That's the thing I've always wondered about this push to take down terrorist websites, and so many ISP's adopting policies about taking down sites with "hate speech" and the like. It seems to me that the governments of the world should be telling companies specifically NOT to do that, as it makes it so easy to gather intelligence on these groups. I would think a law protecting websites from civil liability with such sites and encouraging them to permit them would do more for intelligence gathering than a dozen agents in the field could ever dream of doing.
Anecdote the first: In one of his books, Frank Herbert, author of Dune, told me how he had once been approached by a friend who claimed he (the friend) had a killer idea for a SF story, and offered to tell it to Herbert. In return, Herbert had to agree that if he used the idea in a story, he'd split the money from the story with this fellow. Herbert's response was that ideas were a dime a dozen; he had more story ideas than he could ever write in a lifetime. The hard part was the writing, not the ideas.
Whether this story ever actually happened, it points to a truism that every decent writer knows. Kurt Vonnegut even satirized the misconception that "ideas make the writer" in his recurring Kilgore Trout character. Trout was characterized as a writer who had loads of great ideas but who couldn't write worth a damn. As a result, he was forever relegated to writing filler material for porno magazines.
For every story I've every published I probably have 100 ideas scribbled down in my "idea book." Hell, I can sit down in 5 minutes and come up with a great idea. The hard part is actually writing, editing, reediting, and proofing the actual story based on that idea.
Every student talks about their story ideas like they're some sort of brilliant trade secret. But over the course of the semester, two things always become obvious:
1) The story ideas they thought were worthy of stealing almost always sucked on an epic level.
2) Even if their ideas didn't suck, their writing skills are so mediocre that it's very unlikely they would be able to articulate said ideas into any publishable form anyway.
I've encountered hundreds of students who THOUGHT their ideas were worth a damn, but maybe only a dozen who may have been right.
I saddens me that so many otherwise intelligent people will listen to such obvious B.S. and just buy it because Apple said so. These are the same people who honestly believe that Steve Jobs just has a "hormone imbalance" (reminds me of the "He died because his heart stopped" line, with the later reluctant admission "His heart stopped because he was shot").
I suspect Apple's decision to downplay MacWorld in the future has less to do with a marketing strategy and more to do with a cover story for Steve Jobs' health problems and sudden absence from the scene. They could say "MacWorld is still important to us" and "Steve Jobs won't be there this year" at the same time and not arouse even more suspicion than his weight loss and mysterious absence from Apple HQ has already produced.
Most of the elements you describe are not particularly original. DS9 and B5 were contemporaries and shared a few very basic ideas (common to many science fiction series that preceded them), but they had vastly different tones and styles. Accusing DS9 of being a rip-off just because it was set on a space station is laughable. And every other element you describe as common to both series had been mainstays of science fiction for decades (the leader-with-a-destiny and powerful-enemy-who-later-becomes-my-friend are in fact *ancient* literary tropes). Even the idea of a space station setting was just a slight variation of the idea of setting a show on a large spaceship.
Only if you live in an alternate universe where Voyager and Enterprise were the only two Trek series. And a horrible, horrible dystopic universe that would be.
DS9 had some truly great episodes and very few really bad ones. Compare that to TNG and Voyager (which had entire seasons of cringe-worthy episodes) or TOS and Enterprise (which had very few episodes that WEREN'T cringe-worthy) and it holds up as easily the best. For anyone who wants to maintain that TNG was the best, I have but one retort: Riker without the beard.
Yes, it's the only one of them where the characters seem to exist in something resembling the real world, as opposed to the laughably idealistic utopias of the other Trek series. It's a different style, and a far superior one (IMHO).
I'm not defending Viacom. I'm saying that I'm not going to spend $80 a month on a cable system that doesn't carry the channels I want (esp. Comedy Central and TVLand). It's bad enough they don't carry Scifi's HD channel and a buttload of others already.
TWC has a long history of these annoying standoffs (this is hardly the first time they've been to the brink, and I'm sick of it). DirectTV, by contrast, seems to get along with the cable channel providers pretty well (and carry a lot more HD channels to boot).
Hi, I'm a subscriber. I can tell you what the refund will be in my case already. It will be $80 a month in my case, and I'll start getting it as soon as I hand in my cable box on Friday and tell you I'm getting DirectTV.
Slashdot Mirror
A tragic loss for all of hippie kind. He was a cutting edge advocate for animal vegetarianism. He even taught a lion to eat tofu.
That's the thing I've always wondered about this push to take down terrorist websites, and so many ISP's adopting policies about taking down sites with "hate speech" and the like. It seems to me that the governments of the world should be telling companies specifically NOT to do that, as it makes it so easy to gather intelligence on these groups. I would think a law protecting websites from civil liability with such sites and encouraging them to permit them would do more for intelligence gathering than a dozen agents in the field could ever dream of doing.
And is the term "pissing contest" recognized in both?
No, Woz was Wonka. Jobs is the guy who swooped in and convinced him to sell his candy rights.
I shudder at the the thought of a 58-year-old Erin Grey in a bikini.
Anecdote the first: In one of his books, Frank Herbert, author of Dune, told me how he had once been approached by a friend who claimed he (the friend) had a killer idea for a SF story, and offered to tell it to Herbert. In return, Herbert had to agree that if he used the idea in a story, he'd split the money from the story with this fellow. Herbert's response was that ideas were a dime a dozen; he had more story ideas than he could ever write in a lifetime. The hard part was the writing, not the ideas.
Whether this story ever actually happened, it points to a truism that every decent writer knows. Kurt Vonnegut even satirized the misconception that "ideas make the writer" in his recurring Kilgore Trout character. Trout was characterized as a writer who had loads of great ideas but who couldn't write worth a damn. As a result, he was forever relegated to writing filler material for porno magazines.
For every story I've every published I probably have 100 ideas scribbled down in my "idea book." Hell, I can sit down in 5 minutes and come up with a great idea. The hard part is actually writing, editing, reediting, and proofing the actual story based on that idea.
Every student talks about their story ideas like they're some sort of brilliant trade secret. But over the course of the semester, two things always become obvious:
1) The story ideas they thought were worthy of stealing almost always sucked on an epic level.
2) Even if their ideas didn't suck, their writing skills are so mediocre that it's very unlikely they would be able to articulate said ideas into any publishable form anyway.
I've encountered hundreds of students who THOUGHT their ideas were worth a damn, but maybe only a dozen who may have been right.
I saddens me that so many otherwise intelligent people will listen to such obvious B.S. and just buy it because Apple said so. These are the same people who honestly believe that Steve Jobs just has a "hormone imbalance" (reminds me of the "He died because his heart stopped" line, with the later reluctant admission "His heart stopped because he was shot").
I suspect Apple's decision to downplay MacWorld in the future has less to do with a marketing strategy and more to do with a cover story for Steve Jobs' health problems and sudden absence from the scene. They could say "MacWorld is still important to us" and "Steve Jobs won't be there this year" at the same time and not arouse even more suspicion than his weight loss and mysterious absence from Apple HQ has already produced.
How much do you want for it? Whatever it is, I'll pay it!
So did many cellphones in 1999. A rather obvious extrapolation.
Most of the elements you describe are not particularly original. DS9 and B5 were contemporaries and shared a few very basic ideas (common to many science fiction series that preceded them), but they had vastly different tones and styles. Accusing DS9 of being a rip-off just because it was set on a space station is laughable. And every other element you describe as common to both series had been mainstays of science fiction for decades (the leader-with-a-destiny and powerful-enemy-who-later-becomes-my-friend are in fact *ancient* literary tropes). Even the idea of a space station setting was just a slight variation of the idea of setting a show on a large spaceship.
Only if you live in an alternate universe where Voyager and Enterprise were the only two Trek series. And a horrible, horrible dystopic universe that would be.
DS9 had some truly great episodes and very few really bad ones. Compare that to TNG and Voyager (which had entire seasons of cringe-worthy episodes) or TOS and Enterprise (which had very few episodes that WEREN'T cringe-worthy) and it holds up as easily the best. For anyone who wants to maintain that TNG was the best, I have but one retort: Riker without the beard.
Yes, it's the only one of them where the characters seem to exist in something resembling the real world, as opposed to the laughably idealistic utopias of the other Trek series. It's a different style, and a far superior one (IMHO).
And he lived in a world where a computer geek can hook up with Angelina Jolie.
Well, it does explain why our nation's most rural areas are so well known for their intellectualism and scholarly accomplishment.
Are you kidding? Any show that shows our nation's soon-to-be unemployed masses how to make their own flamethrowers is GOING to be a hit.
To which they should have replied, "Well, good thing you don't have it anymore!"
Hey don't knock that trailer park. They're the only thing still keeping reality TV going.
...like my obsessive defense of Deep Space 9 as the best of the Trek series.
I'm not defending Viacom. I'm saying that I'm not going to spend $80 a month on a cable system that doesn't carry the channels I want (esp. Comedy Central and TVLand). It's bad enough they don't carry Scifi's HD channel and a buttload of others already.
TWC has a long history of these annoying standoffs (this is hardly the first time they've been to the brink, and I'm sick of it). DirectTV, by contrast, seems to get along with the cable channel providers pretty well (and carry a lot more HD channels to boot).
Hi, I'm a subscriber. I can tell you what the refund will be in my case already. It will be $80 a month in my case, and I'll start getting it as soon as I hand in my cable box on Friday and tell you I'm getting DirectTV.
I bet DirecTV still has these channels. And I'll sure as hell be finding out if Time-Warner tries to pull them from my cable lineup.