I'm not entirely sure you're talking about Transporter 2, but in that case they didn't run out of fuel - the pilot was shot by accident.
Right, and in that case, there was no fireball anyway since the plane crashed into the ocean. I was thinking of other movies, such as "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," where Indy and his cohorts fall asleep on the plane. Meanwhile, the pilots pull the fuel dump handle, then jump from the plane with parachutes. Indy wakes up, the plane runs out of fuel, and they jump from the plane, using an inflatable raft as a parachute. In the background, the plane smashes into the mountain, in a huge fireball.
For many years, all the phone numbers used in films have been bogus, I.E. 555-123-9876. If a real number is shown, thousands of people would dial it up to see if it was real. Not cool!
Actually, the numbers are real. There's nothing preventing telecoms from assigning "555-xxxx" exchanges to their customers, and many do.
Q. How did Jeff Goldblum's character figure out the alien signal? A. Duh! He's a genius.
Wasn't his character falling-down-drunk mere minutes before hacking the alien code and writing a cross-platform virus?
It's not just computers that Hollywood takes liberties with. People in movies sober up instantaneously, and are almost never hungover. See "40 Year Old Virgin" for another example. He's utterly wasted at the end, goes back to some random's apartment, then sobers up and rides his bike to tell Katherine Keener he loves her (smashing through a mobile billboard in the process).
Or how about the laughable driving stunts in "Transporter 2?" Or the way minute amounts of explosives can demolish entire buildings in movies? Or how airplanes run out of fuel, then crash into the ground, creating a massive fireball? What exactly is burning, in that case, hmm?
Hollywood has conditioned us to turn our brains off when we go to the movies. We just notice the glaring computer flaws because, well, we're computer geeks. I'm sure automotive engineers laugh at all the new tricks James Bond's car can do. Or pilots laugh at the things airplanes get away with in movies.
is that it's still not illegal to sell rated "R" movies to people under 18.
Maybe not, but around here, it is illegal to sell cigarettes, alcohol, guns, fireworks, or porn to people under 18. So this is not completely without precedent.
very little of the actual CD sales price ever makes it to the artists.
And the problem with that is.... ?
Why should the artist get the lion's share of the money? What about the people that wrote the music, wrote the lyrics, recorded and mixed the tracks, corrected the artist's singing flaws during editing, the people who created the cover art, the people who advertise and market the album, etc. etc. etc.? Why should the self-absorbed drug addict who shows up 2 hours late and puts in a couple days' worth of work singing the songs that were written for him/her be awarded a disproportionate amount of the money? Just because its their picture on the cover?
Haven't you learned anything from INXS? American Idol? Talented singers are a dime a dozen, and totally interchangeable. Why should the people who actually STUDIED a craft (sound engineers, marketing agents, talent scouts, cover artists, songwriters, etc.) get shafted out of a fair salary, so that the egomaniacal "artist" can bling themselves out like some sort of movie star?
They're not curing cancer. They're just singing some songs. Since when does that entitle them to millions and millions of dollars?
That's $25 _Canadian_ - I think that's like $1.75 US.
That joke would be funny, if the Canadian dollar weren't so close to actually passing the US dollar in terms of valuation. Check out this graph. When it reaches the top (1), they'll be equal. You can thank the US's outrageously irresponsible and uncontrollable borrowing and spending for causing such catastrophic devaluation of the US dollar.
Most of us were raised on cop shows where the good guys are always driving around calling around on their radio system. Now we have our own radio system we naturally want to use it. Police no doubt have policies about these things so perhaps they should publicise them: we don't use the radio/phone while driving and you shouldn't either. Or something like that.
Not exactly. I've spent some time accompany police on their shifts, and if you knew what they do while driving, it would scare the bejeezus out of you. I assume most jurisdictions are like mine, where the cops have a regular radio (AM/FM/CD) and their dispatch radio, plus a laptop. Around here, the cops don't have partners, so they're in the cars by themselves. While driving, they tune the radio to find a station playing music they like, talk to dispatch with the handheld radio while doing mentally complex tasks (recalling a suspect's description, giving their location), often while doing dangerous and demanding driving tasks (i.e., trying to surreptitiously follow a suspect and needing to cut in front of other drivers or run stale yellow lights so as not to lose him). In addition, they may be typing license plate numbers into their laptops and trying to read the results (again, while navigating city traffic!) Incredibly, their laptops even run an instant-messaging application that allows them to type in messages to dispatch or other officers, so they're often driving down the road, while typing a chat message into their laptop. And these people are hunt-and-peckers, not touch-typists.
I don't think it's a good idea for the general public to adopt the police's policies.
Oh, Lord - not again. Please educate yourself. You need to find a better example of a frivolous lawsuit.
The fact that McDonald's had been told to turn down the heat multiple times, and ignored these requests, does not make the lawsuit any less frivolous. Coffee by definition can get no hotter than 100 degrees celcius at standard atmospheric pressure. Lots of people boil water in a kettle, then pour it into a mug and make tea. It is not unreasonable to expect coffee to be hot, particularly at a drive-through, when the driver shouldn't be drinking it until they get to their destination (thus providing a window for the drink to cool substantially before it is consumed).
It was a stupid lawsuit brought by a stupid woman who was surprised to learn that coffee was hot. She's the cause of a lot of "dumbing down" of products in our society nowadays, by companies that are running scared of being the next McDonald's.
I have Rogers' PVR service, and they use Scientific Atlanta units. They are terrible. The interface is ugly. It occassionally "forgets" to record programs you've set up to record. Sometimes it freezes during playback for 5 - 10 seconds, then resumes. If you're recording a program, and you decide to start watching it while it is still recording, and you're only halfway through when the episode ends, the PVR jumps you to the end, and you have to start watching it again from the beginning, and fast-forward back to where you were.
That said, it's only $25/month to rent the unit, and it has 2 tuners, meaning you can record 2 things at once (and watch a pre-recorded third program at the same time, if you want). I'd gladly pay a little extra to have a real Tivo unit.
Why aren't any Canadian companies using Tivo's technology? Has Tivo tried to crack the Canadian market? As I said, Rogers uses Scientific Atlanta. Bell has their own ExpressVu box. I have a co-worker who claims he bought a Tivo on his own, and it works on Rogers' network. So what's holding Tivo back from breaking into the Canadian market? Just curious, because I'm really getting sick of this Scientific Atlanta crap and would gladly upgrade.
Why is an owl more important than a logger's family? Why is old-growth forest more important than a parking lot?
This guy is an obvious troll, but I thought it was a good opportunity to highlight just how decimated the South American rainforests have become. Personally, I'm a woodworker (see my sig), so I appreciate being able to create beautiful and exotic gifts and heirlooms from unique and natural woods, but it's clear from this that the loggers are acting completely irresponsibly. I understand that in North America, we build our homes out of wood instead of stone and concrete, because it is cheaper. And there's nothing wrong with that, because forests are a renewable resource. The problem, however, comes when the trees are not replanted.
Honestly. Look at this. That blows my mind. Look at the zoom bar on the left, look how far out you're zoomed. Don't you agree that when you can see such massive deforestation from outer space, that maybe it's time to look at our lumber importation policies and ensure that we're only buying wood from loggers who are replanting? Sure, maybe it'll cost a little more, but what are the alternatives? We're going to run out, and it's so stupid, because it doesn't have to happen that way. Trees are renewable! I say chop down as many as you want, just replant them. What's happening right now is just irresponsible, selfish, and short-sighted.
Look at it this way - I couldn't care less if somebody wants to ride without a helmet; that's their decision, even if it is less safe. However, each time a helmetless motorcyclist smears themself all over a public road, the city is going to have to being in somebody clean it up, a section of road will be closed for an indefinite period due to fatality, and there will be an investigation of the wreck, among other things. This is paid for with local tax money, which I would definitely prefer went towards something else. It's also a heavy inconvenience for everyone else involved.
Even worse, in countries like mine (Canada) with socialized healthcare, is when the helmet/seatbelt-less idiot survives the crash and spends the next 6 months in a full-body cast at the Toronto General with $15,000/day care, followed by another 6 months of physio to re-learn how to walk with leg braces and a bent spine. That comes out of my tax dollars. Private health insurance is illegal in Canada. That means we all get to pay for these idiots selfish decisions and mistakes.
Once the public get wise to something, it will stop.
The public doesn't care that the president lied to start a war. The public doesn't care that their government is openly and blatantly disregarding both the constitution and engaging in all the warrantless wiretaps they want. The public doesn't care that people (including American citizens) are being held captive indefinitely conveniently offshore and denied fundamental rights. The public doesn't care that the government is wheeling-and-dealing with less than respectable "allies" to do their dirty work (torture) for them. The public doesn't care about the erosion of their civil liberties. They've demonstrated to their government that they don't particularly care whether or not the constitution is worth the paper its written on, as long as Desperate Housewives doesn't get canceled.
You're squandering your leisure moments. Perusing thesaurii lends superior verbosity to one's casual vocabulary, endowing him/her with inflated charismatic appeal to the fairer gender, particularly while engaging in relaxed banter at social soirees.
I think drawing with our hands shows us many of those things we naturally don't notice. Such as how vital a wrinkle, mole, muscle is to an expression. How much can be shown with how little. A smooth curve. Actually having to do something is a very important lesson. Digital may be useful, but analogue is infinite.
What if you can't even tell the difference? Being Slashdot, I'm sure most of you have heard of a CCG called Magic: The Gathering. Many of the artists who draw the artwork for the cards have been switching to digital media. This has concerned many of the players of the game, who prefer the more traditional looking artwork. One of Wizards' writers addressed this concern in a very eye-opening article in which he demonstrates that many of the artists are so talented (both as artists, and with digital media), that they're able to produce artwork that is so beautiful and authentic-looking that you can't even tell whether it was done with conventional media, or with a computer.
I'm not worried. I think as tools improve (think Intuos) and artists embrace digital media, artwork will get better, not worse. And there will always be a segment of the crowd who sticks to the traditional media, just like there will always be photographers who refuse to give up film. Can you tell whether a photo was taken with film or digital? No. Can you tell if a painting was done with oil and canvas, or on a computer? This may surprise you, but the answer is no. Check out this link and see for yourself. Don't underestimate what these skilled artists are capable of.
If I work for IBM, and IBM is paying my salary, and I spend 6 months in a lab owned by IBM, where IBM pays for the electricity, air conditioning, all the hardware, and I my team comes up with the next great encryption scheme, who gets the patent? A member of my team? And the rest of us get nothing?
The important question here though, is why would IBM invest all that money knowing they will be prohibited from holding the resulting patent? Why should an arbitrary member of the team (bought and paid for by IBM) get all the control of the resulting patent? Your suggestion would crush innovation and investment in R&D.
Person/s cannot refuse usage of patent.
I believe this is already the case. Holders of patents are required to license the use of their patent for "a reasonable fee." I don't believe they are allowed to simply refuse to allow other parties to use their technology. It's part of the condition of being allowed to hold the patent.
I have heard that business's are legal persons. Are they?
Not in Canada or the US, no. When the company acts illegally, it is punished financially. If it was a criminal act, and real heads must roll, then the people responsible for the decision are (theoretically and eventually) held accountable.
What you witnessed was only someone going blind. You *decided* that Diet Coke caused it, but you did not witness that.
I've met thousands and thousands of people during my life. The few who had vision problems were all elderly, except this girl. The "Diet Coke" girl was 23.
It is documented that too much Aspartame can cause many problems. Among them is loss of peripheral vision. This girl consumed well above what would be considered "normal" amounts of Diet Coke. The Diet Coke she was drinking contained Aspartame. This girl lost her peripheral vision.
We know tobacco smoke causes cancer. So if I told you that my grandfather smoke for 40 years, and died of lung cancer, would you try and tell me that I shouldn't claim the smoking caused his cancer, because I "wasn't living inside his lungs, watching their deterioration."?
You make time to workout. An hour a day 4 times a week is nothing.
Patently untrue. While it is certainly possible, and it takes some re-prioritizing, it's most definitely not "nothing."
My alarm goes off at 6:00 AM. Shower, shave, dress, groom, breakfast, and I'm off to work at 7:00 AM, gets me there at 7:30 AM. I put in my 8 hours, I leave at 3:35 or 3:40, depending on who stops me to chat on my way out, and I get home around 4:10 or so. My wife doesn't get home until 5:30, so that gives me time to grab any groceries I need and get started on supper. I prefer to eat healthy, so that involves a lot of chopping and preparing of various meats and veggies.
So supper's ready at 5:30 when my wife gets home. We eat and tidy up, finish around 6:00. Then I pay any bills that came in the mail that day, maybe do some laundry, a load of dishes, chat with my family/friends on the phone, watch an hour or 2 of TV, and before you know it, it's 10:00 PM. Bedtime. Gotta get up at 6:00 AM, remember.
Now granted, I could cut back on an hour or two of TV, or talk less with friends and family, but personally, that little bit of "downtime" for TV helps me relax. And I don't particularly want to isolate myself from my friends and family (they live in another province), so I value that time. I suppose we could eat meals that take less time to prepare, but I feel that eating healthy means knowing what's in your food, and the best way to do that is to make it yourself, in my opinion.
The truth is, there is a little time to exercise in there, because I do exercise. I run 5K a couple times per week, although I've been lax over the winter (can't run outdoors: mild asthma). But my life is relatively simple. If I had children, it would be exponentially harder to find any spare time.
I'm not trying to make excuses. I believe exercise is important, and as I said, I make time in an already pretty busy schedule. I'm simply pointing out that it's not as easy as many childless, single, low-obligation folks here like to portray it.
The problem is, it's not just 20 minutes. If I were to do a 20 minute run, it goes something like this:
Get changed, stretch a little, walk a few minutes to get the blood flowing (5 minutes)
Run (20 minutes)
Cool down, stretch (10 minutes)
Shower, get dressed (15 minutes)
Those are very conservative time estimates, and that's still 50 minutes for a 20 minute run. And 20 minutes doesn't buy you much in terms of exercise. If I'm out there running anyway, I might as well do a full 30 minutes, bringing the total commitment to an hour. Plus, I still have to actually eat my lunch during my lunch hour, so there's another 15 minutes minimum, and my 30 minute lunch hour has stretched out to an hour and fifteen minutes.
Yes, it can be done, and I do my best to exercise regularly, but it's not as simple as many like to make it out to be. There's a reason so few people exercise: it's hard.
If drinking a steady supply of diet coke is a health problem then add that to the list too.
Actually, depending on where you live and what specific recipe of Diet Coke is used in your region, it could be VERY bad for you. I recognize that the site presentation is a little over-the-top, but it is rooted in real science. I've witnessed first hand how damaging over-consumption of Diet Coke can be. A former roommate of my sister drank large amounts of Diet Coke, on the order of 2 - 3 liters per day. She actually suffered a permanent loss of peripheral vision, to a degree severe enough that she'll never be able to obtain a driver's license again. With the damage already done, she didn't see any reason to stop, and continues to drink Diet Coke.
The worst part of the story? While she was rooming with my sister in law, they were both in university in Toronto. My sister in law was doing her masters in Biology, while the semi-blind Diet-Coke addict was doing her undergrad degree in (wait for it, wait for it...) Nutrition.
The offending ingredient, by the way, is Aspartame. In some areas, the Diet Coke recipe no longer uses Aspartame, and has substituted it with other synthetic sweeteners. So check the label.
For this reason, when the topic comes up, I always make the distinction between 'piracy' and 'copyright infringement'.
It's a metaphor. Like "I nailed that assignment," or "I shotgunned 2 beers." "I bombed that test." "I got pulled over because a cop caught me flying through a school zone in my Civic."
It's hyperbole. It's very common, and just because you don't happen to like it when it's applied to you doesn't mean that particular use of hyperbole isn't valid. It is.
No you don't. You think you do, but you don't. When you do notice it, you point it out and say to yourself, "that was so obvious, CGI sucks." But when you don't notice it, you don't realize that what you're looking at is CGI. You think it's real. You think the man really has had his legs amputated ("Forrest Gump") or Arnie really did jump his motorcycle off a 15 foot ramp ("Terminator 2"). CGI is used all over the place in movies now, not just for the big explosions that still may not look 100% convincing (however, it's much better than stop-motion animation).
CGI is not the enemy
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I bet I could make a graph that represents how the quality of movies is characteristically inversely proportionate to the amount of CGI effects in them. Oftentimes, eye candy is used to shroud the plot and mask the bad acting/directing. American audiences especially just go looking for explosion sequences and CGI in the annual summer action flick hunt. We often fear a movie that might prove to be too cerebral and that pretty much disgusts me.
OK, here's the thing. Movies that are "cerebral" and thought-provoking don't draw people to theaters. I see previews for a movie like "Sixth Sense" or "Se7en," and I say to myself, "renter." Studios make more money by drawing us to the theater, and the way they do that is by making movies that benefit most from the big-screen, big-sound environment of your local megaplex. Usually, that means "action flick."
And it turns out they're right. Look at the biggest moneymakers. They're not the "Good Will Huntings" and the "Brokeback Mountains." The summer blockbusters are the "Spider-mans" and "X-Men" and "Independence Day" and "Star Wars."
Regarding your other point, about using CGI to mask bad directing, etc., I can only half-agree. While movies like "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" certainly used CGI as a crutch, don't you agree that at least the CGI was good? Don't you agree it would have been an even worse movie if the CGI had been terrible? Look at "Air Force One." Decent movie, spoiled by absolutely terrible special effects at the end. Or how about "King Kong." Great movie, that benefitted from good CGI. Same with "Titanic."
Good CGI can make a terrible film bearable, or a good film great.
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I'm not entirely sure you're talking about Transporter 2, but in that case they didn't run out of fuel - the pilot was shot by accident.
Right, and in that case, there was no fireball anyway since the plane crashed into the ocean. I was thinking of other movies, such as "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," where Indy and his cohorts fall asleep on the plane. Meanwhile, the pilots pull the fuel dump handle, then jump from the plane with parachutes. Indy wakes up, the plane runs out of fuel, and they jump from the plane, using an inflatable raft as a parachute. In the background, the plane smashes into the mountain, in a huge fireball.
For many years, all the phone numbers used in films have been bogus, I.E. 555-123-9876. If a real number is shown, thousands of people would dial it up to see if it was real. Not cool!
Actually, the numbers are real. There's nothing preventing telecoms from assigning "555-xxxx" exchanges to their customers, and many do.
Q. How did Jeff Goldblum's character figure out the alien signal?
A. Duh! He's a genius.
Wasn't his character falling-down-drunk mere minutes before hacking the alien code and writing a cross-platform virus?
It's not just computers that Hollywood takes liberties with. People in movies sober up instantaneously, and are almost never hungover. See "40 Year Old Virgin" for another example. He's utterly wasted at the end, goes back to some random's apartment, then sobers up and rides his bike to tell Katherine Keener he loves her (smashing through a mobile billboard in the process).
Or how about the laughable driving stunts in "Transporter 2?" Or the way minute amounts of explosives can demolish entire buildings in movies? Or how airplanes run out of fuel, then crash into the ground, creating a massive fireball? What exactly is burning, in that case, hmm?
Hollywood has conditioned us to turn our brains off when we go to the movies. We just notice the glaring computer flaws because, well, we're computer geeks. I'm sure automotive engineers laugh at all the new tricks James Bond's car can do. Or pilots laugh at the things airplanes get away with in movies.
is that it's still not illegal to sell rated "R" movies to people under 18.
Maybe not, but around here, it is illegal to sell cigarettes, alcohol, guns, fireworks, or porn to people under 18. So this is not completely without precedent.
a great many people (myself included) derive a very big portion of their existential meaning...
Aaaaaand that's where I stopped reading. Thanks for posting.
very little of the actual CD sales price ever makes it to the artists.
.... ?
And the problem with that is
Why should the artist get the lion's share of the money? What about the people that wrote the music, wrote the lyrics, recorded and mixed the tracks, corrected the artist's singing flaws during editing, the people who created the cover art, the people who advertise and market the album, etc. etc. etc.? Why should the self-absorbed drug addict who shows up 2 hours late and puts in a couple days' worth of work singing the songs that were written for him/her be awarded a disproportionate amount of the money? Just because its their picture on the cover?
Haven't you learned anything from INXS? American Idol? Talented singers are a dime a dozen, and totally interchangeable. Why should the people who actually STUDIED a craft (sound engineers, marketing agents, talent scouts, cover artists, songwriters, etc.) get shafted out of a fair salary, so that the egomaniacal "artist" can bling themselves out like some sort of movie star?
They're not curing cancer. They're just singing some songs. Since when does that entitle them to millions and millions of dollars?
That's $25 _Canadian_ - I think that's like $1.75 US.
That joke would be funny, if the Canadian dollar weren't so close to actually passing the US dollar in terms of valuation. Check out this graph. When it reaches the top (1), they'll be equal. You can thank the US's outrageously irresponsible and uncontrollable borrowing and spending for causing such catastrophic devaluation of the US dollar.
Most of us were raised on cop shows where the good guys are always driving around calling around on their radio system. Now we have our own radio system we naturally want to use it. Police no doubt have policies about these things so perhaps they should publicise them: we don't use the radio/phone while driving and you shouldn't either. Or something like that.
Not exactly. I've spent some time accompany police on their shifts, and if you knew what they do while driving, it would scare the bejeezus out of you. I assume most jurisdictions are like mine, where the cops have a regular radio (AM/FM/CD) and their dispatch radio, plus a laptop. Around here, the cops don't have partners, so they're in the cars by themselves. While driving, they tune the radio to find a station playing music they like, talk to dispatch with the handheld radio while doing mentally complex tasks (recalling a suspect's description, giving their location), often while doing dangerous and demanding driving tasks (i.e., trying to surreptitiously follow a suspect and needing to cut in front of other drivers or run stale yellow lights so as not to lose him). In addition, they may be typing license plate numbers into their laptops and trying to read the results (again, while navigating city traffic!) Incredibly, their laptops even run an instant-messaging application that allows them to type in messages to dispatch or other officers, so they're often driving down the road, while typing a chat message into their laptop. And these people are hunt-and-peckers, not touch-typists.
I don't think it's a good idea for the general public to adopt the police's policies.
Take their license away for a few months - that will change their tune.
Actually, it doesn't, not at all. The lack of a license doesn't prevent these people from driving.
The lack of a car does though. Impound it for the duration of the suspension, and send the bill to them.
Oh, Lord - not again. Please educate yourself. You need to find a better example of a frivolous lawsuit.
The fact that McDonald's had been told to turn down the heat multiple times, and ignored these requests, does not make the lawsuit any less frivolous. Coffee by definition can get no hotter than 100 degrees celcius at standard atmospheric pressure. Lots of people boil water in a kettle, then pour it into a mug and make tea. It is not unreasonable to expect coffee to be hot, particularly at a drive-through, when the driver shouldn't be drinking it until they get to their destination (thus providing a window for the drink to cool substantially before it is consumed).
It was a stupid lawsuit brought by a stupid woman who was surprised to learn that coffee was hot. She's the cause of a lot of "dumbing down" of products in our society nowadays, by companies that are running scared of being the next McDonald's.
I have Rogers' PVR service, and they use Scientific Atlanta units. They are terrible. The interface is ugly. It occassionally "forgets" to record programs you've set up to record. Sometimes it freezes during playback for 5 - 10 seconds, then resumes. If you're recording a program, and you decide to start watching it while it is still recording, and you're only halfway through when the episode ends, the PVR jumps you to the end, and you have to start watching it again from the beginning, and fast-forward back to where you were.
That said, it's only $25/month to rent the unit, and it has 2 tuners, meaning you can record 2 things at once (and watch a pre-recorded third program at the same time, if you want). I'd gladly pay a little extra to have a real Tivo unit.
Why aren't any Canadian companies using Tivo's technology? Has Tivo tried to crack the Canadian market? As I said, Rogers uses Scientific Atlanta. Bell has their own ExpressVu box. I have a co-worker who claims he bought a Tivo on his own, and it works on Rogers' network. So what's holding Tivo back from breaking into the Canadian market? Just curious, because I'm really getting sick of this Scientific Atlanta crap and would gladly upgrade.
Why is an owl more important than a logger's family? Why is old-growth forest more important than a parking lot?
This guy is an obvious troll, but I thought it was a good opportunity to highlight just how
decimated the South American rainforests have become. Personally, I'm a woodworker (see my sig), so I appreciate being able to create beautiful and exotic gifts and heirlooms from unique and natural woods, but it's clear from this that the loggers are acting completely irresponsibly. I understand that in North America, we build our homes out of wood instead of stone and concrete, because it is cheaper. And there's nothing wrong with that, because forests are a renewable resource. The problem, however, comes when the trees are not replanted.
Honestly. Look at this. That blows my mind. Look at the zoom bar on the left, look how far out you're zoomed. Don't you agree that when you can see such massive deforestation from outer space, that maybe it's time to look at our lumber importation policies and ensure that we're only buying wood from loggers who are replanting? Sure, maybe it'll cost a little more, but what are the alternatives? We're going to run out, and it's so stupid, because it doesn't have to happen that way. Trees are renewable! I say chop down as many as you want, just replant them. What's happening right now is just irresponsible, selfish, and short-sighted.
Look at it this way - I couldn't care less if somebody wants to ride without a helmet; that's their decision, even if it is less safe. However, each time a helmetless motorcyclist smears themself all over a public road, the city is going to have to being in somebody clean it up, a section of road will be closed for an indefinite period due to fatality, and there will be an investigation of the wreck, among other things. This is paid for with local tax money, which I would definitely prefer went towards something else. It's also a heavy inconvenience for everyone else involved.
Even worse, in countries like mine (Canada) with socialized healthcare, is when the helmet/seatbelt-less idiot survives the crash and spends the next 6 months in a full-body cast at the Toronto General with $15,000/day care, followed by another 6 months of physio to re-learn how to walk with leg braces and a bent spine. That comes out of my tax dollars. Private health insurance is illegal in Canada. That means we all get to pay for these idiots selfish decisions and mistakes.
Once the public get wise to something, it will stop.
The public doesn't care that the president lied to start a war. The public doesn't care that their government is openly and blatantly disregarding both the constitution and engaging in all the warrantless wiretaps they want. The public doesn't care that people (including American citizens) are being held captive indefinitely conveniently offshore and denied fundamental rights. The public doesn't care that the government is wheeling-and-dealing with less than respectable "allies" to do their dirty work (torture) for them. The public doesn't care about the erosion of their civil liberties. They've demonstrated to their government that they don't particularly care whether or not the constitution is worth the paper its written on, as long as Desperate Housewives doesn't get canceled.
And you think they'll care about DRM?
I read dictionaries for fun!
You're squandering your leisure moments. Perusing thesaurii lends superior verbosity to one's casual vocabulary, endowing him/her with inflated charismatic appeal to the fairer gender, particularly while engaging in relaxed banter at social soirees.
I think drawing with our hands shows us many of those things we naturally don't notice. Such as how vital a wrinkle, mole, muscle is to an expression. How much can be shown with how little. A smooth curve. Actually having to do something is a very important lesson.
Digital may be useful, but analogue is infinite.
What if you can't even tell the difference? Being Slashdot, I'm sure most of you have heard of a CCG called Magic: The Gathering. Many of the artists who draw the artwork for the cards have been switching to digital media. This has concerned many of the players of the game, who prefer the more traditional looking artwork. One of Wizards' writers addressed this concern in a very eye-opening article in which he demonstrates that many of the artists are so talented (both as artists, and with digital media), that they're able to produce artwork that is so beautiful and authentic-looking that you can't even tell whether it was done with conventional media, or with a computer.
And for an example of some stunning work in the digital realm, check out these incredible photo-realistic illustrations done completely in Adobe Illustrator.
I'm not worried. I think as tools improve (think Intuos) and artists embrace digital media, artwork will get better, not worse. And there will always be a segment of the crowd who sticks to the traditional media, just like there will always be photographers who refuse to give up film. Can you tell whether a photo was taken with film or digital? No. Can you tell if a painting was done with oil and canvas, or on a computer? This may surprise you, but the answer is no. Check out this link and see for yourself. Don't underestimate what these skilled artists are capable of.
Business cannot hold patents, only people can.
If I work for IBM, and IBM is paying my salary, and I spend 6 months in a lab owned by IBM, where IBM pays for the electricity, air conditioning, all the hardware, and I my team comes up with the next great encryption scheme, who gets the patent? A member of my team? And the rest of us get nothing?
The important question here though, is why would IBM invest all that money knowing they will be prohibited from holding the resulting patent? Why should an arbitrary member of the team (bought and paid for by IBM) get all the control of the resulting patent? Your suggestion would crush innovation and investment in R&D.
Person/s cannot refuse usage of patent.
I believe this is already the case. Holders of patents are required to license the use of their patent for "a reasonable fee." I don't believe they are allowed to simply refuse to allow other parties to use their technology. It's part of the condition of being allowed to hold the patent.
I have heard that business's are legal persons. Are they?
Not in Canada or the US, no. When the company acts illegally, it is punished financially. If it was a criminal act, and real heads must roll, then the people responsible for the decision are (theoretically and eventually) held accountable.
What you witnessed was only someone going blind. You *decided* that Diet Coke caused it, but you did not witness that.
I've met thousands and thousands of people during my life. The few who had vision problems were all elderly, except this girl. The "Diet Coke" girl was 23.
It is documented that too much Aspartame can cause many problems. Among them is loss of peripheral vision. This girl consumed well above what would be considered "normal" amounts of Diet Coke. The Diet Coke she was drinking contained Aspartame. This girl lost her peripheral vision.
We know tobacco smoke causes cancer. So if I told you that my grandfather smoke for 40 years, and died of lung cancer, would you try and tell me that I shouldn't claim the smoking caused his cancer, because I "wasn't living inside his lungs, watching their deterioration."?
You make time to workout. An hour a day 4 times a week is nothing.
Patently untrue. While it is certainly possible, and it takes some re-prioritizing, it's most definitely not "nothing."
My alarm goes off at 6:00 AM. Shower, shave, dress, groom, breakfast, and I'm off to work at 7:00 AM, gets me there at 7:30 AM. I put in my 8 hours, I leave at 3:35 or 3:40, depending on who stops me to chat on my way out, and I get home around 4:10 or so. My wife doesn't get home until 5:30, so that gives me time to grab any groceries I need and get started on supper. I prefer to eat healthy, so that involves a lot of chopping and preparing of various meats and veggies.
So supper's ready at 5:30 when my wife gets home. We eat and tidy up, finish around 6:00. Then I pay any bills that came in the mail that day, maybe do some laundry, a load of dishes, chat with my family/friends on the phone, watch an hour or 2 of TV, and before you know it, it's 10:00 PM. Bedtime. Gotta get up at 6:00 AM, remember.
Now granted, I could cut back on an hour or two of TV, or talk less with friends and family, but personally, that little bit of "downtime" for TV helps me relax. And I don't particularly want to isolate myself from my friends and family (they live in another province), so I value that time. I suppose we could eat meals that take less time to prepare, but I feel that eating healthy means knowing what's in your food, and the best way to do that is to make it yourself, in my opinion.
The truth is, there is a little time to exercise in there, because I do exercise. I run 5K a couple times per week, although I've been lax over the winter (can't run outdoors: mild asthma). But my life is relatively simple. If I had children, it would be exponentially harder to find any spare time.
I'm not trying to make excuses. I believe exercise is important, and as I said, I make time in an already pretty busy schedule. I'm simply pointing out that it's not as easy as many childless, single, low-obligation folks here like to portray it.
The problem is, it's not just 20 minutes. If I were to do a 20 minute run, it goes something like this:
Those are very conservative time estimates, and that's still 50 minutes for a 20 minute run. And 20 minutes doesn't buy you much in terms of exercise. If I'm out there running anyway, I might as well do a full 30 minutes, bringing the total commitment to an hour. Plus, I still have to actually eat my lunch during my lunch hour, so there's another 15 minutes minimum, and my 30 minute lunch hour has stretched out to an hour and fifteen minutes.
Yes, it can be done, and I do my best to exercise regularly, but it's not as simple as many like to make it out to be. There's a reason so few people exercise: it's hard.
If drinking a steady supply of diet coke is a health problem then add that to the list too.
...) Nutrition.
Actually, depending on where you live and what specific recipe of Diet Coke is used in your region, it could be VERY bad for you. I recognize that the site presentation is a little over-the-top, but it is rooted in real science. I've witnessed first hand how damaging over-consumption of Diet Coke can be. A former roommate of my sister drank large amounts of Diet Coke, on the order of 2 - 3 liters per day. She actually suffered a permanent loss of peripheral vision, to a degree severe enough that she'll never be able to obtain a driver's license again. With the damage already done, she didn't see any reason to stop, and continues to drink Diet Coke.
The worst part of the story? While she was rooming with my sister in law, they were both in university in Toronto. My sister in law was doing her masters in Biology, while the semi-blind Diet-Coke addict was doing her undergrad degree in (wait for it, wait for it
The offending ingredient, by the way, is Aspartame. In some areas, the Diet Coke recipe no longer uses Aspartame, and has substituted it with other synthetic sweeteners. So check the label.
For this reason, when the topic comes up, I always make the distinction between 'piracy' and 'copyright infringement'.
It's a metaphor. Like "I nailed that assignment," or "I shotgunned 2 beers." "I bombed that test." "I got pulled over because a cop caught me flying through a school zone in my Civic."
It's hyperbole. It's very common, and just because you don't happen to like it when it's applied to you doesn't mean that particular use of hyperbole isn't valid. It is.
Someone jumped that bike off a high drop in the T2 scene. That stunt was performed by a trained professional on a real bike.
With a crane and steel wires that were digitally removed. That was my point.
I ALWAYS notice CGI.
No you don't. You think you do, but you don't. When you do notice it, you point it out and say to yourself, "that was so obvious, CGI sucks." But when you don't notice it, you don't realize that what you're looking at is CGI. You think it's real. You think the man really has had his legs amputated ("Forrest Gump") or Arnie really did jump his motorcycle off a 15 foot ramp ("Terminator 2"). CGI is used all over the place in movies now, not just for the big explosions that still may not look 100% convincing (however, it's much better than stop-motion animation).
I bet I could make a graph that represents how the quality of movies is characteristically inversely proportionate to the amount of CGI effects in them. Oftentimes, eye candy is used to shroud the plot and mask the bad acting/directing. American audiences especially just go looking for explosion sequences and CGI in the annual summer action flick hunt. We often fear a movie that might prove to be too cerebral and that pretty much disgusts me.
OK, here's the thing. Movies that are "cerebral" and thought-provoking don't draw people to theaters. I see previews for a movie like "Sixth Sense" or "Se7en," and I say to myself, "renter." Studios make more money by drawing us to the theater, and the way they do that is by making movies that benefit most from the big-screen, big-sound environment of your local megaplex. Usually, that means "action flick."
And it turns out they're right. Look at the biggest moneymakers. They're not the "Good Will Huntings" and the "Brokeback Mountains." The summer blockbusters are the "Spider-mans" and "X-Men" and "Independence Day" and "Star Wars."
Regarding your other point, about using CGI to mask bad directing, etc., I can only half-agree. While movies like "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" certainly used CGI as a crutch, don't you agree that at least the CGI was good? Don't you agree it would have been an even worse movie if the CGI had been terrible? Look at "Air Force One." Decent movie, spoiled by absolutely terrible special effects at the end. Or how about "King Kong." Great movie, that benefitted from good CGI. Same with "Titanic."
Good CGI can make a terrible film bearable, or a good film great.