Ha, I was going to post that but I guess I'm more than 12 hours late. Those Mojave commercials are really obnoxious but they do show what Vista is like - it's good for the first few minutes; it's like a shiny used car that falls apart just after you drive away and you can't take it back.
I'd like the RIAA to become extinct but I have a serious question. Is there anything the RIAA does that is good? I'm not looking for any negative replies - I know all the negatives. I'm just wondering if someone can tell some of the positive things that they do. There has to be at least one thing positive.
You hit the nail on the head. The writing/scripting in the newer Star Wars movies wasn't that great. Actually, it was mainly just the dialogue that was poorly-written. I think the stories were there for the most part though, we just had poor dialogue to listen to.
Lucas is a master at coming up with stories, he just isn't great at actually writing them. He's given us Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Willow. He is also good visually; all the Star Wars movies look fantastic visually and have awesome special effects. He just needs to let other people write and direct and only be involved at a creative level (artistic direction, overarching story, visual effects, etc.).
I never got the whole Jar-Jar hating. His character isn't that bad. Now, the young Anakin's character is very poorly-written but Jar Jar is okay. I'm not going to say I really like him but I certainly don't mind him.
Oranges are just as expensive in Florida as anywhere else, unless you can get them at a farmer's market; even then they aren't much cheaper. You could grow your own but need to have a house with a yard.
Good point but many Native Americans had irrigation long before the Europeans came. Many of the canals in parts of Arizona were built on top of old Native American ones.
"Or, the trashy people could stop breeding like animals."
Wow. With an attitude like that, no wonder we have problems in our world. I thought we had progressed beyond such elitist nonsense: "Let's make sure only people with IQs over 140 have children. We also accept only people with blond hair and blue eyes into the 'breeding aristocracy.'"
How many kids you have is obviously your choice and your business but having only one kid is not a sustainable course for the world, especially with an aging population. Over-population is a myth. Too many people is only a problem when we don't take care of the environment. The earth could easily hold tens and even hundreds of billions of people if we were better at taking care of the environment.
This is a lame reply but I'd totally mod you up if I had any points.
This part doesn't apply directly to what you wrote but it applies to the original post. While we in America would be horrified to earn what many Chinese factory workers are earning, we also live in a more expensive society. Additionally, there are cultural differences and what seems unbearable to us might be just peachy for the Chinese.
Also, 130 years ago in the U.S. factory conditions weren't terribly wonderful. The standard of living was relatively poor as well. The problem in our world today is some people look at conditions in some overseas factories and think that they should be brought up to American or Western European standards now. These things take time. It took many many years here in America for factory conditions and pay to improve.
Also, as a company/corporation you can't just go into an area and start paying people ridiculous amounts of money (for the area). Say the average Chinese factory worker earns an equivalent of $50 US / month. A factory shouldn't just go in and decide to pay their workers $400 US / month. In our country it's easy to wonder, "Why not?" The problem is that it would suddenly create a huge imbalance, lead to huge increases in inflation, and could throw an economic system into chaos. Granted, maybe it would have only positive effects but just look at what happened in Russia after the USSR disbanded - major economic chaos that is still being overcome today. Sometimes these sudden changes are the best way but we can't just assume that they are.
Good point. I just have to add though that US airports are way better than European ones (at least compared to the two I've flown out of). In Europe airport security walk around with semi-automatic rifles. Getting through security was a major pain in Paris. It was much slower than anything I've been in in the U.S. Also, all males in the line I was in were being patted down after going through the metal detector (even if it didn't beep).
I've never had a problem with airport security in the U.S.
There shouldn't be any pacing in the 200m either. I used to run it (and the 100m) in high school and never had to pace myself. For me at least, 200m was the limit of distance I could run at a flat-out sprint; anything longer and I'd have to pace.
They could probably only win a trespassing case if the private road was fenced or gated off and the Google driver opened the gate to get in without permission. Simply sticking up a Private Property sign is not enough. I'm not saying Google was right in driving on their road but there's no way they could be charged with trespassing in this case.
No, the Federalists wanted the federal government to take precedence. The states' rights advocates wanted state's rights to take precedence. That's why our government is set up how it is - to make sure all parties play nicely with each other.
That assumes that motivational differences are not biologically/genetically based and also are completely distinct from natural aptitude. It could be that motivation leads to better performance or better aptitude leads to motivation, which leads to better performance. I think at some point we just need to accept that there are differences and go from there.
I also want to add that I sprinted in track in high school. I was decently fast but definitely not the fastest guy. My record time was pretty close to being competitive with female Olympic sprinters, and this was after only a couple months of training. I'm just supporting your post. Guys and girls are different, including their brains. Male and female brains develop differently. The problem is that there are a number of people in the world who are not satisfied with there being differences; instead of trying to help people be the best at what they can be, they try to make everyone exactly equal.
Exactly. I don't have the links to the studies either but I just want to second the fact that there are studies that show exactly that. Anecdotally, that was also my experience in high school. I had this conversation with a friend when I was in 11th grade. It was obvious that, on average, girls did better than guys in school and got higher standardized test scores. However, the most intelligent people I knew were male. I knew more guys than girls who scored quite highly on the ACT/SAT (>32 or >1400). Our valedictorian was female though.
In statistics talk, girls have a distribution that is leptokurtic, whereas guys have a platykurtic distribution - just more extremes.
Granted, this whole conversation is based on one viewpoint of intelligence that may or may not be accurate. It's also based on standardized test scores, which are not necessarily accurate measures of intelligence. Technically, they are achievement scores (which do correlate highly with intelligence). It's well-known that with practice and training (e.g., how to take tests, learning key words, learning math tricks, etc.) you are able to significantly improve standardized test scores.
Actually I believe you can watch any YouTube video on the iPhone. I tried it out with one I had uploaded. I sent the link to the video in an email to myself and clicked on it. The video came up and played just fine. I was actually very surprised. I tried with another video and it worked too. That's just a sample of 2 but both were random, watched-by-few, videos.
That's why I glance at my spam folder every couple days or so. It only takes a few seconds to scan through 20 messages then I delete my spam folder. I can spare a few seconds every couple days to search for important messages that might have ended up in spam (actually, I've never had it happen with my gmail account but I still check).
I just want to reply and say that A Game of Thrones and Neuromancer are both quite inappropriate for pre-teens (especially Neuromancer). Maybe I'm just a bit prudish (and I love the A Song of Fire and Ice novels) but A Game of Thrones is way too overtly violent for kids that age. Neuromancer is pretty trashy actually (I'm not commenting on how well it is written or how good the story is; I'm just commenting on its content in case people haven't read it before).
Dune and Foundation are a little advanced for pre-teens. They could read them, of course, but you have to consider the kid. You don't want a kid to read Dune and not enjoy it then never read it again because of that bad experience (by the way, I think Dune is one of the greatest books ever written). The Foundation novels could work too but they get a little too involved for most 10-12 year olds.
I have to agree with the Heinlein books that are written for children (his adult science fiction is way beyond pre-teens). Asimov has some good ones that might work. Janet Asimov's (written with Isaac) Norby Chronicles are also fun books. John Christopher's Tripod books are good too (The Sword of the Spirits is good as well but is more fantasy than sci-fi).
Ender's Game, as many have said is great too but much of it other than the action will be lost on youngish kids.
There are also some great newer books (the following are mainly fantasy) for kids (Bartimaeus Trilogy, Artemis Fowl, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Harry Potter (they've probably read them though), etc.). There are many more but I can't think of them right now.
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Ha, I was going to post that but I guess I'm more than 12 hours late. Those Mojave commercials are really obnoxious but they do show what Vista is like - it's good for the first few minutes; it's like a shiny used car that falls apart just after you drive away and you can't take it back.
I'd like the RIAA to become extinct but I have a serious question. Is there anything the RIAA does that is good? I'm not looking for any negative replies - I know all the negatives. I'm just wondering if someone can tell some of the positive things that they do. There has to be at least one thing positive.
You hit the nail on the head. The writing/scripting in the newer Star Wars movies wasn't that great. Actually, it was mainly just the dialogue that was poorly-written. I think the stories were there for the most part though, we just had poor dialogue to listen to.
Lucas is a master at coming up with stories, he just isn't great at actually writing them. He's given us Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Willow. He is also good visually; all the Star Wars movies look fantastic visually and have awesome special effects. He just needs to let other people write and direct and only be involved at a creative level (artistic direction, overarching story, visual effects, etc.).
I never got the whole Jar-Jar hating. His character isn't that bad. Now, the young Anakin's character is very poorly-written but Jar Jar is okay. I'm not going to say I really like him but I certainly don't mind him.
Oranges are just as expensive in Florida as anywhere else, unless you can get them at a farmer's market; even then they aren't much cheaper. You could grow your own but need to have a house with a yard.
Good point but many Native Americans had irrigation long before the Europeans came. Many of the canals in parts of Arizona were built on top of old Native American ones.
"Or, the trashy people could stop breeding like animals."
Wow. With an attitude like that, no wonder we have problems in our world. I thought we had progressed beyond such elitist nonsense: "Let's make sure only people with IQs over 140 have children. We also accept only people with blond hair and blue eyes into the 'breeding aristocracy.'"
How many kids you have is obviously your choice and your business but having only one kid is not a sustainable course for the world, especially with an aging population. Over-population is a myth. Too many people is only a problem when we don't take care of the environment. The earth could easily hold tens and even hundreds of billions of people if we were better at taking care of the environment.
This is a lame reply but I'd totally mod you up if I had any points.
This part doesn't apply directly to what you wrote but it applies to the original post. While we in America would be horrified to earn what many Chinese factory workers are earning, we also live in a more expensive society. Additionally, there are cultural differences and what seems unbearable to us might be just peachy for the Chinese.
Also, 130 years ago in the U.S. factory conditions weren't terribly wonderful. The standard of living was relatively poor as well. The problem in our world today is some people look at conditions in some overseas factories and think that they should be brought up to American or Western European standards now. These things take time. It took many many years here in America for factory conditions and pay to improve.
Also, as a company/corporation you can't just go into an area and start paying people ridiculous amounts of money (for the area). Say the average Chinese factory worker earns an equivalent of $50 US / month. A factory shouldn't just go in and decide to pay their workers $400 US / month. In our country it's easy to wonder, "Why not?" The problem is that it would suddenly create a huge imbalance, lead to huge increases in inflation, and could throw an economic system into chaos. Granted, maybe it would have only positive effects but just look at what happened in Russia after the USSR disbanded - major economic chaos that is still being overcome today. Sometimes these sudden changes are the best way but we can't just assume that they are.
Sorry, to ramble on.
Good point. I just have to add though that US airports are way better than European ones (at least compared to the two I've flown out of). In Europe airport security walk around with semi-automatic rifles. Getting through security was a major pain in Paris. It was much slower than anything I've been in in the U.S. Also, all males in the line I was in were being patted down after going through the metal detector (even if it didn't beep).
I've never had a problem with airport security in the U.S.
There shouldn't be any pacing in the 200m either. I used to run it (and the 100m) in high school and never had to pace myself. For me at least, 200m was the limit of distance I could run at a flat-out sprint; anything longer and I'd have to pace.
They could probably only win a trespassing case if the private road was fenced or gated off and the Google driver opened the gate to get in without permission. Simply sticking up a Private Property sign is not enough. I'm not saying Google was right in driving on their road but there's no way they could be charged with trespassing in this case.
No, the Federalists wanted the federal government to take precedence. The states' rights advocates wanted state's rights to take precedence. That's why our government is set up how it is - to make sure all parties play nicely with each other.
That assumes that motivational differences are not biologically/genetically based and also are completely distinct from natural aptitude. It could be that motivation leads to better performance or better aptitude leads to motivation, which leads to better performance. I think at some point we just need to accept that there are differences and go from there.
I also want to add that I sprinted in track in high school. I was decently fast but definitely not the fastest guy. My record time was pretty close to being competitive with female Olympic sprinters, and this was after only a couple months of training. I'm just supporting your post. Guys and girls are different, including their brains. Male and female brains develop differently. The problem is that there are a number of people in the world who are not satisfied with there being differences; instead of trying to help people be the best at what they can be, they try to make everyone exactly equal.
Exactly. I don't have the links to the studies either but I just want to second the fact that there are studies that show exactly that. Anecdotally, that was also my experience in high school. I had this conversation with a friend when I was in 11th grade. It was obvious that, on average, girls did better than guys in school and got higher standardized test scores. However, the most intelligent people I knew were male. I knew more guys than girls who scored quite highly on the ACT/SAT (>32 or >1400). Our valedictorian was female though.
In statistics talk, girls have a distribution that is leptokurtic, whereas guys have a platykurtic distribution - just more extremes.
Granted, this whole conversation is based on one viewpoint of intelligence that may or may not be accurate. It's also based on standardized test scores, which are not necessarily accurate measures of intelligence. Technically, they are achievement scores (which do correlate highly with intelligence). It's well-known that with practice and training (e.g., how to take tests, learning key words, learning math tricks, etc.) you are able to significantly improve standardized test scores.
Actually I believe you can watch any YouTube video on the iPhone. I tried it out with one I had uploaded. I sent the link to the video in an email to myself and clicked on it. The video came up and played just fine. I was actually very surprised. I tried with another video and it worked too. That's just a sample of 2 but both were random, watched-by-few, videos.
Well, if you ignore the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics that were very successful including a more than $100 million profit.
That's why I glance at my spam folder every couple days or so. It only takes a few seconds to scan through 20 messages then I delete my spam folder. I can spare a few seconds every couple days to search for important messages that might have ended up in spam (actually, I've never had it happen with my gmail account but I still check).
Funny thing is that it runs BSD. :)
I just want to reply and say that A Game of Thrones and Neuromancer are both quite inappropriate for pre-teens (especially Neuromancer). Maybe I'm just a bit prudish (and I love the A Song of Fire and Ice novels) but A Game of Thrones is way too overtly violent for kids that age. Neuromancer is pretty trashy actually (I'm not commenting on how well it is written or how good the story is; I'm just commenting on its content in case people haven't read it before).
Dune and Foundation are a little advanced for pre-teens. They could read them, of course, but you have to consider the kid. You don't want a kid to read Dune and not enjoy it then never read it again because of that bad experience (by the way, I think Dune is one of the greatest books ever written). The Foundation novels could work too but they get a little too involved for most 10-12 year olds.
I have to agree with the Heinlein books that are written for children (his adult science fiction is way beyond pre-teens). Asimov has some good ones that might work. Janet Asimov's (written with Isaac) Norby Chronicles are also fun books. John Christopher's Tripod books are good too (The Sword of the Spirits is good as well but is more fantasy than sci-fi).
Ender's Game, as many have said is great too but much of it other than the action will be lost on youngish kids.
There are also some great newer books (the following are mainly fantasy) for kids (Bartimaeus Trilogy, Artemis Fowl, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Harry Potter (they've probably read them though), etc.). There are many more but I can't think of them right now.
I just purchased 4 GB of RAM for $50 (ok, it really was $52) from NewEgg a couple weeks ago. You just need to look for the right sale (or deal site).
True but you can get 4 GB of RAM for $50 or less, which isn't a lot of money even for a grad student with a family to support.