an interface to user-satisfaction. If ms did as you and I and umpteen millions of other users would like, there would be a precipitious drop in sales of:
- hard drives - memory - video cards - larger LCDs - DVD for off-line storage - anti-virus software - dev kits and subscriptions to needlessly complex spaghetti code - cracker-jack, moving-target, dime-a-dozen certs that start to look the same when 588,992 colleagues have the same or similar certs of different versions...
and many other things that keep IT alive and well. Yep, ms is a true pyramid scheme on steriods, so-to-speak. Maybe the base will be so huge the whole thing will collapse with a whimpering thud but which still rumbles ominously around the planet...
Or, I suppose. All this shit is just gimmickry to chew up your storage space. I think. But, the proof could be in finding out how compressed the graphics and bells and whistles are. Or, to find out whether most of this stuff can be removed from the drive without crippling the system.
"ll the interface changes that come in the Vista package are a direct or indirect result of Vista's new graphical subsystem. Code-named Avalon but now officially called Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Vista's graphical underpinnings should prove to be a boon to both developers and end users."
Franky, my dear, I don't GIVE a damn. Oh, wait, is that GUI gone with the wind, or is it on a beach blanket bingo trip?
Possibly left out descriptives?:
"...and it's got plenty of eye-popping and jaw-dropping..."
(Many of these adjectives can apply to the act of defecating after a night of wild drinking, while having the flu, or when narrowly getting back on the road when just seconds from flying off a curved road of a cliff-edge....)
I've some questions, not direcly AT you, nor ripping you. These just came to mind, inspired by your and other's comments... So please understand I am trying to find my way to reasonable/insightful (and maybe even inciteful) questions (I don't have vista, and surely will not plunk down my OWN money for exhorbitant vista "features" KDE and Gnome give me right now):
Can vista users stretch the desktop icons and folder icons? Do they scale well?
Can vista users with bad dexterity or shaking hands left-alt-right-mouse-drag a dialog box or window to resize it? Can a vist user double-click the title bar and scroll up, shade-up or resize a window besides just maximize/plunk-back-to-previous size?
Can a vista user left-alt-left-mouse to drag an in-the-way window out to the side?
Can a vista user bring to focus on mouse-over any window the user wants? Without a hassle? With user-selected responsiveness?
Can a vista user switch to different desktops as efficiently as KDE and Gnome users can? Can vista users roll the scroll wheel over the taskbar or Kicker-wannabe and switch different virtual desktops AND to a select application? Does the vista desktop icon update in realtime like KDE's Kasbar thumbnails reflect the desktop contents?
Can a vista user split a virtual desktop's apps off from the Main Taskbar/kicker to an auxiliary task bar for more refined self-organization?
Can a vista user use glassy effects on a GPU or graphics card that is sufficient for KDE and Gnome?
Does vista have a wealth of Superkaramba-like widgets that are USEFUL and not dullard ripoffs of OSX or ripoffs of lesser KDE/Gnome widgets reinterpreded from OSX?
Most of the things I am asking about existed in KDE or Gnome for YEARS. Hell, ms couldn't even slipstream this stuff into incremental updates to windows. Despite all those huge FUCKING patches they slog down on everybody.
Or, is vista just a hugely-rewritten PATCH to XP in disguise? Put these responses on a wall chart, too. So we can post them on the Tux poster for the cubicles.
SALES man, SALES. Surely the thought must've crossed yer mind that Intel and ms could or might be colluding to drive up the sales of NEWER CPUs and GPUs? I mean, if people see this crap and have wet dreams over it, Inte's CPU sales could go through the roof, nevermind the utility bills. One good thing, tho, is you can probably use the computer as a space heater. Especially if the screensavers are overly-taxing on the CPU or the GPU fans.
BUT, has anyone got any benchmarks on power consumption when comparing vista to the latest 3D desktops? We need to have someone make a detailed chart of what and when a visual effect hit the streets, by whom, and the merits or usefulness of it. If something is obvious, mark it. If it is a blatant ripoff (say ms has no oompf and is so vapid and dull as to lift straight from Apple and Linux GUIs/graphics) and not a by-product of collaboration (say, Apple and KDE/Gnome work together, it's not a ripoff but co-shared stuff), then flag it. A nice folding insert with the Linux User & Developer or Linux Format or Linux Magazine would be REALLY cool so people can hang them in their work cubicles and offices. Give points for originality and rotten bananas for dullard work. Please compare apples-to-apples and don't shortchange the readers' intelligence.
Well, I feel their "sidebar" is a ripoff of Kasbar and some of Apples widgets. I was thinking of Superkaramba, too.
A co-worker of mine saw the vista beta and thought it just sucked. And he's a windows system admin and windows user. I introduced him to Ubuntu, and so far, he has not removed it from his test machine. Even from his own mouth, when he saw the vista GUI and several of the effects, his first words were, "Apple's gonna be PISSED!"
I posted on this recently, and got marked -2, troll or -1 troll. Now, some Slash readers with a similar story are rating high-fivers. Kewl.
"20 years ago no one would have predicted web broadcasts. The internet was new so browsers and email were still essentially in the future. Who can say what is possible in twenty more years."
Maybe telepathy? The studios will "beam" the episodes into the heads of subcribers. 3D glasses not provided, but Kim Jong-Il-sized shades with starry-eyed nukes clouds will be available for $1,000 each lens. Then, the BSG fans wanting to see nukes and rads can feel dizzy when the effects heat up...
But, then, who gets to breathe the sigh of relief when a scripter says to congress "We don't have the capability to sift throught the code that way..."?
with Mandriva 2007 Powerpack edition, the hollywierds must have known it ahead of time and felt a need to use the DMCA and DRM and other tools to harass, confute, confound and stymie Linux users. I wouldn't even be surprised if some good o'le msoft R&D money went a long way toward making this possible. I could be wrong, tho...
Re:OpenSolaris? My bad... I appreciate
on
Oracle Linux?
·
· Score: 1
Your politeness about it. It's one of the highlights of the day for me. (I have to begin looking for a new contract after this Friday... assignment ending 2.5 months earlier than I'd hoped for... but such is life...)
Regards,
David
(hehehe, Slash image word: atheism... this machine must REALLY have a sense of humor behind it...)
Re:OpenSolaris? My bad...
on
Oracle Linux?
·
· Score: 1
I was operating under the assumption that Oracle had cross-licensing agreements with Sun for access to each others tech. I guess I also erroneously assumned that msoft charged something from Oracle to enable Oracle software to work with windows. I guess I'm really out of touch...
OOPS! I sit corrected, sir! I guess I had both on my mind in different contexts.
BTW, if you want to see some subs I designed as a teenager (back in 1981-ish) and which freaked out my prospective recruiters (especially a 7-bladed prop I drew or hinted at), then see my site at:
The skew, rake, pitch and other aspects are not quite even right. But, the mere idea of a then-16 year old doing this stuff (building and taking apart the USS Geo Wash SSBN and studying nuclear propulsion info in libraries), examining the propellers and building them from beer cans to see which turns the fastest and quietest and lifts off my pen tips the quickest...., designing ships and progressively improving with each design (within reason... these weren't going to be built, but they were more detailed than concept drawings...), was intriguing to a retired admiral I met, annoying to a nugget ensign (who graduated from my high school about 2 years before I did), and interesting to my second ship's CHENG and MPA, and interested people overseas and here in the states during the past few years. I guess all this started because I want to write fiction in a highly ordered/structured setting, loved Star Trek, liked but then came to DESPISE Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, loved things naval (except battleships for the overglorification of them, and while I like LHA/LHD vessels, I'm turned off by the CVNs). I only served on an AE and an FFG for permanent duty and augmented did TDA on tenders, other FFGs and so on.
Umm, the CARRIERS have 2 reactors, each of which can supply enough megawatts to cities of around 20,000 people, even back in the 70's. Maybe they can provide juice to more nowadays. (CVAN-65/CVN-65 Enterprise has **8**, but probaly only 4 to 6 at any time are up and running with maybe 2 on hot-standby and the other to in some other unpublished state of readiness due to the sheere expense of recoring the -65.)
1,000 people in the crew? Try some 3,800 crew and 2,200-2,800 in the air wing, plus the Marines detachment and any "riders" (CIA types, spooks, foreign observers, etc...) and you're talking about 6,000 people.
Even the SSN (fast attack and boomers/nuke missile) boats could provide power to tens of thousands if the right shore hookups are provided for on the pier.
However, this probably isn't an ideal situation as shipboard power reactors are meant to deliver power QUIETLY in a small space, and this imposes limitations on power output and other things land-based reactor operators might not be burdened with. There are very real limitations, other than their being military-grade reactors with any number of issues such as security, secrecy, and more. Otherwise, the dozens from the Thresher/Scorpion class, Tullibe, Skipjack, LA and some of the Ohio boats could have been floated and used for power. However, the oil industry would have balked and probably would have funded the eco-guardians.
Then, the eco-guardians would whip out all the studies indicating that disrupted and elevated thermal gradients have been and would continue to ruin fish spawning sites, kill off plankton, algae, seaweed and other aquatic life along the coastlines (if the plants are submerged and tethered). And on and on and on....
Well, nevermind Jackie Chan... He's passe... Pair Hawking up with some kewl F/X, and Stephen Chow! They could do a remake of Kung Fu Hustle, or Shaolin Soccer. But, first, I want to see them side-by-side in those yellow catsuits with the black stripes. They can do twists and turns in quick cuts to the tune the old Purina Cat Chow:
"Purina Cat CHOW, CHOW! CHOW!! Purina Cat CHOW, CHOW!!! CHOW!!!! Chhh-chhh-chhh chow-chi-chi-chow-chow-cheowwww!!!" (yes, they have to do it real gay-like, too, but then Hawkings might grin and say, "Mind...your...own...biznisss...."
But, isn't this similar to the model used by the cosmic aliens who pissed human DNA down to Earth? I think the jury is still out on whether the humans will respect their planet, care for their neighbors, overcome the randomly-injected, hardcoded urge to kill, wage ware, rape, dominate, corrupt, over-tax, over-fee, and otherwise overlook the plight of many of the subjects of the experiment...
Stick computers into them and turn them into municiple WI-FI repeaters....
Turn them into bill-pay points, to do something similar to the pay-your-bills-at-Mini Stop, like in Japan. Hell, with a camera, a keyboard, a card swiper and an LCD, those with no fixed address, those who are issued government subsidy/food cards, and the like can update their whereabouts, pay bill, and more. Would be low-tech, low-level terrestrial grades stuff, tho.....
Hell, even the government could put background radiation meters (whether spiked by cosmic or terrestrial terrorists) or chemical agents detectors in them to monitor specific areas.
But, I guess then those would be kicked, pissed into (where being pissed OFF is better than being pissed ON, for the boxes, being pissed ON is better than being pissed INTO), and vandalized in other ways...
I think their little "test" failed to consider that people with larger BMI have Balanced Multiple Inputs, and their brains are more "distributed". It is a FACT that distributed nodes have slightly longer data pathways in fuller people than in smaller people.
Personally I have as much faith in the US federal/political/voting system doing what *I* think is right as much as I have faith in performin self-surgery: ZERO. Especially when cretons take MY takes and kill, occupy, overthrow and the like, and then say I supported such actions. I do not. Not ONE bit. It's a bald-faced lie, and one they endanger ALL US americans with when we travel overseas. If a terrorist for some reason targetted, captured, televised and then beheaded me, it would not be for WHO I am but for WHAT PASSPORT I have. You shouldn't KILL those who have no direct accountability, no power, no authority. Go after those with their hands on the levers, the triggers, and the buttons. (But they won't, because there's probably some game master/master game-plan to stir up the populations to handing over taxes to fight wars and make occupations that only irk some descendents a few decades later.... getting way off topic here...But, too bad there isn't a passport with "Eart Citizen" for those who don't ascribe to any one nation's policies and who conscientiously embrace aspects of MOST countries cultures and who declare themselves uninterested in the existing power structure/dynamic...)
Umm, anyway... How do you feel about or how would you personally rate the level of success at deterring fraud, waste, abuse, and such committed by the government officials as well as the suppliers of voting hardware and software? (Seems to me that if the US has even ONE "observer" they're there to glean how to circumvent accountability.)
I liked the special effects, the androids, and the visual related to facials and cranials. Even the scenes where human bones are broken by a particularly ruthless android/robot are "chilling" I got my copy at Virgin for $24.99. You can also get it at Border's. Probably 5 or 6 other places.
Despite there being any DVD 9 on Tartan DVDs, it runs fine in Kaffeine and Xine, and I'm on Mandriva 10.1
Oh, and I agree with what LoveHKFilm said:
"It must be said again: the production design is damn fine. What director Min Byung-Chun and company have accomplished here rivals anything out of Hollywood's SFX handbook, and probably at a fraction of the cost."
These help:
"Natural City attempts to placate both the thinkers and the bloodthirsty in one glorious widescreen go."
"The carnage is kind of cool, but not entirely consistent."
"However, in grand Korean Cinema style, tragedy and bad vibes are nearly guaranteed. If you've seen any Korean Cinema before, you should know this: it's going to get melodramatic, and if the filmmakers can pull it off, they'll send all their characters straight to hell in a body bag."
Slashdot Mirror
an interface to user-satisfaction. If ms did as you and I and umpteen millions of other users would like, there would be a precipitious drop in sales of:
- hard drives
- memory
- video cards
- larger LCDs
- DVD for off-line storage
- anti-virus software
- dev kits and subscriptions to needlessly complex spaghetti code
- cracker-jack, moving-target, dime-a-dozen certs that start to look the same when 588,992 colleagues have the same or similar certs of different versions...
and many other things that keep IT alive and well. Yep, ms is a true pyramid scheme on steriods, so-to-speak. Maybe the base will be so huge the whole thing will collapse with a whimpering thud but which still rumbles ominously around the planet...
Or, I suppose. All this shit is just gimmickry to chew up your storage space. I think. But, the proof could be in finding out how compressed the graphics and bells and whistles are. Or, to find out whether most of this stuff can be removed from the drive without crippling the system.
"ll the interface changes that come in the Vista package are a direct or indirect result of Vista's new graphical subsystem. Code-named Avalon but now officially called Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Vista's graphical underpinnings should prove to be a boon to both developers and end users."
Franky, my dear, I don't GIVE a damn. Oh, wait, is that GUI gone with the wind, or is it on a beach blanket bingo trip?
Possibly left out descriptives?:
"...and it's got plenty of eye-popping and jaw-dropping..."
hair-raising, scalp-scrunching, ear-wriggling, brow-furrowing, lash-fluttering, nose-twitching, nostril-draining, teeth-gnashing, throat-bulging, shoulder-arching, chest-tightening, nipple-wrinkling, sternum-cracking, spine-snapping, navel-stabbing, sphincter-compromising, finger-clenching, nails-bending, pelvis-grating, knees-snapping, ankle-wiggling, toes-straigtnening, mind-bending, epilepsy-inducing, soul-sucking, galaxy-imploding copy-cat-GRAPHICS....
(Many of these adjectives can apply to the act of defecating after a night of wild drinking, while having the flu, or when narrowly getting back on the road when just seconds from flying off a curved road of a cliff-edge....)
I've some questions, not direcly AT you, nor ripping you. These just came to mind, inspired by your and other's comments... So please understand I am trying to find my way to reasonable/insightful (and maybe even inciteful) questions (I don't have vista, and surely will not plunk down my OWN money for exhorbitant vista "features" KDE and Gnome give me right now):
Can vista users stretch the desktop icons and folder icons? Do they scale well?
Can vista users with bad dexterity or shaking hands left-alt-right-mouse-drag a dialog box or window to resize it? Can a vist user double-click the title bar and scroll up, shade-up or resize a window besides just maximize/plunk-back-to-previous size?
Can a vista user left-alt-left-mouse to drag an in-the-way window out to the side?
Can a vista user bring to focus on mouse-over any window the user wants? Without a hassle? With user-selected responsiveness?
Can a vista user switch to different desktops as efficiently as KDE and Gnome users can? Can vista users roll the scroll wheel over the taskbar or Kicker-wannabe and switch different virtual desktops AND to a select application? Does the vista desktop icon update in realtime like KDE's Kasbar thumbnails reflect the desktop contents?
Can a vista user split a virtual desktop's apps off from the Main Taskbar/kicker to an auxiliary task bar for more refined self-organization?
Can a vista user use glassy effects on a GPU or graphics card that is sufficient for KDE and Gnome?
Does vista have a wealth of Superkaramba-like widgets that are USEFUL and not dullard ripoffs of OSX or ripoffs of lesser KDE/Gnome widgets reinterpreded from OSX?
Most of the things I am asking about existed in KDE or Gnome for YEARS. Hell, ms couldn't even slipstream this stuff into incremental updates to windows. Despite all those huge FUCKING patches they slog down on everybody.
Or, is vista just a hugely-rewritten PATCH to XP in disguise? Put these responses on a wall chart, too. So we can post them on the Tux poster for the cubicles.
SALES man, SALES. Surely the thought must've crossed yer mind that Intel and ms could or might be colluding to drive up the sales of NEWER CPUs and GPUs? I mean, if people see this crap and have wet dreams over it, Inte's CPU sales could go through the roof, nevermind the utility bills. One good thing, tho, is you can probably use the computer as a space heater. Especially if the screensavers are overly-taxing on the CPU or the GPU fans.
BUT, has anyone got any benchmarks on power consumption when comparing vista to the latest 3D desktops? We need to have someone make a detailed chart of what and when a visual effect hit the streets, by whom, and the merits or usefulness of it. If something is obvious, mark it. If it is a blatant ripoff (say ms has no oompf and is so vapid and dull as to lift straight from Apple and Linux GUIs/graphics) and not a by-product of collaboration (say, Apple and KDE/Gnome work together, it's not a ripoff but co-shared stuff), then flag it. A nice folding insert with the Linux User & Developer or Linux Format or Linux Magazine would be REALLY cool so people can hang them in their work cubicles and offices. Give points for originality and rotten bananas for dullard work. Please compare apples-to-apples and don't shortchange the readers' intelligence.
Well, I feel their "sidebar" is a ripoff of Kasbar and some of Apples widgets. I was thinking of Superkaramba, too.
A co-worker of mine saw the vista beta and thought it just sucked. And he's a windows system admin and windows user. I introduced him to Ubuntu, and so far, he has not removed it from his test machine. Even from his own mouth, when he saw the vista GUI and several of the effects, his first words were, "Apple's gonna be PISSED!"
I posted on this recently, and got marked -2, troll or -1 troll. Now, some Slash readers with a similar story are rating high-fivers. Kewl.
"20 years ago no one would have predicted web broadcasts. The internet was new so browsers and email were still essentially in the future. Who can say what is possible in twenty more years."
Maybe telepathy? The studios will "beam" the episodes into the heads of subcribers. 3D glasses not provided, but Kim Jong-Il-sized shades with starry-eyed nukes clouds will be available for $1,000 each lens. Then, the BSG fans wanting to see nukes and rads can feel dizzy when the effects heat up...
"While Intel was fucking around with the failure that became the Itanium,..."
Maybe Intel thought they would give rise to an Itanium rod with which to slap AMD around?
(heheh, Slash image word: "degrade")
Whirled Peas... Umm... World Peace...
But, then, who gets to breathe the sigh of relief when a scripter says to congress "We don't have the capability to sift throught the code that way..."?
It will.
5 3/ )
I suspect it's mean to dissuade any uptake on Linux. Since Mandriva is already including a legal copy of LinDVD
( http://www.softwareinreview.com/cms/content/view/
with Mandriva 2007 Powerpack edition, the hollywierds must have known it ahead of time and felt a need to use the DMCA and DRM and other tools to harass, confute, confound and stymie Linux users. I wouldn't even be surprised if some good o'le msoft R&D money went a long way toward making this possible. I could be wrong, tho...
Your politeness about it. It's one of the highlights of the day for me. (I have to begin looking for a new contract after this Friday... assignment ending 2.5 months earlier than I'd hoped for... but such is life...)
Regards,
David
(hehehe, Slash image word: atheism... this machine must REALLY have a sense of humor behind it...)
I was operating under the assumption that Oracle had cross-licensing agreements with Sun for access to each others tech. I guess I also erroneously assumned that msoft charged something from Oracle to enable Oracle software to work with windows. I guess I'm really out of touch...
Sorry for wasting your time.
D
Maybe Oracle wants to save money and doesn't want to pay either Sun OR msoft...?
I wonder if IBM's ears are perking up?
David Syes
Either way, PG&E might be really ... shocked... umm pissed, to lose so much billable revenue... too bad, so sad....
It wasn't a contrac. It was a "Mac Attac"...
And, speaking of breaking things, I put into Babelfish for translation from English to Japanese and the reverse of the EXACT text Babelfish spat out:
You deserve a break today at McDonalds
McDonalds ??????????
and got:
It is broken with McDonalds and today is worthy of to the eye
OOPS! I sit corrected, sir! I guess I had both on my mind in different contexts.
BTW, if you want to see some subs I designed as a teenager (back in 1981-ish) and which freaked out my prospective recruiters (especially a 7-bladed prop I drew or hinted at), then see my site at:
http://www.otanashide.com/17.html
See picture 41.
The skew, rake, pitch and other aspects are not quite even right. But, the mere idea of a then-16 year old doing this stuff (building and taking apart the USS Geo Wash SSBN and studying nuclear propulsion info in libraries), examining the propellers and building them from beer cans to see which turns the fastest and quietest and lifts off my pen tips the quickest...., designing ships and progressively improving with each design (within reason... these weren't going to be built, but they were more detailed than concept drawings...), was intriguing to a retired admiral I met, annoying to a nugget ensign (who graduated from my high school about 2 years before I did), and interesting to my second ship's CHENG and MPA, and interested people overseas and here in the states during the past few years. I guess all this started because I want to write fiction in a highly ordered/structured setting, loved Star Trek, liked but then came to DESPISE Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, loved things naval (except battleships for the overglorification of them, and while I like LHA/LHD vessels, I'm turned off by the CVNs). I only served on an AE and an FFG for permanent duty and augmented did TDA on tenders, other FFGs and so on.
Anyway....
hehe... slash image word: paranoia
Umm, the CARRIERS have 2 reactors, each of which can supply enough megawatts to cities of around 20,000 people, even back in the 70's. Maybe they can provide juice to more nowadays. (CVAN-65/CVN-65 Enterprise has **8**, but probaly only 4 to 6 at any time are up and running with maybe 2 on hot-standby and the other to in some other unpublished state of readiness due to the sheere expense of recoring the -65.)
1,000 people in the crew? Try some 3,800 crew and 2,200-2,800 in the air wing, plus the Marines detachment and any "riders" (CIA types, spooks, foreign observers, etc...) and you're talking about 6,000 people.
Even the SSN (fast attack and boomers/nuke missile) boats could provide power to tens of thousands if the right shore hookups are provided for on the pier.
However, this probably isn't an ideal situation as shipboard power reactors are meant to deliver power QUIETLY in a small space, and this imposes limitations on power output and other things land-based reactor operators might not be burdened with. There are very real limitations, other than their being military-grade reactors with any number of issues such as security, secrecy, and more. Otherwise, the dozens from the Thresher/Scorpion class, Tullibe, Skipjack, LA and some of the Ohio boats could have been floated and used for power. However, the oil industry would have balked and probably would have funded the eco-guardians.
Then, the eco-guardians would whip out all the studies indicating that disrupted and elevated thermal gradients have been and would continue to ruin fish spawning sites, kill off plankton, algae, seaweed and other aquatic life along the coastlines (if the plants are submerged and tethered). And on and on and on....
I'm still waiting for the Wonder Woman movie... I wonder if it will really star Linda Carter again.....
Well, nevermind Jackie Chan... He's passe... Pair Hawking up with some kewl F/X, and Stephen Chow! They could do a remake of Kung Fu Hustle, or Shaolin Soccer. But, first, I want to see them side-by-side in those yellow catsuits with the black stripes. They can do twists and turns in quick cuts to the tune the old Purina Cat Chow:
"Purina Cat CHOW, CHOW! CHOW!! Purina Cat CHOW, CHOW!!! CHOW!!!! Chhh-chhh-chhh chow-chi-chi-chow-chow-cheowwww!!!" (yes, they have to do it real gay-like, too, but then Hawkings might grin and say, "Mind...your...own...biznisss...."
(hehe funny.... image: "osmotic")
Shhhhh!
But, isn't this similar to the model used by the cosmic aliens who pissed human DNA down to Earth? I think the jury is still out on whether the humans will respect their planet, care for their neighbors, overcome the randomly-injected, hardcoded urge to kill, wage ware, rape, dominate, corrupt, over-tax, over-fee, and otherwise overlook the plight of many of the subjects of the experiment...
Stick computers into them and turn them into municiple WI-FI repeaters....
Turn them into bill-pay points, to do something similar to the pay-your-bills-at-Mini Stop, like in Japan. Hell, with a camera, a keyboard, a card swiper and an LCD, those with no fixed address, those who are issued government subsidy/food cards, and the like can update their whereabouts, pay bill, and more. Would be low-tech, low-level terrestrial grades stuff, tho.....
Hell, even the government could put background radiation meters (whether spiked by cosmic or terrestrial terrorists) or chemical agents detectors in them to monitor specific areas.
But, I guess then those would be kicked, pissed into (where being pissed OFF is better than being pissed ON, for the boxes, being pissed ON is better than being pissed INTO), and vandalized in other ways...
I think a wormhole defina^H^H^H^H^H^H definitely counts as a 3rd dimension.
But, let's not forget that lower BMI does NOT equate to intelligence to NOT commit murder and expensive white-collar crimes....
Oh SHIT.... I hear a massive sucking sound and see light tendrils whipping my way....
I think their little "test" failed to consider that people with larger BMI have Balanced Multiple Inputs, and their brains are more "distributed". It is a FACT that distributed nodes have slightly longer data pathways in fuller people than in smaller people.
Their test is quite inflammable and uncindiary.
Thanks for the reply, Henk.
Personally I have as much faith in the US federal/political/voting system doing what *I* think is right as much as I have faith in performin self-surgery: ZERO. Especially when cretons take MY takes and kill, occupy, overthrow and the like, and then say I supported such actions. I do not. Not ONE bit. It's a bald-faced lie, and one they endanger ALL US americans with when we travel overseas. If a terrorist for some reason targetted, captured, televised and then beheaded me, it would not be for WHO I am but for WHAT PASSPORT I have. You shouldn't KILL those who have no direct accountability, no power, no authority. Go after those with their hands on the levers, the triggers, and the buttons. (But they won't, because there's probably some game master/master game-plan to stir up the populations to handing over taxes to fight wars and make occupations that only irk some descendents a few decades later.... getting way off topic here...But, too bad there isn't a passport with "Eart Citizen" for those who don't ascribe to any one nation's policies and who conscientiously embrace aspects of MOST countries cultures and who declare themselves uninterested in the existing power structure/dynamic...)
Umm, anyway... How do you feel about or how would you personally rate the level of success at deterring fraud, waste, abuse, and such committed by the government officials as well as the suppliers of voting hardware and software? (Seems to me that if the US has even ONE "observer" they're there to glean how to circumvent accountability.)
You might want to watch "Natural City".
m
I liked the special effects, the androids, and the visual related to facials and cranials. Even the scenes where human bones are broken by a particularly ruthless android/robot are "chilling" I got my copy at Virgin for $24.99. You can also get it at Border's. Probably 5 or 6 other places.
SPOILER WARNINGS!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0378428/
http://www.lovehkfilm.com/panasia/natural_city.ht
http://www.koreanfilm.org/kfilm03.html
Despite there being any DVD 9 on Tartan DVDs, it runs fine in Kaffeine and Xine, and I'm on Mandriva 10.1
Oh, and I agree with what LoveHKFilm said:
"It must be said again: the production design is damn fine. What director Min Byung-Chun and company have accomplished here rivals anything out of Hollywood's SFX handbook, and probably at a fraction of the cost."
These help:
"Natural City attempts to placate both the thinkers and the bloodthirsty in one glorious widescreen go."
"The carnage is kind of cool, but not entirely consistent."
"However, in grand Korean Cinema style, tragedy and bad vibes are nearly guaranteed. If you've seen any Korean Cinema before, you should know this: it's going to get melodramatic, and if the filmmakers can pull it off, they'll send all their characters straight to hell in a body bag."