Once that's possible, you can embed a Flash in a PDF within a Flash within a PDF... and so on. Place the things all around the web and bring the computers of the world (well, the Windows boxes, anyway) to their knees as they all break down in an infinitely recursive downward death spiral of shallow content. Ha ha haaa!
Maybe I'm missing something but isn't the whole purpose of Tivo to allow people to skip ads on tv?
Uh, no. The main purpose was tape-free digital recording, recodring based on the show listing in an onscreen guide (no more "ok, start the recording at 8:30 on Monday...") and then being presented with a list of titles of things recorded. No tape rewinding. No "which of the 19 unmarked tapes has last week's Lost". No muss no fuss. The most annoying parts of VCR usage have been automated and digitized away.
The skipping commercials was an artifact of the whole thing being digital and in a random access format. There's a 30 second forward skip and 8 second back skip. There is no "commercial skip". That's just what it gets used for.
it should be considered a vice to pursue it excessively
Oh, I'm with you there.
I just get particularly tired of the gambling as vice thing. I like to gamble- mainly the horses and football with some Vegas trips, although I'm favoring the local Indian jopints more as Vegas becomes too full of itself (the Vegas hotels will start to charge for air... you heard it here first). I do well at it, which means I can pay for my Netflix account from the winnings.:) I have known a lot of other gamblers. The really addicted ones are very rare.
Yet every TeeVee show that has an episode involving gambling, one of the major characters will suddenly, completely out of nowhere, develop one of the worst gambling addictions ever seen in human history. It just doesn't work that way, and it comes across as petty moralizing as the other characters look down their noses at the gamblers as if they can't even stand being in a place of wagering.
I *need* the distraction. Someone (maybe it was here) once compared it to a serving of sherbert between courses to clean the palatte. I do really intense system on a chip design and and uberspeed digital/RF work, and I need to come up for air and read a little news every now and then. I'm productive *and* informed.:)
The Internet, instead of bringing on Vinge's singularity, is just going to give us a deep, dense dreamtime.
Information is flowing about the world like water into New Orleans, but so much of it is baloney. Channel that into the mind of a human race whose reasoning and critical thinking skills are getting ever more dulled, and you have a collective consciousness that is little more than a state of ideological delerium. People walk around in a haze with a world view composed of lies, myth and fantasy.
The singularity, if it does come, will not result in some metahuman utopia. It will gives us a mad god locked in a state of intellectual paralysis, an infinitely fractalized abomination locked in an endless frenzy of naval gazing and deconstruction of trivialities. Ultimately, it will lead to nothing but- ah, who cares... Do FFXII, the new Zelda or Kingdom Hearts II have release dates yet?
Reality TV is all about that -- alliances, double-crossings, pettiness, ego, short-lived romance, and broken hearts.
Actually, that sounds interesting. It's a shame reality TV doesn't deliver that instead of a pile of phoniness.
I tried watching Fear Factor, and they kept dragging out even mundane events. It was one where some woman had to ride a bike across a wood beam or plank between two buildings several stories up. She had a complete harness, though, in case she went off. They kept going to sommercial with ominous music. Where's the fear? It was safer than your average special effects stunt.
The only one that ever really interested me was Joe Millionaire because I'm a black hearted bastard, but even that was sugar coated, and I bailed halfway through the first episode. I had already come up with 15 ways to have done it better and more evilly.:)
Sadly, I know some very intelligent people who watch reality TV, though. There is jo real consistent demographic as far as I can see.
That's not how it will work out, though. It will become a simple popularity contest, and those always devolve to the lowest common denominator.
Just look at election results.;-)
And while I find reality TV boring and dumb, it *is* popular, so it won't go away under any sort of a la carte system. It's also scattered about on channels with other (sometimes good) offerings. You'd need to break it down beyond channels and into individual programming blocks.
I got my older sister (she's 47 now) into a little it via Miyazaki (pretty common, I think), and I'm also responsible for her being a big fan of Japanese RPGs (Final Fantasy, Dragon War-, I mean Quest, and so on) on the PS2.
But she didn't like Akira. She digs action SF flicks but not Akira.
And she liked both Armageddon and Alien Vs. Predator.
I may have to disown her.
Her husband, on the other hand, is one of those total anti-animation people. When I was taking care of their cats when they were away, I turned on their DirecTivo and saw he had Cartoon Network and Boomerang delisted from the channels they receive. How does one live like that, I ask you?
He did like Chicken Run, though, so that's something, although I'd check the EKG of anyone who cannot enjoy a Nick Park work.
Yeah, I'm rambling. Just avoiding going back to work after lunch.
I'm glad to hear you say that (the voices in my head read Slashdot to me, but never mind that).
I avoid reality TeeVee like I avoid Adam Sandler flicks, but I saw most of an episode visitng my sister and brother-in-law... Oh. My. God. I wanted to find that room they all sit in for their weekly evaluation to fire someone, and toss an ebola bomb in there. These are the people destroying Western civilization! Argh! Quick. Someone summon Bahamut or something! Burn these assholes to cinders!
I have to agree here. Accidently considering a genuine commercial email as fraud is not an "error" under any realistic sensibility. You know they did the test that way intentionally just to get an artificially low number.
Total agreement. Windows is a joke amongst every person I know in my technical field, and that's a lot of people- hundreds. Everyone bags on it constantly, but it's a very few people who decide what OS we use, so the madness continues.
My favorite is how I can get, say, a Powerbook running OS X cleared to bring to work, but I can't plug it into the Windows network for "security reasons". The guy who told me that couldn't even keep a straight face as he said it, but it's dumbass management who writes these rules. The MBA world worships MS like a cargo cult.
This article reads almost like a similar one you can find online about the debacle that was Superman IV. The fact that these drugged out ego maniacs running the movie industry have any financial success at all proves to me there is no God and that dark forces rule the universe. You think they named it "dark energy" because it sounded cool?;-) I'm just amazed that a Weinstein brother wasn't involved somewhere. I can only hope the death of the Hollywood system comes as soon as possible.
If they want a character that isn't Superman, why not just invent a new character? Why bother going after a built in audience if that audience is going to hate the changes you made, changes that will be very clear from a movie trailer?
Anyway, my hopes are that movie making tech will continue to get cheaper and smaller, which it will. I've seen a good number of great small films this year with budgets in the five to six figure range made with equipment bought at high end electronics stores. I saw a wonky little time travel flick (whose name escapes me, sadly... Primer?) that cost $12,000, and I was more entertained than Superman III and IV and the last two Batmans combined.
My advice to all you fellow geeks is the STOP giving money to these hack jobs. I can't count the number of times I have read comments from people who know a film is going to blow white hot chunks, but they are going to go see it anyway, dammit! If you are that OCD about it, at least wait until it's on HBO or even regular cable or a bittorrent where your viewing is not detected and registered as a vote of approval.
You're not the dictator of the world, so quit discouraging people from pursuing interests that you don't share.
Well, a theoretical dictator of the world not have to "discourage" people. He'd just send in the shock troops and put an end to whatever the rablle was doing.:)
And the OP's attitude wasn't *that* horrible. Things should have their value questioned at all times. The lack of questioning things leads to most of the messes we have in the world today. Watch a politician give an interview thse days. I don't think "follow up question" is even in the cirriculum of journalism schools these days.
And, yes, "doing it for fun" is a perfectly valid answer, but there's no need to Bakersfield chimp on the OP.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm with you on 2 out of those 3.
I just love me some croissants too much.
Once that's possible, you can embed a Flash in a PDF within a Flash within a PDF... and so on. Place the things all around the web and bring the computers of the world (well, the Windows boxes, anyway) to their knees as they all break down in an infinitely recursive downward death spiral of shallow content. Ha ha haaa!
Uh, no. The main purpose was tape-free digital recording, recodring based on the show listing in an onscreen guide (no more "ok, start the recording at 8:30 on Monday...") and then being presented with a list of titles of things recorded. No tape rewinding. No "which of the 19 unmarked tapes has last week's Lost". No muss no fuss. The most annoying parts of VCR usage have been automated and digitized away.
The skipping commercials was an artifact of the whole thing being digital and in a random access format. There's a 30 second forward skip and 8 second back skip. There is no "commercial skip". That's just what it gets used for.
Oh, I'm with you there.
I just get particularly tired of the gambling as vice thing. I like to gamble- mainly the horses and football with some Vegas trips, although I'm favoring the local Indian jopints more as Vegas becomes too full of itself (the Vegas hotels will start to charge for air... you heard it here first). I do well at it, which means I can pay for my Netflix account from the winnings. :) I have known a lot of other gamblers. The really addicted ones are very rare.
Yet every TeeVee show that has an episode involving gambling, one of the major characters will suddenly, completely out of nowhere, develop one of the worst gambling addictions ever seen in human history. It just doesn't work that way, and it comes across as petty moralizing as the other characters look down their noses at the gamblers as if they can't even stand being in a place of wagering.
I *need* the distraction. Someone (maybe it was here) once compared it to a serving of sherbert between courses to clean the palatte. I do really intense system on a chip design and and uberspeed digital/RF work, and I need to come up for air and read a little news every now and then. I'm productive *and* informed. :)
What kind of business does she run? I'm serious. I know several business owners and thay all work their asses off.
Let's stop considering gambling or porn as vices (defined as a defect or failing) and leave people to their own moralities.
Information is flowing about the world like water into New Orleans, but so much of it is baloney. Channel that into the mind of a human race whose reasoning and critical thinking skills are getting ever more dulled, and you have a collective consciousness that is little more than a state of ideological delerium. People walk around in a haze with a world view composed of lies, myth and fantasy.
The singularity, if it does come, will not result in some metahuman utopia. It will gives us a mad god locked in a state of intellectual paralysis, an infinitely fractalized abomination locked in an endless frenzy of naval gazing and deconstruction of trivialities. Ultimately, it will lead to nothing but- ah, who cares... Do FFXII, the new Zelda or Kingdom Hearts II have release dates yet?
There's a difference?
Windows is the expensive corporate jet that you get limoed directly to on the tarmac, and it then craters into a mountain 20 minutes into the flight.
Mac OS X is like riding on the back of an angel. A beautiful and sexy angel. :)
Well, at least it's not a car analogy.
[insert your own drug joke here]
Gee, I dunno. I think I'd deliberately opt for the one that most looked like it came from a black ops killer android. I'm serious.
It would cover the big "L" that's already there.
Ha! :-) Hey, I tease.
But seriously, this is another solution looking for a problem, and the problem is "How can we get more people looking like dorks?"
I'll take "Marketing Tiger Team Atrocities" again for $200, Alex.
/*This code does some things.
I should have commented it.
Mysteries abound.*/
This hope I helps.
Reality TV is all about that -- alliances, double-crossings, pettiness, ego, short-lived romance, and broken hearts.
Actually, that sounds interesting. It's a shame reality TV doesn't deliver that instead of a pile of phoniness.
I tried watching Fear Factor, and they kept dragging out even mundane events. It was one where some woman had to ride a bike across a wood beam or plank between two buildings several stories up. She had a complete harness, though, in case she went off. They kept going to sommercial with ominous music. Where's the fear? It was safer than your average special effects stunt.
The only one that ever really interested me was Joe Millionaire because I'm a black hearted bastard, but even that was sugar coated, and I bailed halfway through the first episode. I had already come up with 15 ways to have done it better and more evilly. :)
Sadly, I know some very intelligent people who watch reality TV, though. There is jo real consistent demographic as far as I can see.
Just look at election results. ;-)
And while I find reality TV boring and dumb, it *is* popular, so it won't go away under any sort of a la carte system. It's also scattered about on channels with other (sometimes good) offerings. You'd need to break it down beyond channels and into individual programming blocks.
So I can drive them away with an Ashlee Simpson CD?
I have a new hero.
But she didn't like Akira. She digs action SF flicks but not Akira.
And she liked both Armageddon and Alien Vs. Predator.
I may have to disown her.
Her husband, on the other hand, is one of those total anti-animation people. When I was taking care of their cats when they were away, I turned on their DirecTivo and saw he had Cartoon Network and Boomerang delisted from the channels they receive. How does one live like that, I ask you?
He did like Chicken Run, though, so that's something, although I'd check the EKG of anyone who cannot enjoy a Nick Park work.
Yeah, I'm rambling. Just avoiding going back to work after lunch.
I avoid reality TeeVee like I avoid Adam Sandler flicks, but I saw most of an episode visitng my sister and brother-in-law... Oh. My. God. I wanted to find that room they all sit in for their weekly evaluation to fire someone, and toss an ebola bomb in there. These are the people destroying Western civilization! Argh! Quick. Someone summon Bahamut or something! Burn these assholes to cinders!
I have to agree here. Accidently considering a genuine commercial email as fraud is not an "error" under any realistic sensibility. You know they did the test that way intentionally just to get an artificially low number.
My favorite is how I can get, say, a Powerbook running OS X cleared to bring to work, but I can't plug it into the Windows network for "security reasons". The guy who told me that couldn't even keep a straight face as he said it, but it's dumbass management who writes these rules. The MBA world worships MS like a cargo cult.
If they want a character that isn't Superman, why not just invent a new character? Why bother going after a built in audience if that audience is going to hate the changes you made, changes that will be very clear from a movie trailer?
Anyway, my hopes are that movie making tech will continue to get cheaper and smaller, which it will. I've seen a good number of great small films this year with budgets in the five to six figure range made with equipment bought at high end electronics stores. I saw a wonky little time travel flick (whose name escapes me, sadly... Primer?) that cost $12,000, and I was more entertained than Superman III and IV and the last two Batmans combined.
My advice to all you fellow geeks is the STOP giving money to these hack jobs. I can't count the number of times I have read comments from people who know a film is going to blow white hot chunks, but they are going to go see it anyway, dammit! If you are that OCD about it, at least wait until it's on HBO or even regular cable or a bittorrent where your viewing is not detected and registered as a vote of approval.
Well, a theoretical dictator of the world not have to "discourage" people. He'd just send in the shock troops and put an end to whatever the rablle was doing. :)
And the OP's attitude wasn't *that* horrible. Things should have their value questioned at all times. The lack of questioning things leads to most of the messes we have in the world today. Watch a politician give an interview thse days. I don't think "follow up question" is even in the cirriculum of journalism schools these days.
And, yes, "doing it for fun" is a perfectly valid answer, but there's no need to Bakersfield chimp on the OP. ;-)