Because reality TV is really really cheap to produce since it doesn't use high profile actors and needs little in terms of props and what not. Also, people love to watch other people's stupid drama. Reality shows purposely choose people who can't get along.
Also, most of the American TV viewing public is stupid and couldn't possibly understand or enjoy a show like Battlestar or Firefly for long. I think they should seriously think about either producing these shows direct to dvd. There can be a strong business case given how well the firefly and serenity dvd's sell.
Either that or release them in theaters on a regular basis ala old-school serials.
Some trilogies make sense, and I do like a good trilogy. Indiana Jones is excellent. LotR couldn't be done as a single movie (it can barely be done with 3). Original star wars. However, these were all pretty much planned to be trilogies.
However, Terminator should have ended with T2. Terminator 3 was just a slap in the face for anyone who is a fan of the movies. I mean, it totally cancels out the events of T2 and makes the movie pointless. The whole plot of T2 was to prevent the future war from happening, yet in T3 it's "yeah fooled you!!! its going to inexplicably happen anyway! haha (nelson laugh). It was clearly a money grabbing stunt.
That being said, if they must do another terminator I think its good that they're handing it to a smaller studio. I hope they only have it set in the future, and they better not have arnold in it...
This is fine, linux is the geek's OS. I don't understand why everyone wants linux to go "mainstream." It has a very good foothold in the corporate environment, it doens't need to be in everyone's home.
I believe a large part of window's problems are the fact that since MS wants it on every computer in the world, so they have to make it appealing to everyone. They want geeks to like it, but they also want John Q. Public to like it as well. Therefore, windows is a compromise of power, customizability, and ease of use that no one really likes, they just deal with it.
If linux were to go mainstream, it would also have to deal with these issues. Linux is a geeks OS, and I hope it always will be. If you can't understand (or know where to go help with) the above error message, you really need to go back to windows.
I envy you. I live in metro detroit, where public transportation programs are killed at every chance possible. The only real mass transit we have is the bus system, and that was even on the ballot to be killed a couple of elections ago. The bus program survived, but it just irks me that because we are "the motor city" we aren't allowed to have mass transit.
Can't we just teach people to turn off the water while they shave or brush their teeth to conserve water?
I've never done this in my life, and I don't really understand how someone gets in this habit...
Can't we just teach people to set their thermostats a couple of degrees higher in the summer and lower in the winter to save electricity and gas?
I know many people who do this already. Also, most electic companies will offer you lower rates if you allow them to periodically shut off your A/C.
Can't we just teach people to take colder showers?
/.ers who shower??? blasphemy!!!
Or turn off the lights when they leave a room?
If everyone would just start using LED lightbulbs, this wouldn't be a problem!
Our oil problems would be greatly solved if everyone stopped driving their cars and started riding bicycles for any trip less than, say, 5 miles long, but that isn't likely to happen.
Most of the time people drive in order to buy stuff. How are you going to carry 5 bags of groceries on your bike? Pick up the kids? Go to that important job interview without windblown hair or wrinkled clothes. The reason why it's impossible to exchange your car for a bike is because our society is set up for vehicular transportation. Even with crosswalks and walk/don't walk lights, it's still very dangerous to cross a major intersection. I'd be willing to bet that if I rode my bike 100% of the time, I'd have a better chance of getting hit by a car than if I drove 100% of the time.
Because of this, major improvements in public mass transportation need to be the answer to the oil crisis.
Why is it that most of the conferences listed here are our west in california or vegas? I know those are fun locations, but why can't they hold a few of the bigger conferences and conventions over here in the midwest?
How do you know it is cigarette smoke that gives you a reaction??
Umm... because an allergist ran through a full day of testing to find out. I also have a cat, am active outdoors, live in a major smog-filled metropolitan area, and never have any reactions unless I am breathing in second hand smoke.
I never said anything about outdoor smokers. I am specifically talking about indoor smokers.
I also don't drive an SUV, I drive a car that gets 30+ mpg, I reuse everything (reuse plastic department store bags and you'll never have to buy trash bags), and I recycle... just thought I'd add that;)
The problem with your comment is that "smoker" is not a minority group. How can I choose to go where people don't smoke when businesses don't ban it. I'm happy that smoking is banned at the workplace around here, but if I want to go get a beer, get some food, watch the game at a bar, or go bowling, it means subjecting myself to cigarette smoke.
The dumb analogy strikes again! Homosexuals don't cause me health problems. They also don't pollute the air with chemicals (well, unless they're homosexual smokers).
And your comment about going to a "non-gay" bar would seem to suggest that you're telling me to go to a non-smoking bar. If you can give me the name of even one bar in the metro detroit area that is non-smoking, I'll buy you a pack of smokes.
Cigarettes rarely, if ever, start fires in the wild. Lightning strikes and dry conditions are way more responsible than a cigarette being tossed out a window.
As an aside, I don't dislike smokers, I just dislike discourteous smokers. And yes, I consider anyone who smokes inside a public place discourteous. I enjoy going to places like the bar, bowling alleys, and small diners. However, I am always subjected to breathing in the filth that comes our of cigarette smoke. Now, I have extra medical expenses because of a severe allergic reaction to cigarette smoke due to my constant exposure to it (I live in MI, one of the heavier smoking states). I think I have a right to be an "anti-smoker whiner" and will continue to be one until laws are passed that ban smoking in public places.
This conference used to only cover extreme programming, but has since combined with other agile conferences under one umbrella. It is a week long in Washington D.C (Aug 13 - 17), and includes workshops, research in progress, research papers, and demonstrations on the latest research in agile software development. It is IEEE sponsored, and more on the academic side as opposed to a developers trade show type of event.
<shameless plug> I will be presenting a research paper on thursday during the conference on incremental development practices, so if you attend check it out</shameless plug>
I, for one, welcome our freedom-hating, fear-mongering, free-speech hating United States Overlords. And as a trusted poster on slashdot, I'd like to remind them that I can be helpful in reporting dissenting users...
Why do you think Vista runs best on new hardware? Because of the unnecessary bloat that it comes with. While I don't think that MS is in bed with the hardware manufacturers, I do think that they're software engineers get sloppier with each release. Why program efficiently when the hardware is just going to get faster? Vista should run at least as fast as XP on last generation hardware.
Vista does have some nice features, I will agree with you there. Are these features enough to justify the price tag of buying the software at retail and upgrading your current machine? Not a chance.
I would agree with the author's comments that games aren't as engrossing as a book or movie. Books and movies are obviously plot driven, and they aim to capture your interest from beginning to end. You read the book in order to learn more about (hopefully) interesting characters, and you continue reading because you care about what happens to them.
Games are a different beast. The point of a game is to actively become part of the plot, and not just a passive observer. To this end, game makers place the focus on the experience the player has, be it interacting with the virtual world, "fun factor," or immersive technologies, and less on actual story. However, I feel that now that we are coming to a time where game worlds can seem almost photographically real, developers will spend more resources on plot.
But people seem to be missing the point here - it's an operating system. You use it to launch applications and provide a framework for those applications to work in. That's all it does. What did you expect? Oral sex?
Yes, that's what operating system means to you and me. To Microsoft, OS means Aero, MS paint, WMP, and all the rest of the crapplications it comes with (even Reversi!) I wish all they would ship is an OS. Let me choose my own shell and apps to use.
Yes, I agree that Vista is a total rewrite of XP. But that's it. It does the exact same things different, with some very minor improvements IMHO. The whole "cancel or allow" box seems to be the biggest "innovation" in terms of security, but it kinda feels like a very naive solution to the problem.
Not only did they slip on the release date, but they dropped many features that would have made the OS actually new. What we have now is on OS that costs a lot of money for a bunch of features that are truly cosmetic in nature. There is absolutely nothing to get excited about with Vista.
I could see delaying release for 3 years becuase they wnated to perfect some brand new must-have feature, but the product that was delivered was simply anti-climatic to say the least.
Your claim is incorrect because the constitution is designed to reduce these flaws of democracy. For example, even though a tyrannical president could be voted into office, the constitution sets term limits and has 3 branches of government for checks and balances. Because of freedom of religion, the establishment of a state religion wouldn't even be on the voting ballot to begin with.
Because of this, the citizens of boston cannot vote to ban content due to the first amendment. The constitution protects the people of a democratic society from themselves, so to speak.
However, all I know about how the government works is from high school civics class, so please correct me if I am wrong here.
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Yet FOX has a reputation for edgy TV because of shows like "When Hampsters Attack..." go figure.... :/
Because reality TV is really really cheap to produce since it doesn't use high profile actors and needs little in terms of props and what not. Also, people love to watch other people's stupid drama. Reality shows purposely choose people who can't get along.
Also, most of the American TV viewing public is stupid and couldn't possibly understand or enjoy a show like Battlestar or Firefly for long. I think they should seriously think about either producing these shows direct to dvd. There can be a strong business case given how well the firefly and serenity dvd's sell.
Either that or release them in theaters on a regular basis ala old-school serials.
Robocop, is that you???
Some trilogies make sense, and I do like a good trilogy. Indiana Jones is excellent. LotR couldn't be done as a single movie (it can barely be done with 3). Original star wars. However, these were all pretty much planned to be trilogies.
However, Terminator should have ended with T2. Terminator 3 was just a slap in the face for anyone who is a fan of the movies. I mean, it totally cancels out the events of T2 and makes the movie pointless. The whole plot of T2 was to prevent the future war from happening, yet in T3 it's "yeah fooled you!!! its going to inexplicably happen anyway! haha (nelson laugh). It was clearly a money grabbing stunt.
That being said, if they must do another terminator I think its good that they're handing it to a smaller studio. I hope they only have it set in the future, and they better not have arnold in it...
This is fine, linux is the geek's OS. I don't understand why everyone wants linux to go "mainstream." It has a very good foothold in the corporate environment, it doens't need to be in everyone's home.
I believe a large part of window's problems are the fact that since MS wants it on every computer in the world, so they have to make it appealing to everyone. They want geeks to like it, but they also want John Q. Public to like it as well. Therefore, windows is a compromise of power, customizability, and ease of use that no one really likes, they just deal with it.
If linux were to go mainstream, it would also have to deal with these issues. Linux is a geeks OS, and I hope it always will be. If you can't understand (or know where to go help with) the above error message, you really need to go back to windows.
I envy you. I live in metro detroit, where public transportation programs are killed at every chance possible. The only real mass transit we have is the bus system, and that was even on the ballot to be killed a couple of elections ago. The bus program survived, but it just irks me that because we are "the motor city" we aren't allowed to have mass transit.
Can't we just teach people to turn off the water while they shave or brush their teeth to conserve water?
/.ers who shower??? blasphemy!!!
I've never done this in my life, and I don't really understand how someone gets in this habit...
Can't we just teach people to set their thermostats a couple of degrees higher in the summer and lower in the winter to save electricity and gas?
I know many people who do this already. Also, most electic companies will offer you lower rates if you allow them to periodically shut off your A/C.
Can't we just teach people to take colder showers?
Or turn off the lights when they leave a room?
If everyone would just start using LED lightbulbs, this wouldn't be a problem!
Our oil problems would be greatly solved if everyone stopped driving their cars and started riding bicycles for any trip less than, say, 5 miles long, but that isn't likely to happen.
Most of the time people drive in order to buy stuff. How are you going to carry 5 bags of groceries on your bike? Pick up the kids? Go to that important job interview without windblown hair or wrinkled clothes. The reason why it's impossible to exchange your car for a bike is because our society is set up for vehicular transportation. Even with crosswalks and walk/don't walk lights, it's still very dangerous to cross a major intersection. I'd be willing to bet that if I rode my bike 100% of the time, I'd have a better chance of getting hit by a car than if I drove 100% of the time.
Because of this, major improvements in public mass transportation need to be the answer to the oil crisis.
At this rate, they're NEVER gonna get the Slowskies away from their beloved ADSL and get them to become Comcast subscribers...
Sorry, this guy has prior art.... better luck next time.
Oh, and don't try C3 either, that's taken too.
Can we just tag this article with !trailer and be done with it?!?
Why is it that most of the conferences listed here are our west in california or vegas? I know those are fun locations, but why can't they hold a few of the bigger conferences and conventions over here in the midwest?
If anyone knows of some, please let me in on it!
How do you know it is cigarette smoke that gives you a reaction??
;)
Umm... because an allergist ran through a full day of testing to find out. I also have a cat, am active outdoors, live in a major smog-filled metropolitan area, and never have any reactions unless I am breathing in second hand smoke.
I never said anything about outdoor smokers. I am specifically talking about indoor smokers.
I also don't drive an SUV, I drive a car that gets 30+ mpg, I reuse everything (reuse plastic department store bags and you'll never have to buy trash bags), and I recycle... just thought I'd add that
I can't believe you can't go eat a meal in a non-smoking restaurant.
You obviously haven't spent a great deal of time in Detroit. While I enjoy living here, Detroiters love their smokes.
The problem with your comment is that "smoker" is not a minority group. How can I choose to go where people don't smoke when businesses don't ban it. I'm happy that smoking is banned at the workplace around here, but if I want to go get a beer, get some food, watch the game at a bar, or go bowling, it means subjecting myself to cigarette smoke.
The dumb analogy strikes again! Homosexuals don't cause me health problems. They also don't pollute the air with chemicals (well, unless they're homosexual smokers).
And your comment about going to a "non-gay" bar would seem to suggest that you're telling me to go to a non-smoking bar. If you can give me the name of even one bar in the metro detroit area that is non-smoking, I'll buy you a pack of smokes.
Cigarettes rarely, if ever, start fires in the wild. Lightning strikes and dry conditions are way more responsible than a cigarette being tossed out a window.
ORLY?
As an aside, I don't dislike smokers, I just dislike discourteous smokers. And yes, I consider anyone who smokes inside a public place discourteous. I enjoy going to places like the bar, bowling alleys, and small diners. However, I am always subjected to breathing in the filth that comes our of cigarette smoke. Now, I have extra medical expenses because of a severe allergic reaction to cigarette smoke due to my constant exposure to it (I live in MI, one of the heavier smoking states). I think I have a right to be an "anti-smoker whiner" and will continue to be one until laws are passed that ban smoking in public places.
This conference used to only cover extreme programming, but has since combined with other agile conferences under one umbrella. It is a week long in Washington D.C (Aug 13 - 17), and includes workshops, research in progress, research papers, and demonstrations on the latest research in agile software development. It is IEEE sponsored, and more on the academic side as opposed to a developers trade show type of event.
<shameless plug> I will be presenting a research paper on thursday during the conference on incremental development practices, so if you attend check it out</shameless plug>
Link with more info is in my sig.
Soylent green is delicious!!!
I, for one, welcome our freedom-hating, fear-mongering, free-speech hating United States Overlords. And as a trusted poster on slashdot, I'd like to remind them that I can be helpful in reporting dissenting users...
Just as an FYI for myself, what development tools do you get with Vista? I didn't think any windows release came with development tools.
Why do you think Vista runs best on new hardware? Because of the unnecessary bloat that it comes with. While I don't think that MS is in bed with the hardware manufacturers, I do think that they're software engineers get sloppier with each release. Why program efficiently when the hardware is just going to get faster? Vista should run at least as fast as XP on last generation hardware.
Vista does have some nice features, I will agree with you there. Are these features enough to justify the price tag of buying the software at retail and upgrading your current machine? Not a chance.
I would agree with the author's comments that games aren't as engrossing as a book or movie. Books and movies are obviously plot driven, and they aim to capture your interest from beginning to end. You read the book in order to learn more about (hopefully) interesting characters, and you continue reading because you care about what happens to them.
Games are a different beast. The point of a game is to actively become part of the plot, and not just a passive observer. To this end, game makers place the focus on the experience the player has, be it interacting with the virtual world, "fun factor," or immersive technologies, and less on actual story. However, I feel that now that we are coming to a time where game worlds can seem almost photographically real, developers will spend more resources on plot.
But people seem to be missing the point here - it's an operating system. You use it to launch applications and provide a framework for those applications to work in. That's all it does. What did you expect? Oral sex?
Yes, that's what operating system means to you and me. To Microsoft, OS means Aero, MS paint, WMP, and all the rest of the crapplications it comes with (even Reversi!) I wish all they would ship is an OS. Let me choose my own shell and apps to use.
Yes, I agree that Vista is a total rewrite of XP. But that's it. It does the exact same things different, with some very minor improvements IMHO. The whole "cancel or allow" box seems to be the biggest "innovation" in terms of security, but it kinda feels like a very naive solution to the problem.
Not only did they slip on the release date, but they dropped many features that would have made the OS actually new. What we have now is on OS that costs a lot of money for a bunch of features that are truly cosmetic in nature. There is absolutely nothing to get excited about with Vista.
I could see delaying release for 3 years becuase they wnated to perfect some brand new must-have feature, but the product that was delivered was simply anti-climatic to say the least.
Your claim is incorrect because the constitution is designed to reduce these flaws of democracy. For example, even though a tyrannical president could be voted into office, the constitution sets term limits and has 3 branches of government for checks and balances. Because of freedom of religion, the establishment of a state religion wouldn't even be on the voting ballot to begin with.
Because of this, the citizens of boston cannot vote to ban content due to the first amendment. The constitution protects the people of a democratic society from themselves, so to speak.
However, all I know about how the government works is from high school civics class, so please correct me if I am wrong here.