Actors get paid millions of dollars for doing a job that's relatively easy. Now, I'm not saying that I could act as well as Tom Cruise, etc. I'm also not saying that there are no difficult aspects to the job. However, many other jobs (garbage man, computer programmer, etc) are much more difficult. But, actors still get paid more.
Now, people find out that actors don't even have to act any more. They don't even have to look like a supermodel. It's all done by computers. And they still get paid rediculous sums for making crappy movies.
If it's all digital now, why can't anyone be a movie star? Hollywood has always looked corrupt--rampant with cronyism/nepotism/etc. They talk about "getting your big break." Very often, the "big break" comes because you're Francis Ford Coppola's sister/nephew/etc--not because you can act. This is what pisses people off. The digital technology can be used to keep the talentless princes and princesses of Hollywood in power/money.
London cabbies, unlike their American counterparts, have to learn the layout of streets and the locations of thousands of places of interest in order to get a licence.
Way to compare a single city's regulations to an entire country's very diverse regulations.
Another good trek game that's often overlooked: Star Trek DS9: The Fallen. I think it's about 5-6 years old now, but I still play it from time to time. Somebody just released an expansion pack for it--it's called Convergence, I think. Maybe it's time to play The Fallen again.
Yahoo Go seems like a good idea--on paper. The software sucks, though. Anyone who's downloaded it should know what I'm talking about. It can't use my tuner card. The purple hurts my eyes. The menus are just a bunch of text without graphics. The music playback portion seemed to work ok. And, the whole interface was much more responsive than MCE/BeyondTV/anything I've tried for Windows.
The media always covers all these high tech devices that the military supposedley has. I spent 15 months in Iraq and never saw any kind of bomb disposal robot--although I saw a lot of bombs. Those unmanned recon planes are a myth, too. The troops don't have access to this stuff.
Seriously, a military humvee looks like something an 8 year old built with an erector set. It's definately not where I'd want to be when an IED goes off. A real military vehicle would be armored. A real military vehicle would have the seats (except for the driver's) facing outward--so you can shoot at the bad guys.
The government just wastes our tax money handing out big contracts to corrupt businesses. Then, they go to the media with stuff like this to try and convince us otherwise.
That episode of Star Trek where those aliens steal Spock's brain. Scotty rigs up a remote control for Spock's body and they all beam down to the planet to search for it. Just goes to show you that all important modern tech was first shown on Star Trek.
I used this notebook for 15 months in Iraq. It's small, easy to carry, and heat resistant. It doesn't have a DVD drive, though. The P2120 does--it's a very similar model. Both notebooks have a multivoltage power adapter--a very important feature for any notebook you're going to use overseas.
I run Windows ME with no antivirus, no backup, no encryption, no firewall, no nothing. All that stuff is for wussies. I do use a BIOS password that you must type in before every boot. If I leave my computer while it is running, I have a screen saver that requires a password. This arrangement has worked well for 5+ years.
I really don't understand all of this paranoia over spam--especially on slashdot. You just have to be an intelligent internet user to avoid getting spam. I only get 2-3 a week--these are easily deleted. I don't run any special software or anything. Just don't give your email address to people you don't trust. If there's a form that requires an email address, put in a fake one. It's really pretty easy.
It takes me about 1 1/2 hours to setup a Windows ME install like the one I've been using for 4 years. It's been problem free for that long. Boots in about 23 seconds. Responsive GUI. And you can run programs--you're not just limited to poorly written open source stuff.
When I shop online it isn't necessarily because I can find a better price (although you usually can when shopping for computer parts). It's because whatever I want isn't availalbe locally.
>>Spectating a game of - for example - Counter-Strike is insanely confusing for someone who has no idea what is going on...
Spectating a game of - for example - baseball is also insanely confusing for someone who has no idea what is going on. Most people who spectate at any event/sport have some prior experience with it. How many middle aged men watching Monday night football didn't play on their high school team?
I'm running WinME, and I'm not running any AV or firewall software. It sucks up too many resources. You just have to be careful about what you download. Using Firefox instead of IE helps, too.
I agree. According to the author, "This will take Divx beyond the desktops of those with broadband connections." What a load of crap. My question is this--how will people without broadband download those huge DivX files?
G-Guide gets listings 1 week in advance. It provides descriptions of the programming which usually include actors, genre, etc--always more than what's available at TVGuide.Com. I'm pretty sure it's something Tivo could use. Even if it isn't maybe it's something you opensource Tivo guys could look into. I know my ATI All-in-Wonder Pro got listings over the cable. Newer All-in-Wonders just get them off the internet, though.
That's partly my point. They could just pull the G-Guide listings and not have to charge monthly fees. They could charge for the hardware, and licensing fees--once they get Tivo's integrated with TV's.
Just a question. Maybe someone knows the answer. Why don't any of these Tivo-like devices just use the G-Guide listings, like new RCA TV's do? They come right over the cable--I think all PBS stations broadcast this information. There are a few ads, though.
And what if the phone to your RIGHT rings? What would you do then?
The average person would learn to ignore the phone or pause the game before talking on the phone.
Gateway is based in Sioux City. Iowa was one of the first states with a widespread video conferencing network. It's usually used in the education system. Iowa is more computerized than you'd think.
Electronic manuals work fine and they save people money. The only thing you really need a paper manual for is products like operating systems. One question I have is why does everyone get so hung up on PDF? PDF is dumb. There's nothing you can put in a PDF that you can't make with HTML--and HTML is about as portable a document format as you can get. You've also got a choice of browsers with HTML--with PDF, you HAVE to use Adobe's dumb Acrobat Viewer.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's take a different angle on this.
Actors get paid millions of dollars for doing a job that's relatively easy. Now, I'm not saying that I could act as well as Tom Cruise, etc. I'm also not saying that there are no difficult aspects to the job. However, many other jobs (garbage man, computer programmer, etc) are much more difficult. But, actors still get paid more.
Now, people find out that actors don't even have to act any more. They don't even have to look like a supermodel. It's all done by computers. And they still get paid rediculous sums for making crappy movies.
If it's all digital now, why can't anyone be a movie star? Hollywood has always looked corrupt--rampant with cronyism/nepotism/etc. They talk about "getting your big break." Very often, the "big break" comes because you're Francis Ford Coppola's sister/nephew/etc--not because you can act. This is what pisses people off. The digital technology can be used to keep the talentless princes and princesses of Hollywood in power/money.
London cabbies, unlike their American counterparts, have to learn the layout of streets and the locations of thousands of places of interest in order to get a licence.
Way to compare a single city's regulations to an entire country's very diverse regulations.
Another good trek game that's often overlooked: Star Trek DS9: The Fallen. I think it's about 5-6 years old now, but I still play it from time to time. Somebody just released an expansion pack for it--it's called Convergence, I think. Maybe it's time to play The Fallen again.
...it requires .NET. Thanks. I don't mind downloading and installing 30MB's of framework just to play with a Rubik's cube. Really, I don't.
Yahoo Go seems like a good idea--on paper. The software sucks, though. Anyone who's downloaded it should know what I'm talking about. It can't use my tuner card. The purple hurts my eyes. The menus are just a bunch of text without graphics. The music playback portion seemed to work ok. And, the whole interface was much more responsive than MCE/BeyondTV/anything I've tried for Windows.
The media always covers all these high tech devices that the military supposedley has. I spent 15 months in Iraq and never saw any kind of bomb disposal robot--although I saw a lot of bombs. Those unmanned recon planes are a myth, too. The troops don't have access to this stuff.
Seriously, a military humvee looks like something an 8 year old built with an erector set. It's definately not where I'd want to be when an IED goes off. A real military vehicle would be armored. A real military vehicle would have the seats (except for the driver's) facing outward--so you can shoot at the bad guys.
The government just wastes our tax money handing out big contracts to corrupt businesses. Then, they go to the media with stuff like this to try and convince us otherwise.
That episode of Star Trek where those aliens steal Spock's brain. Scotty rigs up a remote control for Spock's body and they all beam down to the planet to search for it. Just goes to show you that all important modern tech was first shown on Star Trek.
I used this notebook for 15 months in Iraq. It's small, easy to carry, and heat resistant. It doesn't have a DVD drive, though. The P2120 does--it's a very similar model. Both notebooks have a multivoltage power adapter--a very important feature for any notebook you're going to use overseas.
Has anyone heard of a little program called WinAMP? Internet TV has been around for a while now.
I run Windows ME with no antivirus, no backup, no encryption, no firewall, no nothing. All that stuff is for wussies. I do use a BIOS password that you must type in before every boot. If I leave my computer while it is running, I have a screen saver that requires a password. This arrangement has worked well for 5+ years.
I really don't understand all of this paranoia over spam--especially on slashdot. You just have to be an intelligent internet user to avoid getting spam. I only get 2-3 a week--these are easily deleted. I don't run any special software or anything. Just don't give your email address to people you don't trust. If there's a form that requires an email address, put in a fake one. It's really pretty easy.
Maybe I missed something. Why should I image it? I've never had to reinstall in 4 years.
It takes me about 1 1/2 hours to setup a Windows ME install like the one I've been using for 4 years. It's been problem free for that long. Boots in about 23 seconds. Responsive GUI. And you can run programs--you're not just limited to poorly written open source stuff.
When I shop online it isn't necessarily because I can find a better price (although you usually can when shopping for computer parts). It's because whatever I want isn't availalbe locally.
>>Spectating a game of - for example - Counter-Strike is insanely confusing for someone who has no idea what is going on...
Spectating a game of - for example - baseball is also insanely confusing for someone who has no idea what is going on. Most people who spectate at any event/sport have some prior experience with it. How many middle aged men watching Monday night football didn't play on their high school team?
I'm running WinME, and I'm not running any AV or firewall software. It sucks up too many resources. You just have to be careful about what you download. Using Firefox instead of IE helps, too.
I agree. According to the author, "This will take Divx beyond the desktops of those with broadband connections." What a load of crap. My question is this--how will people without broadband download those huge DivX files?
G-Guide gets listings 1 week in advance. It provides descriptions of the programming which usually include actors, genre, etc--always more than what's available at TVGuide.Com. I'm pretty sure it's something Tivo could use. Even if it isn't maybe it's something you opensource Tivo guys could look into. I know my ATI All-in-Wonder Pro got listings over the cable. Newer All-in-Wonders just get them off the internet, though.
That's partly my point. They could just pull the G-Guide listings and not have to charge monthly fees. They could charge for the hardware, and licensing fees--once they get Tivo's integrated with TV's.
Just a question. Maybe someone knows the answer. Why don't any of these Tivo-like devices just use the G-Guide listings, like new RCA TV's do? They come right over the cable--I think all PBS stations broadcast this information. There are a few ads, though.
And what if the phone to your RIGHT rings? What would you do then? The average person would learn to ignore the phone or pause the game before talking on the phone.
Gateway is based in Sioux City. Iowa was one of the first states with a widespread video conferencing network. It's usually used in the education system. Iowa is more computerized than you'd think.
Electronic manuals work fine and they save people money. The only thing you really need a paper manual for is products like operating systems. One question I have is why does everyone get so hung up on PDF? PDF is dumb. There's nothing you can put in a PDF that you can't make with HTML--and HTML is about as portable a document format as you can get. You've also got a choice of browsers with HTML--with PDF, you HAVE to use Adobe's dumb Acrobat Viewer.