Along that same line of thought... We had some severe wind (gale force) last summer which caused major power outages all over the city. In some areas here, the cable lines are also above ground. It took Time Warner Cable several weeks to restore service to their customers. Even in the worst weather, the outages I've experienced with DirectTV only lasted about an hour - and that only happened once.
I have DirectTV and am very happy with it. Time Warner supplies cable TV in this area and I have found they are a horrible horrible horrible company to deal with... so I don't deal with them. I lose a satellite signal occasionally when it rains, but the outage lasts only a few minutes and it happens so infrequently that I don't care. I had more service interruptions when I had actual cable service than when I do now with DirectTV.
A minor technicality.... those employees were from FedEx Services, not FedEx Express (the Airline). There are seven different companies in the FedEx "family". There have not been any layoffs from Express.
I thought the characters were, by and large, weak as well... probably too weak. I did not care about any of them. The President was probably the best.... I think the filmmakers did a goood job of capturing the emotions someone in her position would feel if she/he found themselves suddenly "in charge" of the remainder of the human race.
I did get kind of bored throughout most of the first 2 hours and actually contemplated switching to another channel but I decided to stick with it to the end. I think that there should have been more scenes depecting the destruction of the colonies... closeups of buildings crashing down as the nukes exploded, etc. I also wish it would have been more ominous to show the Cylon base star approaching the planets and launching the missles.
I also would have preferred more "completeness" in the scenes... for example... there's the scene with Adama killing the Cylon with his flashlight and the next thing you know you see Adama sitting on the Galactica nursing his wounds. I think they should have included a scene showing Adama dragging the dead Cylon back to the Galactica with some explanation to the crew as to why he's dragging around a bloody corpse.
I did not have a problem with the writers making Starbuck a woman, but I think they made some poor choices in this case. I thought her character was very annoying and too much of a stereotyical "tough chick"- the same sort of strong woman character that you see in countless films. If they were going through the trouble of changing the character's gender, I think they should have also added some depth to the character as well or at least made her less of a clone of "Starbuck Version 1.0"
I remember also hearing that the Cylons were supposed to be religious fanatics and analgous to the religious extreamists of today... ie. Al Queda. I don't think the writers did a good job of getting that point across.
Will I watch this if they do turn it into a series? Probably not. It had potential, but by and large, I think that the writers and other filmmakers did not live up to the potential. I might give it a chance for a few episodes, but unless they seriously improve the characters, I don't think I'd bother watching.
In one episode of the original series, maybe the pilot, one of the characters stated that the Cylons attacked the colonies because the humans helped another race get out from under Cylon oppression. That's about all I remember... you are right though, the old series never really gave much detail on the Cylon race at all.
The biggest problem I had with the old series though was how they broght Baltar back to life, haha. At the end of the Pilot movie, a Cylon centurion decapitated him... then he suddenly reappears in the series. I don't think they ever explained that.
I am reserving judgement on the remake until after I see the new miniseries. I was a huge fan of BSG when I was a kid.
One of my neighbors invited me over to watch The Prisoner with him... I've been going over on Thursday nights to watch an episode a week. Considering how weird the first few episodes have been, I can't wait to see how weird the final one will be, haha.
I still have not decided if I like the series or not, haha. My Neighbor is a lot older than I and saw the series when it originally aired... I had not been born yet.
Unfortunately, the majority pretends to be unbiased:)... I agree with you though, I have no problem with a reporter admitting his or her personal bias... that's why I usually just read the editorial pages in papers rather than the actual "news".
While it may be theoretically true that having integrity is a part of being a journalist, in reality it's simply not the case. Take a look at any newspaper, news television show, news radio program, whatever... each one of them tries to put a twist onto their stories to make them as sensational as possible. I can't count the number of times a local tv/newspaper reporter here presents one side of a story or presents an obviously biased summary of some local event. It's sickening... so much so that I completely stopped watching all of the local news broadcasts and rarely read the local newspaper. It's more about selling subscriptions or commercial time rather than telling the whole truth.
How much integrity did the press have when they basically tried and convicted Richard Jewell in the 1996 Olympic Park Bombing? Or how about Jayson Blair's antics at the New York Times? Ever listen to the Howard Stern Show? He plays a lot of recordings that prank calls made to live news broadcasts. In a rush to be the "first" to present the story or to talk to an eye-witness, these professional journalists neglect to actually verify that the caller is actually telling the truth. The press makes mistakes and oversteps its bounds like this each and every day.
It's admirable that you are striving to be a good journalist and want to maintain high journalistic standards... you are a member of a very small minority.
I think that the biggest problems were the screen's resolution and size. I did not have much of a problem entering information using Graffiti, but even with my glasses, I had a hard time reading the screen after a little while. The only time I have to wear glasses is when I am using a computer or, usually, while reading. I realyl wanted a PDA for eBooks and carrying around documentation in PDF or other formats. I had excellent luck using as iSilo to convert HTML to Palm Doc formats but could never really find a good, really useable, solution for PDFs.
I would prefer a little larger screen size where I could comfortably read PDFs (without the scrollbars that you have to use when reading PDF docs on a Palm). I don't even think the screens on the PPC devices I've seen are lare enough.
Graffiti for me was a little slower than the natural handwriting recognition of the Newton, but surpisingly enough, the accuracy was about equal between the two systems.
Also, if I drop the DayRunner, it won't shatter:) (or dent like my aluminum-clad Clie did).
I've had a couple of Palms and a Sony Clie... today I carry around an "old school" DayRunner. I liked the palms, and loved the Clie, but I could not get used to using them over the long term.
I don't think I'll ever buy another PDA unless someone releases one that has a form factor similar to Apple's Newton Messagepad. It's a little bigger than most PDA's but he screen size and form factor are pretty perfect for my needs.
There is a PBS radio station here that is kind of like that. The DJs can play hatever they care to.... I listen occasionally, but usually I am not that interested in what they are playing. Once though, there was a guy on who was playing some songs from a Dutch Heavy Metal band. It was pretty freaky... and there is no way that any other station within listening distance of Memphis would play anything like that, haha!
haha! exactly. Here in Memphis there are about 4 different stations with similar playlists. The really funny thing is that you can start on one station and hear a particular song... switch to any one of the others and you will hear the same song within 10 minutes. Sometimes you can flip through all four stations and you will hear the exact same thing playing on one or two of the other stations. I've pretty much stopped listening to the radio because of it.
As far as I can tell, it "expires" once your download is successfully completed. I had a problem downloading one song and had to quit and restart iTunes. Once I started iTunes again, I was able to complete the download. Here are a couple of links that give some more detailed information on backing up and interrupted downloads:
The bottom line is that this *will* hurt online sales and the companies that depend on them. I guess the states are taking advantage of what they see as a failed buisiness model. I imagine they (except CA) would be happy if people would stop shoping online altogether and go to thier own states brick and mortar stores instead.
Oh, you are probably right, billstr78. Online sales will probably drop and some local retailers will probably pick up some additional business. I just wish that local "brick and mortar" stores would put some effort into making in-store shopping a pleasant experience. Some of the problems are cuased by rude customers - like the ones who hold up the check-out line to answer their cellular phone- or the ones who let their kids run wild in the store. But some of the problems are cuased by the retailers themselves- i.e. not having enough check-out lanes open, not having adequate sales staff, sales staff that are too pushy, etc.
There are several stores that I will totally avoid shopping in- Best Buy, Walmart, K-mart, CompUSA, among others- if at all possible.
Shopping online has, for me, always been more about convenience than price. I do shop around online to find good prices for things, but when shipping costs are factored in, you often do not save that much. However, the extra cost is worth not having to go to a mall or other shopping center. The addition of tax to online purchases won't change my online shopping habits one bit.
I stopped reading CNN and other web sites exclusively when I found out about http://news.google.com... it's sill in beta, but it's got links to all of the news I want to read.
Well, bud.. that's too bad for your friend... but it's still not enough for me to be polite to him or to have respect for him if he calls me in the middle of the evening and tries to sell me a magazine subscription or tries to convince me to switch to MCI long distance.
I have a basic respect for all people... as long as they show me the same respect. Telemarketers and telemarketing companies intrude on people's privacy and basically annoy people for no good reason. I consider that to be very disrespectful and I will not tolerate it.
Hopefully your friend will finish school soon and move into a more respectable career where he will not be intruding on other people's privacy or disrespecting them and still be able to spend time with his young son.
Slashdot Mirror
Along that same line of thought ... We had some severe wind (gale force) last summer which caused major power outages all over the city. In some areas here, the cable lines are also above ground. It took Time Warner Cable several weeks to restore service to their customers. Even in the worst weather, the outages I've experienced with DirectTV only lasted about an hour - and that only happened once.
I have DirectTV and am very happy with it. Time Warner supplies cable TV in this area and I have found they are a horrible horrible horrible company to deal with... so I don't deal with them. I lose a satellite signal occasionally when it rains, but the outage lasts only a few minutes and it happens so infrequently that I don't care. I had more service interruptions when I had actual cable service than when I do now with DirectTV.
haha, yeah, you are right about "it could happen". With the recent reorganization, I was expecting it to actually happen.
A minor technicality .... those employees were from FedEx Services, not FedEx Express (the Airline). There are seven different companies in the FedEx "family". There have not been any layoffs from Express.
I thought the characters were, by and large, weak as well... probably too weak. I did not care about any of them. The President was probably the best.... I think the filmmakers did a goood job of capturing the emotions someone in her position would feel if she/he found themselves suddenly "in charge" of the remainder of the human race.
I did get kind of bored throughout most of the first 2 hours and actually contemplated switching to another channel but I decided to stick with it to the end. I think that there should have been more scenes depecting the destruction of the colonies... closeups of buildings crashing down as the nukes exploded, etc. I also wish it would have been more ominous to show the Cylon base star approaching the planets and launching the missles.
I also would have preferred more "completeness" in the scenes... for example... there's the scene with Adama killing the Cylon with his flashlight and the next thing you know you see Adama sitting on the Galactica nursing his wounds. I think they should have included a scene showing Adama dragging the dead Cylon back to the Galactica with some explanation to the crew as to why he's dragging around a bloody corpse.
I did not have a problem with the writers making Starbuck a woman, but I think they made some poor choices in this case. I thought her character was very annoying and too much of a stereotyical "tough chick"- the same sort of strong woman character that you see in countless films. If they were going through the trouble of changing the character's gender, I think they should have also added some depth to the character as well or at least made her less of a clone of "Starbuck Version 1.0"
I remember also hearing that the Cylons were supposed to be religious fanatics and analgous to the religious extreamists of today... ie. Al Queda. I don't think the writers did a good job of getting that point across.
Will I watch this if they do turn it into a series? Probably not. It had potential, but by and large, I think that the writers and other filmmakers did not live up to the potential. I might give it a chance for a few episodes, but unless they seriously improve the characters, I don't think I'd bother watching.
ah, gotcha. It's been so long since I saw the complete original series that I had forgotten that. I guess I'll have to buy the DVDs.
In one episode of the original series, maybe the pilot, one of the characters stated that the Cylons attacked the colonies because the humans helped another race get out from under Cylon oppression. That's about all I remember... you are right though, the old series never really gave much detail on the Cylon race at all.
The biggest problem I had with the old series though was how they broght Baltar back to life, haha. At the end of the Pilot movie, a Cylon centurion decapitated him... then he suddenly reappears in the series. I don't think they ever explained that.
I am reserving judgement on the remake until after I see the new miniseries. I was a huge fan of BSG when I was a kid.
One of my neighbors invited me over to watch The Prisoner with him... I've been going over on Thursday nights to watch an episode a week. Considering how weird the first few episodes have been, I can't wait to see how weird the final one will be, haha.
I still have not decided if I like the series or not, haha. My Neighbor is a lot older than I and saw the series when it originally aired... I had not been born yet.
Unfortunately, the majority pretends to be unbiased :) ... I agree with you though, I have no problem with a reporter admitting his or her personal bias... that's why I usually just read the editorial pages in papers rather than the actual "news".
While it may be theoretically true that having integrity is a part of being a journalist, in reality it's simply not the case. Take a look at any newspaper, news television show, news radio program, whatever ... each one of them tries to put a twist onto their stories to make them as sensational as possible. I can't count the number of times a local tv/newspaper reporter here presents one side of a story or presents an obviously biased summary of some local event. It's sickening... so much so that I completely stopped watching all of the local news broadcasts and rarely read the local newspaper. It's more about selling subscriptions or commercial time rather than telling the whole truth.
... you are a member of a very small minority.
How much integrity did the press have when they basically tried and convicted Richard Jewell in the 1996 Olympic Park Bombing? Or how about Jayson Blair's antics at the New York Times? Ever listen to the Howard Stern Show? He plays a lot of recordings that prank calls made to live news broadcasts. In a rush to be the "first" to present the story or to talk to an eye-witness, these professional journalists neglect to actually verify that the caller is actually telling the truth. The press makes mistakes and oversteps its bounds like this each and every day.
It's admirable that you are striving to be a good journalist and want to maintain high journalistic standards
hahaha! I was going to say exactly the same thing!
I think that the biggest problems were the screen's resolution and size. I did not have much of a problem entering information using Graffiti, but even with my glasses, I had a hard time reading the screen after a little while. The only time I have to wear glasses is when I am using a computer or, usually, while reading. I realyl wanted a PDA for eBooks and carrying around documentation in PDF or other formats. I had excellent luck using as iSilo to convert HTML to Palm Doc formats but could never really find a good, really useable, solution for PDFs.
:) (or dent like my aluminum-clad Clie did).
I would prefer a little larger screen size where I could comfortably read PDFs (without the scrollbars that you have to use when reading PDF docs on a Palm). I don't even think the screens on the PPC devices I've seen are lare enough.
Graffiti for me was a little slower than the natural handwriting recognition of the Newton, but surpisingly enough, the accuracy was about equal between the two systems.
Also, if I drop the DayRunner, it won't shatter
I've had a couple of Palms and a Sony Clie... today I carry around an "old school" DayRunner. I liked the palms, and loved the Clie, but I could not get used to using them over the long term.
I don't think I'll ever buy another PDA unless someone releases one that has a form factor similar to Apple's Newton Messagepad. It's a little bigger than most PDA's but he screen size and form factor are pretty perfect for my needs.
There is a PBS radio station here that is kind of like that. The DJs can play hatever they care to.... I listen occasionally, but usually I am not that interested in what they are playing. Once though, there was a guy on who was playing some songs from a Dutch Heavy Metal band. It was pretty freaky ... and there is no way that any other station within listening distance of Memphis would play anything like that, haha!
haha! exactly. Here in Memphis there are about 4 different stations with similar playlists. The really funny thing is that you can start on one station and hear a particular song... switch to any one of the others and you will hear the same song within 10 minutes. Sometimes you can flip through all four stations and you will hear the exact same thing playing on one or two of the other stations. I've pretty much stopped listening to the radio because of it.
As far as I can tell, it "expires" once your download is successfully completed. I had a problem downloading one song and had to quit and restart iTunes. Once I started iTunes again, I was able to complete the download. Here are a couple of links that give some more detailed information on backing up and interrupted downloads:
Backing up Songs
Interrupted Downloads
The bottom line is that this *will* hurt online sales and the companies that depend on them. I guess the states are taking advantage of what they see as a failed buisiness model. I imagine they (except CA) would be happy if people would stop shoping online altogether and go to thier own states brick and mortar stores instead.
Oh, you are probably right, billstr78. Online sales will probably drop and some local retailers will probably pick up some additional business. I just wish that local "brick and mortar" stores would put some effort into making in-store shopping a pleasant experience. Some of the problems are cuased by rude customers - like the ones who hold up the check-out line to answer their cellular phone- or the ones who let their kids run wild in the store. But some of the problems are cuased by the retailers themselves- i.e. not having enough check-out lanes open, not having adequate sales staff, sales staff that are too pushy, etc.
There are several stores that I will totally avoid shopping in- Best Buy, Walmart, K-mart, CompUSA, among others- if at all possible.
Shopping online has, for me, always been more about convenience than price. I do shop around online to find good prices for things, but when shipping costs are factored in, you often do not save that much. However, the extra cost is worth not having to go to a mall or other shopping center. The addition of tax to online purchases won't change my online shopping habits one bit.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=LNUX&d=v1
LNUX == VA Software Corporation
haha! oh yeah.. "What does God need with a starship??"
haha!
no, it was the awful one where they go to the center of the galaxy to find "god".
yep... i know that, but they also link to _Many_ other sources. You are not stuck with reading only CNN.
I stopped reading CNN and other web sites exclusively when I found out about http://news.google.com ... it's sill in beta, but it's got links to all of the news I want to read.
haha! exactly.... i think that will be taking things a little too far.
Well, bud.. that's too bad for your friend... but it's still not enough for me to be polite to him or to have respect for him if he calls me in the middle of the evening and tries to sell me a magazine subscription or tries to convince me to switch to MCI long distance.
I have a basic respect for all people... as long as they show me the same respect. Telemarketers and telemarketing companies intrude on people's privacy and basically annoy people for no good reason. I consider that to be very disrespectful and I will not tolerate it.
Hopefully your friend will finish school soon and move into a more respectable career where he will not be intruding on other people's privacy or disrespecting them and still be able to spend time with his young son.