A friend of mine was working in Hoboken right around the corner from that garage and it's had software glitches and problems for years. Like put in your beautiful BMW come back later and get presented with a Mini Cooper. The cops were being called at least once a day (sometimes more) due to these types of problems. There also was a story here on SlashDot a couple years ago about this same garage where the city didn't pay their maintenance fee to the company that wrote the software and without a renewal key the software automatically shut the garage down and no one could get their cars. The city didn't want to pay and the company wouldn't budge and there was a big legal mess but cars were stuck in there for at least several days until it was resolved.
I realize that there are serious commercial reasons for shows being canceled and that's life. However what I have a major beef about is shows that I've been a faithful viewer of being canceled after a major season finale with a massive cliff hanger. It is just not fair to the viewer to leave the a series on such an unresolved note. Just this season they did this with Life, a couple years ago with Invasion and Surface and I'm sure more that I can't think of right this minute. But this just sucks so bad and the network just doesn't care about their viewers.
When Windows XP was released what was the most widely available cpu, the P4 2.x Ghz or a comparable AMD Athlon? Seven / eight years later there have been huge leaps in the overall hardware that is commonly available in a PC, 64 bit cpu's, dual and qual core cpus, serial ata and much faster hard drives, four and six gigabyte memory kits available for under $100. Even with all of this, Vista and Windows 7 are noticeably slower than Windows XP running on what is greatly improved hardware. People should not have to have a Core I7 Extreme with six gigs of memory to get that XP experience. This is just another black eye for Microsoft who have as always failed to learn anything from the Vista debacle!
First, the writers did a terrible job in that the last story arc directly contradicted a story from last season. (or was it the season before) It was mentioned that the Cylons had the resurrection hub because it was "too far" for transmission from where the battles took place to the Cylon home world. This was revealed by one of the number six's, so even if the hub was destroyed they supposedly still had the technology on the home world and really all they needed was to build a new hub. Making the story about the need for the final five having the secret total garbage.
Also as someone else mentioned when a series is based on a secret and the reveal either isn't satisfying or the explanation makes no sense and some things aren't explained properly it sucks and this sucked. Who was the "replacement" Starbuck? Where did the music come from that "turned" the final five on and how was it that her father had it? Also any number of other questions were left to our imagination.
I'm just G** D***** taxed more than enough already, taxed, fee'ed, surcharged and I'm fed up. The government has to learn to downsize, layoff, force paycuts to the highest paid workers, furloughs whatever it takes but I'm tired of the "government" constantly reaching into my pocket whenever they say "Oh revenue is down"!
I remember reading about this dispute several months ago and that there'd been an injunction issued regarding a release until it was resolved. Then just last week when I was at the movies I saw a trailer for Watchmen and it included a release date, I more or less took that to mean that this had been resolved. While I never read the graphic novels the trailer looks very interesting and I hope that this can be worked out so that the movie can be released on schedule.
I really have to wonder if Fox has a good faith belief that they actually have the legitimate copyright or if they're using litigation for a payday ala Sco.
Actually I have to clarify my previous post, Ray Harryhausen was awarded an Oscar. It was the "Gordon E. Sawyer Award" and you can see the details and other recipients here: The Gordon E. Sawyer Award
This is something like a lifetime achievement award for technical contributions and it's not awarded every year. I'm glad that he got it but unlike Stand Winston he was never nominated for "Best Visual Effects" during his most productive years. Which is also sad because during the years when he was doing his best ground breaking work the Academy didn't recognize him. I've always thought that the Academy has something of a stick up their collective a** regarding science fiction, I was amazed that "Lord Of The Rings" not only was nominated for but also won best picture (granted it's Fantasy not scifi but I'll take it), but can you imagine something like "Aliens" being nominated for "Best Picture". I live to see the day.
Sorry, I meant in the "Slashdot" recap where they only mention "The Terminator, Jurassic Park, Edward Scissorhands, and Iron Man".
Aliens was one of those rare movies that just combined so many great talents, Director, Production People, Actors, Special Effects, Writers etc. and the result was such an incredible thrill ride. At the time I remember thinking that it was one of the greatest movies I'd ever seen and I must have seen it six or eight times in the theater.
That would be funny. Ray Harryhausen was a pioneer in the field (and as far as I know still alive at 87) but in those days his art wasn't recognized for what it was, no Academy award nominations (according to IMDB) for special effects. Stan Winston had nine nominations (again Academy Awards) and three wins as well as multiple Saturn and other nominations and awards.
It's been mentioned in a number of books and other sources (How to avoid or lessen your chances of getting pulled over) that cops / police are much more likely to "Pick" cars that have bumper stickers / stuffed animals / hats prominently displayed to give tickets to.
I don't know but saying that they're crippled and unpopular is speaking for a whole lot of people who don't think so. I don't have one but I'm in the process of evaluating a bunch since I do need a new one and I've been reading discussions on just about every Zune discussion site. It's true that it's limited in what music and video formats that it plays but I don't know that I'd call that "crippled". Also 75 percent of the customer reviews on NewEgg rate it five stars, and as I say most people who buy them (as per what I've read on the discussion boards) seem to be happy with them. The Zune 80gb is after all the biggest screen (3.2 inches) with the most capacity for what amounts to just about the least amount of money.
Last I'd heard Paul Darrow (who played Avon) had bought the rights to the series from Terry Nation's estate and that he was looking to restart the series. That was at least three years ago and I haven't heard anything since. I'd love to see this back on the air but I really think that he's too old to play the same character.
If you've never seen the Pixar movie "Monsters Inc." you have no idea what you've been missing, it has got to be one of the funniest movies of all time. The character of Mike Wazowski is voiced by Billy Crystal.
Three cores does seem weird however there is a valid explanation for that. I'd read that due to fab problems a percentage of quad core chips ended up with one core that didn't work but there's nothing else wrong with the chip other than that and the three cores work just fine and so to maximize production and minimize losses they're selling them as triple core cpu's.
DRM could of course be at the root, Vista has taken a beating in the press regarding the overhead all the additional DRM code takes. However there were two unrelated articles that I read in the last two days that may have a bearing on this, first this: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=288/ which talks a little about audio in Vista and one tagline being "Audio in Vista: more Hell than Heaven". Then there's this: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=663/ which while not Vista specific talks about silent data corruption on machines using a particular Realtek Gigabit ethernet chip and driver.
So I have to wonder if these audio problems are not just one specific issue but some combination of O/S, hardware and driver related issues. I haven't been brave enough to try Vista given all the incredibly bad press, the endless complaints of Drm problems, poor or no drivers for both the standard and x64 version and reports (possibly just alarmist fud) of Vista being no less than an MS / Government spy in your home reporting everything you do. On top of that there was also this piece: http://www.macobserver.com/article/2007/08/17.10.s html/ stating that after nine months former editor Jim Louderback gave up on Vista and went back to XP, he was quoted as saying "So why, nine months after launch, am I so frustrated? The litany of what doesn't work and what still frustrates me stretches on endlessly.".
Add all this up and you couldn't pay me enough to try and use Vista, I'm sure that at some point I'm going to be forced to have to deal with it but not anytime soon I hope.
If the keys came with the car it would be great, however I can just picture it now: "But honestly officer, this is the car that the robot gave me so it must be mine!"
I have a friend who works for a contractor that's been doing a lot of renovations in Hoboken where the first garage is and to this day he say's that the police are there at least once a day because the robot tries to give somebody the wrong car. Parking your $75,000 BMW or Lexus and then having the robot try and give you back a mini cooper can really ruin your day.
I'll second that, I've been using NOD32 in a small non-profit enterprise for 18 months and we haven't had a single problem after flushing Norton with which we had hugh problems. The enterprise management console works really well and if you are also a non-profit make sure you mention that since Eset does give an additional discount to non-profits over their standard business pricing.
I've had three Western Digital drives that had problems (in the last two years) and had to be RMA'ed, two were 120gb (WD1200JB ATA100) and one was a 200gb drive (WD2000JD SATA150) as well as at least thirty that I've installed for myself or other people that never had any problems. I was pretty much able to recover the contents of the drives since they didn't die outright but started to generate SMART errors. Usually SMART messages (if it's enabled in your Bios) will show up either on startup or in the event log (if you're a windows user) and Western Digital has a graphical windows utility so that you can manually check the SMART status of the drive. I recommend checking your event logs and testing with it once a month just to be safe.
in other news... Mars declares war after earth space probe kills their leader who was out for an afternoon stroll in the desert... diplomats not hopeful that a peaceful settlement can be reached!
Of course anything is possible, but if it was me and there'd been known problems with the labs test results I'd triple check before I announced anything that's how reputations get ruined.
There have been (at last report) at least a dozen reports of hiv positive babies (born to hiv positive mothers) that seemed to somehow throw off the virus and test negative. I remember reading that there were several research projects underway to try and figure out how they did it in the hopes that it could somehow lead to a cure.
A good example of a beneficial gene defect is the one from that Italian Family that causes their bodies to produce a form of modified good cholesterol that seems to prevent clogged arteries or arterial sclerosis which is why people need heart bypass surgery. At last report the researchers who were working on it had done some limited testing, by injecting a daily dose of this modified good cholesterol people who had narrowed arteries had significant reduction of the plaque. I've been trying to keep track of this since my step father and a good friend both have had quadruple bypass surgery which usually even under the best of conditions gets clogged again in five to ten years and requires another surgery. So I find it totally believable that this guy may have some type of beneficial gene defect that may allow his system to throw off the virus.
Slashdot Mirror
A friend of mine was working in Hoboken right around the corner from that garage and it's had software glitches and problems for years. Like put in your beautiful BMW come back later and get presented with a Mini Cooper. The cops were being called at least once a day (sometimes more) due to these types of problems. There also was a story here on SlashDot a couple years ago about this same garage where the city didn't pay their maintenance fee to the company that wrote the software and without a renewal key the software automatically shut the garage down and no one could get their cars. The city didn't want to pay and the company wouldn't budge and there was a big legal mess but cars were stuck in there for at least several days until it was resolved.
I realize that there are serious commercial reasons for shows being canceled and that's life. However what I have a major beef about is shows that I've been a faithful viewer of being canceled after a major season finale with a massive cliff hanger. It is just not fair to the viewer to leave the a series on such an unresolved note. Just this season they did this with Life, a couple years ago with Invasion and Surface and I'm sure more that I can't think of right this minute. But this just sucks so bad and the network just doesn't care about their viewers.
When Windows XP was released what was the most widely available cpu, the P4 2.x Ghz or a comparable AMD Athlon? Seven / eight years later there have been huge leaps in the overall hardware that is commonly available in a PC, 64 bit cpu's, dual and qual core cpus, serial ata and much faster hard drives, four and six gigabyte memory kits available for under $100. Even with all of this, Vista and Windows 7 are noticeably slower than Windows XP running on what is greatly improved hardware. People should not have to have a Core I7 Extreme with six gigs of memory to get that XP experience. This is just another black eye for Microsoft who have as always failed to learn anything from the Vista debacle!
First, the writers did a terrible job in that the last story arc directly contradicted a story from last season. (or was it the season before) It was mentioned that the Cylons had the resurrection hub because it was "too far" for transmission from where the battles took place to the Cylon home world. This was revealed by one of the number six's, so even if the hub was destroyed they supposedly still had the technology on the home world and really all they needed was to build a new hub. Making the story about the need for the final five having the secret total garbage.
Also as someone else mentioned when a series is based on a secret and the reveal either isn't satisfying or the explanation makes no sense and some things aren't explained properly it sucks and this sucked. Who was the "replacement" Starbuck? Where did the music come from that "turned" the final five on and how was it that her father had it? Also any number of other questions were left to our imagination.
I'm just G** D***** taxed more than enough already, taxed, fee'ed, surcharged and I'm fed up. The government has to learn to downsize, layoff, force paycuts to the highest paid workers, furloughs whatever it takes but I'm tired of the "government" constantly reaching into my pocket whenever they say "Oh revenue is down"!
I remember reading about this dispute several months ago and that there'd been an injunction issued regarding a release until it was resolved. Then just last week when I was at the movies I saw a trailer for Watchmen and it included a release date, I more or less took that to mean that this had been resolved. While I never read the graphic novels the trailer looks very interesting and I hope that this can be worked out so that the movie can be released on schedule.
I really have to wonder if Fox has a good faith belief that they actually have the legitimate copyright or if they're using litigation for a payday ala Sco.
The first pig / bird hybrid, then that'll be the day when a pig really will fly!
Actually I have to clarify my previous post, Ray Harryhausen was awarded an Oscar. It was the "Gordon E. Sawyer Award" and you can see the details and other recipients here:
The Gordon E. Sawyer Award
This is something like a lifetime achievement award for technical contributions and it's not awarded every year. I'm glad that he got it but unlike Stand Winston he was never nominated for "Best Visual Effects" during his most productive years. Which is also sad because during the years when he was doing his best ground breaking work the Academy didn't recognize him. I've always thought that the Academy has something of a stick up their collective a** regarding science fiction, I was amazed that "Lord Of The Rings" not only was nominated for but also won best picture (granted it's Fantasy not scifi but I'll take it), but can you imagine something like "Aliens" being nominated for "Best Picture". I live to see the day.
Sorry, I meant in the "Slashdot" recap where they only mention "The Terminator, Jurassic Park, Edward Scissorhands, and Iron Man".
Aliens was one of those rare movies that just combined so many great talents, Director, Production People, Actors, Special Effects, Writers etc. and the result was such an incredible thrill ride. At the time I remember thinking that it was one of the greatest movies I'd ever seen and I must have seen it six or eight times in the theater.
That would be funny. Ray Harryhausen was a pioneer in the field (and as far as I know still alive at 87) but in those days his art wasn't recognized for what it was, no Academy award nominations (according to IMDB) for special effects. Stan Winston had nine nominations (again Academy Awards) and three wins as well as multiple Saturn and other nominations and awards.
The man was truly gifted at his profession, one movie not mentioned and among my all time favorites is "Aliens" the James Cameron follow up to Alien.
It's been mentioned in a number of books and other sources (How to avoid or lessen your chances of getting pulled over) that cops / police are much more likely to "Pick" cars that have bumper stickers / stuffed animals / hats prominently displayed to give tickets to.
I don't know but saying that they're crippled and unpopular is speaking for a whole lot of people who don't think so. I don't have one but I'm in the process of evaluating a bunch since I do need a new one and I've been reading discussions on just about every Zune discussion site. It's true that it's limited in what music and video formats that it plays but I don't know that I'd call that "crippled". Also 75 percent of the customer reviews on NewEgg rate it five stars, and as I say most people who buy them (as per what I've read on the discussion boards) seem to be happy with them. The Zune 80gb is after all the biggest screen (3.2 inches) with the most capacity for what amounts to just about the least amount of money.
Last I'd heard Paul Darrow (who played Avon) had bought the rights to the series from Terry Nation's estate and that he was looking to restart the series. That was at least three years ago and I haven't heard anything since. I'd love to see this back on the air but I really think that he's too old to play the same character.
If you've never seen the Pixar movie "Monsters Inc." you have no idea what you've been missing, it has got to be one of the funniest movies of all time. The character of Mike Wazowski is voiced by Billy Crystal.
You can get some idea what the animated character looks like here:
http://disney.go.com/disneyvideos/animatedfilms/monstersinc/desktops/1024b.jpg
You know, the little guy with his one eye?
Three cores does seem weird however there is a valid explanation for that. I'd read that due to fab problems a percentage of quad core chips ended up with one core that didn't work but there's nothing else wrong with the chip other than that and the three cores work just fine and so to maximize production and minimize losses they're selling them as triple core cpu's.
Since one of my best friends and my mother suffers from diabetes I try and keep my eye open for news on this kind of thing, while this is an interesting discovery there was this piece of news from back in December that seems even more promising:
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=a042812e-492c-4f07-8245-8a598ab5d1bf&k=63970&p=1/
I really home that one or both of these discoveries lead to better treatments for people with this disease.
DRM could of course be at the root, Vista has taken a beating in the press regarding the overhead all the additional DRM code takes. However there were two unrelated articles that I read in the last two days that may have a bearing on this, first this:
s html/
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=288/
which talks a little about audio in Vista and one tagline being "Audio in Vista: more Hell than Heaven". Then there's this:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=663/
which while not Vista specific talks about silent data corruption on machines using a particular Realtek Gigabit ethernet chip and driver.
So I have to wonder if these audio problems are not just one specific issue but some combination of O/S, hardware and driver related issues. I haven't been brave enough to try Vista given all the incredibly bad press, the endless complaints of Drm problems, poor or no drivers for both the standard and x64 version and reports (possibly just alarmist fud) of Vista being no less than an MS / Government spy in your home reporting everything you do. On top of that there was also this piece:
http://www.macobserver.com/article/2007/08/17.10.
stating that after nine months former editor Jim Louderback gave up on Vista and went back to XP, he was quoted as saying "So why, nine months after launch, am I so frustrated? The litany of what doesn't work and what still frustrates me stretches on endlessly.".
Add all this up and you couldn't pay me enough to try and use Vista, I'm sure that at some point I'm going to be forced to have to deal with it but not anytime soon I hope.
If the keys came with the car it would be great, however I can just picture it now: "But honestly officer, this is the car that the robot gave me so it must be mine!"
I have a friend who works for a contractor that's been doing a lot of renovations in Hoboken where the first garage is and to this day he say's that the police are there at least once a day because the robot tries to give somebody the wrong car. Parking your $75,000 BMW or Lexus and then having the robot try and give you back a mini cooper can really ruin your day.
I'll second that, I've been using NOD32 in a small non-profit enterprise for 18 months and we haven't had a single problem after flushing Norton with which we had hugh problems. The enterprise management console works really well and if you are also a non-profit make sure you mention that since Eset does give an additional discount to non-profits over their standard business pricing.
I've had three Western Digital drives that had problems (in the last two years) and had to be RMA'ed, two were 120gb (WD1200JB ATA100) and one was a 200gb drive (WD2000JD SATA150) as well as at least thirty that I've installed for myself or other people that never had any problems. I was pretty much able to recover the contents of the drives since they didn't die outright but started to generate SMART errors. Usually SMART messages (if it's enabled in your Bios) will show up either on startup or in the event log (if you're a windows user) and Western Digital has a graphical windows utility so that you can manually check the SMART status of the drive. I recommend checking your event logs and testing with it once a month just to be safe.
in other news... Mars declares war after earth space probe kills their leader who was out for an afternoon stroll in the desert... diplomats not hopeful that a peaceful settlement can be reached!
Of course anything is possible, but if it was me and there'd been known problems with the labs test results I'd triple check before I announced anything that's how reputations get ruined.
There have been (at last report) at least a dozen reports of hiv positive babies (born to hiv positive mothers) that seemed to somehow throw off the virus and test negative. I remember reading that there were several research projects underway to try and figure out how they did it in the hopes that it could somehow lead to a cure.
A good example of a beneficial gene defect is the one from that Italian Family that causes their bodies to produce a form of modified good cholesterol that seems to prevent clogged arteries or arterial sclerosis which is why people need heart bypass surgery. At last report the researchers who were working on it had done some limited testing, by injecting a daily dose of this modified good cholesterol people who had narrowed arteries had significant reduction of the plaque. I've been trying to keep track of this since my step father and a good friend both have had quadruple bypass surgery which usually even under the best of conditions gets clogged again in five to ten years and requires another surgery. So I find it totally believable that this guy may have some type of beneficial gene defect that may allow his system to throw off the virus.