I respect your right to not like the movie. But...
One other thing that really didn't sit well with me was when Mal was talking to the bad guy, and Mal quickly said something like "I'm not gonna let you get a trace on me" and hung up. That's lifting a several-years-old technology hook from movies; these days, traces are instant
First, as another poster stated, he didn't say that. He stated that he wouldn't get a location trace off the wave, implying that it was encrypted or scrambled (you'll see a similar technique used in the hit Fox show 24). However, even if he did say "I'm not gonna let you get a trace on me," it wouldn't really suspend disbelief. You're assuming future communications systems, that allow real-time communications on the scale of a solar system, would have trace systems that operate similar to modern communications systems. That may not be the case.
However, they killed off two of the characters during the movie (both right near the end, so it wasn't even part of the story arc). It definitely seemed like a "nailing the coffin" ending.
One of the two deaths was needed to advance the plot, though. Book's death pushed the point home that they would not be safe while they were being hunted. It was an essential plot device.
Wash's death, while not essential to the plot, was essential for creating an atmosphere where the other characters were in danger. Without his death, we wouldn't be worried if the other characters would pull through. We would just assume that they can't die.
That's great that you only have one thing to vote on. But what works in Canada may not work in the United States.
In the last major election, I didn't just have to vote for the President. I had to vote for a Senator, a Congressman, state government officials, local officials, and local initiatives. I didn't have to make one mark on the ballot, but several. This makes manual recounts difficult because you have to verify the results of several elections, not just one. And each election on the ballot opens up the possibility that there is a problem that could disqualify it.
This is why many Americans want a properly implemented electronic voting system. It will speed up our elections, and with a properly audited security system and paper trail, will reduce incidents of discarded ballots and fraud allegations.
While you could claim that this is a trade secret, would the court really uphold such a claim when it conflicts with matters of great public importance?
As for the paper trail idea: Why make someone vote on a computer screen to produce a paper ballot? Keep It Simple, Stupid applies to methodologies and processes beyond programming and interfaces.
Why have a paper trail? For a million reasons. To have a hard count to verify that the computer count is correct. To have a backup in case the database becomes corrupted. To ensure that there is no tampering.
To not have a paper trail leaves the voters in a dangerous situation. If something happens to the election database, or if someone manages to tamper with it, there will be a way to verify that the election results are correct.
No. The fact that I asked that question only shows that evil depends on your point of view. Its relative.
While Child-Porn is almost universially regarded as bad, adult consensual porn and drugs are not agreed upon. Some think that porn and drugs are evil, others don't see that view.
What the AT&T exec fails to realize is that content providers are some of their biggest customers. Do they really think Ebay and Google get all the bandwidth for free? They pay to connect to the Internet just like everyone else.
A lot of networks are adding "free incoming minutes" to all their new plans. US Cellular has this, and I believe I just heard a commercial where Sprint/Nextel just added that feature as well.
Well, I could go to Washington, stand outside the office of my Congressmen, and try to talk to him every time he comes and goes. I don't think I would get too far with that idea, and the Secret Service/Capital Police might have a problem with it.
I could also try to start an organization in my congressional district and organize people, but then I have to come up with the funding and time to get my message out.
The problem isn't people. There are tons of people who care. But this type of thing, even if you care, generally doesn't rank too high on priorities because of things like work, family, education, and church (if one chooses to participate in that social organization). To add to this, the inflationary economic policy of the United States makes budgets tighter, so people have to work more to keep their lifestyle.
So in the end, my best bet end up being a boycott.
While you make a valid point, I think the Grandparent had a different idea in mind. With the advent of (comparatively) cheap bandwidth, big business doesn't need to have extremely large campuses that house 90% of their business operations. Instead of maintaining these large collections of buildings, they can est up little groups in small towns across the country.
This has a number of positive and negative effects. Companies will save money on maintenance since they don't have to maintain a collection of large buildings. They will also be bringing jobs to areas that don't have high tech jobs.
The downside is that with the lower cost of living, they won't have to pay programmers as much.
There is definitely a subculture of minorities out there who like to use their minority status as a crutch and leveraging tool in the workplace.
There are individuals of every race who use the race card to gain an advantage. I've seen some of it for myself.
At my college, there was a group of a specific minority that would always cause trouble on campus. They had been documented for a number of campus rules violations, and in some cases, had city Police citations issued to them. However, they always seemed to get off scot-free.
There was a final incident were a student was assaulted and property vandalized that finally caused the school to take action. One of the perpetrators, an alumni of the college, was arrested and banned from the campus.
You would think it would end there, but it doesn't. About two weeks ago, she shows up wanting to watch the Men's basketball team compete. Campus security gives explains the official policy and tells her to leave, but she demands to speak to the Vice President who set her punishment. To make a very long story short, in the five minutes of their conversation, he reverses his earlier decision and allows her to stay on campus.
There is more, though. After talking with several security officers, resident assistants, and even a hall director over the last two years, I had learned that this particular individual, whenever faced with punishment for her misdeeds, threatened to sue stating that she was only being punished because she was a minority.
There are individuals who will always be willing to use whatever advantages they can to get ahead, even if that means using a tactic like the race card.
Human evolution is taught in US schools. Very Conservative christians, mainly from Southern areas but also some spots in the midwest, are opposed to the theory on Religious grounds and do not want their kids exposed to it. However, they don't make up a majority of people or hold a majority viewpoint.
As for anthropolic global warming, I can't comment on that because I feel that we aren't causing the warming. I feel that way because the Earth is a complex system, and we don't know enough about climate and the mechanisms for change to adequately say its human activity that is causing it. For all we know, the global warming/cooling cycle is linked to a number of conditions, one of which is human activity.
Contributing? Yes. There is no doubt that man is contributing to the problem. To say that we're causing the problem, though, is just arrogance.
And yes, I realize that anthropomorphic global warming is a popular belief. But just because it is a popular belief doesn't make it right.
Can you honestly say that turning the system off on 9/11 was "on a whim?" Do you think the ESA would keep the system going if a European nation suffered an attack like 9/11?
That also depends on the reason why someone is leaving. If they leave because they got a better job or are working for a competitor, then yes, I would escort them out of the building right away and just pay them for two weeks while they sit at home.
If they resign for personal reasons, such as marriage, pregnancy, death very close to them in the family, or because they are relocating, then there is no reason to not let them serve out their resignation.
Almost any man can steel himself to face a firing squad, death is the end of all woes after all, but it takes an extra ordinary man to stand before a newspaper without turning moral coward and hypocrite.
That would make one hell of a sig line.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you think Fox would sell those rights away??
I respect your right to not like the movie. But...
One other thing that really didn't sit well with me was when Mal was talking to the bad guy, and Mal quickly said something like "I'm not gonna let you get a trace on me" and hung up. That's lifting a several-years-old technology hook from movies; these days, traces are instant
First, as another poster stated, he didn't say that. He stated that he wouldn't get a location trace off the wave, implying that it was encrypted or scrambled (you'll see a similar technique used in the hit Fox show 24). However, even if he did say "I'm not gonna let you get a trace on me," it wouldn't really suspend disbelief. You're assuming future communications systems, that allow real-time communications on the scale of a solar system, would have trace systems that operate similar to modern communications systems. That may not be the case.
However, they killed off two of the characters during the movie (both right near the end, so it wasn't even part of the story arc). It definitely seemed like a "nailing the coffin" ending.
One of the two deaths was needed to advance the plot, though. Book's death pushed the point home that they would not be safe while they were being hunted. It was an essential plot device.
Wash's death, while not essential to the plot, was essential for creating an atmosphere where the other characters were in danger. Without his death, we wouldn't be worried if the other characters would pull through. We would just assume that they can't die.
That's great that you only have one thing to vote on. But what works in Canada may not work in the United States.
In the last major election, I didn't just have to vote for the President. I had to vote for a Senator, a Congressman, state government officials, local officials, and local initiatives. I didn't have to make one mark on the ballot, but several. This makes manual recounts difficult because you have to verify the results of several elections, not just one. And each election on the ballot opens up the possibility that there is a problem that could disqualify it.
This is why many Americans want a properly implemented electronic voting system. It will speed up our elections, and with a properly audited security system and paper trail, will reduce incidents of discarded ballots and fraud allegations.
While you could claim that this is a trade secret, would the court really uphold such a claim when it conflicts with matters of great public importance?
As for the paper trail idea: Why make someone vote on a computer screen to produce a paper ballot? Keep It Simple, Stupid applies to methodologies and processes beyond programming and interfaces.
Why have a paper trail? For a million reasons. To have a hard count to verify that the computer count is correct. To have a backup in case the database becomes corrupted. To ensure that there is no tampering.
To not have a paper trail leaves the voters in a dangerous situation. If something happens to the election database, or if someone manages to tamper with it, there will be a way to verify that the election results are correct.
No. The fact that I asked that question only shows that evil depends on your point of view. Its relative.
While Child-Porn is almost universially regarded as bad, adult consensual porn and drugs are not agreed upon. Some think that porn and drugs are evil, others don't see that view.
What the AT&T exec fails to realize is that content providers are some of their biggest customers. Do they really think Ebay and Google get all the bandwidth for free? They pay to connect to the Internet just like everyone else.
A lot of networks are adding "free incoming minutes" to all their new plans. US Cellular has this, and I believe I just heard a commercial where Sprint/Nextel just added that feature as well.
Well, I could go to Washington, stand outside the office of my Congressmen, and try to talk to him every time he comes and goes. I don't think I would get too far with that idea, and the Secret Service/Capital Police might have a problem with it.
I could also try to start an organization in my congressional district and organize people, but then I have to come up with the funding and time to get my message out.
The problem isn't people. There are tons of people who care. But this type of thing, even if you care, generally doesn't rank too high on priorities because of things like work, family, education, and church (if one chooses to participate in that social organization). To add to this, the inflationary economic policy of the United States makes budgets tighter, so people have to work more to keep their lifestyle.
So in the end, my best bet end up being a boycott.
While you make a valid point, I think the Grandparent had a different idea in mind. With the advent of (comparatively) cheap bandwidth, big business doesn't need to have extremely large campuses that house 90% of their business operations. Instead of maintaining these large collections of buildings, they can est up little groups in small towns across the country.
This has a number of positive and negative effects. Companies will save money on maintenance since they don't have to maintain a collection of large buildings. They will also be bringing jobs to areas that don't have high tech jobs.
The downside is that with the lower cost of living, they won't have to pay programmers as much.
The govt. wants to strengthen its case before the courts so that it can have an effective law which curbs child porn
There is no way you can have an effective law which curbs child porn. Any law that tries that would be as effective as the DMCA.
But what defines "Evil?" Is porn evil? Is kiddie porn evil? Is information on how to cut heroin evil?
This battle has nothing to do with evil. It has everything to do with the control of information.
Its odd that the most multi-dimensional character in the show would be the one who should have been the most one dimension.
To each their own.
If I only had mod points....
Unless he was a DJ, I'd make fun of him too. Now you just need to capture him singing along to it in the shower.
What song did he buy?
There is definitely a subculture of minorities out there who like to use their minority status as a crutch and leveraging tool in the workplace.
There are individuals of every race who use the race card to gain an advantage. I've seen some of it for myself.
At my college, there was a group of a specific minority that would always cause trouble on campus. They had been documented for a number of campus rules violations, and in some cases, had city Police citations issued to them. However, they always seemed to get off scot-free.
There was a final incident were a student was assaulted and property vandalized that finally caused the school to take action. One of the perpetrators, an alumni of the college, was arrested and banned from the campus.
You would think it would end there, but it doesn't. About two weeks ago, she shows up wanting to watch the Men's basketball team compete. Campus security gives explains the official policy and tells her to leave, but she demands to speak to the Vice President who set her punishment. To make a very long story short, in the five minutes of their conversation, he reverses his earlier decision and allows her to stay on campus.
There is more, though. After talking with several security officers, resident assistants, and even a hall director over the last two years, I had learned that this particular individual, whenever faced with punishment for her misdeeds, threatened to sue stating that she was only being punished because she was a minority.
There are individuals who will always be willing to use whatever advantages they can to get ahead, even if that means using a tactic like the race card.
And what would that "correct" choice be??
Human evolution is taught in US schools. Very Conservative christians, mainly from Southern areas but also some spots in the midwest, are opposed to the theory on Religious grounds and do not want their kids exposed to it. However, they don't make up a majority of people or hold a majority viewpoint.
As for anthropolic global warming, I can't comment on that because I feel that we aren't causing the warming. I feel that way because the Earth is a complex system, and we don't know enough about climate and the mechanisms for change to adequately say its human activity that is causing it. For all we know, the global warming/cooling cycle is linked to a number of conditions, one of which is human activity.
Contributing? Yes. There is no doubt that man is contributing to the problem. To say that we're causing the problem, though, is just arrogance.
And yes, I realize that anthropomorphic global warming is a popular belief. But just because it is a popular belief doesn't make it right.
Can you honestly say that turning the system off on 9/11 was "on a whim?" Do you think the ESA would keep the system going if a European nation suffered an attack like 9/11?
And when has the US ever cut the system off "on a whim?"
So you hold their systems hostage and have them self-destruct if you're terminated? How is that not your fault??
That also depends on the reason why someone is leaving. If they leave because they got a better job or are working for a competitor, then yes, I would escort them out of the building right away and just pay them for two weeks while they sit at home.
If they resign for personal reasons, such as marriage, pregnancy, death very close to them in the family, or because they are relocating, then there is no reason to not let them serve out their resignation.
Almost any man can steel himself to face a firing squad, death is the end of all woes after all, but it takes an extra ordinary man to stand before a newspaper without turning moral coward and hypocrite. That would make one hell of a sig line.