments now. >:(
Build a very big treadmill for Godzilla just outside Tokyo--or maybe Kyoto. >:)
And considering Britain today is more a match for the alternate universe fascist Britain in "Inferno"....
Don't worry. As long as they haven't found mithril yet we're safe. >:)
I say scrap it and start over from scratch!
I agree. Unfortunately starting over from scratch usually ends up being this.
Damn, moderation mistake.
We may have to retreat underground for a few years....
I would think that, possibly, one hundred years. In mineshafts.
But do we have enough underground mines? Or--gasp!--are we facing a mineshaft gap?!? >:)
I'm in Canada. I've not had cable television since 2005, about the time some series I was watching ended. Didn't think the vast wasteland was worth the expense for a tiny number of good shows.
Being in Canada, I've become endured to many Internet videos that are television clips being blocked here on American websites, due to someone else holding the rights to broadcast that content in Canada. For some, I tracked down the Canada rights holder to watch (eg. The Comedy Network for a lot of comedy stuff) but most often I just didn't bother with it.
A few months ago, I started watching television on the Internet, including things like "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." and "The Crazy Ones". Sure, I had to find out who had the rights in Canada and where on their website, but once I had the link I bookmarked it. I was watching more television than I had in 8 years.
Then from mid-October to mid-December I had a serious health issue occupy my time, but that resolved well. So about December 19, late at night, I decided to get caught up, as best as I could. Found out I'd missed 3 new episodes of "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." Went to watch that.
"Sign in with your television provider." And everything else, with that and other programs, had some variant of that.
I've not had Netflicks. I've never gotten shows from a torrent site. And I wasn't about to at O-dark-stupid in the morning. But it got me to thinking.
I figured this was the signs of a sea-change in the television/cable business and like many little people I got side-swiped. Sure I was getting it for free. But all those big corporations had set it up to give it to me for free. And now, without any warning, it was gone.
But I'm not getting cable television, 'cause it's still an overpriced wasteland. I'll find another way. They can take their "television provider" and stick it where the Sun don't shine. >:(
How about we skip MySpace and go back to Livejournal. That at least was interesting. >:)
Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine. I don't even recall there being a tape or video. It was probably in one of my drunken stupors, probably about a year ago.
Rob Ford, is that you?
Sure, Tungsten and Gold have the same density, but that could be expected. Of course, there is this gold hack. >:)
Don't they have a pill for anal retentive people yet?
There's a suppository for that. >:)
Oh, come on. There's got to be something in Animal House that can provide an adequate analogy.
Urination capacity? >:)
Remember when that was the Google mantra? Are they still trying or have they been worn down by the system?
No, it's all a state of mind. With that motto, by definition all things Google does aren't evil, of course.
That's not quite true.
I just read Command and Control over the weekend, an amazing and eye-opening read. Turns out those detonation systems were far too fragile and susceptible to unusual environments: ie. crashes and burning. Many could have had one or more lens elements detonated by enough induced current. The worse case--a frag hitting the cusp where 3 lens elements met--wasn't even though of until sometime in the late 1950's as far as I can recall. And those could have led to a partial-yield nuclear explosion.
Truly safe nuclear weapons--with safety equivalent or better than say regular conventional munitions--weren't developed or deployed until the late 1980's to 1990's. And there were a lot of accidents, from "simple" ones like dropping bombs short distances to crashes where the very hazardous plutonium and beryllium metal were exposed and burned. In some ways it's only because of shear luck and what safety and dedication there was in all nuclear forces that there wasn't an accidental detonation.
I get tired of having to repeat this warning every time this idea is rediscovered, but those are NOT wasted codons, and this scheme could hardly fail to cause catastrophic consequences if it gets into the wild. Over the years people have been discovering there is less and less 'junk' DNA, and everything in the code has a meaning. The stop codons are in all probability different. and someone is going to say 'oops' in a few years, when we wipe out all or part of life on earth.
Completely agree, except that the stop codons don't have to be different. They can just be likely to have a mistranscription and having 3 of such similar nature is to guard against this and make sure transcription actually stops.
They are creating alien life, with the potential for organisms based on alternatives to the standard set of amino acids. I have no idea what all the implications of that will be.
It's life, Mike, but not as we know it. >:)
American 3-letter agencies: recreating the short-sightedness of the 1930's British upper class to proper vetting of intelligence analysts.
The community moved on to LibreOffice after Oracle bought Sun and gained control of OpenOffice. The motivating fears were later confirmed by subsequent actions.
The whole mountain giant sequence was an exercise in excessive CGI combined with some unexplainable contempt for continuity. At some point during production someone had to think "wtf is this?"
That scene is from the book, but like a lot was exaggerated in the film. I think it would have been better following the book more closely by making the rain more opaque and the giants' battle more noise and uncertain glimpses in the lightning flashes rather than the right-on-top of them death-defying action. And the undermountain battle was a bit too much going through a Rube Goldberg machine.
I did like how the film has the dwarves more true to their heroic nature rather than just the bumbling fools they mostly are in the book prior to Erebor, as well as Bilbo finding his inner resolve sooner as well. But I agree Peter Jackson is starting to verge into George Lucas territory. I really hope he has people around him who will honestly criticise his work.
"Avatar wasn't a rubber stamp?"
Maybe. But it was a visually stunning, 3-D rubber stamp. That's worth something.
It was this century's "The Birth of a Nation". A major technical advance but a short-sighted and unrealistic story.
My workplace just installed a chrome browser frame that does something like this to protect their intellectual property here.
I hope they're not expecting it to protect their IP from Google.
Das "Boring" Auto.
The Germans tried flashy once and didn't like what it got them.
Disrespecting the end user is one of the stages of software development team meltdown.
For another example, take a look at GNOME.