Can you cite anywhere where the Founding Fathers didn't believe in taxes? They're point want that taxes shouldn't be levied, but rather that there should be no taxation without representation.
I may actually be the only person who actually likes God Emperor Of Dune, but I get many peoples' observations that after the third Dune book, the series changed pretty substantially. Being a big fan of Herbert's work, what I saw was that the later Dune books began in many respects to resemble his other later era books in prose style, and it was that which likely turned off many people.
I can tell you right now that if I was a successful writer, doubtless making a meaningful, but still modest wage, and someone waved the big bucks in front of me to make my unfinished series into a major multinational television production, I would not hesitate for the briefest moment in taking the cash.
I'm not a fan of the television series, but do enjoy the books. The only thing that really pisses me off is that there is such a length of time between each book that I end up having to reread the entire series from the start just to remember all the characters and story lines. Thus far I've read the first three books three times.
He has managed to out-Tolkien JRR Tolkien. Even with three or four contiguous story lines going on, Tolkien had to map out the chronology of events carefully so that he always knew where all the main characters and events were happening in relation to each other. Martin has something like two or three times as many plots going on, and he must spend have his time keeping the plotting straight.
The Game of Thrones series is essentially a shared universe with one writer.
He may not finish it, but you can be damned sure the producers of the series have a solid plot line at their disposal should he kick the bucket. This is a cash cow of monumental proportions, and they won't let something as minor as the author's death get in the way of continuing production.
Oh fuck that. I can plug my Nexus into my Windows machine, create folders, copy files, view any video format I want. Or I can have an iDevice, have to use the evil that is iTunes, convert to formats that Apple has decreed as sacred, and basically give up all control of the device. IOS devices are good for people who never want to go beyond the parameters Apple sets.
I think you would have a hard time figuring out what Occupy WASN'T protesting about. That's why the Tea Party has succeeded to some extent, and Occupy has failed. The Tea Party, by and large, set the parameters for what it was fighting, and stuck to them. Occupy was all over the map.
Can't speak for the iPad, because the only real interaction I had with one was a day with an iPad 2, which I found a bit heavy. Further, I really do dislike IOS and have since even abandoned my iPhone for a Nexus 5.
That all being said, I do use my Nexus 7 a lot. For me it is the perfect form factor. A 10" tablet is really too big, and my phone is on the smallish size. I pretty much do all my recreational reading, and a fairly large portion of my work-related reading on my Nexus 7, and it's small enough to be rather book-like in size, but large enough that it renders PDFs, ePubs and most web pages fairly well. I'm not going to get that readability out of a smartphone, and a 10" tablet or notebook is just too big.
That's pretty much how I remember it. There would be all those awkward asides referring to events in the films, as if anybody who hadn't seen the movies would actually be reading the book. I found it fairly distracting.
I think The Empire Strikes Back still stands up very well. I agree the other two don't have the same magic they once held, but Episode V, which, ironically, had the least involvement from Lucas of the original six films, is extremely well plotted, with better dialog and much more convincing acting. The only thing that comes close to Episode V is the final confrontation between Luke, Vader and the Emperor in RotJ. Unfortunately, that's only a handful of scenes in an otherwise mediocre film.
I read just one of the Dune prequels and refused to touch another. So far as I am concerned, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson just pissed over the late great Frank Herbert's legacy.
I wish Brian Herbert had done what Christopher Tolkien did, and just simply release the unfinished stories and plotlines, rather than trying to "finish" the series with appalling novels.
Maybe I'll give the Zahn novels another try. I mainly just remember finding the prose pretty stiff.
I have no idea whether Guinness was an asshole or not, but he was a very good actor, certainly the best one on the set of Episode IV. I recently rewatched his brilliant take as George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and was reminded of just how good he was. That's not even mentioning his extraordinary work with David Lean in Bridge Over The River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. A personal favorite is the original The Ladykillers.
So far as I understand it, while Guinness disliked the dialogue (who can blame him, a lot of it was pretty bad), he was grateful for the money it gave him.
I'm a white Canadian 40-50 who even owned the Princess Leia action figure back in 1978 because you needed a complete set to be cool, and dreamed at night of getting a Millennium Falcon playset. I'll throw down my money, even if I know I'm going to hate the results, because my childhood until about the age of 13 was defined by Star Wars.
And that's the best decision they made. I've read a few of the books, including the often highly praised Timothy Zahn novels, and for the most part the books are so badly written that they actually make Lucas's scripts look good.
And I don't call it a reboot to ignore all the Extended Universe storylines. Unlike new Star Trek and James Bond films, which literally restart the franchises at the very beginning. The new Star Wars films simply start some time after RotJ, so are more akin to Star Trek TNG.
I suspect that Abrams is going to be given significantly less latitude to play around with the basic concepts. For Star Wars I think he was given carte blanche to do whatever was necessary to revive what Berman and Braga had driven into the ground. I find the results appalling, but the movies have been hits, so mission accomplished.
But Star Wars, even the pretty dismal prequels, has a certain cinematographic vocabulary, heavily influenced by Kurosawa. At times, the vocabulary was about the only thing that marked the prequels as Star Wars films, seeing as Lucas so thoroughly muddied the waters in other ways. I have to believe that Disney has told Abrams that the "Star Wars" feel has to remain intact, so I don't expect any lens flare, or shot length to be cut to the dizzyingly short length that typifies the Star Trek reboots.
The difference between a 10" screen and, say, a 15" is a tough call, though I still think 10" is too big for a Metro style interface. Bump up to the 17"-22" monitors, and Metro is just a horrific experience that makes Windows 3.1 look like an ultra-modern GUI.
Like I said, Microsoft already tried it. It was a disaster. They're not going to try it again.
Except that mobile devices like phones and tablets are fundamentally different than PCs. Microsoft already tried this stunt with Windows 8, and got smacked down hard.
I think the 2008 crash demonstrated that there are more than a few psychopaths running major corporations. Maybe we should be thankful they're only screwing investors and customers out of billions, otherwise they would have underground lairs filled with kidnapped plus size women putting the lotion in the basket.
Slashdot Mirror
Can you cite anywhere where the Founding Fathers didn't believe in taxes? They're point want that taxes shouldn't be levied, but rather that there should be no taxation without representation.
Because hiding your profits overseas is some sort of essential liberty, right?
I may actually be the only person who actually likes God Emperor Of Dune, but I get many peoples' observations that after the third Dune book, the series changed pretty substantially. Being a big fan of Herbert's work, what I saw was that the later Dune books began in many respects to resemble his other later era books in prose style, and it was that which likely turned off many people.
I can tell you right now that if I was a successful writer, doubtless making a meaningful, but still modest wage, and someone waved the big bucks in front of me to make my unfinished series into a major multinational television production, I would not hesitate for the briefest moment in taking the cash.
I'm not a fan of the television series, but do enjoy the books. The only thing that really pisses me off is that there is such a length of time between each book that I end up having to reread the entire series from the start just to remember all the characters and story lines. Thus far I've read the first three books three times.
Eagerly awaiting the sequel series:
A Poop for Penguins
A Tit for Tyrion
Another Tit for Tyrion
A Gaggle of Geese
Yet Another Tit for Tyrion
A Bunghole of Bratwurst
He has managed to out-Tolkien JRR Tolkien. Even with three or four contiguous story lines going on, Tolkien had to map out the chronology of events carefully so that he always knew where all the main characters and events were happening in relation to each other. Martin has something like two or three times as many plots going on, and he must spend have his time keeping the plotting straight.
The Game of Thrones series is essentially a shared universe with one writer.
He may not finish it, but you can be damned sure the producers of the series have a solid plot line at their disposal should he kick the bucket. This is a cash cow of monumental proportions, and they won't let something as minor as the author's death get in the way of continuing production.
Oh fuck that. I can plug my Nexus into my Windows machine, create folders, copy files, view any video format I want. Or I can have an iDevice, have to use the evil that is iTunes, convert to formats that Apple has decreed as sacred, and basically give up all control of the device. IOS devices are good for people who never want to go beyond the parameters Apple sets.
I think you would have a hard time figuring out what Occupy WASN'T protesting about. That's why the Tea Party has succeeded to some extent, and Occupy has failed. The Tea Party, by and large, set the parameters for what it was fighting, and stuck to them. Occupy was all over the map.
Can't speak for the iPad, because the only real interaction I had with one was a day with an iPad 2, which I found a bit heavy. Further, I really do dislike IOS and have since even abandoned my iPhone for a Nexus 5.
That all being said, I do use my Nexus 7 a lot. For me it is the perfect form factor. A 10" tablet is really too big, and my phone is on the smallish size. I pretty much do all my recreational reading, and a fairly large portion of my work-related reading on my Nexus 7, and it's small enough to be rather book-like in size, but large enough that it renders PDFs, ePubs and most web pages fairly well. I'm not going to get that readability out of a smartphone, and a 10" tablet or notebook is just too big.
Fuck that, I've been trying to install FreeBSD on my Commodore 64. Crapping Commodore 1541 disk drive keeps mangling my installation CD.
That's pretty much how I remember it. There would be all those awkward asides referring to events in the films, as if anybody who hadn't seen the movies would actually be reading the book. I found it fairly distracting.
Get back in your box, Richard Stallman!
Another one of my favorite films. David Niven and Peter Falk were also a riot.
So you see nothing wrong with a professor using his status to obtain sexual favors?
I think The Empire Strikes Back still stands up very well. I agree the other two don't have the same magic they once held, but Episode V, which, ironically, had the least involvement from Lucas of the original six films, is extremely well plotted, with better dialog and much more convincing acting. The only thing that comes close to Episode V is the final confrontation between Luke, Vader and the Emperor in RotJ. Unfortunately, that's only a handful of scenes in an otherwise mediocre film.
I read just one of the Dune prequels and refused to touch another. So far as I am concerned, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson just pissed over the late great Frank Herbert's legacy.
I wish Brian Herbert had done what Christopher Tolkien did, and just simply release the unfinished stories and plotlines, rather than trying to "finish" the series with appalling novels.
Maybe I'll give the Zahn novels another try. I mainly just remember finding the prose pretty stiff.
I have no idea whether Guinness was an asshole or not, but he was a very good actor, certainly the best one on the set of Episode IV. I recently rewatched his brilliant take as George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and was reminded of just how good he was. That's not even mentioning his extraordinary work with David Lean in Bridge Over The River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. A personal favorite is the original The Ladykillers.
So far as I understand it, while Guinness disliked the dialogue (who can blame him, a lot of it was pretty bad), he was grateful for the money it gave him.
I'm a white Canadian 40-50 who even owned the Princess Leia action figure back in 1978 because you needed a complete set to be cool, and dreamed at night of getting a Millennium Falcon playset. I'll throw down my money, even if I know I'm going to hate the results, because my childhood until about the age of 13 was defined by Star Wars.
And that's the best decision they made. I've read a few of the books, including the often highly praised Timothy Zahn novels, and for the most part the books are so badly written that they actually make Lucas's scripts look good.
And I don't call it a reboot to ignore all the Extended Universe storylines. Unlike new Star Trek and James Bond films, which literally restart the franchises at the very beginning. The new Star Wars films simply start some time after RotJ, so are more akin to Star Trek TNG.
I suspect that Abrams is going to be given significantly less latitude to play around with the basic concepts. For Star Wars I think he was given carte blanche to do whatever was necessary to revive what Berman and Braga had driven into the ground. I find the results appalling, but the movies have been hits, so mission accomplished.
But Star Wars, even the pretty dismal prequels, has a certain cinematographic vocabulary, heavily influenced by Kurosawa. At times, the vocabulary was about the only thing that marked the prequels as Star Wars films, seeing as Lucas so thoroughly muddied the waters in other ways. I have to believe that Disney has told Abrams that the "Star Wars" feel has to remain intact, so I don't expect any lens flare, or shot length to be cut to the dizzyingly short length that typifies the Star Trek reboots.
The difference between a 10" screen and, say, a 15" is a tough call, though I still think 10" is too big for a Metro style interface. Bump up to the 17"-22" monitors, and Metro is just a horrific experience that makes Windows 3.1 look like an ultra-modern GUI.
Like I said, Microsoft already tried it. It was a disaster. They're not going to try it again.
Except that mobile devices like phones and tablets are fundamentally different than PCs. Microsoft already tried this stunt with Windows 8, and got smacked down hard.
I have my doubts that a "zillion" RT devices are floating around out there, unless you mean in a warehouse somewhere.
I think the 2008 crash demonstrated that there are more than a few psychopaths running major corporations. Maybe we should be thankful they're only screwing investors and customers out of billions, otherwise they would have underground lairs filled with kidnapped plus size women putting the lotion in the basket.