But think of the psychological advantage! Seriously, I seem to remember that the number one thing that beat me in a race was nerves and lack of confidence. If you panic, it takes a lot of power away from your muscles.
There's still the problem of how everyone in the entire universe happens to speak perfect English all the time... but all SF shows have that problem
Not necessarily. Asimov's stories had a galaxy populated by humans who had long emigrated from and forgotten Earth, which is a lot more plausible than parallel evolution of species on different worlds that just so happened to take on 'humanoid' form. In an age of standardised communication it's a lot more likely that languages will hold true to a standard, like the introduction of the printing press in England standardised printed English, and the BBC (more or less) standardised spoken English.
Cowboy Bebop is a show that has a solar system populated by humans, and it's probably the most believable one I have seen yet. There's a show that recognises that technologies that we have today (like wheels, for example) aren't necessarily going to be obsolete a few hundred years into the future. Again, there are no language problems there, at least none as complex as those that exist today on Earth. In that show, everyone speaks perfect Japanese!
I'm with you up to a point, however I disagree with this bit:
sounds to me like this would be better 'experimented' as a TV miniseries, as you're going to have to introduce characters, do character development, plot development, and plot resolution all in a single flick
All movie directors have to do this. Part of the art of film-making is developing your characters in the limited time you've got in Act 1 so that the audience begins to give a shit what happens to them once the complication arrives in Act 2.
As far as the TV show goes, I also found this an interesting bit of reading - from the article:
Braga also discussed the storylines in development for Enterprise's fourth season, including the return of the Temporal Cold War. "One thing we're discussing is possibly blowing the lid off the Temporal Cold War once and for all," he reportedly said. "That's probably something we'll do in this first storyline. I can't say that for sure, because we're just getting into it. But I'd really like to resolve that and put a cap on it. It would be a nice thing to do after three seasons of teasing it along."
So there you have it. They're still making up this stuff as they go along. And it shows.
I've said this before and I'll say it again: If you want to tell a story over a five-year arc, write the skeleton of the story in the first place so that the twists look a lot more clever when they do arrive. Hint: get J. Michael Stradzinsky of Babylon 5 fame to do the writing and at least give the impression that you have a bit of foresight.
You hear about wonderful things in Microsoft's lab. One project, called News Junkie, sifts through articles on the Web and presents to you only the ones you haven't seen before.
I think the google news service is pretty hard to beat.
Is VHS gonna stick around for another while? I know it can be a nightmare to program those things and stuff, but it strikes me as an underrated bit of technology. Are there issues with recording cable? I seem to remember my landlord in England recording digital TV content onto an ancient, top-loading VCR. Sure there are a lot of things that a TiVo can do that a VCR can't, but you pay a high price for this. A bit like an autogyro being a lot cheaper but slightly more limted than a helicopter.
The apotrophe wouldn't appear at the end even if it meant the other thing. If there were an apostrophe at the end, then the correct wording would be "Rainbows' Ends."
I agree with what you're saying, but this was gonna get modded off-topic quicker then you can say 'they misunderestimated me.'
Stick this in your journal, link to it from your sig, leave the journal entry open to comments, then post on/. with on-topic posts that are likely to get modded up. it's much more effective.
It has been quite obvious that the designers of SQL had little understanding of data fundamentals in general, and the relational model in particular; and SQL was hardly developed in accordance with good language design principles.
is that in the US, the executive leader is also the head of state.
In most countries, the head of state and the executive leader are two different people. The President or Monarch is the one who gets your loyality and respect, but he's just a figurehead with relatively little influence over the day to day running of the country.
The Prime Minister, on the other hand, is the one with all the power, but who doesn't feel entitled to any loyalty or automatic respect on account of his position. In fact, the Prime Minister has to withstand a barrage of criticism on a constant basis from the opposition. This is very healthy since it keeps the government on its toes.
Can you imagine G W Bush having to go through a weekly American equivalent of Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons? That would be entertaining!
[SPOILER ALERT - If you want to watch the film you might not want to read on since I'm about to give away a lot of the detail]
Good to see a quick overview of the theft of the presidency in 2000. This stuff is all common knowledge in the UK and the rest of the civilised world, but in the US it got virtually zero coverage, so the story needed to be told. I thought that it could have used a bit more detail like the voting fraud, the purging of innocent people from the electoral rolls etc. but he had a lot of stuff to cover in the film, so it was understandable that a lot of this was either skimmed over or left out.
The handling of the actual terrorist attacks was very powerful. Sensibly, there was no need to show the planes slamming into the buildings or the buildings collapsing. Instead, the screen was black but we heard the sounds of the jets crashing, the exploding jet-fuel, the rubble falling, the people screaming and the emergency services rushing to the scene. When the screen brightens up, we still don't see the buildings, but we see the people looking up in horror and the expressions on their faces as they watch people leap to their deaths before their very eyes.
Bush's response to the attacks (or lack thereof) is portrayed in a rather distrubing manner. I never knew that he had already been informed of the first plane hitting the WTC when he went ahead with his photo op at the elementary school. When he was informed of the second plane hitting, I thought that he had immediately closed the book and left. But no, he just sat there almost in a trance, and with nobody there to tell him what to do next, he looked completely lost. He seemed to be waiting for someone to come along and whisk him away and put a script in front of him.
Into the nitty-gritty, there's a comprehensive list of photos of extremely cordial meetings, primary sources and official documents that pass before our eyes to back up the story that there is something very troubling about the links between the House of Bush, the House of Saud, and the Bin Laden family business ventures. The overwhelming connections with the Saudis is explored in a lot of depth, including the fact that Bush Senior, who still invokes a seldom-used right of ex-presidents to access classified CIA information, still acts almost as if he were an official ambassador to the Saudi dictatorship but in his capacity of a representative of the Carlyle group. (There's a graphic portrayal of Saudi justice by the way, a public beheading. Brrrrrr.) Even Bush senior himself was prevented from flying on 9/11, but the Bin Laden family, by special request from the Saudi royal family and on the orders of Bush jnr, were picked up and flown out of the country. Moore asks what would have happened if Clinton had flown Timothy McVeigh's family out of the country after the Oklahoma City bombing. A very good question.
Then we get into the changing of the government's tune, showing the comments from Powell and Rice denying any WMD capability in Iraq, only to be seen again several months later trying to talk UP the capability of the Iraqi regime and Powell's performance at the UN that flatly contradicts what he himself and many in the administration had said before. Once the war gets underway, we get to see graphic pictures of Iraqi civilians (what's left of them) after American 'precision' bombing raids. Don't watch this on a full stomach.
The Halliburton connection and other business interests in profiting from the war are explored in depth, and then a considerable amount of time towards the end is devoted to a mother whose son went to Iraq. I'll leave you to see that for yourself, for there's no way I could do it justice here. There is one particular incident when she goes to Washington that just makes your hair stand on end and your blood boil. A lot of time is devoted to hearing from actual troops, their friends and family, and how it affects them.
Despite the powerful subject matter, Moore sprinkles in a profusion of comic relief (usually at the ex
I think it's better that this sort of thing adapts to regional tastes. Sesame St. is available in many different languages, for example. You should never underestimate the importance of local knowledge. The HSBC bank have a good series of ads going in the press that emphasise this point. There's one that shows three footballs, one Australian [labelled 'Football (Australia)'], one soccer ball [labelled 'Football (England)'], and an American football [labelled 'Football (America).]'
What about these little robotic pet dogs? I wonder if people just regard them as glorified toys, I certainly hope they do. Anything more and they definitely need to get out more.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed. Road racing is about taking all the shelter you can get and saving your energy for when it counts.
But think of the psychological advantage! Seriously, I seem to remember that the number one thing that beat me in a race was nerves and lack of confidence. If you panic, it takes a lot of power away from your muscles.
Cowboy Bebop is a show that has a solar system populated by humans, and it's probably the most believable one I have seen yet. There's a show that recognises that technologies that we have today (like wheels, for example) aren't necessarily going to be obsolete a few hundred years into the future. Again, there are no language problems there, at least none as complex as those that exist today on Earth. In that show, everyone speaks perfect Japanese!
As far as the TV show goes, I also found this an interesting bit of reading - from the article:
So there you have it. They're still making up this stuff as they go along. And it shows.I've said this before and I'll say it again: If you want to tell a story over a five-year arc, write the skeleton of the story in the first place so that the twists look a lot more clever when they do arrive. Hint: get J. Michael Stradzinsky of Babylon 5 fame to do the writing and at least give the impression that you have a bit of foresight.
Like the Romans who stretched their borders so wide that they couldn't defend them, the victims of their own success. It's a very good point.
Is VHS gonna stick around for another while? I know it can be a nightmare to program those things and stuff, but it strikes me as an underrated bit of technology. Are there issues with recording cable? I seem to remember my landlord in England recording digital TV content onto an ancient, top-loading VCR. Sure there are a lot of things that a TiVo can do that a VCR can't, but you pay a high price for this. A bit like an autogyro being a lot cheaper but slightly more limted than a helicopter.
Oh yeah? When was the last time an American journalist gave him a grilling like that?
The apotrophe wouldn't appear at the end even if it meant the other thing. If there were an apostrophe at the end, then the correct wording would be "Rainbows' Ends."
Air Force Pilot: It is so easy to fly, that even a child can fly it.
Millhouse: Can I fly it?
Air Force Pilot: No you cannot.
I was heartbroken when I heard she married that ginger-haired tosser.
I've written quite a lot about this in my journal.
Stick this in your journal, link to it from your sig, leave the journal entry open to comments, then post on /. with on-topic posts that are likely to get modded up. it's much more effective.
a bad workman always blames his tools.
In most countries, the head of state and the executive leader are two different people. The President or Monarch is the one who gets your loyality and respect, but he's just a figurehead with relatively little influence over the day to day running of the country.
The Prime Minister, on the other hand, is the one with all the power, but who doesn't feel entitled to any loyalty or automatic respect on account of his position. In fact, the Prime Minister has to withstand a barrage of criticism on a constant basis from the opposition. This is very healthy since it keeps the government on its toes.
Can you imagine G W Bush having to go through a weekly American equivalent of Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons? That would be entertaining!
Good to see a quick overview of the theft of the presidency in 2000. This stuff is all common knowledge in the UK and the rest of the civilised world, but in the US it got virtually zero coverage, so the story needed to be told. I thought that it could have used a bit more detail like the voting fraud, the purging of innocent people from the electoral rolls etc. but he had a lot of stuff to cover in the film, so it was understandable that a lot of this was either skimmed over or left out.
The handling of the actual terrorist attacks was very powerful. Sensibly, there was no need to show the planes slamming into the buildings or the buildings collapsing. Instead, the screen was black but we heard the sounds of the jets crashing, the exploding jet-fuel, the rubble falling, the people screaming and the emergency services rushing to the scene. When the screen brightens up, we still don't see the buildings, but we see the people looking up in horror and the expressions on their faces as they watch people leap to their deaths before their very eyes.
Bush's response to the attacks (or lack thereof) is portrayed in a rather distrubing manner. I never knew that he had already been informed of the first plane hitting the WTC when he went ahead with his photo op at the elementary school. When he was informed of the second plane hitting, I thought that he had immediately closed the book and left. But no, he just sat there almost in a trance, and with nobody there to tell him what to do next, he looked completely lost. He seemed to be waiting for someone to come along and whisk him away and put a script in front of him.
Into the nitty-gritty, there's a comprehensive list of photos of extremely cordial meetings, primary sources and official documents that pass before our eyes to back up the story that there is something very troubling about the links between the House of Bush, the House of Saud, and the Bin Laden family business ventures. The overwhelming connections with the Saudis is explored in a lot of depth, including the fact that Bush Senior, who still invokes a seldom-used right of ex-presidents to access classified CIA information, still acts almost as if he were an official ambassador to the Saudi dictatorship but in his capacity of a representative of the Carlyle group. (There's a graphic portrayal of Saudi justice by the way, a public beheading. Brrrrrr.) Even Bush senior himself was prevented from flying on 9/11, but the Bin Laden family, by special request from the Saudi royal family and on the orders of Bush jnr, were picked up and flown out of the country. Moore asks what would have happened if Clinton had flown Timothy McVeigh's family out of the country after the Oklahoma City bombing. A very good question.
Then we get into the changing of the government's tune, showing the comments from Powell and Rice denying any WMD capability in Iraq, only to be seen again several months later trying to talk UP the capability of the Iraqi regime and Powell's performance at the UN that flatly contradicts what he himself and many in the administration had said before. Once the war gets underway, we get to see graphic pictures of Iraqi civilians (what's left of them) after American 'precision' bombing raids. Don't watch this on a full stomach.
The Halliburton connection and other business interests in profiting from the war are explored in depth, and then a considerable amount of time towards the end is devoted to a mother whose son went to Iraq. I'll leave you to see that for yourself, for there's no way I could do it justice here. There is one particular incident when she goes to Washington that just makes your hair stand on end and your blood boil. A lot of time is devoted to hearing from actual troops, their friends and family, and how it affects them.
Despite the powerful subject matter, Moore sprinkles in a profusion of comic relief (usually at the ex
Ah, Canadian comics. I quite liked Alpha Flight. Are they still around?
I think it's better that this sort of thing adapts to regional tastes. Sesame St. is available in many different languages, for example. You should never underestimate the importance of local knowledge. The HSBC bank have a good series of ads going in the press that emphasise this point. There's one that shows three footballs, one Australian [labelled 'Football (Australia)'], one soccer ball [labelled 'Football (England)'], and an American football [labelled 'Football (America).]'
There's a Manga version of the Marvel universe. I saw it in a bookstore the other day.
What about these little robotic pet dogs? I wonder if people just regard them as glorified toys, I certainly hope they do. Anything more and they definitely need to get out more.
but I once heard of the Brits arresting an Irishman for carrying a can of oil. Apparently it 'could have been used to clean guns.'