[...] and even then you're limited to EDGE speeds because of their weird-ass frequencies.
Depends.
Because of the failed buyout, I guess T-Mo got some frequencies that work with the older iPhone. So, depending on where you are, you may be able to get a 3G signal on T-Mo. But it depends on where you are, etc.
Besides, who cares about 3G? My iPhone 4S has the 4 Gees and the Wi Fis! (Yes, I know it's bullshit)
I'm one of those weird people who pays for lots of channels--I have a bunch of the tiers and movie channels and the whole bit. So I got home last night, made a sandwich, and started scanning the channels. Ended up watching a neat program on the Titanic sinking on the Smithsonian channel, which is a channel that I probably wouldn't have ordered a la carte. Sometimes I find old and fun programs being shown--Trio used to show Laugh-In reruns--on networks that I probably wouldn't normally order a la carte.
The sad thing about a la carte is that the smaller "channels" would probably go out of business. You'd end up with a bunch of the "branded" channels--Comedy Central, SyFy, ESPN--doing very well and channels like CurrentTV, Bravo, Smithsonian, and Sundance going out of business.
On the other hand, I can understand the desire to not have to pay for programming that you don't watch--especially considering that cable companies tend to group these things for maximum profit and not necessarily because they make sense. My personal favorite was when my cable provider decided to move Game Show Network into the "obscure sports tier" next to Bow Hunting, Fishing, and Camping. Huwha!? About six months later, they decided that was ridiculous and put it back.
I look at it as a "taxes" type of thing. Yeah, I end up paying for channels that you watch and you end up paying for channels that I watch.
In this case, the title is honorary. Much like George Bush is still referred to as "President Bush" even though he isn't in the White House anymore, Senator Dodd is no longer a senator.
I'm not sure I agree with it, but here's the issue.
I like the Bloomin' Onion ® from Outback Steakhouse. I don't eat it very often--the last time I had it was a little over a year ago. It's horribly unhealthy, but also quite tasty. It's a nice nosh with beer.
The argument, of course, is that by printing calorie counts and exposing unhealthy foods, you're giving people information in order to make healthier choices. Those people who would like to eat healthy have no way of knowing that the Bloomin' Onion isn't particularly healthy. After all, onions are a vegetable, right? Vegetables are good for you!
However, you could also argue that those who wish to eat healthier foods can go become informed. There are plenty of books and magazine articles and on-line information available. So adding calorie counts to a menu isn't for those people who want to eat healthier because they're taking steps to do just that. Instead, it is to inform those people who don't really think about it.
If I go to a restaurant and order a chocolate cake, I'm going to see a calorie count which tells me how unhealthy it is. However, eating chocolate has other beneficial psychological effects. Why doesn't the government include this information--how happy is this chocolate cake going to make me? I can't make this kind of judgement when all I'm getting is one side of the story.
IANAL, but I would imagine it has to do with precedent. As I understand it, if you have a copyright on something, you have to protect it. If you don't, you lose it.
So if CBS doesn't protect this script, what's to say that someone else isn't going to snag last week's script from NCIS and produce a "fan version" of the show. When CBS complains, they say, "Well, they didn't fight this guy! Why should it be different from us?" Keep in mind, also, that CBS still makes money from Star Trek.
Of course, the correct thing to do would be to require that these people pay them a "license" to use it--make it a dollar or two--just to establish that, yes, CBS owns it.
I was doing contract work. I was just finishing up one when a headhunter I worked with left a message on my machine. "I think I have a really interesting contract job for you. I have only one question: Are you jewish? Give me a call."
I have to admit--I was intrigued. So I gave him a call.
Turns out that the contract position would require travel to Saudi Arabia. I'm not sure if Saudi Arabia will issue you a visa if you are jewish, making it difficult for a jewish person to complete the obligations of the contract. Since I'm not jewish, it wasn't really an issue for me, so I ended up taking the contract.
Jews that I have told that story to since then have pretty much said, "Yeah, I wouldn't take the contract. Even if they let me into the country, who knows what would happen?"
Well, the application is obvious. The question is, would it sell?
Concepts like this make sense, but it's really outside the way people think. I have my electric car which serves it's purpose for 99% of my driving. But, God Forbid, what happens if my mother who lives 300 miles away suddenly is in the hospital and I have to rush to her bedside!? I have to first go to the engine-swap place and sit and wait while they swap my car's engine and she could die while I'm waiting and I'd never get to tell her how much I love her!
Or what happens when I have a great job that is close to my house so I can drive on batteries. But I get laid off or these other people are willing to pay me more money, but they're too far to drive on batteries?
I understand what you're saying, but I don't buy it.
You'd be 100% correct if the Indians were planning this themselves. However, they had Jake "Taruk Maqto" Sully in charge--a guy who knows all about the bad guys and their capabilities. This is their leader. So why didn't he suggest that the ground forces, say, try to take out a few of those tanks from a perch up in the trees? I mean, he's the man chosen by Eywa herself to lead them. You think he'd suggest the strategy but the dumb ignorant savages would say, "Hey, screw you, we're gonna yell and scream and ride our horses right at 'em!"
I mean, I understand why they all had to be killed--so that the audience would see how evil these people are and so that Eywa could make her presence known. But I agree with Trudy when she said, "We're going up against gunships with bows and arrows." Even with some intelligent strategy, they were going to do little but delay the inevitable.
If Apple came up with an iPhone that got 1 year battery life, Gig+ bandwidth and all that, and made with everyday parts and really cheap, they still will reject it [...]
Actually I only have a couple complaints with the tail end of the film.
#1: Norm
So Norm is out there fighting and he gets shot. We cut back to the science lab and Norm is crawling out of his linking device, clutching the area where he was shot. It's a, "I saw myself get shot! I'm dead! No, I'm not--my avatar is. Whew!" type of moment. Cut back to the air battle going on. Trudy has reached the end, her helicopter is shot up, and she says her emotional goodbye, "Sorry, Jake," just before a missile slams into her helicopter and blows it to pieces. A scene or two later, we see Norm exiting the lab with his air mask on, machine gun in hand, angry and determined look on his face, going...
Where the fuck are you going, Norm?!
Now it was pretty obvious that there was something between Norm and Trudy, even though most of the scenes were cut (but take a look at the deleted scenes on the DVD for the true meaning of "Norm's attitude is improving." Classic!). But Norm was off-line when Trudy was blown up, thanking his lucky stars that he wasn't killed. His radio was on his dead avatar. So he doesn't know that Trudy is now in little tiny pieces. But even if he does, where is he going? To find the pieces?! Is he going to stand with the Dragon Lady at the Tree of Souls? Then why isn't he there when we see her? Is he going to avenge his dead avatar in the forest? Even Norm isn't that stupid.
Of course, we know why Norm is leaving. Because if he sticks around, he'll mess up the big fight scene at the end of the movie.
#2: Jake Sully, Military Strategist
Okay, I'm no military genius. But come on! We've got a line of troops with machine guns and grenade launchers and flame throwers and walking tanks with really big honkin' machine guns. And Jake's strategy? Frontal assault! Even I know that's a recipe for disaster.
So all the folks on the ground are "combat ineffective", running for their lives if they're not dead. By the end, it appears that all his air assets are gone and he's the only one left alive and still fighting. Eywa comes along and distracts the bad guys so he can hit the bomber and destroy it. And, at the end, it appears he's now the leader of the tribe?! I'm sure Eywa's thinking, "Oh great! Now I'm going to have to babysit this schmuck or he'll get everybody killed. Which dead ancestor had this bright idea!?"
If I were a present-day Marine, I'd be kind of offended at how stupid "recon gyrenes" are made out to be in this movie.
There's at least half a dozen ways, given that story's tech, in which to destroy the inhabitants without harming the material, endangering a single human being, and basically turning the place into an airless rock that can be strip-mined.
As was explained in the film, "killing the indigenous looks bad."
Not really, the signs that say the street name near the intersection are small and are at the same height as the rest of the signs, so it means that if I am looking for a sign like that, I won't see anything on the road.
That can be debated. First, if you're looking for the sign, there's a good chance you'll actually slow down--I know, it's a crazy thought--so you won't miss it.
But I'm curious: You look at the screen for a "fraction of a second." Give me an estimate of that fraction. Are we talking 3/4 of a second? Half a second? a quarter of a second? An eighth? Sixteenth? It'd be fun to put a stopwatch on it, because I wouldn't be surprised if it was longer than you think it is.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not insulting your driving skills or saying that you are somehow an evil person for doing what you do. I would probably do the same thing. What I'm saying is that most Nav systems I've seen tell you to turn right or left. Some of the more clever ones might give you a distance ("turn right in 500 feet"). But none of them aurally solve this problem and they expect you to take your eyes of the road--even for a fraction of a second--in order to resolve the problem.
While I'm not a big fan of laws like this, one consequence of a law like this is you would see some work being done to make these systems more speech-friendly because you wouldn't have the map to fall back on.
I'm following the directions given to me by the Nav system, so the map doesn't really give me a whole lot of information that an intelligent voice system couldn't give me (eg, "Turn right on Algonquin Street" rather than "Right turn in 100 feet" or, worse yet, "Right turn approaching.") It's not like I'm plotting a course--the Nav system is doing it for me so I'm not really interfacing with the map.
So, why is the map useful?
Part of the reason I'm asking is I'd be curious what people might need to feel comfortable with a system that doesn't include a map.
Slashdot Mirror
[...] and even then you're limited to EDGE speeds because of their weird-ass frequencies.
Depends.
Because of the failed buyout, I guess T-Mo got some frequencies that work with the older iPhone. So, depending on where you are, you may be able to get a 3G signal on T-Mo. But it depends on where you are, etc.
Besides, who cares about 3G? My iPhone 4S has the 4 Gees and the Wi Fis! (Yes, I know it's bullshit)
To me, it's a tricky call.
I'm one of those weird people who pays for lots of channels--I have a bunch of the tiers and movie channels and the whole bit. So I got home last night, made a sandwich, and started scanning the channels. Ended up watching a neat program on the Titanic sinking on the Smithsonian channel, which is a channel that I probably wouldn't have ordered a la carte. Sometimes I find old and fun programs being shown--Trio used to show Laugh-In reruns--on networks that I probably wouldn't normally order a la carte.
The sad thing about a la carte is that the smaller "channels" would probably go out of business. You'd end up with a bunch of the "branded" channels--Comedy Central, SyFy, ESPN--doing very well and channels like CurrentTV, Bravo, Smithsonian, and Sundance going out of business.
On the other hand, I can understand the desire to not have to pay for programming that you don't watch--especially considering that cable companies tend to group these things for maximum profit and not necessarily because they make sense. My personal favorite was when my cable provider decided to move Game Show Network into the "obscure sports tier" next to Bow Hunting, Fishing, and Camping. Huwha!? About six months later, they decided that was ridiculous and put it back.
I look at it as a "taxes" type of thing. Yeah, I end up paying for channels that you watch and you end up paying for channels that I watch.
The only way we are EVER going to be free of this tyranny is to deprive the members of the money they need to keep supporting it.
But, then I'll miss Battleship!
In this case, the title is honorary. Much like George Bush is still referred to as "President Bush" even though he isn't in the White House anymore, Senator Dodd is no longer a senator.
Actually, if I remember my NASA politics correctly, the Space Shuttles had three classes:
"Payload Specialists" were absolutely not considered to be "astronauts."
Natalie Portman, naked, petrified, and covered in hot grits.
Or is that meme played out?
...well, when you consider that it's about the same price as the two year old iPhone 4 ($99 w/a 2 year contract), it's not so bad.
I'm not sure I agree with it, but here's the issue.
I like the Bloomin' Onion ® from Outback Steakhouse. I don't eat it very often--the last time I had it was a little over a year ago. It's horribly unhealthy, but also quite tasty. It's a nice nosh with beer.
The argument, of course, is that by printing calorie counts and exposing unhealthy foods, you're giving people information in order to make healthier choices. Those people who would like to eat healthy have no way of knowing that the Bloomin' Onion isn't particularly healthy. After all, onions are a vegetable, right? Vegetables are good for you!
However, you could also argue that those who wish to eat healthier foods can go become informed. There are plenty of books and magazine articles and on-line information available. So adding calorie counts to a menu isn't for those people who want to eat healthier because they're taking steps to do just that. Instead, it is to inform those people who don't really think about it.
If I go to a restaurant and order a chocolate cake, I'm going to see a calorie count which tells me how unhealthy it is. However, eating chocolate has other beneficial psychological effects. Why doesn't the government include this information--how happy is this chocolate cake going to make me? I can't make this kind of judgement when all I'm getting is one side of the story.
[...] Zenith Data Systems [...]
Hey! I still have my ZDS T-Shirt from when they were supplying the various federal service academies with PCs.
Okay, the PCs sucked. But the T-Shirt was cool.
An old friend of mine used to work at Wang. He was emphatic about that. "I do not work for Wang. I work at Wang!"
But I would guess that young people are just not used to paying for music.
I'm not sure young people were ever used to paying for music. Way back when I was a young kid, you recorded it off the radio.
But it makes for great copy on the Tee Vee:
"Killer Japanese Debris Headed for the West Coast! Film at 11!"
I was going to add that if you consider using other dialects or accents for villains, you're a racist.
Actually, some licenses are like that.
There was the low-budget 1994 Fantastic Four movie, which was never released, but was an an effort to retain the rights to Fantastic Four. Or Warren Beatty's various attempts to keep the rights to Dick Tracy, such as having Nancy Kerrigan skate with him. Arguably, the Sony "reboot" of Spider Man is another attempt to hold onto the rights they acquired from Marvel.
IANAL, but I would imagine it has to do with precedent. As I understand it, if you have a copyright on something, you have to protect it. If you don't, you lose it.
So if CBS doesn't protect this script, what's to say that someone else isn't going to snag last week's script from NCIS and produce a "fan version" of the show. When CBS complains, they say, "Well, they didn't fight this guy! Why should it be different from us?" Keep in mind, also, that CBS still makes money from Star Trek.
Of course, the correct thing to do would be to require that these people pay them a "license" to use it--make it a dollar or two--just to establish that, yes, CBS owns it.
I can think of only one time it's ever come up.
I was doing contract work. I was just finishing up one when a headhunter I worked with left a message on my machine. "I think I have a really interesting contract job for you. I have only one question: Are you jewish? Give me a call."
I have to admit--I was intrigued. So I gave him a call.
Turns out that the contract position would require travel to Saudi Arabia. I'm not sure if Saudi Arabia will issue you a visa if you are jewish, making it difficult for a jewish person to complete the obligations of the contract. Since I'm not jewish, it wasn't really an issue for me, so I ended up taking the contract.
Jews that I have told that story to since then have pretty much said, "Yeah, I wouldn't take the contract. Even if they let me into the country, who knows what would happen?"
Well, the application is obvious. The question is, would it sell?
Concepts like this make sense, but it's really outside the way people think. I have my electric car which serves it's purpose for 99% of my driving. But, God Forbid, what happens if my mother who lives 300 miles away suddenly is in the hospital and I have to rush to her bedside!? I have to first go to the engine-swap place and sit and wait while they swap my car's engine and she could die while I'm waiting and I'd never get to tell her how much I love her!
Or what happens when I have a great job that is close to my house so I can drive on batteries. But I get laid off or these other people are willing to pay me more money, but they're too far to drive on batteries?
Nope. Better get a gasoline car.
Life ain't easy for a boy named Brutal Killingspree.
I understand what you're saying, but I don't buy it.
You'd be 100% correct if the Indians were planning this themselves. However, they had Jake "Taruk Maqto" Sully in charge--a guy who knows all about the bad guys and their capabilities. This is their leader. So why didn't he suggest that the ground forces, say, try to take out a few of those tanks from a perch up in the trees? I mean, he's the man chosen by Eywa herself to lead them. You think he'd suggest the strategy but the dumb ignorant savages would say, "Hey, screw you, we're gonna yell and scream and ride our horses right at 'em!"
I mean, I understand why they all had to be killed--so that the audience would see how evil these people are and so that Eywa could make her presence known. But I agree with Trudy when she said, "We're going up against gunships with bows and arrows." Even with some intelligent strategy, they were going to do little but delay the inevitable.
If Apple came up with an iPhone that got 1 year battery life, Gig+ bandwidth and all that, and made with everyday parts and really cheap, they still will reject it [...]
...because it won't run Lotus 1-2-3.
Sorry. Old joke.
I gotta admit, I have a new name for my unborn daughter.
Actually I only have a couple complaints with the tail end of the film.
#1: Norm
So Norm is out there fighting and he gets shot. We cut back to the science lab and Norm is crawling out of his linking device, clutching the area where he was shot. It's a, "I saw myself get shot! I'm dead! No, I'm not--my avatar is. Whew!" type of moment. Cut back to the air battle going on. Trudy has reached the end, her helicopter is shot up, and she says her emotional goodbye, "Sorry, Jake," just before a missile slams into her helicopter and blows it to pieces. A scene or two later, we see Norm exiting the lab with his air mask on, machine gun in hand, angry and determined look on his face, going...
Where the fuck are you going, Norm?!
Now it was pretty obvious that there was something between Norm and Trudy, even though most of the scenes were cut (but take a look at the deleted scenes on the DVD for the true meaning of "Norm's attitude is improving." Classic!). But Norm was off-line when Trudy was blown up, thanking his lucky stars that he wasn't killed. His radio was on his dead avatar. So he doesn't know that Trudy is now in little tiny pieces. But even if he does, where is he going? To find the pieces?! Is he going to stand with the Dragon Lady at the Tree of Souls? Then why isn't he there when we see her? Is he going to avenge his dead avatar in the forest? Even Norm isn't that stupid.
Of course, we know why Norm is leaving. Because if he sticks around, he'll mess up the big fight scene at the end of the movie.
#2: Jake Sully, Military Strategist
Okay, I'm no military genius. But come on! We've got a line of troops with machine guns and grenade launchers and flame throwers and walking tanks with really big honkin' machine guns. And Jake's strategy? Frontal assault! Even I know that's a recipe for disaster.
So all the folks on the ground are "combat ineffective", running for their lives if they're not dead. By the end, it appears that all his air assets are gone and he's the only one left alive and still fighting. Eywa comes along and distracts the bad guys so he can hit the bomber and destroy it. And, at the end, it appears he's now the leader of the tribe?! I'm sure Eywa's thinking, "Oh great! Now I'm going to have to babysit this schmuck or he'll get everybody killed. Which dead ancestor had this bright idea!?"
If I were a present-day Marine, I'd be kind of offended at how stupid "recon gyrenes" are made out to be in this movie.
There's at least half a dozen ways, given that story's tech, in which to destroy the inhabitants without harming the material, endangering a single human being, and basically turning the place into an airless rock that can be strip-mined.
As was explained in the film, "killing the indigenous looks bad."
Not really, the signs that say the street name near the intersection are small and are at the same height as the rest of the signs, so it means that if I am looking for a sign like that, I won't see anything on the road.
That can be debated. First, if you're looking for the sign, there's a good chance you'll actually slow down--I know, it's a crazy thought--so you won't miss it.
But I'm curious: You look at the screen for a "fraction of a second." Give me an estimate of that fraction. Are we talking 3/4 of a second? Half a second? a quarter of a second? An eighth? Sixteenth? It'd be fun to put a stopwatch on it, because I wouldn't be surprised if it was longer than you think it is.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not insulting your driving skills or saying that you are somehow an evil person for doing what you do. I would probably do the same thing. What I'm saying is that most Nav systems I've seen tell you to turn right or left. Some of the more clever ones might give you a distance ("turn right in 500 feet"). But none of them aurally solve this problem and they expect you to take your eyes of the road--even for a fraction of a second--in order to resolve the problem.
While I'm not a big fan of laws like this, one consequence of a law like this is you would see some work being done to make these systems more speech-friendly because you wouldn't have the map to fall back on.
Actually, I'm going to ask a crazy question:
Is a map really all that useful?
I'm following the directions given to me by the Nav system, so the map doesn't really give me a whole lot of information that an intelligent voice system couldn't give me (eg, "Turn right on Algonquin Street" rather than "Right turn in 100 feet" or, worse yet, "Right turn approaching.") It's not like I'm plotting a course--the Nav system is doing it for me so I'm not really interfacing with the map.
So, why is the map useful?
Part of the reason I'm asking is I'd be curious what people might need to feel comfortable with a system that doesn't include a map.