Posts by Mike Flugennock 2068 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Nov 2007
You mean, the guy who voted to renew the Patriot Act while in the Senate, who went back on his promise to close the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, and who claims the right to kill anyone he wants anywhere on Earth is threatening to veto this dung heap because it's too evil?
Christ, I need to go lie down.
Speaking as a long-time Mac user, imho the Air and the Cube may have looked cool from the outside, but the MacBook Air's inability to upgrade memory, its lack of internal Ethernet, and limited USB capacity -- and the Cube's various technical issues -- made them far less sexy. The MacBook Air would've been much sexier if it had expandable memory and more ports (I would've settled for it being a bit thicker for that) and the Cube would've been way sexier if not for the power switch issue, the defective polycarbonate issue, and its limited expandability. Too bad, really -- they looked really cool. What a lot of designers don't realize is that functionality adds to "sexiness", too.
Right on about A Clockwork Orange. While not necessarily a "sci-fi" as such, there are a tasty fistful of futuristic and dystopian elements. I'm surprised it didn't make the list as well as THX 1138.
Also, am I the only one here who considers 2001 and Clockwork Orange to be companion pieces of a sort? There's 2001 with the big sweeping grandeur of interplanetary adventure and finding God, and then there Clockwork Orange with "meanwhile, back on Earth..."
Bah! It's a fix!
I'm shocked -- shocked -- that you'd include the 1979 franchise cash-in Star Trek: The Motion Picture and leave out THX 1138 -- or, as I like to call it, The Only George Lucas Film That Matters.
Still, you did see fit to include 2001 and Blade Runner -- although too far down the list, imho -- so I've got to give you some credit.
Quite willing to pay for content, but won't put up with:-
* Having to install 3rd party software to view it
* Not being able to view it on the device of my choosing
* Having to "sign up" and give personal details to view it...
Oh, yeah, and you forgot:
* Movies that suck
Actually, it depends on the record store. Back in my college days, we had a little joint called Penguin Feather Records, a combination record store and head shop where you could find, along with the usual high-profile releases by the Stones or Pink Floyd, damn' near any kind of obscure indie or import album you could possibly think of -- and if they didn't have it, they usually knew about it and would order you a copy. Everybody who worked there was a hardcore music geek in pretty much every genre you could think of, from psych to prog to glam to funk to R&B to reggae to punk and hardcore. I got to be really good pals with several of the people who worked there, and when I was there picking up a copy of a Cramps or Slade or early Pink Floyd album and a pack of rolling papers, I often wound up hanging out talking music with the manager or one of my music geek pals who worked there.
No way in hell I could do that in Harmony Hut or Tower Records back then. The people who ran those places were chain-store zombies.
Y'know, I could get behind the sentiment in the headline a little more if it weren't coming from a high-profile, famous musician who likely gets all the top-quality pussy he wants.
As far as (giggle) Record Store Day, I can't remember the last time I was in a goddamn' record store -- quite possibly because it's been some years since the last independent record store in my city closed. There's allegedly a few good ones out in the 'burbs, but they're waaaaayyyyyyy the fuck out there.
Pretty much all we've got now in my city (Washington DC) is big fat chains where the latest flash-in-the-pan bullshit albums are sold at upwards of TWENTY GODDAMN' DOLLARS APIECE by rock-stupid, apathetic teenagers.
Record Store Day. B'WAHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
...It is, however, incorrect to state that 's the fault of MS and Adobe that there are problems - you run what you run because it has function or value...
...or, in the case of most corporations, because it's what they've foisted on you, because nobody was ever fired for recommending Microsoft.
...as I'm still stuck with late-model PowerPC machines here.
Still, I don't recall even installing Java Runtime at all, and have Java switched off in Firefox most of the time. I spend a total of ten minutes, tops, at a sitting in Facebook (I'm hardly on as it is) with absolutely zero apps, so I should be in pretty good shape.
Also, assuming there are 1800ish vulns in OSX (show me your sources or take a hike), Windows still holds a pretty substantial edge in desktop share, not to mention that fact that, iirc, Windows still comes out of the box with its security set to "hack me, backdoor me, trojan me, zombify me, pwn me".
Over here in the Colonies, pretty much everything is a repeat. If you find yourself in the States sometime, check out how many network promos end with "on an all-new (insert name of program here)" in order to let viewers know that they've actually produced a new episode of something, instead of the same episode they've been running every six hours for the past month.
Actually, that whole episode turned out to have been a big misunderstanding.
Apparently, the cult was right about aliens coming to take them off of Earth, but the cult members misheard the message. They thought the aliens were saying "wait for the comet Hale-Bopp", when the actual message was "wait for the comment 'Hail Bob!' "
"so spectacular that it may achieve a brightness of an apparent magnitude of -16, which would greatly outshine the brightest Moon", as we previously put it...
...or, as the Drudge Report will put it:
IT'S COMING RIGHT FOR US!!!
...in 72-point bold, with a still from the movie Deep Impact of the giant asteroid plowing into the Earth.
Never even heard of them before! Thanks for the heads up though - I will remember to forget about their website as soon as possible!
D'ahh ha ha hah, nice one, man.
Actually, I'd heard of them and seen their little link buttons lately on every other Web site I visit, encouraging me to "pin it", but I sussed it out pretty quickly and immediately thought "d'ahh, yeah, them -- another place to post stuff you find on the Internet. M'eh..."
In fact, today was the first time ever that I actually visited their site, and only because I read this very article on The Reg, mentioning that they were seeking a 2.5 b-b-b-b-BEEEEELION GODDAMN DOLLAR valuation.
...it's the usual "titties'n'kitties" crowd uploading wank and I never got as far as reading the T&Cs to see how much of my copyright privs are being flushed down the kharzi if I ever uploaded anything!
Yeah, I went there and read it, too, just out of curiosity. I appreciate their translating the legalese for us, except they made the mistake of translating it into cutesy Frisco hipsterese instead of English. Their translation of the legalese for "Governing Law And Jurisdiction" especially annoyed me:
"The Bay Area is beautiful this time of year. It's doesn't matter what time of year it is, that's what's so great! Anyway, you'll have to sue us here."
Yeah, whatever... goddamn' cupcake-eating motherfuckers... but, aaaaaanyway.
Of course, amidst all the cutesy hipster banter is buried the standard-issue signing-your-rights-away arbitration language:
"YOU AGREE THAT, BY ENTERING INTO THESE TERMS, YOU AND PINTEREST ARE EACH WAIVING THE RIGHT TO A TRIAL BY JURY OR TO PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS ACTION."
Bah. I'm gone.
...If it has no costs, why does it need $2.5Bn in funding?
Well, there's the stylish converted post-industrial office space, and all those Razor scooters and skateboards that have to be bought and maintained, and the espresso machines, and the foosball tables, and the overstuffed beanbag chairs, and the on-site gym, and the on-site cupcake shop, and the vet bills for the CEO's on-site dog ('cause, y'know, every dot-com startup worth a damn' has an official office dog) and the Art Director's on-site iguana ('cause every Web start-up Art Director worth a damn' keeps an iguana in the office).
Have I missed anything?
I've had a Facebook account for maybe two or three years, and from day one it's been locked down tighter than a prima-donna's corset -- no games, no apps, friends only, and spend maybe five or ten minutes at a time, tops, just long enough to upload my latest cartoon and blog post link, maybe flip through the feed real quick to see if there's anything really interesting, and then bail. I don't even look at it every day; sometimes I'll go for a week or so at a stretch without even bothering, and even then I get on only after reading an article in The Reg about FB jerking around peoples' privacy settings again.
Y'know, after seeing all the reports here about Zynga and their skeezy operating methods, their harvesting of personal data, their invasive marketing -- well, let's just say I've got my first-class ticket for the Schadenfreude Special. Toot, tooooooot! All aboard!
I expect downvotes for this, but seriously, they gave you a decent Office product 13 years ago, it wouldn't hurt to buy a new copy would it?
Why does this remark remind me of whiny Webmasters from fifteen years ago pissing and moaning on forums about why the users won't "at least click on an ad once in a while"?
I don't know how many other Mac users are reading this thread, but for the record, I've still got Orifice 2004 on my minitower and my laptop; it works fine for what I need to do with it. I fire up Word once in a blue moon to take clients' copy and re-save it as plain text for InDesign, and I fire up Excel even less often to take clients' data sets and create "raw" pie charts and such for gussying-up in Illustrator. I think I launched PowerPoint twice since I installed it. I also recently found a slick little FOSS conversion utility to deal with those goddamned hellspawn... uh, that is, .docx files.
The wife finally got Orifice 2010 for her Macbook about a year after it came out. She uses Word and Excel a little more heavily than I do as her work involves a lot of letter-writing and schedule creation, so moving up made more sense for her.
But, seriously, looks like Microsoft has publicly displayed its cluelessness yet again. Out of all the things I've read here that they're hyping, I've already figured out how to do most of them myself. Share stuff over the Internet? Cripes, that's what email is for, isn't it? Multiple devices? Well, there's my wife's and my laptops, and so far we've had no trouble opening each other's stuff over the house wifi, and I can't possibly think of any occasion at all where the wife is going to need to open a Word or Excel file on her friggin' phone.
I've already downloaded a copy of OpenOffice for OSX and checked it out, and keep it in reserve.
...that whenever one of these clowns mentions "personalization" it actually means "we're going to hoover up as much of your private data as we can and sell it"?
I'm also impressed -- in a perverse fashion -- that Mayer and her ilk are still beating that "user experience" riff to death. That bullshit's almost as beat to death as "Electronic Pearl Harbor".
...even considering how much of other peoples' concept footage they stole for it, including that one bit that looks like the famous "ringworld" space colony proposed by a blue-sky futurist whose name escapes me now -- or, something out of Rendezvous With Rama.
That's quite a load of hype, too, about how DSI "will be there" at the scene of every highly-improbable blue-sky future space event. Why am I reminded of that commercial that plays on the side of a robot dirigible drifting over the city in Blade Runner: "Visit the Off-World Colonies!"
Deep Space Industries will announce “the world’s first fleet of commercial asteroid-prospecting spacecraft” later today in Santa Monica. The cosmic drill firm’s founders, “who include leaders in the space field”, will also be unveiled.
Deep Space Industries will announce “the world’s first fleet of commercial venture capital-prospectors” later today in Santa Monica. The cosmic drill firm’s founders, “who include leaders in venture-capital schmoozing”, will also be unveiled.
There, fixed it for you.
The moron is the person who:
a)calls people morons for not making their own opinions...
Y'know, I was just now thinking how sad this whole exchange is. Do you realize that without the word "moron", the entire Internet would probably grind to a halt?
Welll-llll...
I have a FB account, but under a fake name, with a fake birthday, fake birthplace, fake city of residence, no workplace or education listed, and no list of favorite TV shows/movies/books/music. I post only copies of the cartoons I publish, and no fotos. I visit FB maybe once a week -- if that often -- and for about twenty minutes, tops -- if that long. My privacy settings are locked down tighter than a prima donna's corset, and I quickly got into the habit of checking them every time I visit FB.
So, basically, I spend zero time keeping my profile "accurate" and "updated", and maybe fifteen minutes checking to see if my privacy settings haven't been jerked around.
Not the news, just the inevitable "it's just spyware" comments. FB in particular has the most amazing collection of data available which could be used for absolutely astonishing projects...
...yeah, like surveilling dissidents, or just pestering the shit out of people with advertising.
Shill much?
...Long story short, if you're awake while watching Star Wars there is a lot of jarringly stupid dialog that knocks you out of the movie. Either you can suspend disbelief enough or not, but it was pretty lazy on Lucas' part.
True, but let's face it -- Star Wars didn't exactly break any new ground in science fiction, or even basic storytelling, for that matter. When you strip away all the cinema tech advances, modernized visual style and effects gee-whizzery, what you've got left is just a remake of an old Flash Gordon pulp serial from the '30s.
It's not exactly THX 1138, that's for damn' sure.
I find it a real bugbear of mine that films where people do incredibly stupid things for no reason other than to support a badly structured plot really annoy me. It makes me switch off and not watch the film again...
...or else check to see if there's an MST3K version. (;^>
Actually, out of nearly all the sci-fi movies I've ever seen, 2001 is pretty much the only one where the filmmakers did such an awesome job of "getting it right" that I actually didn't have to suspend disbelief -- except perhaps for The Slab, and the final scenes ("Jupiter And Beyond The Infinite"), of course -- and even then, it was so different from your standard-issue sci-fi movie alien encounter that suspending disbelief was a fairly easy job. They weren't green, ugly, slimy, murderous, or any of the usual crap. The aliens and their artifacts in 2001 were presented in a way that "made sense" in the context of suspended disbelief.
Podkayne of Mars was cute as well. The ending was quite moving (the revised one anyway)...
Hot damn, I clearly bought the wrong paperbook when I got that at age 14. this is the cover I should've bought.
Day-am. "Cute" is not the word that comes to mind for me.
As I recall from reading The Making Of Star Trek, the term "parsec" was invented by the writers as a form of semi-believable sci-fi pseudo-tech-speak, and meant "parallax of one second".
Strictly technically speaking, the students at Leicester U. are right, although in a film or TV show, it wouldn't look as cool as having space travelers seeing the stars stretch out in front of them.
This is the same reason why in Star Trek, you heard that little "whoosh" whenever the Enterprise sped by, and in Star Wars, you heard that low, menacing rumble in the opening scene where the massive Imperial battle cruiser passes over the camera, seeming to go on forever. Technically, there's no sound in the vacuum of space, but if those scenes had been technically correct, there would've been no excitement or drama to them.
This isn't to say that a technically-correct scene taking place in space can't have any tension or drama to it. The EVA scene in Kubrick's 2001, in which HAL takes control of an empty pod and uses its robot arms to rip out the oxygen hose from Poole's suit and fling him into space, is a prime example. The quick cutaway shots of Poole thrashing and struggling to reconnect his oxygen hose as he tumbles wildly into deep space -- accompanied by complete silence -- are among the most tensely dramatic in the whole film.
It might be "impossible to say how", but I'll bet I can take a really good SWAG:
At this stage, it’s impossible to say how this will affect existing voice and video communications services. It’s tempting, for instance, to forecast WebRTC will give mobile phone network operators and VoIP players like Skype a hiding, by allowing people to communicate easily over channels they don’t control - or, crucially, don’t obtain revenue from...
...and, of course, pester the living shit out of the rest of us with even more annoying advertising.
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