Nah, quite all right. As I said, I spoke too definitively and am not sure I remember either show that well. I know I'd be pissed if I were on the receiving end of a grossly incorrect accusation at a show I liked.
My original impression of Firefly was it ripped off the style and character models. I spoke too definitively, though; I should have said it synced up on plot points and characters, since the setting and background (I think Outlaw Star had some kind of magic system in it?) were clearly different.
I will admit, it's been years since I've seen either show. I only remember my impressions of them. Since I can't offer any proof from memory, I'll concede that you're most likely right and my memory's bled the two into each other.
On a side-note: Sci-Fi Channel has picked up Firefly for Friday nights (I believe).
... who's Tim Curry going to be cast as in this upcoming bomb?
It's going to be one of those movies, and my guess is he's going to be one of the only redeeming characters (again). My guess is he'll either get a villain (as he was in the mind-numbingly bad CGI Voltron) or the butler. It's going to be Congo all over again, except with giant robots instead of grey gorillas.
Don't get me wrong, as a kid I used to love the show. However, let's be realistic: The show was a tad redundant... but Hollywood will still manage to totally miss the mark.
Actually, Firefly was a rip off... sorry, "homage"... of Outlaw Star. The pilot of Firefly even syncs up with Outlaw Star right down to the navigator-in-a-box.
Step One: Sell game systems at a loss to as many retailers as possible.
Step Two: ???
Step 3: PROFITS!!!
By the way, nothing you said actually refuted my points. If people aren't buying games/PSP movies, Sony is losing money on the PSP. Oh, and the purchase of just one game is not a big chunk of money to Sony, nor does it make a huge impact on their losses. Keep in mind that games are sold to retailers for less than the retailers price them, much as you pointed out the PSP was.
Wasn't the PSP supposed to do all this neat shit to begin with? Why can't I browse the web with it, straight out of the box?
One of the things it seems most people don't know or think about is that gaming companies make all their money selling games. Although in the case of the PSP, Sony sells games and PSP movies. If I recall, they were selling the PSP for $250 at loss. Every time Sony sells a PSP they're losing money. Every time someone buys a PSP to hack it into a portable mp3 player or running SNES emulators on it Sony loses money.
Hacks for the PSP are great and all for the consumer, but bad for Sony. The less people buy PSP for the games and movies (PSP movies you ripped yourself don't count), the faster Nintendo is going to bury yet another ill-advised competitor in the handheld arena. They will literally kill the PSP market because the PSP itself is selling too well.
So to answer your questions: Because they're losing money when you do anything with the PSP other than buying games and movies for it.
Re:"antihero" == "non-heroic protagonist"
on
The Escapist
·
· Score: 1
... and if Wikipedia had existed a few hundred years ago, it would have included references to the Earth being flat.
The definition of "anti-hero" is a popular misconception. To avoid reposting the same information again, here's a link to the discussion on this elsewhere in the thread.
Still right.
on
The Escapist
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Wikipedia is incorrect. One of the few problems I have with Wikipedia is when bad information is wide-spread enough, there's a good chance that it'll wind up in there as if it were factual. There is a popular misconception about what "anti-hero" means, because most people didn't learn it in an academic institution. As such, instead of learning the actual English meaning they just learn what a lot of people think it means. Just because a bastardization of a word is popular doesn't make it right.
Eventually (probably in a few decades) the new meaning comic books invented for "anti-hero" may have become prevalent enough that is becomes accepted as a standard definition. Currently it only exists in subculture.
If you want to prove I'm wrong, please site an actual academic source.
Re:"antihero" != "evil"
on
The Escapist
·
· Score: 3, Informative
No, "anti-hero" is a literary term that appeared around the turn of the last century. It means a protagonist who is an average person, rather than someone upstanding or fantastic. Traditionally, dating back to Greek plays, the main protagonist of a story was a hero. He or she was someone of nearly inhuman virtue and often important as well. The only variation on this was the "tragic hero" who was exactly like a hero but with one flaw that caused them to have a massive fall from grace.
The problem is most people can't really identify with a hero character. Everyone can identify with an anti-hero, and if it weren't for comic books perverting the meaning you wouldn't see the term thrown around anywhere near as much.
Anti-hero == average person protagonist
How much do we really know about Martian soil at this point? All things considered, for a greenhouse to be a serious plan, we'd have to know we wouldn't need to ship fertilizer, nutrients, and minerals to support them. All of those things add a lot of weight, so if we can't use the soil on Mars as it is, the idea of thriving communities based around greenhouses is a work of science fiction.
The problem with this can be summed up best in two questions.
1) Why would spammers stop sending spam just because they had competition from a service that requires competant end-users?
2) Since the only way this bonded email could work is if it was excluded from spam filtering, why wouldn't the same people hiring spammers just keep buying bonds to send guaranteed-delivery spam?
I have a better idea than this for stopping spam for anyone who would even consider this bonded email drivel useful:
Shut down the SMTP port on your server. Conduct all business via phone. You will never get spam email again.
I find it sad that smaller party supporters fail to accept why they are repeatedly defeated. They simply don't appeal to the American public. Oh, I know that seems like an insult, but it's not. The advantages the Republicans and Democrats have are that people understand and recognize them. Since most political views in this country fall under authoritarianism, conservatism, liberalism, and libertarianism the two major parties can scoop up the 3rd party's good ideas but distance themselves from the unpopular ones. They've been doing it for nearly a century.
As a representative of one of the two major parties, you get to pick the best new ideas and ignore the extreme ones. You can be for campaign finance reform without supporting the PLO. You can be for gun rights and against legalizing pot. You can pick and choose the common sense ideas from the smaller party platforms, but avoid the radical ones that would require a great deal of effort to employ. People don't like being promised major changes, because they don't expect to ever see them. The primary parties offer more of the same people have come to expect, plus what they decide you have that's worth stealing.
All the meanwhile, the smaller party supporters complain uselessly about how they're being cheated. Polls are rigged. The news media is out to get them. Third party candidates aren't being cheated. They're simply not popular. If they ever want to get ahead in politics, they need to stop bitching and moaning about how the Republicans and Democrats created a system to scam the public. Instead they have to actually make an effort to sell themselves to the public. It worked for the Progressives, and if they hadn't thought Prohibition was a good idea they'd still be a major party today.
Do you all know what you're doing when you spend most of your time crying foul? Nothing. Absolutely nothing, because none of the people you need to bring over to your side care. It's akin to the old saying, "You're preaching to the quior." You're trying to convert the already faithful, rather than making a real effort and converting the sinners (or in your case the partisans). You can't win people over by insulting them. You can't win people over by telling them that voting against you is a vote for slavery.
You all have to show the public, "Hey, we're not just disillusioned, partisan burnouts. We're a group with good ideas and a plan of action to implement them. This is what we want to do. This is why we want it. This is how we'll do it." No shots at the other parties. Focus only on selling your own party. All of this negativity is dooming you to a permanent place in the background of politics.
As for voting, I don't understand why people aren't touting optical scanners. We had them in Seminole county, Florida and the results of our recounts didn't even need lawyer-intervention to dispute. They're fast, fairly inexpensive, they show clear intention, and they leave a paper trail. The number from your ballot is written next to your name and signature on the sign-in sheet.
Just when you thought drivers with cellphones couldn't get any worse, someone gives them a stylus to manage with. Wonderful. Now they'll have to drive dangerously with their knees while distracted, instead of with one hand.
Do cell phones really need this much capability? I remember seeing PDA phones a couple years ago. This almost seems like a cosmetic technology-advancement. Something for the sole purpose of wowing people into buying things they don't really need (and odds are, won't use).
I've got to agree. This eliminates one of the most common sources of viruses: internet browsing. By virtue of limitting infection methods to email, they've effectively rigged the contest. It will not be a true test of the Mac's performance in internet security as it will only deal with one aspect of internet threats. Even with the IPs of the boxes, this would continue to be an unbalanced contest.
You guys are too skeptical. So MS paid for the study that found them to be safer. That doesn't mean a thing. Seriously, give up the paranoia and trust your fellow human beings for a change.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to draw up plans for a toll both. A nice fellow in a trenchcoat just sold me the deed to the Brooklyn Bridge.
Can you imagine how terrible this could go if they don't use adequate security? Someone could conceivably hack the source and replace a film with a horrific piece of fanfiction. Movies will now have a chance of not only being terrible, but not even the terrible movie you paid to see in the first place.
- - I think we need to relax the tone when we talk about privacy issues like this. When we keep making references to 1984 and site personal opinions of the US President and foreign policy, we risk jading the uninformed. The same thing happenned with environmental issues. Throughout the 90's the news media bombarded us with a new environmental issue every year as if the world was going to end. The world didn't end. Now most people are apathetic problems that have only gotten worse. The only thing the average person does nowadays when the ozone layer gets more depleted is shopping for a higher SPF sunblock.
- - That being said, the issue is cut-and-dry. These passports won't stop terrorism. The only thing RFID passport will do is make it easier for people with good forgeries to get on planes. As people become more dependent on high technology, the number of people who can abuse the system becomes smaller but the level of abuse they can perform grows. This does not make anyone safer, it makes the elite criminals who can crack the system richer. You don't have to be an expert hacker to give someone a fake criminal record, you just have to have the money and resources to hire one.
- - You work in an airport. You're told the new security system is much better than the old one. It certainly seems more complicated to fake the system out. Therefore you are naturally less suspicious of anyone the machine approves. There only has to be one criminal out there who can make forgeries to fool your system. As soon as someone out there figures it out, this system is obsolete. Terrorists have money to burn, between selling opium and (the even more lucritive and addictive) crude oil.
- - Undetected forgeries are the first failure of all security; human beings are the second. Has everyone forgotten how it was the terrorists got into the cockpits of those planes? They took hostages, and the pilots broke procedure by opening the door. Since in politics you can't effectively shoot down an idea without suggesting an alternative, I have a solution that takes into account forging documents and faulty PeopleSoft.
Problems with the current solution:
These new passports could be faked
The 9/11 terrorists had valid passports
The 9/11 terrorists were armed with weapons which (a college student demonstrated) can still be snuck onto planes
Pilots could still fail to follow procedure (a hard thing for a human being to do when one knows one's choice will cause the immediate death of another).
Solution: Make stronger doors that can't open while the plane is in flight, and require all planes use them.
- - It's cheaper than adding all of this RFID crap, less offensive than racial profiling, and less intrusive than a body cavity search. Terrorists trying to force the door open would be stopped by Air Marshalls. When it comes down to it, stopping crimes before they happen is incredibly difficult, expensive, and ultimately impossible. Preventing crimes from completing successfully is far easier and less expensive.
One of the main things you should focus on learning is what these people believe the job they're applying for entails. Try to determine what they think their role in your department is, as well as the company. Regardless of what you decide you want in a manager, you must keep in mind this person may know you'll be working for them. That means you'll need a method to spot pandering.
I would suggest that you come up with several scenarios which your new manager may encounter, and ask how s/he would resolve them. For example:
How would you attempt to resolve complaints from the team that the budget was set far too low to complete a project?
A new article comes out, stating that using RFID tags to track employee movements within the building can improve efficiency. Your team is strongly opposed to this, because they feel as long as they finish their work on time, they shouldn't have someone second-guessing how often they go to the bathroom. How do you handle this situation?
The team lead comes to you for your professional opinion. Two members of the team develop bitterness for one another and refuse to work together. This is hurting productivity, but the project already has too few people on it to remove either of them. What do you tell him/her?
I'd suggest you flesh out the questions if you've had similar issues come up, or think of tough problems that your department had to deal with in the past. Don't play softball with the people you interview; make them show you what you can really expect to see from them. At the same time, remember these are just scenarios. They don't have to know the best answer, they need to show you they know how to find the best answer.
Slashdot Mirror
Nah, quite all right. As I said, I spoke too definitively and am not sure I remember either show that well. I know I'd be pissed if I were on the receiving end of a grossly incorrect accusation at a show I liked.
I will admit, it's been years since I've seen either show. I only remember my impressions of them. Since I can't offer any proof from memory, I'll concede that you're most likely right and my memory's bled the two into each other.
On a side-note: Sci-Fi Channel has picked up Firefly for Friday nights (I believe).
It's going to be one of those movies, and my guess is he's going to be one of the only redeeming characters (again). My guess is he'll either get a villain (as he was in the mind-numbingly bad CGI Voltron) or the butler. It's going to be Congo all over again, except with giant robots instead of grey gorillas.
Don't get me wrong, as a kid I used to love the show. However, let's be realistic: The show was a tad redundant... but Hollywood will still manage to totally miss the mark.
[straight face]Yes. Homage.[/straight face]
Step Two: ???
Step 3: PROFITS!!!
By the way, nothing you said actually refuted my points. If people aren't buying games/PSP movies, Sony is losing money on the PSP. Oh, and the purchase of just one game is not a big chunk of money to Sony, nor does it make a huge impact on their losses. Keep in mind that games are sold to retailers for less than the retailers price them, much as you pointed out the PSP was.
One of the things it seems most people don't know or think about is that gaming companies make all their money selling games. Although in the case of the PSP, Sony sells games and PSP movies. If I recall, they were selling the PSP for $250 at loss. Every time Sony sells a PSP they're losing money. Every time someone buys a PSP to hack it into a portable mp3 player or running SNES emulators on it Sony loses money.
Hacks for the PSP are great and all for the consumer, but bad for Sony. The less people buy PSP for the games and movies (PSP movies you ripped yourself don't count), the faster Nintendo is going to bury yet another ill-advised competitor in the handheld arena. They will literally kill the PSP market because the PSP itself is selling too well.
So to answer your questions: Because they're losing money when you do anything with the PSP other than buying games and movies for it.
The definition of "anti-hero" is a popular misconception. To avoid reposting the same information again, here's a link to the discussion on this elsewhere in the thread.
Eventually (probably in a few decades) the new meaning comic books invented for "anti-hero" may have become prevalent enough that is becomes accepted as a standard definition. Currently it only exists in subculture.
If you want to prove I'm wrong, please site an actual academic source.
No, "anti-hero" is a literary term that appeared around the turn of the last century. It means a protagonist who is an average person, rather than someone upstanding or fantastic. Traditionally, dating back to Greek plays, the main protagonist of a story was a hero. He or she was someone of nearly inhuman virtue and often important as well. The only variation on this was the "tragic hero" who was exactly like a hero but with one flaw that caused them to have a massive fall from grace. The problem is most people can't really identify with a hero character. Everyone can identify with an anti-hero, and if it weren't for comic books perverting the meaning you wouldn't see the term thrown around anywhere near as much. Anti-hero == average person protagonist
How much do we really know about Martian soil at this point? All things considered, for a greenhouse to be a serious plan, we'd have to know we wouldn't need to ship fertilizer, nutrients, and minerals to support them. All of those things add a lot of weight, so if we can't use the soil on Mars as it is, the idea of thriving communities based around greenhouses is a work of science fiction.
The problem with this can be summed up best in two questions. 1) Why would spammers stop sending spam just because they had competition from a service that requires competant end-users? 2) Since the only way this bonded email could work is if it was excluded from spam filtering, why wouldn't the same people hiring spammers just keep buying bonds to send guaranteed-delivery spam? I have a better idea than this for stopping spam for anyone who would even consider this bonded email drivel useful: Shut down the SMTP port on your server. Conduct all business via phone. You will never get spam email again.
I find it sad that smaller party supporters fail to accept why they are repeatedly defeated. They simply don't appeal to the American public. Oh, I know that seems like an insult, but it's not. The advantages the Republicans and Democrats have are that people understand and recognize them. Since most political views in this country fall under authoritarianism, conservatism, liberalism, and libertarianism the two major parties can scoop up the 3rd party's good ideas but distance themselves from the unpopular ones. They've been doing it for nearly a century.
As a representative of one of the two major parties, you get to pick the best new ideas and ignore the extreme ones. You can be for campaign finance reform without supporting the PLO. You can be for gun rights and against legalizing pot. You can pick and choose the common sense ideas from the smaller party platforms, but avoid the radical ones that would require a great deal of effort to employ. People don't like being promised major changes, because they don't expect to ever see them. The primary parties offer more of the same people have come to expect, plus what they decide you have that's worth stealing.
All the meanwhile, the smaller party supporters complain uselessly about how they're being cheated. Polls are rigged. The news media is out to get them. Third party candidates aren't being cheated. They're simply not popular. If they ever want to get ahead in politics, they need to stop bitching and moaning about how the Republicans and Democrats created a system to scam the public. Instead they have to actually make an effort to sell themselves to the public. It worked for the Progressives, and if they hadn't thought Prohibition was a good idea they'd still be a major party today.
Do you all know what you're doing when you spend most of your time crying foul? Nothing. Absolutely nothing, because none of the people you need to bring over to your side care. It's akin to the old saying, "You're preaching to the quior." You're trying to convert the already faithful, rather than making a real effort and converting the sinners (or in your case the partisans). You can't win people over by insulting them. You can't win people over by telling them that voting against you is a vote for slavery.
You all have to show the public, "Hey, we're not just disillusioned, partisan burnouts. We're a group with good ideas and a plan of action to implement them. This is what we want to do. This is why we want it. This is how we'll do it." No shots at the other parties. Focus only on selling your own party. All of this negativity is dooming you to a permanent place in the background of politics.
As for voting, I don't understand why people aren't touting optical scanners. We had them in Seminole county, Florida and the results of our recounts didn't even need lawyer-intervention to dispute. They're fast, fairly inexpensive, they show clear intention, and they leave a paper trail. The number from your ballot is written next to your name and signature on the sign-in sheet.
No one complains about the responcible drivers.
Do cell phones really need this much capability? I remember seeing PDA phones a couple years ago. This almost seems like a cosmetic technology-advancement. Something for the sole purpose of wowing people into buying things they don't really need (and odds are, won't use).
I've got to agree. This eliminates one of the most common sources of viruses: internet browsing. By virtue of limitting infection methods to email, they've effectively rigged the contest. It will not be a true test of the Mac's performance in internet security as it will only deal with one aspect of internet threats. Even with the IPs of the boxes, this would continue to be an unbalanced contest.
You guys are too skeptical. So MS paid for the study that found them to be safer. That doesn't mean a thing. Seriously, give up the paranoia and trust your fellow human beings for a change. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to draw up plans for a toll both. A nice fellow in a trenchcoat just sold me the deed to the Brooklyn Bridge.
Can you imagine how terrible this could go if they don't use adequate security? Someone could conceivably hack the source and replace a film with a horrific piece of fanfiction. Movies will now have a chance of not only being terrible, but not even the terrible movie you paid to see in the first place.
- - That being said, the issue is cut-and-dry. These passports won't stop terrorism. The only thing RFID passport will do is make it easier for people with good forgeries to get on planes. As people become more dependent on high technology, the number of people who can abuse the system becomes smaller but the level of abuse they can perform grows. This does not make anyone safer, it makes the elite criminals who can crack the system richer. You don't have to be an expert hacker to give someone a fake criminal record, you just have to have the money and resources to hire one.
- - You work in an airport. You're told the new security system is much better than the old one. It certainly seems more complicated to fake the system out. Therefore you are naturally less suspicious of anyone the machine approves. There only has to be one criminal out there who can make forgeries to fool your system. As soon as someone out there figures it out, this system is obsolete. Terrorists have money to burn, between selling opium and (the even more lucritive and addictive) crude oil.
- - Undetected forgeries are the first failure of all security; human beings are the second. Has everyone forgotten how it was the terrorists got into the cockpits of those planes? They took hostages, and the pilots broke procedure by opening the door. Since in politics you can't effectively shoot down an idea without suggesting an alternative, I have a solution that takes into account forging documents and faulty PeopleSoft.
Problems with the current solution:
Solution: Make stronger doors that can't open while the plane is in flight, and require all planes use them.
- - It's cheaper than adding all of this RFID crap, less offensive than racial profiling, and less intrusive than a body cavity search. Terrorists trying to force the door open would be stopped by Air Marshalls. When it comes down to it, stopping crimes before they happen is incredibly difficult, expensive, and ultimately impossible. Preventing crimes from completing successfully is far easier and less expensive.
I would suggest that you come up with several scenarios which your new manager may encounter, and ask how s/he would resolve them. For example:
- How would you attempt to resolve complaints from the team that the budget was set far too low to complete a project?
- A new article comes out, stating that using RFID tags to track employee movements within the building can improve efficiency. Your team is strongly opposed to this, because they feel as long as they finish their work on time, they shouldn't have someone second-guessing how often they go to the bathroom. How do you handle this situation?
- The team lead comes to you for your professional opinion. Two members of the team develop bitterness for one another and refuse to work together. This is hurting productivity, but the project already has too few people on it to remove either of them. What do you tell him/her?
I'd suggest you flesh out the questions if you've had similar issues come up, or think of tough problems that your department had to deal with in the past. Don't play softball with the people you interview; make them show you what you can really expect to see from them. At the same time, remember these are just scenarios. They don't have to know the best answer, they need to show you they know how to find the best answer.