I still can't figure out how we wound up with a culture where it is a mark of shame to be *good* at something like math or science. How the hell does that happen? And, no, it's not religion, at least not where I went to school.
I would suggest that PP is much more of a Swiss Army Knife than most people give it credit for. I use it for presentations, for technical data packages and I'm even composing an e-book with lots of images in it.
*shrug* It's the only thing MS puts out that I honestly like outside of the XBox.
He sells lots of books, gets a lot of money for a TV show and has many, many minions. Wait, how is he an idiot again?
Look, I have no use for the guy, but he's accomplishing more than you or me. We may not agree with what he's accomplishing, but that's irrelevant. I wish I had thought of it. *I* want minions, dammit! I need to find an underserviced fringe of my own to cater to.
You really think he believes half the shit he says? He's playing to the hyper-right niche. Same with Ann Coulter, or Michael Moore for a lefty example. They have targeted an audience and feed them what they want to hear. If Sarah Palin has any brain at all she'll just play the lecture circuit for the rest of her days and put out more books.
Oh, and people like him *LOVE* people like you. Your dislike and insults just play to his cause and give him legitimacy in the eyes of his target market.
It was never investigated fully, because the news media here can't get their lips off of politician dick long enough to do such a thing as investigative reporting, but I'd wager the assemblyman in question has friends or family involved in the Fung Shui business, and would have first in line for a fat state contract.
The problem is that Powerpoint, like Word, defaults to making it very easy for the user to do stupid things or does stupid things by default.
A hammer is a universally liked and used tool, but it's VERY easy to do stupid things with it.:-)
But at the end of the day it is still the user's fault if he make bad slides. When I have a technical presentation, my slides have one black and white diagram (with light, pastel colors used very occasionally) and little to no text at all (other than what's labeled in the diagram), and I speak to the diagrams. My presentations go over very well. Different data types require different formats.
It practically begs you to do 500 slides filled with wipes, animations, walls of text,
It does no such thing. This whole "the program made me do it" clap trap is psychobabble, and the angry reaction the program evokes in people is bizarre.
Powerpoint is just a tool, a digital blank canvas, like any other application of its kind. If your slides suck, it's *your* lack of communication skills. There were bad presentations back in the days of film slide projectors and overhead transparencies. I had a number of sucky lecturers back in college. Do I blame the blackboard?
There's an example online somewhere where a guy takes the Gettysburg address, reduces it to a ridiculous summary, puts it into Powerpoint slides, and then blames Powerpoint. WTF?? The reduction to a minimalist state happened before he even touched a computer and, yes, there are some things that should not be put into slides. I wouldn't use Photoshop to write a novel, either.
The reason: this is still not a full democracy in the Western sense. Corruption is still rampant.
Come visit California. I'll bet our political filth creatures, blindfolded and hogtied, can out corrupt yours. I'll even spot your side $20 million in mysteriously missing funds.
One of our state politicians tried to get government buildings designed by the "rules" of Fung Shui. You cannot top that!
*sigh* I was just kidding around. I'm on Phil's site every day. It's a fucking "science of Star Wars" topic not a the final round of talks to avert World War III. Cheer up. It's nearly, um, Christmas, or something. Or don't.
Astronomy grants getting a bit thin? Don't they need to be gathering gravity wave data to work out whether or not the universe is a hologram and dark energy radiates from evil mirror branes or something?
claims that the Federation got it wrong and the fan-boys should thank Lucas for adding some scientific accuracy to his fictional universe
Yeah, I'll get right on that. Oh, wait, I'm not a fan boy! I'm exempt! Yay!:-D
If you think that no actual big action movies have decent scripts,
I didn't make an absolute statement like that. I consider Inception to be an action film for the most part, and I felt it was one of the best screenplays I've seen in years. Then again I've been a fan of Nolan's since Memento.
I even felt Iron Man 2 was a little underrated. I'm nowhere near some art house geek who only goes to see black and white indie films about underage prostitutes.;-)
I did like The Fountain, though, so maybe I'm just nuts.
There's really a trend in going all "That movie sucks!" against every popular movie,
Inception was popular and well thought of. So was Toy Story 3. Both had something in common: Interesting characters and decently worked out stories. Good story telling is actually ingrained in the culture over at Pixar.
Avatar took every single character from the Cliche Toolbox plugin for the Hollywood Script Generator. The fact that the scenery was CGI didn't prevent the actors from chewing it.
But overall there's a real lack of quality storytelling and character development in Hollywood these days, and the same crap screenwriters and actors are foisted on us over and over again. But people gobble it up, and anyone wanting a little quality is labeled "pretentious". Probably the same folks who label anyone who knows any math and science as "elitist" for all that goldanged fancy book learnin'!
So maybe it did not have a above average script, but did anyone really think that it would have one?
Some of us would like movies with nine digit budgets to, you know, toss a few bucks into the script. Why can't a big action flick have a decent script? Why must I be told continually to "shut off my brain" when walking into a theater?
I'd say that you're* gaining some benefit from living in Southern California that other people can't afford, which is one of the defining factors of being 'rich.'
Well, if you're going to start including custom definitions of "rich" then anything is possible. The OP's point was related strictly to dollar figures. We could get all sappy and say someone with a big happy family is rich beyond the dreams of avarice. You want that? You want some sappy? Hmm? A little sappy? Huh? OK! We'll get ya some sappy there, sport!
If not, why are you* living there, when you could move somewhere cheaper and get a higher quality of life?
Smoking hot babes by the thousands and the money to afford them by the hour.:-)
*If you don't live in Southern California, then I'm talking to someone who does.
We usually just call it either "Paradise" or "Lothlórien"
No, in this particular thread that was exactly the point.
Given the fact that lack of consumer demand is the major problem slowing our economy now, raising taxes on the top 2.5% of income earners by a few percent will not significantly affect overall consumer demand.
If you say so. Good luck with your magic number. I'm sure there won't be any unintended consequences or anything.
It all depends on where you live- that's the problem with coming up with one magic number to define "rich".
In Southern California, no, it is not enough to be rich. It's a range that seems like a lot, but not enough to afford the tax shelters that someone making a lot more can, so it's taxed like a mothereffer.
For me, "rich" is someone who has enough assets to not have to work anymore. Many still do because they like it (for some sick, sad reason), but they could easily live decently on investment income.
But people, ideologues especially, need that one magic number, that one magic solution, that one magic reason for things. And that's why The System (such as it is one) fails over and over again.
It's simple corruption. The whole thing becomes entirely understandable when you realize that. Someone's brother got the HVAC contract. A company that sells astroturf sent a prostitute in the guide of a lobbyist to fuck whoever was in charge of the project, or some lackey in charge of the details. Anyone who lives in Sacramento will tell you this goes on day in and day out. That's why I laugh when people talk about all the corruption in places like Afghanistan or Pakistan. Please... those people are clumsy amateurs. The political filth class here in the US have pushed it beyond an artform into something nearly transcendent. Well, transcendent in a scummy, evil way.
We just had the local government of the city of Bell fall apart. A tiny town where people in charge were making nearly a million a year including all benefits. They had guaranteed double digit percentage increases in salary no matter what they did or what happened to the economy. The evidence of election fraud is extensive.
And nothing will happen to them. No one will even go to trial. Just watch.
And the only thing I get angry about is that I didn't think to do it. I should have gotten a degree on poli-sci or public policy of some such bullshit and gone into government. because the morons who keep voting this filth into office *deserve* to get raped in their wallet and purses over and over again. But nooooooooo, I had to be a nice guy. I had to be a good citizen and work hard at a complicated job where I can eventually be tossed out for just being above a certain age, and I get to be raped, too, by all these cretins I never voted for.
OK, fine. This pile of money here is for school building.
So can we build 10 schools for $50 million each? Why one for $500 million+ with *talking* benches?
I'm sorry, but there's no way to shine a light on this thing without the shadow spelling out "batshit insane."
As for those asking if the scummy, pestilent filth in charge of the State are insane, they are a bit, but mostly they are just corrupt beyond anything you can possibly imagine. Sacramento needs to be burnt to the ground and the soil salted and left fallow for a century as a warning to others.
So I'll be voting for that 110 year old fossilized relic Jerry Brown (whose actions in the 70s caused many of our problems today) because he will be the final nail in California's coffin, and then we can go into sweet, sweet receivership.
Slashdot Mirror
Ahh! This is great! I've always wanted to see Hamlet in the original Klingon!
Pfft! All ripped off from the original Romulan sources.
I still can't figure out how we wound up with a culture where it is a mark of shame to be *good* at something like math or science. How the hell does that happen? And, no, it's not religion, at least not where I went to school.
I would suggest that PP is much more of a Swiss Army Knife than most people give it credit for. I use it for presentations, for technical data packages and I'm even composing an e-book with lots of images in it.
*shrug* It's the only thing MS puts out that I honestly like outside of the XBox.
He's completely insane.
An assessment based on having met him personally, I"m sure, and not from watching a constructed persona on a television screen.
He fucking cries on TV for nothing.
No, he cries on TV because it makes him money from his target demographic.
Wow, you really can't see what is going on? I've watched his show once and had it figured out. It's pretty transparent.
And he's obviously the type of people who would have supported Hitler or any kind of authoritarian leader.
Absolutely LOL! Beck owns you, my friend. He owns your mind.
He sells lots of books, gets a lot of money for a TV show and has many, many minions. Wait, how is he an idiot again?
Look, I have no use for the guy, but he's accomplishing more than you or me. We may not agree with what he's accomplishing, but that's irrelevant. I wish I had thought of it. *I* want minions, dammit! I need to find an underserviced fringe of my own to cater to.
You really think he believes half the shit he says? He's playing to the hyper-right niche. Same with Ann Coulter, or Michael Moore for a lefty example. They have targeted an audience and feed them what they want to hear. If Sarah Palin has any brain at all she'll just play the lecture circuit for the rest of her days and put out more books.
Oh, and people like him *LOVE* people like you. Your dislike and insults just play to his cause and give him legitimacy in the eyes of his target market.
Heh heh. Double deaf. :)
It was never investigated fully, because the news media here can't get their lips off of politician dick long enough to do such a thing as investigative reporting, but I'd wager the assemblyman in question has friends or family involved in the Fung Shui business, and would have first in line for a fat state contract.
The problem is that Powerpoint, like Word, defaults to making it very easy for the user to do stupid things or does stupid things by default.
A hammer is a universally liked and used tool, but it's VERY easy to do stupid things with it. :-)
But at the end of the day it is still the user's fault if he make bad slides. When I have a technical presentation, my slides have one black and white diagram (with light, pastel colors used very occasionally) and little to no text at all (other than what's labeled in the diagram), and I speak to the diagrams. My presentations go over very well. Different data types require different formats.
It practically begs you to do 500 slides filled with wipes, animations, walls of text,
It does no such thing. This whole "the program made me do it" clap trap is psychobabble, and the angry reaction the program evokes in people is bizarre.
Powerpoint is just a tool, a digital blank canvas, like any other application of its kind. If your slides suck, it's *your* lack of communication skills. There were bad presentations back in the days of film slide projectors and overhead transparencies. I had a number of sucky lecturers back in college. Do I blame the blackboard?
There's an example online somewhere where a guy takes the Gettysburg address, reduces it to a ridiculous summary, puts it into Powerpoint slides, and then blames Powerpoint. WTF?? The reduction to a minimalist state happened before he even touched a computer and, yes, there are some things that should not be put into slides. I wouldn't use Photoshop to write a novel, either.
The reason: this is still not a full democracy in the Western sense. Corruption is still rampant.
Come visit California. I'll bet our political filth creatures, blindfolded and hogtied, can out corrupt yours. I'll even spot your side $20 million in mysteriously missing funds.
One of our state politicians tried to get government buildings designed by the "rules" of Fung Shui. You cannot top that!
*sigh* I was just kidding around. I'm on Phil's site every day. It's a fucking "science of Star Wars" topic not a the final round of talks to avert World War III. Cheer up. It's nearly, um, Christmas, or something. Or don't.
But a debunking astronomer
Astronomy grants getting a bit thin? Don't they need to be gathering gravity wave data to work out whether or not the universe is a hologram and dark energy radiates from evil mirror branes or something?
claims that the Federation got it wrong and the fan-boys should thank Lucas for adding some scientific accuracy to his fictional universe
Yeah, I'll get right on that. Oh, wait, I'm not a fan boy! I'm exempt! Yay! :-D
I know intellectually that reactions to films are 98% subjective, but Avatar > Inception?
Child, you is teh crazy! :-P
Maybe if you meant Avatar: The Last Airbender TV series (there was no live action film in my personal, augmented reality). ;-)
gave you a constant stream of decent visuals to look at while the plot ticked along its obvious path
I might as well play a video game, then. At least I'm an active participant then. Mass Effect > Avatar
*shrug* Your opinion is without meaning or weight.
If you think that no actual big action movies have decent scripts,
I didn't make an absolute statement like that. I consider Inception to be an action film for the most part, and I felt it was one of the best screenplays I've seen in years. Then again I've been a fan of Nolan's since Memento.
I even felt Iron Man 2 was a little underrated. I'm nowhere near some art house geek who only goes to see black and white indie films about underage prostitutes. ;-)
I did like The Fountain, though, so maybe I'm just nuts.
There's really a trend in going all "That movie sucks!" against every popular movie,
Inception was popular and well thought of. So was Toy Story 3. Both had something in common: Interesting characters and decently worked out stories. Good story telling is actually ingrained in the culture over at Pixar.
Avatar took every single character from the Cliche Toolbox plugin for the Hollywood Script Generator. The fact that the scenery was CGI didn't prevent the actors from chewing it.
But overall there's a real lack of quality storytelling and character development in Hollywood these days, and the same crap screenwriters and actors are foisted on us over and over again. But people gobble it up, and anyone wanting a little quality is labeled "pretentious". Probably the same folks who label anyone who knows any math and science as "elitist" for all that goldanged fancy book learnin'!
and I'm getting tired of it.
Tough shit. Deal with it.
So maybe it did not have a above average script, but did anyone really think that it would have one?
Some of us would like movies with nine digit budgets to, you know, toss a few bucks into the script. Why can't a big action flick have a decent script? Why must I be told continually to "shut off my brain" when walking into a theater?
Ferrari? How blue collar. Real men drive Morgans.
Ew! A link to ideology. Bleah. No thanks. I kicked the habit of that mind poison years ago.
I can recommend a 12 step program if you are interested in quitting.
You poor child! You may have a cookie.
I'd say that you're* gaining some benefit from living in Southern California that other people can't afford, which is one of the defining factors of being 'rich.'
Well, if you're going to start including custom definitions of "rich" then anything is possible. The OP's point was related strictly to dollar figures. We could get all sappy and say someone with a big happy family is rich beyond the dreams of avarice. You want that? You want some sappy? Hmm? A little sappy? Huh? OK! We'll get ya some sappy there, sport!
If not, why are you* living there, when you could move somewhere cheaper and get a higher quality of life?
Smoking hot babes by the thousands and the money to afford them by the hour. :-)
*If you don't live in Southern California, then I'm talking to someone who does.
We usually just call it either "Paradise" or "Lothlórien"
How one wants to define rich is not the point.
No, in this particular thread that was exactly the point.
Given the fact that lack of consumer demand is the major problem slowing our economy now, raising taxes on the top 2.5% of income earners by a few percent will not significantly affect overall consumer demand.
If you say so. Good luck with your magic number. I'm sure there won't be any unintended consequences or anything.
So your definition of "the good life" is one you don't actually need to partake in?
No. How the flying fuck did you get that out of what I said?
It all depends on where you live- that's the problem with coming up with one magic number to define "rich".
In Southern California, no, it is not enough to be rich. It's a range that seems like a lot, but not enough to afford the tax shelters that someone making a lot more can, so it's taxed like a mothereffer.
For me, "rich" is someone who has enough assets to not have to work anymore. Many still do because they like it (for some sick, sad reason), but they could easily live decently on investment income.
But people, ideologues especially, need that one magic number, that one magic solution, that one magic reason for things. And that's why The System (such as it is one) fails over and over again.
It's simple corruption. The whole thing becomes entirely understandable when you realize that. Someone's brother got the HVAC contract. A company that sells astroturf sent a prostitute in the guide of a lobbyist to fuck whoever was in charge of the project, or some lackey in charge of the details. Anyone who lives in Sacramento will tell you this goes on day in and day out. That's why I laugh when people talk about all the corruption in places like Afghanistan or Pakistan. Please... those people are clumsy amateurs. The political filth class here in the US have pushed it beyond an artform into something nearly transcendent. Well, transcendent in a scummy, evil way.
We just had the local government of the city of Bell fall apart. A tiny town where people in charge were making nearly a million a year including all benefits. They had guaranteed double digit percentage increases in salary no matter what they did or what happened to the economy. The evidence of election fraud is extensive.
And nothing will happen to them. No one will even go to trial. Just watch.
And the only thing I get angry about is that I didn't think to do it. I should have gotten a degree on poli-sci or public policy of some such bullshit and gone into government. because the morons who keep voting this filth into office *deserve* to get raped in their wallet and purses over and over again. But nooooooooo, I had to be a nice guy. I had to be a good citizen and work hard at a complicated job where I can eventually be tossed out for just being above a certain age, and I get to be raped, too, by all these cretins I never voted for.
OK, fine. This pile of money here is for school building.
So can we build 10 schools for $50 million each? Why one for $500 million+ with *talking* benches?
I'm sorry, but there's no way to shine a light on this thing without the shadow spelling out "batshit insane."
As for those asking if the scummy, pestilent filth in charge of the State are insane, they are a bit, but mostly they are just corrupt beyond anything you can possibly imagine. Sacramento needs to be burnt to the ground and the soil salted and left fallow for a century as a warning to others.
So I'll be voting for that 110 year old fossilized relic Jerry Brown (whose actions in the 70s caused many of our problems today) because he will be the final nail in California's coffin, and then we can go into sweet, sweet receivership.