I live in Los Angeles. In my personal experience, the "theater experience" hasn't changed much in the last 15 years. There's more ads, but that more or less all came at once in a rush about 5 years ago, and hasn't gone up since. Projection problems haven't gone up, that I've noticed (I see a lot of movies). First-run prints look good even several weeks after a movie opens. Prices have been horrendous since I *first* started going to the movies (although AMC has changed... back when they were first around, they had CHEAP concession food, like $1.50 for a medium popcorn, not $3.50... the "big" candy boxes were $2 instead of $3.75... etc.). Maybe it's just a Canadian thing.
Cellphones have become more of a problem, but not that much more. I've heard a cellphone go off during a movie about one in four times I go to see a movie, and you know what? It's annoying for those few seconds, then I quickly forget about it. I think most people are the same way. Nobody ends the movie bitching about the cellphone that rang 20 minutes into it.
I followed those instructions and got it to work -- looks great.
However, my question is, why does this have to be in the unix.js file? Every time I install a new version of Mozilla, it's going to get overwritten. Isn't there some way to set these prefs in my ~/.mozilla dir so that they don't get overwritten when I install new versions? I tried putting a unix.js file in there, but it didn't help.
I installed XUL Planet's Preferences Toolbar on Mozilla, but the next time I installed a new version, it was gone and I had to reinstall it. I know that you can install plugins into your ~/.mozilla directory so that upgrading the browser doesn't require reinstalling the plugins, but is it possible to do this for chrome-like things (like the aforementioned Preferences Toolbar)? I've highly customized the toolbar, as well, and I don't even know where that configuration gets saved. Thanks.
Speaking of Iraq, one of the top news stories today (you do get your news from Google News, right?) was about Iraq's "democratic" presidential referendum (deciding who will be the next president). Saddam Hussein was apparently the *only* candidate, and every single one of the registered 11 million-plus voters voted for him.
Reminds me of Microsoft hiring one of their own PR people to write an "I switched to Windows XP from the Mac." Ah, those were the days (i.e. yesterday).
In the spring of 1999 (or maybe it was winter...) I took an operating systems class at UCLA. Basically it was the fundamentals of operating system design, but we used Minix for our projects. We had to do things like modify the 'ps' program, the memory manager, etc. in order to learn about core concepts. Minix was interesting, although getting it running was a task in itself. Good thing I had a second computer that year!
Yeah, here's a question. Since every "security" initiative or technology MS has ever introduced has been a complete pile of crap, why should we expect that Palladium will be anything more than a way to help you continue your current dominance of the consumer computer market?
I'm sure a lot of mods will lump this into the Slashbot category, but be realistic: Microsoft has an egregiously bad track record when it comes to security in their products, and they are a convicted monopolist. This entire scheme smacks of an attempt to control your computer's hardware, not just your software, not to mention further abusing their monopoly power. Why should I trust a damn thing Microsoft says?
It's times like this I'm glad I don't drink soft drinks. Oddly, the only place I ever really do drink soft drinks is at McDonald's, although I always get the Hi-C Orange Drink (I can't stand carbonated beverages). Of course, I only go to McDonald's about once a month, if that. In the year 2001 I didn't go to McDonalds at all (that was my New Year's resolution that year, and I stuck to it).
He could have stayed here, hell he could have stayed here in a nice cozy little jail for free.
Right, I mean, who could possibly object to being put in jail in a foreign country on account of an idiotic law (bought and paid for by corporations, mind you)? I can't think of any reason that Dimitri might have wanted to go home. He certainly couldn't have wanted to see to his affairs, or see his friends or family there before standing trial here; no sane person would want that! And certainly it would be silly of a country to want to admit someone who they've charged with a crime and set a trial date for. Yeah, that would just be nuts.
I just had a horrifying thought... maybe it's far-fetched, but it's worth posting.
What if Microsoft is doing all these stupid PR moves on purpose? The intent might be to make MS look like a big, goofy, harmless company rather than their usual Sinister Evil(TM) look. "Oops! We hired one of our PR people to write an 'unbiased' switching story. Oops! We put an insanely silly license up on our project management software. D'oh, aren't we goofy!"
I dunno, maybe it's just coincidence, but such a plan might actually help their reputation -- getting people who see them as evil bastards to think of them as merely incompetent goofballs would be a first step toward reducing resistance to their efforts. (After all, resistance is futile.)
We once turned Quake into a side-scrolling spaceship shooter (called Gunship). We got sick of dealing with it near the end of the project, but it was proof that given a sufficiently complex mod system, you can do just about anything with a game engine. It was never quite finished, as there were a few intractable bugs with the level files, unfortunately.
We were the same guys who did Quake Superheroes and Quake Superheroes II, in case that means anything to any of you.
I didn't mean to imply that *all* bad movies should be remade, only that if you're going to remake a movie, don't remake a classic. Probably the ideal candidate for remaking is a movie that had potential but failed to live up to it, due to poor casting, poor direction, bad writing, etc. Complete trash films (like the aforementioned "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things") can be safely ignored.
To be fair, "Lost in Space" wasn't a remake of a movie, but an adaptation of the TV show. (And, yes, the movie blew space goats.)
Back when they remade "Psycho" a couple of years ago, someone made the astute observation that filmmakers should remake BAD movies, in order to try and improve them, not GOOD ones. What's the point in remaking a classic? Odds are, you're just going to fuck it up. With bad movies, there's nowhere to go but up.
(By "bad" I mean everything that isn't a classic, so remaking mediocre movies like "The Thomas Crown Affair" is fine.)
I love that the picture in the article is a plate of leftover food... like we don't know what leftover food looks like.
Then again, considering how much we Americans eat, maybe we don't know what it looks like, and the pic's just a favor done for us Yanks across the pond:)
OK, here goes. 3 hrs per week * 22 weeks is 66 hours. A third of this time is commercials - roughly 24 hours or a solid day per year
I could argue the numbers based on how much of the hour is commercials (my math gives me about 19.8 hours per year) but I'll accept your claim here, mostly because the amount of time is completely irrelevant.
of wasting your life sitting there listening to CRAP.
I'm immune to the capitalisic power of commercials; either I enjoy them for any entertainment value they may provide (which can be pure visual entertainment, if it's a pretty commercial; actual entertainment, if it's well-written; or the entertainment of mocking it, if it's stupid). I also have this miraculous thing called a MUTE BUTTON, which means I don't have to listen to shit if I don't feel like it.
Additionally, I can (and do) spend commercial time thinking about the part of the show I just watched, discussing it with my wife, going to the bathroom, getting a snack, whatever. Your assumption is that all my commercial time is spent sitting still, staring at the screen and absorbing the message, which is false.
You spend $400 to reclaim this commercial wasted time by skipping it with a Tivo at about $16 per hour. If you are making $32K per year or more, your time is worth more than $16 per hour. So the TiVO saves you valuable time at a bargain price.
I make a bit more than $16 an hour, but that's irrelevant, because as I said above, the time during commercials is not wasted on "listening to CRAP". Also, you assume that I'm slave to the "every moment of my life must have measurable value" ethos that so pervades America (and obviously has ahold of you) -- sometimes I enjoy staring off into space, not thinking about anything. It's a nice release from the day-in, day-out of dealing with people who think they know my life better than I do. (Hint, hint.)
PLUS, the second and subsequent years it's "free" and trust me, once you get it you're gonna enjoy those three shows a LOT more than you would setting the VCR 66 times, missing a few times, rewinding the tapes, etc etc...ugh, to think I used to have to mess with that!!!
Well, I don't have to mess with it. I watch the shows when they're on; I've only ever taped them a handful of times, when I or my wife have been unavailable to watch them when broadcast. There is no issue to be relieved by TiVo here.
And trust me, once you get the TiVo, you will enjoy other shows, TV in general and your leisure TV time SO MUCH MORE...
No. Most of my leisure time is already spoken for, and it's spoken for by my wife, my friends, and my computer. In order for me to watch more TV, I'd have to do less of something else; it's not like I have an endless pool of time in which to watch TV. I've chosen to watch less TV in favor of doing other things. You may be right; a TiVo might help me enjoy TV more, and get me to watch more TV, but that would be at the cost of other things, and I am not okay with that.
you just can't understand without trying it. Treat yourself and get one, sell it on EBay if you don't like it. Ha ha ha, like THAT's gonna happen...
You sound like an addict, which makes me even more glad that I have no desire to get a TiVo. It may be a fine device for those who do or want to watch more TV than I do, but it's not worth it to me, either from a strict financial standpoint, or a personal sanity standpoint. (You'll probably have an aneurysm when I tell you I don't own a DVD player or any DVDs, either.) There's other things in life besides sucking passively on the glass teat, and I've chosen to limit my time there.
I only have a finite amount of time to spend on entertainment. As it happens, most of it is spent doing computer-related stuff, which I find highly entertaining. The fact that I watch Buffy, Angel, and Firefly is really an accident of history more than anything. As you pointed out, having a TiVo lets you keep up with a series without having to constrain your schedule, but you still have to find time to actually watch the show -- and if I'm at home, I'm most likely going to be either sleeping or playing computer games, or taking care of various chores that preclude the watching of TV. I don't have much interest in spending any more of my time watching TV than I do now; it's not a matter of not having the flexibility, it's a matter of a limited amount of time, and priorities. I know there's a lot of good TV out there, but there's a reason that my viewing is limited to ABF (Angel, Buffy, Firefly):
Most shows are about people having relationship problems, be they romantic, familial, acquaintance, etc.
Buffy and Angel are about people having relationship problems and saving the world from hordes of unspeakable demons.
Firefly was created by the same guy who created Buffy and Angel (Joss Whedon), so my wife and I thought we'd give it a shot. We both really like it so far (only three episodes as of yet), so we probably will keep watching it.
The upshot is that three hours a week, for 22 weeks out out of the year, is not enough to justify buying a $400 device.
Keep in mind that I'm merely talking about my needs; someone who likes TV or wants to watch more, may find value in a TiVo, but I do not.
You claimed that God is described as self-existing, i.e. requiring nothing else to exist. The obvious corollary to this claim is that God exists. You're trying to say that God exists, and that he's defined as self-existing.
For anyone out there that watches TV more than 1 hour per week. Get a TIVO or a Replay TV. They are so worth it.
I don't agree with this. As a relevant case study (never watch more than 3 hours of TV a week, and that's only when Buffy, Angel, and Firefly are new episodes -- my TV was off for about three months straight this summer, except once to see my mother-in-law on the news), I can say that a TiVo or ReplayTV would absolutely not be worth it to me and my wife. I'm not really that interested in TV, and I certainly don't want to increase my viewing time, and the benefits of TiVo are hardly enough to justify spending $400+ on one, plus service.
I don't doubt that there are some people who watch as little TV as I do and would benefit from a TiVo, but they are likely to have unstable schedules or go out in the evenings a lot.
Simply, there is no "natural processes which explain it all rather well."
They're called "the laws of physics." And they explain it better than your explanation, which is, "We don't know, therefore God did it." That's known as intellectual laziness. Isn't sloth a deadly sin?
we can go back only so far, and then all of our theories and physical laws go out the window. Scientists believe that the universe, at one time, did not exist.
"Scientists," eh? Which scientists, exactly? There's quite a lot of them out there, and there is nothing even remotely close to a consensus about the origins of the universe, if indeed it has any (that's another hypothesis).
Now, it, and everything in it, does exist, despite the fact that this "coming into existance" defies one of the fundamental theories of thermodynamics.
So you're attacking a particular claim, which is that the universe sprung into being from nothingness? Such a claim is far from uniform in the scientific community, and I personally don't have any opinion about the origins of the universe. Why? Because it doesn't matter.
There was once no matter, no energy. Now there is. Scientists have been trying to explain it for ages. Theologians explained it millenia ago.
Theologians came up with an explanation, but no proof or evidence for it. It's called the "god of the gaps" argument -- basically, we don't know what did it, so it must be God! I can come up with an equally valid explanation: It was not God, but rather giant sentient purple flamingos that created the universe. I can't prove myself right, but then again, you can't prove me wrong, just as you can't prove yourself right about God, and neither can I prove you wrong.
Fair enough. I agree that the "fundamental values" in our physical laws are not enough to prove God exists; but it is one more piece of evidence that helps build my case.
It doesn't support your argument, and it doesn't support my argument either. In fact, it's an entirely moot point. The very nature of reality may be such that the values cannot be other than they are; or, as I suggested, there might be infinite (or at least highly numerous) universes in which the values are different; or it might be that any set of values works; etc. However none of this can ever be proven, since we cannot run experiments to find out. We're limited to this universe, so anything either of us can say on the topic is entirely conjectural.
It also ties in with the watchmaker example from a higher post.
The watchmaker example is absurd. If you find a watch on the beach, you assume someone made it. However you don't assume that it is the first watch ever created. You assume that there were earlier versions of the watch that did not work so well, and earlier versions still, until you get all the way back to the sundial, or earlier. Ironically, the watchmaker argument ends up supporting evolution!
I overgeneralized. I have known some people who were, by human standards, good people, and also happened to be atheists. Society as a whole, however, has become increasingly less moral as it has become increasingly less theistic.
So now that we've abolished slavery, given women the right to vote, desegregated our schools, mostly given up on corporal and capital punishment, and realized that illness is not caused by demons but rather by germs (most of which are results of becoming less theistic), we're less moral? (And did it ever occur to you that the phrase "increasingly less" is kind of silly?)
And even if your contention about the relationship between theism and morality is true, whether or not believing in God makes you a nicer person has absolutely nothing to do with whether God exists! There have been people who believed in non-Christian Gods, and who were nice people as a result, but that doesn't mean their God therefore exists. In fact, this entire thread is spurious. Whether God exists is unaffected by what people believe, or how good they are as a result of what they believe.
Ah, I see. And you can prove that the "nine out of ten slashdotters" who complain about the abuse of the patent system, are in fact the same people that are suggesting he patent it now? That's the assertion you're making, but you haven't backed it up. Slashdot is a community of thousands of people, some of whom have opposing views, but you assume that because you saw two opposing things on the same website, it must be the same people. Your logic is truly astonishing.
Slashdot Mirror
I live in Los Angeles. In my personal experience, the "theater experience" hasn't changed much in the last 15 years. There's more ads, but that more or less all came at once in a rush about 5 years ago, and hasn't gone up since. Projection problems haven't gone up, that I've noticed (I see a lot of movies). First-run prints look good even several weeks after a movie opens. Prices have been horrendous since I *first* started going to the movies (although AMC has changed... back when they were first around, they had CHEAP concession food, like $1.50 for a medium popcorn, not $3.50... the "big" candy boxes were $2 instead of $3.75... etc.). Maybe it's just a Canadian thing.
Cellphones have become more of a problem, but not that much more. I've heard a cellphone go off during a movie about one in four times I go to see a movie, and you know what? It's annoying for those few seconds, then I quickly forget about it. I think most people are the same way. Nobody ends the movie bitching about the cellphone that rang 20 minutes into it.
I followed those instructions and got it to work -- looks great.
However, my question is, why does this have to be in the unix.js file? Every time I install a new version of Mozilla, it's going to get overwritten. Isn't there some way to set these prefs in my ~/.mozilla dir so that they don't get overwritten when I install new versions? I tried putting a unix.js file in there, but it didn't help.
I installed XUL Planet's Preferences Toolbar on Mozilla, but the next time I installed a new version, it was gone and I had to reinstall it. I know that you can install plugins into your ~/.mozilla directory so that upgrading the browser doesn't require reinstalling the plugins, but is it possible to do this for chrome-like things (like the aforementioned Preferences Toolbar)? I've highly customized the toolbar, as well, and I don't even know where that configuration gets saved. Thanks.
Speaking of Iraq, one of the top news stories today (you do get your news from Google News, right?) was about Iraq's "democratic" presidential referendum (deciding who will be the next president). Saddam Hussein was apparently the *only* candidate, and every single one of the registered 11 million-plus voters voted for him.
Reminds me of Microsoft hiring one of their own PR people to write an "I switched to Windows XP from the Mac." Ah, those were the days (i.e. yesterday).
In the spring of 1999 (or maybe it was winter...) I took an operating systems class at UCLA. Basically it was the fundamentals of operating system design, but we used Minix for our projects. We had to do things like modify the 'ps' program, the memory manager, etc. in order to learn about core concepts. Minix was interesting, although getting it running was a task in itself. Good thing I had a second computer that year!
Yeah, here's a question. Since every "security" initiative or technology MS has ever introduced has been a complete pile of crap, why should we expect that Palladium will be anything more than a way to help you continue your current dominance of the consumer computer market?
I'm sure a lot of mods will lump this into the Slashbot category, but be realistic: Microsoft has an egregiously bad track record when it comes to security in their products, and they are a convicted monopolist. This entire scheme smacks of an attempt to control your computer's hardware, not just your software, not to mention further abusing their monopoly power. Why should I trust a damn thing Microsoft says?
It's times like this I'm glad I don't drink soft drinks. Oddly, the only place I ever really do drink soft drinks is at McDonald's, although I always get the Hi-C Orange Drink (I can't stand carbonated beverages). Of course, I only go to McDonald's about once a month, if that. In the year 2001 I didn't go to McDonalds at all (that was my New Year's resolution that year, and I stuck to it).
Wow, this post got offtopic *fast*!
I just had a horrifying thought... maybe it's far-fetched, but it's worth posting.
What if Microsoft is doing all these stupid PR moves on purpose? The intent might be to make MS look like a big, goofy, harmless company rather than their usual Sinister Evil(TM) look. "Oops! We hired one of our PR people to write an 'unbiased' switching story. Oops! We put an insanely silly license up on our project management software. D'oh, aren't we goofy!"
I dunno, maybe it's just coincidence, but such a plan might actually help their reputation -- getting people who see them as evil bastards to think of them as merely incompetent goofballs would be a first step toward reducing resistance to their efforts. (After all, resistance is futile.)
We once turned Quake into a side-scrolling spaceship shooter (called Gunship). We got sick of dealing with it near the end of the project, but it was proof that given a sufficiently complex mod system, you can do just about anything with a game engine. It was never quite finished, as there were a few intractable bugs with the level files, unfortunately.
We were the same guys who did Quake Superheroes and Quake Superheroes II, in case that means anything to any of you.
I didn't mean to imply that *all* bad movies should be remade, only that if you're going to remake a movie, don't remake a classic. Probably the ideal candidate for remaking is a movie that had potential but failed to live up to it, due to poor casting, poor direction, bad writing, etc. Complete trash films (like the aforementioned "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things") can be safely ignored.
To be fair, "Lost in Space" wasn't a remake of a movie, but an adaptation of the TV show. (And, yes, the movie blew space goats.)
Back when they remade "Psycho" a couple of years ago, someone made the astute observation that filmmakers should remake BAD movies, in order to try and improve them, not GOOD ones. What's the point in remaking a classic? Odds are, you're just going to fuck it up. With bad movies, there's nowhere to go but up.
(By "bad" I mean everything that isn't a classic, so remaking mediocre movies like "The Thomas Crown Affair" is fine.)
Of course! Crisi-tunity!
I love that the picture in the article is a plate of leftover food... like we don't know what leftover food looks like.
:)
Then again, considering how much we Americans eat, maybe we don't know what it looks like, and the pic's just a favor done for us Yanks across the pond
Additionally, I can (and do) spend commercial time thinking about the part of the show I just watched, discussing it with my wife, going to the bathroom, getting a snack, whatever. Your assumption is that all my commercial time is spent sitting still, staring at the screen and absorbing the message, which is false.
I make a bit more than $16 an hour, but that's irrelevant, because as I said above, the time during commercials is not wasted on "listening to CRAP". Also, you assume that I'm slave to the "every moment of my life must have measurable value" ethos that so pervades America (and obviously has ahold of you) -- sometimes I enjoy staring off into space, not thinking about anything. It's a nice release from the day-in, day-out of dealing with people who think they know my life better than I do. (Hint, hint.) Well, I don't have to mess with it. I watch the shows when they're on; I've only ever taped them a handful of times, when I or my wife have been unavailable to watch them when broadcast. There is no issue to be relieved by TiVo here. No. Most of my leisure time is already spoken for, and it's spoken for by my wife, my friends, and my computer. In order for me to watch more TV, I'd have to do less of something else; it's not like I have an endless pool of time in which to watch TV. I've chosen to watch less TV in favor of doing other things. You may be right; a TiVo might help me enjoy TV more, and get me to watch more TV, but that would be at the cost of other things, and I am not okay with that. You sound like an addict, which makes me even more glad that I have no desire to get a TiVo. It may be a fine device for those who do or want to watch more TV than I do, but it's not worth it to me, either from a strict financial standpoint, or a personal sanity standpoint. (You'll probably have an aneurysm when I tell you I don't own a DVD player or any DVDs, either.) There's other things in life besides sucking passively on the glass teat, and I've chosen to limit my time there.I only have a finite amount of time to spend on entertainment. As it happens, most of it is spent doing computer-related stuff, which I find highly entertaining. The fact that I watch Buffy, Angel, and Firefly is really an accident of history more than anything. As you pointed out, having a TiVo lets you keep up with a series without having to constrain your schedule, but you still have to find time to actually watch the show -- and if I'm at home, I'm most likely going to be either sleeping or playing computer games, or taking care of various chores that preclude the watching of TV. I don't have much interest in spending any more of my time watching TV than I do now; it's not a matter of not having the flexibility, it's a matter of a limited amount of time, and priorities. I know there's a lot of good TV out there, but there's a reason that my viewing is limited to ABF (Angel, Buffy, Firefly):
Most shows are about people having relationship problems, be they romantic, familial, acquaintance, etc.
Buffy and Angel are about people having relationship problems and saving the world from hordes of unspeakable demons.
Firefly was created by the same guy who created Buffy and Angel (Joss Whedon), so my wife and I thought we'd give it a shot. We both really like it so far (only three episodes as of yet), so we probably will keep watching it.
The upshot is that three hours a week, for 22 weeks out out of the year, is not enough to justify buying a $400 device.
Keep in mind that I'm merely talking about my needs; someone who likes TV or wants to watch more, may find value in a TiVo, but I do not.
You claimed that God is described as self-existing, i.e. requiring nothing else to exist. The obvious corollary to this claim is that God exists. You're trying to say that God exists, and that he's defined as self-existing.
So where's your actual proof that God exists?
I don't doubt that there are some people who watch as little TV as I do and would benefit from a TiVo, but they are likely to have unstable schedules or go out in the evenings a lot.
And even if your contention about the relationship between theism and morality is true, whether or not believing in God makes you a nicer person has absolutely nothing to do with whether God exists! There have been people who believed in non-Christian Gods, and who were nice people as a result, but that doesn't mean their God therefore exists. In fact, this entire thread is spurious. Whether God exists is unaffected by what people believe, or how good they are as a result of what they believe.
So you *define* God as "just being," and then use this to prove that he exists? That's called "circular logic" and it doesn't wash here. Try again.
I have discovered a remarkable new encryption system, but unfortunately it is too small to XOLMQ KRLQW MAAWE HRGTY QOKKQ DNAJS.
Ah, I see. And you can prove that the "nine out of ten slashdotters" who complain about the abuse of the patent system, are in fact the same people that are suggesting he patent it now? That's the assertion you're making, but you haven't backed it up. Slashdot is a community of thousands of people, some of whom have opposing views, but you assume that because you saw two opposing things on the same website, it must be the same people. Your logic is truly astonishing.
Yeah, but it won't wrap for two billion years, which is probably longer than a term of copyright really needs to be. :)