From what I've seen, heard and read, most signs point to this movie being a good adaptation of the Hitchhiker's Guide. It has the same spirit. Have you seen the trailer which recites the Guide on movie trailers and continues to make fun of it? It's like they realized that they couldn't possibly avoid it getting a bit americanized, and decided to have fun with it while they're at it. This is definitely not way up with what Douglas Adams himself did at his best, but it's certainly on par with a lot of good bits in the books, which is fair, and to me it positively reeks of something that Douglas could have done himself.
So, alas, I've not been convinced that the rest of the movie is way suckier than that trailer (or the other two trailers), and I see no reason to short of the movie itself proving it. But I don't want to ruin what could potentially be very good by having people who haven't seen it proclaiming it sucky based on one guy who's seen it.
If you still disagree with me on this, it's likely because your opinion hinges on the fact that the movie *must* suck. That's a horrible place to start, or even end up at. Of course the movie has partly turned into an action flick. It took Douglas Adams 20 years to negotiate it this far - it would have taken the better part of the current millennium to get it to the point where a major movie company would "give in" and make the movie, uh, not a partial action flick, or gather the resources to make it independently. And I think, again based on what I've seen this far, that the movie does a good job when it's not involved in blowing shit up.
They also don't claim to provide it. Why not rag on Dell for failing to provide video editing software with their sub-$300 computers?
Okay, okay; keyboard, mouse and monitor are all key points of using a computer. Good point. But who are the people that need to spend money on a keyboard, mouse and monitor? The people that don't yet have a USB keyboard and/or mouse - Mac mini takes DVI and VGA (through an adapter) which covers most monitors in at least the past 15 years - or the people that don't have a computer at all.
If you don't have a computer at all and you're looking to get a Mac for your first one, the eMac, iBook or iMac are *probably* better alternatives, all starting out with mouse, keyboard and monitor, and allowing more memory.
There's also the final point that the Mac mini seems to be designed for people who already do have a Mac or a PC (the instructions on the box reads like a small "switch" manual), and most of those people won't need to get anything new in these terms, save for the poor sods who only have PS/2 mice/keyboards.
How do you suppose they fit every little detail into under two hours of runtime? The books are filled with little stuff that's basically subclause slapstick.
"There were little sandpipers running along the margin of the shore which seemed to have this problem: they needed to find their food in the sand which a wave had just washed over, but they couldn't bear to get their feet wet. To deal with this problem they ran with an odd kind of movement as if they'd been constructed by somebody very clever in Switzerland."
"Ford still had his hand stuck out. Arthur looked at it with incomprehension. "Shake," prompted Ford. Arthur did, nervously at first, as if it might turn out to be a fish."
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
These parts of really clever writing are what really make up the book. Combined with the dozens of smaller but memorable happenings and the fact that the movie actually would kind of suck if it just ended where the first book ended and no sequel was being made, how do you propose a film is put together exactly?
You're not going to get the book(s) reenacted in one and a half hour, just like you didn't just get the radio action written down on a script and published with the books (although the radio scripts are available). Take it for what it is, an adaptation of the fuzzy set of core Hitchhiker story, not a strict reenactment of the book.
With RSS you can only see headline and if the source so wishes, a brief discussion. Big factual error. You can only see *the data that's provided*, which may be anything between a short description and several hundred K of data. Effectively, since the feeds available from news pages are short on data, seeing only the headline and a brief discussion is how it stands today, but saying "With RSS" implies a limit imposed by the underlying technology, and that's just not true.
Many of the most interesting Mac programs are shareware, freeware or open source - which also holds true for Windows, and certainly for Linux/BSD. You probably don't limit your view of the software available for "PCs" (Windows?) to the boxed software at the local computer store; don't do that to Mac software.
And for what it's worth, creating a customer base the size of around 25 million isn't screwing up; failing to expand might be, but they're working on that.
Connecting with Bluetooth phones has nothing to do with SyncML. True. Let's see what I wrote: You can still *connect* with any phone over bluetooth just as easily as you can on Windows, and probably sync as well because an open standard (SyncML) is used. The "because that isn't syncing at all, that's bluetooth" before the comma was implicit. I know the difference.
I'm aware of buggy implementations of SyncML; I wouldn't be surprised if this is why Apple have to put out new versions of iSync - to make sure they work around the bugs of some phones. It's also entirely possible that they just want to make it *official*; to say that "yes, business guy who's interested in buying a Mac but not sure if your cellphone will work with it, it DOES work with it". But again, I don't really use iSync myself that much.
The features the summary is toting is the acceptance of more phones *specifically* in the *sync* solution in OS X. You can still *connect* with any phone over bluetooth just as easily as you can on Windows, and probably sync as well because an open standard (SyncML) is used.
Quite so. It still sounds a bit confused, a bit like calling Google an email provider and *only* an email provider. It's a big part of what they do, but it's certainly not the *only* part of what they do. This sounds like the same thing.
Picasa isn't blogging. Allowing people to upload videos isn't blogging. A Picasa-like service allowing people to upload videos isn't blogging. Does blogging ever come into the picture, are people pulling buzzwords out of their asses here or have they just lost the ability to type out "publishing"?
I'm still waiting for the first lawsuit where they sue people that actually do kill people as a direct consequence of a game as opposed to "he played this game and then he killed people, let's ban games" which is about as credible as "he brushed his teeth and then he killed people, let's ban toothbrushes" seeming as how, you know, killing people in games is ultimately very different from killing people in real life. But sure, if any game were to do that to people, wouldn't the military games be the prime candidates? I think sensationalist journalism has a blind spot here. (Then again, it's sensationalist journalism, for fucks sake. Someone must have snuck in the word "journalism" into that phrase when common sense wasn't looking.)
BeOS was insanely great, with some innovations that were entirely ahead of its time. But do they really have that much going for them now? Microsoft, Apple and several Linux groups already have highly GPU-integrated window managers going, for example, and work's being done on more metadata-rich filesystem-based platforms - WinFS and Spotlight both sit on top of NTFS and HFS+ respectively.
I wouldn't be surprised if it'd take them a few months or years to catch up to the current state of technology, because it's been maintained by enthusiasts ever since the company maintaining it dropped it. Even for something that was ahead of its time, it has catching up to do, both when it comes to technology and killer apps, and I guess what I'm asking is... is it worth it?
Yes, we can assume WordPress users are not going to be targeted by Google, because WordPress the software itself did nothing wrong - the WordPress team did or did not (depending on your definition of wrong). Believing anything else is similar to thinking that users of Microsoft software will have antitrust suits filed at them just for using Microsoft software.
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From what I've seen, heard and read, most signs point to this movie being a good adaptation of the Hitchhiker's Guide. It has the same spirit. Have you seen the trailer which recites the Guide on movie trailers and continues to make fun of it? It's like they realized that they couldn't possibly avoid it getting a bit americanized, and decided to have fun with it while they're at it. This is definitely not way up with what Douglas Adams himself did at his best, but it's certainly on par with a lot of good bits in the books, which is fair, and to me it positively reeks of something that Douglas could have done himself.
So, alas, I've not been convinced that the rest of the movie is way suckier than that trailer (or the other two trailers), and I see no reason to short of the movie itself proving it. But I don't want to ruin what could potentially be very good by having people who haven't seen it proclaiming it sucky based on one guy who's seen it.
If you still disagree with me on this, it's likely because your opinion hinges on the fact that the movie *must* suck. That's a horrible place to start, or even end up at. Of course the movie has partly turned into an action flick. It took Douglas Adams 20 years to negotiate it this far - it would have taken the better part of the current millennium to get it to the point where a major movie company would "give in" and make the movie, uh, not a partial action flick, or gather the resources to make it independently. And I think, again based on what I've seen this far, that the movie does a good job when it's not involved in blowing shit up.
They also don't claim to provide it. Why not rag on Dell for failing to provide video editing software with their sub-$300 computers?
Okay, okay; keyboard, mouse and monitor are all key points of using a computer. Good point. But who are the people that need to spend money on a keyboard, mouse and monitor? The people that don't yet have a USB keyboard and/or mouse - Mac mini takes DVI and VGA (through an adapter) which covers most monitors in at least the past 15 years - or the people that don't have a computer at all.
If you don't have a computer at all and you're looking to get a Mac for your first one, the eMac, iBook or iMac are *probably* better alternatives, all starting out with mouse, keyboard and monitor, and allowing more memory.
There's also the final point that the Mac mini seems to be designed for people who already do have a Mac or a PC (the instructions on the box reads like a small "switch" manual), and most of those people won't need to get anything new in these terms, save for the poor sods who only have PS/2 mice/keyboards.
How do you suppose they fit every little detail into under two hours of runtime? The books are filled with little stuff that's basically subclause slapstick.
"There were little sandpipers running along the margin of the shore which seemed to have this problem: they needed to find their food in the sand which a wave had just washed over, but they couldn't bear to get their feet wet. To deal with this problem they ran with an odd kind of movement as if they'd been constructed by somebody very clever in Switzerland."
"Ford still had his hand stuck out. Arthur looked at it with incomprehension. "Shake," prompted Ford. Arthur did, nervously at first, as if it might turn out to be a fish."
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
These parts of really clever writing are what really make up the book. Combined with the dozens of smaller but memorable happenings and the fact that the movie actually would kind of suck if it just ended where the first book ended and no sequel was being made, how do you propose a film is put together exactly?
You're not going to get the book(s) reenacted in one and a half hour, just like you didn't just get the radio action written down on a script and published with the books (although the radio scripts are available). Take it for what it is, an adaptation of the fuzzy set of core Hitchhiker story, not a strict reenactment of the book.
I'm pretty sure the Old Testament is flamebait as well.
With RSS you can only see headline and if the source so wishes, a brief discussion. Big factual error. You can only see *the data that's provided*, which may be anything between a short description and several hundred K of data. Effectively, since the feeds available from news pages are short on data, seeing only the headline and a brief discussion is how it stands today, but saying "With RSS" implies a limit imposed by the underlying technology, and that's just not true.
And with that, I'm off to submit a request for .generalizingcynicalbastards.
Slave to Microsoft Office by day, supercomputer with immense powers by night!
Good point.
Many of the most interesting Mac programs are shareware, freeware or open source - which also holds true for Windows, and certainly for Linux/BSD. You probably don't limit your view of the software available for "PCs" (Windows?) to the boxed software at the local computer store; don't do that to Mac software.
And for what it's worth, creating a customer base the size of around 25 million isn't screwing up; failing to expand might be, but they're working on that.
Connecting with Bluetooth phones has nothing to do with SyncML. True. Let's see what I wrote: You can still *connect* with any phone over bluetooth just as easily as you can on Windows, and probably sync as well because an open standard (SyncML) is used. The "because that isn't syncing at all, that's bluetooth" before the comma was implicit. I know the difference.
I'm aware of buggy implementations of SyncML; I wouldn't be surprised if this is why Apple have to put out new versions of iSync - to make sure they work around the bugs of some phones. It's also entirely possible that they just want to make it *official*; to say that "yes, business guy who's interested in buying a Mac but not sure if your cellphone will work with it, it DOES work with it". But again, I don't really use iSync myself that much.
Rich.
The features the summary is toting is the acceptance of more phones *specifically* in the *sync* solution in OS X. You can still *connect* with any phone over bluetooth just as easily as you can on Windows, and probably sync as well because an open standard (SyncML) is used.
Quite so. It still sounds a bit confused, a bit like calling Google an email provider and *only* an email provider. It's a big part of what they do, but it's certainly not the *only* part of what they do. This sounds like the same thing.
Picasa isn't blogging. Allowing people to upload videos isn't blogging. A Picasa-like service allowing people to upload videos isn't blogging. Does blogging ever come into the picture, are people pulling buzzwords out of their asses here or have they just lost the ability to type out "publishing"?
Yes, I think they are, and I think they're running it on Windows boxes with ASP. Best ASP app I've ever seen, in that case.
I'm still waiting for the first lawsuit where they sue people that actually do kill people as a direct consequence of a game as opposed to "he played this game and then he killed people, let's ban games" which is about as credible as "he brushed his teeth and then he killed people, let's ban toothbrushes" seeming as how, you know, killing people in games is ultimately very different from killing people in real life. But sure, if any game were to do that to people, wouldn't the military games be the prime candidates? I think sensationalist journalism has a blind spot here. (Then again, it's sensationalist journalism, for fucks sake. Someone must have snuck in the word "journalism" into that phrase when common sense wasn't looking.)
A useful and funny first post?
You must be new here.
BeOS was insanely great, with some innovations that were entirely ahead of its time. But do they really have that much going for them now? Microsoft, Apple and several Linux groups already have highly GPU-integrated window managers going, for example, and work's being done on more metadata-rich filesystem-based platforms - WinFS and Spotlight both sit on top of NTFS and HFS+ respectively.
I wouldn't be surprised if it'd take them a few months or years to catch up to the current state of technology, because it's been maintained by enthusiasts ever since the company maintaining it dropped it. Even for something that was ahead of its time, it has catching up to do, both when it comes to technology and killer apps, and I guess what I'm asking is... is it worth it?
Where's the patch? :)
Yes, we can assume WordPress users are not going to be targeted by Google, because WordPress the software itself did nothing wrong - the WordPress team did or did not (depending on your definition of wrong). Believing anything else is similar to thinking that users of Microsoft software will have antitrust suits filed at them just for using Microsoft software.
Uh, seeming as how it's the top result and not the ads that are being pre-fetched... no.
I have a hard time imagining them conforming to *binary*, for gods sake.
That works too, I guess. ;)
Post-it notes on a big wall, rearranged by monkeys.
Self critisism is good. Even I - ever the daft prick - know that.
And I suppose the incompetent user will supplement the floppy?