Greeks had characters escaping from Hades so often you would think it had an escalator. So yes, it's a VERY old cliche. A staple of lame storytellers since before there was written language, I suspect.
[spoilers] It wasn't just vampires. That show would kill off entire casts from season to season, humans too. By the end of the final episode, they had literally killed off every major cast member from all 3 seasons. And the only one who survived was a character who they had killed off once before and brought back half a season later. The writing staff was more blood-thirsty than the vampires.
Characters dying on television and being brought back at the convenience of the show has been a staple of television for decades. This rather lame plot device has been abused most egregiously on soap operas (both daytime and nighttime), where this sort of thing has been the norm almost from the get-go. Everyone who came up in the 80's remembers the infamous Dallas "missing season" that was dismissed as a mere amazingly-long dream sequence after Patrick Duffy decided he wanted his big Dallas paycheck after all. Evil twins, faked deaths, clones, cliffhangers where the character miraculously survives, etc. have been used by soap operas again and again as bargaining ploys against cocky cast members whose contracts are up for renewal and as ways to generate buzz for shows with flagging ratings.
Even genre shows have been using these ploys for a long time. Forver Knight was infamous back in the early 90's for killing off characters and bringing them back (or sometimes not). And the "Did they really kill off Fox Mulder?" cliffhanger became such a cliche on the X-files that even the most gullible fans eventually caught on to the fact that the network wasn't about to kill off the star of the series (by the time they did finally get rid of him briefly, no one even cared). And of course, replacing Dr. Who's became the norm back long before most of us were even born.
Warner Music Group has been distributing all Merge Records releases since 1993. Of course, you'll never learn that unless you dig into it, since they don't want to lose their indie cred by publicly being associated with a big studio. Read up on the Alternative Distribution Alliance to see how Warner is secretly behind quite a few "indie" labels.
So he claims. But how will we ever know if some of it didn't end up in his pocket? I won't be donating to any of these cases in the future, not after this. I don't want to ass-clown to fold without even a fight, pocketing some or all of the money I gave him to defend himself.
People will always suspect that he pocketed some or all of the money. That will cast a cloud on donating to similar cases in the future. There is no silver lining here. GeoHot has made it a lot harder for people in the future to defend themselves against Sony and other thugs on hacking hardware.
it's assumed that he is going to donate remaining legal funds to the EFF
Assumptions are always dangerous, especially when a lot of money is involved. Will he donate all of it, some of it, of none of it? We'll likely never have anything better than his word on what he did with the money. And that has an even more damning effect on these sorts of cases in the future, since people will be much more reluctant to donate to someone else's case after this guy sold out and took the money (even if it's just some of the money, even if it's just *allegations* that he pocketed some of the money).
$25 is actually insulting. In fact, I think I'm going to punch Jeff Bezos right in his smug face when I see him again.
And if this turns out to be a precursor to models that *require* ad viewing (the way movies and DVD's have gone now), I'm going to kick him in the balls too.
The Grammy's are the most notoriously meaningless awards in any field. They're owned by the studios, who use them as little more than PR tools. Every year they're won by the same predictable chart-toppers (indies need not apply), they reward popularity over talent (two words: "Milli Vanilli"), and no one takes them seriously. In fact, the Best New Artist Grammy has been jokingly called the "Kiss of Death" award, considering how most "artists" who win it end up becoming one hit wonders. The only reason anyone even watches that joke of an awards show is for the performances. And even those are pretty forgettable.
The Simpsons said it best. In an episode where Homer wins a Grammy, he takes one look at it, sees it's a Grammy and throws it out the window. Then, out the window, we hear a voice yelling "Hey, don't throw your trash out here!"
From an engineering standpoint, once the internal combustion engine came along, powered flight wasn't that great of a technical challenge. Powered space flight was a much more challenging technical achievement (as evidenced by how many engineers it took working from the V-2 to Sputnik).
I would also like to recognize Sergei Korolev, a name that's sadly unknown in the United States, Without him, there might never have been a space race, or satellites, or a man on the moon, etc. He's the guy who achieved the miracle of talking Kruschev into a space program. He also taught himself rocketry, worked his way through school as a common laborer, served time in Stalin's gulags, and headed the team that recreated the V-2 rocket in the Soviet Union after the War.
Most U.S. documentaries either barely mention the Soviet space program or don't mention it at all. The only documentary I've ever seen on U.S. television that dealt with the Soviet program too was a BBC documentary called Space Race that aired a couple of times on the National Geographic Channel. And even that is conspicuously not available on DVD in the U.S. and National Geographic no longer airs it. For all intents and purposes, information on the Soviet space program is effectively banned in the U.S.
Well, that's rather the point. Until you have better propulsion technology (MUCH better), it's really just a dream. Da Vinci could dream of an airplane, but until the internal combustion engine came along it wasn't going to happen.
It's based on the speed of the New Horizons probe. And yes, you could build a vehicle that was faster. But it would still take a VERY long time to travel 4.2 light years, and likely wouldn't be able to stop once it got there (assuming that you had kind of precision you would need in navigational calculations to even get there).
Just because they make them doesn't mean they retail them. This used to be the standard line in South Korea that counterfeiters would use to lure dumb G.I.'s. "Hey we make these Nike's at that plant over there, and that's why we're able to sell them to you so cheap!" Worked great if you ignored the poor quality of their knock-offs.
Most people have no real appreciation of the scale involved in psace travel. As daunting as our own solar system is, even that pales in comparison to the scales involved in traveling to other solar systems. Currently it takes us about 9 years for a probe to reach Pluto. When I ask people to guess how long it would take that same probe to reach the nearest solar system (a mere 4.2 light years away), people's estimates are usually comically far off.
120,000 years is the correct answer. Most people guess between 100-1000. That's why people think it is plausible for mankind to colonize space. They don't appreciate the scale we're talking about.
The U.S. government wants the exact same thing. I'm pretty sure that almost every government at this point wants *at least* a way to bypass encryption, a "kill switch" for the internet in their country, and some form of email monitoring (all these without any pesky warrants, of course). If your country is an exception, count yourself lucky.
Slashdot Mirror
Greeks had characters escaping from Hades so often you would think it had an escalator. So yes, it's a VERY old cliche. A staple of lame storytellers since before there was written language, I suspect.
[spoilers] It wasn't just vampires. That show would kill off entire casts from season to season, humans too. By the end of the final episode, they had literally killed off every major cast member from all 3 seasons. And the only one who survived was a character who they had killed off once before and brought back half a season later. The writing staff was more blood-thirsty than the vampires.
Characters dying on television and being brought back at the convenience of the show has been a staple of television for decades. This rather lame plot device has been abused most egregiously on soap operas (both daytime and nighttime), where this sort of thing has been the norm almost from the get-go. Everyone who came up in the 80's remembers the infamous Dallas "missing season" that was dismissed as a mere amazingly-long dream sequence after Patrick Duffy decided he wanted his big Dallas paycheck after all. Evil twins, faked deaths, clones, cliffhangers where the character miraculously survives, etc. have been used by soap operas again and again as bargaining ploys against cocky cast members whose contracts are up for renewal and as ways to generate buzz for shows with flagging ratings.
Even genre shows have been using these ploys for a long time. Forver Knight was infamous back in the early 90's for killing off characters and bringing them back (or sometimes not). And the "Did they really kill off Fox Mulder?" cliffhanger became such a cliche on the X-files that even the most gullible fans eventually caught on to the fact that the network wasn't about to kill off the star of the series (by the time they did finally get rid of him briefly, no one even cared). And of course, replacing Dr. Who's became the norm back long before most of us were even born.
Only if we can get a UN resolution saying it's okay.
It still wouldn't matter, as he's never said how much he received in the first place. People will always suspect that he pocketed some of the money.
Why not just make chili with 12 Molar Hydrochloric Acid? Let's see you top THAT with some lousy chili pepper!
If you keep saying the U.S. isn't all about freedom, we'll bomb the shit out of you!
Arcade Fire
Warner Music Group has been distributing all Merge Records releases since 1993. Of course, you'll never learn that unless you dig into it, since they don't want to lose their indie cred by publicly being associated with a big studio. Read up on the Alternative Distribution Alliance to see how Warner is secretly behind quite a few "indie" labels.
donations would be sent on over to the EFF
So he claims. But how will we ever know if some of it didn't end up in his pocket? I won't be donating to any of these cases in the future, not after this. I don't want to ass-clown to fold without even a fight, pocketing some or all of the money I gave him to defend himself.
People will always suspect that he pocketed some or all of the money. That will cast a cloud on donating to similar cases in the future. There is no silver lining here. GeoHot has made it a lot harder for people in the future to defend themselves against Sony and other thugs on hacking hardware.
it's assumed that he is going to donate remaining legal funds to the EFF
Assumptions are always dangerous, especially when a lot of money is involved. Will he donate all of it, some of it, of none of it? We'll likely never have anything better than his word on what he did with the money. And that has an even more damning effect on these sorts of cases in the future, since people will be much more reluctant to donate to someone else's case after this guy sold out and took the money (even if it's just some of the money, even if it's just *allegations* that he pocketed some of the money).
$25 is actually insulting. In fact, I think I'm going to punch Jeff Bezos right in his smug face when I see him again.
And if this turns out to be a precursor to models that *require* ad viewing (the way movies and DVD's have gone now), I'm going to kick him in the balls too.
The Grammy's are the most notoriously meaningless awards in any field. They're owned by the studios, who use them as little more than PR tools. Every year they're won by the same predictable chart-toppers (indies need not apply), they reward popularity over talent (two words: "Milli Vanilli"), and no one takes them seriously. In fact, the Best New Artist Grammy has been jokingly called the "Kiss of Death" award, considering how most "artists" who win it end up becoming one hit wonders. The only reason anyone even watches that joke of an awards show is for the performances. And even those are pretty forgettable.
The Simpsons said it best. In an episode where Homer wins a Grammy, he takes one look at it, sees it's a Grammy and throws it out the window. Then, out the window, we hear a voice yelling "Hey, don't throw your trash out here!"
when the whole point of it is to be less earth-bound)
Who said that was the point? Frankly, satellites have provided me with WAY more benefit than any moon landing ever did. AFAIC, *that* was the point.
From an engineering standpoint, once the internal combustion engine came along, powered flight wasn't that great of a technical challenge. Powered space flight was a much more challenging technical achievement (as evidenced by how many engineers it took working from the V-2 to Sputnik).
Yeah, everyone is an "atheist" when they know that saying otherwise will get them thrown in a gulag.
Sergei Korolev
I would also like to recognize Sergei Korolev, a name that's sadly unknown in the United States, Without him, there might never have been a space race, or satellites, or a man on the moon, etc. He's the guy who achieved the miracle of talking Kruschev into a space program. He also taught himself rocketry, worked his way through school as a common laborer, served time in Stalin's gulags, and headed the team that recreated the V-2 rocket in the Soviet Union after the War.
Most U.S. documentaries either barely mention the Soviet space program or don't mention it at all. The only documentary I've ever seen on U.S. television that dealt with the Soviet program too was a BBC documentary called Space Race that aired a couple of times on the National Geographic Channel. And even that is conspicuously not available on DVD in the U.S. and National Geographic no longer airs it. For all intents and purposes, information on the Soviet space program is effectively banned in the U.S.
Well, that's rather the point. Until you have better propulsion technology (MUCH better), it's really just a dream. Da Vinci could dream of an airplane, but until the internal combustion engine came along it wasn't going to happen.
It's based on the speed of the New Horizons probe. And yes, you could build a vehicle that was faster. But it would still take a VERY long time to travel 4.2 light years, and likely wouldn't be able to stop once it got there (assuming that you had kind of precision you would need in navigational calculations to even get there).
Just because they make them doesn't mean they retail them. This used to be the standard line in South Korea that counterfeiters would use to lure dumb G.I.'s. "Hey we make these Nike's at that plant over there, and that's why we're able to sell them to you so cheap!" Worked great if you ignored the poor quality of their knock-offs.
Most people have no real appreciation of the scale involved in psace travel. As daunting as our own solar system is, even that pales in comparison to the scales involved in traveling to other solar systems. Currently it takes us about 9 years for a probe to reach Pluto. When I ask people to guess how long it would take that same probe to reach the nearest solar system (a mere 4.2 light years away), people's estimates are usually comically far off.
120,000 years is the correct answer. Most people guess between 100-1000. That's why people think it is plausible for mankind to colonize space. They don't appreciate the scale we're talking about.
You should see what the CIA is doing.
The U.S. government wants the exact same thing. I'm pretty sure that almost every government at this point wants *at least* a way to bypass encryption, a "kill switch" for the internet in their country, and some form of email monitoring (all these without any pesky warrants, of course). If your country is an exception, count yourself lucky.