> Did I miss something? I believe the parent poster simply > stated that he probably won't be buying the revised DVDs
If I'm the parent poster, then let me clarify: I'm buying the revised DVDs. And if the original trilogy was for sale, I wouldn't buy it instead since I prefer the digitally re-mastered movies.
Although I liked the movies, I used to dismiss Episodes IV-VI as just "space westerns", but now that I've seen Episodes I and II, I think that the Star Wars movies are actually quite good. Palpatine came up with an amazingly complex plan to dissolve the Republic. Anakin's story is one of a good person becoming terribly bad, but ultimately redeeming himself. I even think C3PO in Episodes IV-VI is more annoying that Jar Jar Binks in Episode I.
Then again, I'd hate to give an opinion that dissents from the score of slashdot posters who screech, "OH! OH! JUPITER'S THUNDER! GREEDO DID NOT SHOOT FIRST! THE NEW STAR WARS MOVIES ARE THE MOST CRIMINAL OF GARBAGES! IT IT IT IS A CRUTCH! THE RE-MASTERED MOVIES WILL NEVER SULLY MY EYES!"
(Hey, I got to sneak in another reference to the Mr. Show character from his brief reprise in Season 3!)
> You remind me of the guy on Mr. Show that wore a scarf in > summer and complained that wax cylinders were the only true > way to appreciate recorded music.
Slow-witted guy eating donut: "You wanna watch the new Star Wars movie?"
Guy wearing scarf: "Oh, puh-lease! The new Star Wars movies blow! People were not meant to see movies with good special effects. People need to see strings, rubber suits, and that shit."
Digs out worn VHS copy of the original Star Wars movie.
"What is that?"
"This, my friend, is the only version of Star Wars I will touch," he says while lovingly stroking the VHS tape.
"Is it the THX remastered version?"
"No! I just -- it's the original Star Wars movie on VHS. It allows me to watch the only decent movie ever committed to celluloid."
"Celluloid?"
"Yessss!"
"Does it have computer effects?"
"Jesus! Just watch. It's so pure it hurts..."
Screen zooms in to a rubber suited alien flopping around a dingy sound stage threatening a young Harrison Ford. A man in a metal robot suit starts prat-falling on the scene.
The fact is, the new Star Wars movies are just as good as the old ones. Complainers were just 20 years younger when they saw the originals.
> Remember when the first trilogy was released on VHS? And > then the widescreen edition. And then the digitally remastered > edition.
I remember it as:
1. Original trilogy full screen 2. Original trilogy with THX re-mastered sound, full screen (I think the three movies had the stormtrooper mask, Yoda, and Darth Vader) 3. Then re-mastered trilogy, full screen (in the gold box) 4. Then re-mastered trilogy, wide screen (in the silver box)
I imagine Peter Jackson saw the above and was a bit inspired when he released Lord of the Rings several times.
Personally, I prefer the re-mastered versions if Star Wars. The Death Star looks cooler blowing up, the snow battle on Hoth looks better, and the end of Return of the Jedi is actually pretty good once Lucas purged the "Yub Yub" song.
I recommend one change though -- Lucas should replace whatever actor played the Emperor in ESB, and stick in Ian McDiarmid instead. Then the circle would be complete.
> Announce that you've run off some copies of the meeting > agenda for everyone. Then hand out pieces of paper that read:
> My Secret Agenda > 1. Trample the weak > 2. Triumph alone > 3. Invade Poland
Replace your agenda with "2. Cut taxes for the rich" and "3. Invade Iraq", and you've done a great job of describing what I've imagined meetings in the white house must be like.
> Some of the best managers I've met were ex-military and > could translate their skills to business.
Agreed. My boss is a Westpoint grad from 40 years ago, and he's been a great boss. Organized, knows how to delegate, knows when to get involved, and provides what he calls "air cover" so the rest of us can get our jobs done.
> the Storyteller will call a meeting, ostensibly as a means of > assessing progress on the project du jour, and then turn it > into a one man show about what he did on his vacation to > Bimini,
etc.
Try the Storyteller who happens to be a semi-big shot who walks into a meeting late, tells everyone he's in a hurry so they need to get this meeting wrapped up fast, and then proceeds to do what you described and runs the meeting an extra hour.
Ugh, the devil's advocate. This is the type of person that tries to have it both ways: shoot holes in whatever idea is on the table, without having to actually defend a position themselves. These types of people waste everyone's time. The problem is we've got a manager here who loves to do that. And this person loves to hear themselves talk.
I try to remind people that playing devil's advocate isn't fair or productive at work. If you are going to shoot holes in the proposed solution, you'd better have your own recommendation when you're done talking.
> there are more visually pleasing fonts, and I see no reason > why official documents should not look good.
Yes, there are more pleasing fonts, but don't let untalented people come any where close to them. Give them Times New Roman and delete all the other fonts from their computers.
At my company, Futura is our corporate branded sans serif, with New Century Schoolbook used for serif work. However, only about 10% of the corporate population can deal with this. We've got people who produce hundreds of pages of Futura text (where its sans serif nature makes the document an eyestrain to read). We've got people who can't tell the difference between Futura, MS Comic Sans, and Arial. We've got people who will mix Futura and Times New Roman in the same freaking sentence. I once saw a marketing person (who should have known better) try to use Zapf Chancery (an abomination) in all caps all over a presentation for a trade show, before he was smacked upside the head.
I can't imagine our Federal government is any better. So, if settling on Times New Roman is the way to prevent font atrocities, then so be it.
Sheesh. The only way I can keep from exploding like this at work is to read Kibo's pages on this.
Office for the Mac starting with Office 98 was a very Mac-like suite of applications (Ignoring the crappy version before that). In fact, Microsoft seemed to work hard to make it as Mac-like as possible, which even some other developers were a little lax at.
Office v.X is really good. Excel is a great application, Word a little less so, PowerPoint tolerable. I'd like to see Entourage made a little more Mac OS X technology-friendly-- e.g., give me the option to use the Mac's Address Book within Entourage. But I think they're still doing a good job overall. The fact that Microsoft supported Quartz so quickly is a great sign. Then, after Microsoft dropped the price of Office v.X after sales were a little dismal showed they were responsive to the market. It goes to show you that when Microsoft has to compete, they can do well.
However, Microsoft doesn't always want to compete -- it's easier to dominate than it is to compete. So when Apple introduced the excellent Safari (and with the success of Camino), Microsoft crumbled like a cookie. The problem is, Internet Explorer was really slow and felt kind of crappy. To this day, whenever you launch it, it bugs you about "making it the default application" while ignoring your request to not display the message again. Not surprisingly, Microsoft killed it (and with it, all Mac compatibility with web designers who insist on designing for Internet Explorer). That action showed the side of Microsoft that all Mac users expect is lurking underneath the shiny, Aqua exterior.
> let's say that your boss (for some unknown reason) has > his C drive shared out, and you just happen to notice that > there are salary listings and, with a little more digging, > can identify all of the available corporate strategies, > including next month's layoff plans.
Agreed. And it's certainly not ethical. "Hi Boss, why'd you promote so-and-so? You wrote in his evaluation that he was a moron." This is a great example of just because you can, doesn't mean that ethically you should.
And it's certainly no excuse to say that it's okay that these Republicans did it because "the Democrats would have done it too, if they had the chance." First of all, it's wrong to convict someone of a hypothetical statement with no backing evidence. And two, didn't everyone's mom say, "two wrongs don't make a right."
> the Republicans claim to have informed the Democrats > about it along time ago.
Reminds me of that scene in the Simpsons when Bart and Lisa are arguing about hockey. Bart starts swinging his arms saying, "I'm going to swing my arms like this, and if you get hit, it's your own fault".
Simple point: these Republicans had no business digging through anyone's files. Saying, "oh, by the way, we've got access to some stuff that you don't want us to see. Hope you fix your security breach soon, or we're liable to dig through your stuff again!" isn't much of an excuse.
Unless these Republicans would like us to just assume from now on that they have no ethics and act accordingly.
> Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary > Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, > monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically > passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The > Globe.
> Novak is also at the center of an investigation into who > leaked the identity of a CIA agent whose husband > contradicted a Bush administration claim about Iraqi > nuclear programs.
So, Novak leaks the name of a CIA operator for political gain to hide the fact that Bush lied about Iraq trying to buy uranium for nuclear weapons. Then he blows the cover of a CIA front operation to further his story. Why isn't this guy in jail?
More importantly, some Republicans keep doing crazy stuff like this. We still don't know which "senior Bush official" leaked the info to Novak, and Bush seems uninterested to find out who committed this crime. The Republicans have been desperate to bury Watergate's effect on their image, but stuff like makes it alive and well.
> American CEOs, with the willing complacence of their > bought-and-paid for politicians, are giving them the > jobs.
Exactly. Fiorina, for example is a Bush supporter, having given thousands of dollars to his campaign according to opensecrets.org. Then she's rewarded by the Bush Administration by raising H-1B caps and reducing restrictions of corporations to move more work offshore. So it doesn't surprise anyone when she flippantly suggests that Americans lose jobs to cheaper workers overseas.
Eventually, middle class jobs will be sent to countries like India, leaving America as the land of the millionaire heir (thanks to the Bush administration for getting rid of the estate tax), the millionaire CEOs, and millions of minimum-wage Walmart greeters.
Well, that's not fair; we'll also have illegal immigrants who get a 3-year work visas but are denied U.S. citizenship.
The "Voter Confidence Act" was proposed by Democrat Rush Holt. It quires a separate printed record of every computerized vote, but Republican Bob Ney, the committee chairman, opposes the bill.
Why aren't Republicans -- many of whom fret incessantly about "ballot security" in black and Latino neighborhoods -- more disturbed by the threat of computer cheating?
> I work in the meat and poultry industry. To us, animal > waste is not only a nuisance, but a major problem that > has to be dealt with on a constant basis.
Ugh! The dot-com era really is over, isn't it? No more Aeron chairs -- slashdot readers now work at rendering plants.
One one hand: Bush enjoys an ailing economy, a trillion dollar deficit, the quagmire in Iraq, no found weapons of mass destruction, disturbing leaks about CIA spies, still haven't found Osama bin Laden, still haven't found the anthrax killer, the Taliban is regrouping in Afghanistan, and he's looking to bankrupt Social Security and Medicare.
One the other hand, the CEO of Diebold is a major Bush supporter.
Put it all together, and I smell a Bush victory in 2004!
I prefer the drawer. The pop up window was an annoyance, particularly because you couldn't see enough information. First you type in the info, then you click the pop-up menu to set the alarm, and then you click the popup menu to write a note. Inputing a meeting was a six step process. Now, with the drawer, I can see all the info at once, without dealing with that floating window. And, it doesn't use up more desktop space.
Of course, I've got a 17" PowerBook, so I've already got a surplus of desktop space anyway.
> This definitely does not fix the crashing problem. (on my > beige G3)
Indeed! And this new petroleum distillate from the local service shoppe doesn't work for me either. Without the added "lead", it wreaks havoc with my Stutz Bearcat.
Tell you what, if you can find a way to re-vulcanize my tires, I'll give you a shiny new nickel so you can buy a new Macintosh.
I frequently give presentations, talk with analysts and the press, and speak at conferences, so I've got some experience doing different types of public speaking. I've found that the "fresher" the topic, the slower I must speak.
I remember once I had to give a presentation on specialized security issues for public networks to a selected group of very experienced, high-level, technology decision makers. Unfortunately, my presentation was last, and the previous guy went on way too long, so I had to do my 80 minute presentation in less than 30 minutes. I knew the material pretty well, so I took a deep breath, and dashed through it.
You know the look that Wile E. Coyote would have after a bomb intended for the roadrunner blew up in his face? Well, imagine an audience full of expressions like that. They understood the material, but the high-powered enema school of lecturing is a little too much when the material is unfamiliar.
The moral of the story is, if you know the material, a quick lecture isn't bad because it's generally reminding you of stuff you already know. But if you're learning something new, the pauses, rhetorical questions, and pacing all give the listener time to reflect on the material they're hearing so they can understand it better.
Slashdot Mirror
> Did I miss something? I believe the parent poster simply
> stated that he probably won't be buying the revised DVDs
If I'm the parent poster, then let me clarify: I'm buying the revised DVDs. And if the original trilogy was for sale, I wouldn't buy it instead since I prefer the digitally re-mastered movies.
Although I liked the movies, I used to dismiss Episodes IV-VI as just "space westerns", but now that I've seen Episodes I and II, I think that the Star Wars movies are actually quite good. Palpatine came up with an amazingly complex plan to dissolve the Republic. Anakin's story is one of a good person becoming terribly bad, but ultimately redeeming himself. I even think C3PO in Episodes IV-VI is more annoying that Jar Jar Binks in Episode I.
Then again, I'd hate to give an opinion that dissents from the score of slashdot posters who screech, "OH! OH! JUPITER'S THUNDER! GREEDO DID NOT SHOOT FIRST! THE NEW STAR WARS MOVIES ARE THE MOST CRIMINAL OF GARBAGES! IT IT IT IS A CRUTCH! THE RE-MASTERED MOVIES WILL NEVER SULLY MY EYES!"
(Hey, I got to sneak in another reference to the Mr. Show character from his brief reprise in Season 3!)
> You remind me of the guy on Mr. Show that wore a scarf in
..."
> summer and complained that wax cylinders were the only true
> way to appreciate recorded music.
Slow-witted guy eating donut: "You wanna watch the new Star Wars movie?"
Guy wearing scarf: "Oh, puh-lease! The new Star Wars movies blow! People were not meant to see movies with good special effects. People need to see strings, rubber suits, and that shit."
Digs out worn VHS copy of the original Star Wars movie.
"What is that?"
"This, my friend, is the only version of Star Wars I will touch," he says while lovingly stroking the VHS tape.
"Is it the THX remastered version?"
"No! I just -- it's the original Star Wars movie on VHS. It allows me to watch the only decent movie ever committed to celluloid."
"Celluloid?"
"Yessss!"
"Does it have computer effects?"
"Jesus! Just watch. It's so pure it hurts
Screen zooms in to a rubber suited alien flopping around a dingy sound stage threatening a young Harrison Ford. A man in a metal robot suit starts prat-falling on the scene.
The fact is, the new Star Wars movies are just as good as the old ones. Complainers were just 20 years younger when they saw the originals.
> Remember when the first trilogy was released on VHS? And
> then the widescreen edition. And then the digitally remastered
> edition.
I remember it as:
1. Original trilogy full screen
2. Original trilogy with THX re-mastered sound, full screen (I think the three movies had the stormtrooper mask, Yoda, and Darth Vader)
3. Then re-mastered trilogy, full screen (in the gold box)
4. Then re-mastered trilogy, wide screen (in the silver box)
I imagine Peter Jackson saw the above and was a bit inspired when he released Lord of the Rings several times.
Personally, I prefer the re-mastered versions if Star Wars. The Death Star looks cooler blowing up, the snow battle on Hoth looks better, and the end of Return of the Jedi is actually pretty good once Lucas purged the "Yub Yub" song.
I recommend one change though -- Lucas should replace whatever actor played the Emperor in ESB, and stick in Ian McDiarmid instead. Then the circle would be complete.
> Announce that you've run off some copies of the meeting
> agenda for everyone. Then hand out pieces of paper that read:
> My Secret Agenda
> 1. Trample the weak
> 2. Triumph alone
> 3. Invade Poland
Replace your agenda with "2. Cut taxes for the rich" and "3. Invade Iraq", and you've done a great job of describing what I've imagined meetings in the white house must be like.
> Some of the best managers I've met were ex-military and
> could translate their skills to business.
Agreed. My boss is a Westpoint grad from 40 years ago, and he's been a great boss. Organized, knows how to delegate, knows when to get involved, and provides what he calls "air cover" so the rest of us can get our jobs done.
And, no he doesn't read slashdot.
> the Storyteller will call a meeting, ostensibly as a means of
> assessing progress on the project du jour, and then turn it
> into a one man show about what he did on his vacation to
> Bimini,
etc.
Try the Storyteller who happens to be a semi-big shot who walks into a meeting late, tells everyone he's in a hurry so they need to get this meeting wrapped up fast, and then proceeds to do what you described and runs the meeting an extra hour.
> The worst is The Devils Advocate.
Ugh, the devil's advocate. This is the type of person that tries to have it both ways: shoot holes in whatever idea is on the table, without having to actually defend a position themselves. These types of people waste everyone's time. The problem is we've got a manager here who loves to do that. And this person loves to hear themselves talk.
I try to remind people that playing devil's advocate isn't fair or productive at work. If you are going to shoot holes in the proposed solution, you'd better have your own recommendation when you're done talking.
> there are more visually pleasing fonts, and I see no reason
> why official documents should not look good.
Yes, there are more pleasing fonts, but don't let untalented people come any where close to them. Give them Times New Roman and delete all the other fonts from their computers.
At my company, Futura is our corporate branded sans serif, with New Century Schoolbook used for serif work. However, only about 10% of the corporate population can deal with this. We've got people who produce hundreds of pages of Futura text (where its sans serif nature makes the document an eyestrain to read). We've got people who can't tell the difference between Futura, MS Comic Sans, and Arial. We've got people who will mix Futura and Times New Roman in the same freaking sentence. I once saw a marketing person (who should have known better) try to use Zapf Chancery (an abomination) in all caps all over a presentation for a trade show, before he was smacked upside the head.
I can't imagine our Federal government is any better. So, if settling on Times New Roman is the way to prevent font atrocities, then so be it.
Sheesh. The only way I can keep from exploding like this at work is to read Kibo's pages on this.
Office for the Mac starting with Office 98 was a very Mac-like suite of applications (Ignoring the crappy version before that). In fact, Microsoft seemed to work hard to make it as Mac-like as possible, which even some other developers were a little lax at.
Office v.X is really good. Excel is a great application, Word a little less so, PowerPoint tolerable. I'd like to see Entourage made a little more Mac OS X technology-friendly-- e.g., give me the option to use the Mac's Address Book within Entourage. But I think they're still doing a good job overall. The fact that Microsoft supported Quartz so quickly is a great sign. Then, after Microsoft dropped the price of Office v.X after sales were a little dismal showed they were responsive to the market. It goes to show you that when Microsoft has to compete, they can do well.
However, Microsoft doesn't always want to compete -- it's easier to dominate than it is to compete. So when Apple introduced the excellent Safari (and with the success of Camino), Microsoft crumbled like a cookie. The problem is, Internet Explorer was really slow and felt kind of crappy. To this day, whenever you launch it, it bugs you about "making it the default application" while ignoring your request to not display the message again. Not surprisingly, Microsoft killed it (and with it, all Mac compatibility with web designers who insist on designing for Internet Explorer). That action showed the side of Microsoft that all Mac users expect is lurking underneath the shiny, Aqua exterior.
> "If you're a bad guy and you want to frustrate law
> enforcement, use a Mac."
Great. Now using a Mac will be considered to be probable cause.
> let's say that your boss (for some unknown reason) has
> his C drive shared out, and you just happen to notice that
> there are salary listings and, with a little more digging,
> can identify all of the available corporate strategies,
> including next month's layoff plans.
Agreed. And it's certainly not ethical. "Hi Boss, why'd you promote so-and-so? You wrote in his evaluation that he was a moron." This is a great example of just because you can, doesn't mean that ethically you should.
And it's certainly no excuse to say that it's okay that these Republicans did it because "the Democrats would have done it too, if they had the chance." First of all, it's wrong to convict someone of a hypothetical statement with no backing evidence. And two, didn't everyone's mom say, "two wrongs don't make a right."
> the Republicans claim to have informed the Democrats
> about it along time ago.
Reminds me of that scene in the Simpsons when Bart and Lisa are arguing about hockey. Bart starts swinging his arms saying, "I'm going to swing my arms like this, and if you get hit, it's your own fault".
Simple point: these Republicans had no business digging through anyone's files. Saying, "oh, by the way, we've got access to some stuff that you don't want us to see. Hope you fix your security breach soon, or we're liable to dig through your stuff again!" isn't much of an excuse.
Unless these Republicans would like us to just assume from now on that they have no ethics and act accordingly.
> Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary
> Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year,
> monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically
> passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The
> Globe.
> Novak is also at the center of an investigation into who
> leaked the identity of a CIA agent whose husband
> contradicted a Bush administration claim about Iraqi
> nuclear programs.
So, Novak leaks the name of a CIA operator for political gain to hide the fact that Bush lied about Iraq trying to buy uranium for nuclear weapons. Then he blows the cover of a CIA front operation to further his story. Why isn't this guy in jail?
More importantly, some Republicans keep doing crazy stuff like this. We still don't know which "senior Bush official" leaked the info to Novak, and Bush seems uninterested to find out who committed this crime. The Republicans have been desperate to bury Watergate's effect on their image, but stuff like makes it alive and well.
Great find. That's the thing with the Bush administration -- they promise plenty, but they forget what they said when it's time to pay the piper.
Consider Tony Snow's reputation in the pawn shop.
> American CEOs, with the willing complacence of their
> bought-and-paid for politicians, are giving them the
> jobs.
Exactly. Fiorina, for example is a Bush supporter, having given thousands of dollars to his campaign according to opensecrets.org. Then she's rewarded by the Bush Administration by raising H-1B caps and reducing restrictions of corporations to move more work offshore. So it doesn't surprise anyone when she flippantly suggests that Americans lose jobs to cheaper workers overseas.
Eventually, middle class jobs will be sent to countries like India, leaving America as the land of the millionaire heir (thanks to the Bush administration for getting rid of the estate tax), the millionaire CEOs, and millions of minimum-wage Walmart greeters.
Well, that's not fair; we'll also have illegal immigrants who get a 3-year work visas but are denied U.S. citizenship.
> Actually, SoundTrack is $299. I know because I just
> bought it.
I'm glad I waited. I like the iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD upgrades, but GarageBand has sealed it for me.
The only thing is it looks like you can't import from MP3 or from CDs. Those of us that DJ would love that! Or, rather used to DJ.
Ahem.
> wacko right wing-ness of papers like the Washington Times
Hey! That's "wacko right wing-ness of papers owned by the Moonies like the Washington Times", to you, Mr. Cynic.
Joe Conason bought up a good question:
> I work in the meat and poultry industry. To us, animal
> waste is not only a nuisance, but a major problem that
> has to be dealt with on a constant basis.
Ugh! The dot-com era really is over, isn't it? No more Aeron chairs -- slashdot readers now work at rendering plants.
Somewhere, Matt Groening is snickering.
"The smell-o-scope is brilliant I tell you!"
"Imagine the astronomical odors you can detect because of me!"
"Oof! That stench is right off the funk-o-meter!"
> How do people get so addicted to a piece of computer
> software ?
It's called Expose, and it's the computer-version of crack.
One one hand: Bush enjoys an ailing economy, a trillion dollar deficit, the quagmire in Iraq, no found weapons of mass destruction, disturbing leaks about CIA spies, still haven't found Osama bin Laden, still haven't found the anthrax killer, the Taliban is regrouping in Afghanistan, and he's looking to bankrupt Social Security and Medicare.
One the other hand, the CEO of Diebold is a major Bush supporter.
Put it all together, and I smell a Bush victory in 2004!
I prefer the drawer. The pop up window was an annoyance, particularly because you couldn't see enough information. First you type in the info, then you click the pop-up menu to set the alarm, and then you click the popup menu to write a note. Inputing a meeting was a six step process. Now, with the drawer, I can see all the info at once, without dealing with that floating window. And, it doesn't use up more desktop space.
Of course, I've got a 17" PowerBook, so I've already got a surplus of desktop space anyway.
> This definitely does not fix the crashing problem. (on my
> beige G3)
Indeed! And this new petroleum distillate from the local service shoppe doesn't work for me either. Without the added "lead", it wreaks havoc with my Stutz Bearcat.
Tell you what, if you can find a way to re-vulcanize my tires, I'll give you a shiny new nickel so you can buy a new Macintosh.
> lectures at hyper-speed aren't more effective.
Well, that's a good point.
I frequently give presentations, talk with analysts and the press, and speak at conferences, so I've got some experience doing different types of public speaking. I've found that the "fresher" the topic, the slower I must speak.
I remember once I had to give a presentation on specialized security issues for public networks to a selected group of very experienced, high-level, technology decision makers. Unfortunately, my presentation was last, and the previous guy went on way too long, so I had to do my 80 minute presentation in less than 30 minutes. I knew the material pretty well, so I took a deep breath, and dashed through it.
You know the look that Wile E. Coyote would have after a bomb intended for the roadrunner blew up in his face? Well, imagine an audience full of expressions like that. They understood the material, but the high-powered enema school of lecturing is a little too much when the material is unfamiliar.
The moral of the story is, if you know the material, a quick lecture isn't bad because it's generally reminding you of stuff you already know. But if you're learning something new, the pauses, rhetorical questions, and pacing all give the listener time to reflect on the material they're hearing so they can understand it better.