Just watched the most recent episode. The Stones use is out of control, by which I mean: suspension of disbelief only goes so far and only works on certain levels. Is is reasonable to expect the audience to suspend their collective disbelief and accept that tech such as the Stones exists? Sure. That loved ones and family members would, with no notice, move so quickly from, "Is it really you?" to making love? No; at least not for me.
I'm nonplussed. I watched the first three episodes and called it quits. Not much in relation to the original, I feel little to no sympathy for the protagonist, and they have the great Ian McKellan, who gets to wander around in a white suit and spout semi-philosophical nonsense. Bleh.
Do you think you might view it differently if you had never seen the original?
Blair Witch had me leaving the theatre, bored and grumbling.
To date, Blair Witch remains the most irritating, most not scary, least creative and most complete waste of time of my life. I am more scared of global warming than I was of that "movie"...
I was spooked by BWP the first time I saw it--Korea, an Army theatre, and I was one of five people in the place, all of us older, and none of us even aware of the movie before walking into the theatre.
I went three days later to see it again, but this time, I knew exactly what to expect, and the theatre was filled-to-bursting with young, rowdy infantrymen who laughed and catcalled and farted at all the wrong moments. Since that second viewing I have fairly despised the film.
I have never seen the original series, and I have a feeling that's for the better insomuch as being a critical factor in liking or disliking the re-visioned series:
he wondered the same thing. He guessed that the ancient Martians had deliberately frozen the lifeform. Remember when he spoke Old North Martian and she seemed to recognize the language? And you're right, I got a little of the pathos bug when the water breeched Steffi's cubicle and then she starts watching the last transmission from her kids--pretty good stuff.
I think the Doctor has always been a chaotic good character, but tonight he sways closer to a darker spectrum at the very end. Adelaide's suicide pulls him back, but... interesting that he shows traits associated with the Master, and that's our next Christmas special.
It might actually have been quite interesting to see what storyline could evolve from the Doctor gone rogue; Time Lord Victorious carried to a logical conclusion. But vilifying Doctor Who is the last thing we need--it wasn't all that great when Luke went Dark Side in the Dark Horse books; I don't think we'd enjoy an evil Doctor, no matter how cool it sounds initially.
The actual, for real London. In the United Kingdom.
:)
Don't forget, if you have the time and somewhere with internet access over here, you may be able to watch some recent BBC programmes on the BBC Website...
I know that's the motivation for me to spend the time and money to travel across the Atlantic. And certainly the best use of one's time while in a foreign country. ;-)
Sure, fly over to catch the latest Doctor Who episode ;-)
I fly over once every 2 weeks, just to catch up on BBC...
Thank you writers for giving a us great show full of character development that never happened, you might as well just not aired the the show for all the impact it would have on the crew.
I agree, they appear to be beginning to humanize him the way they did with Rodney McKay's character on SG: Atlantis. And Chris Mortika is right, that is a conversation I would pay to see... can you picture McKay and Rush arguing over who has the bigger brain?
I think the biggest difference in their characters is that Rush would probably shiv McKay in the mess hall...
Right now I'm listening to the football game going on in my roommate's cell at the end of the hall. I have no idea how he fit two teams and a crowd-filled stadium in his 10' x 10' cloister.
His sudden outbursts of "COME ON!!!! and "Fuuuuuu_ _" the last moaned in a drawn-out, frustrated tone, are equally annoying and amusing.
His running commentary is actually funny...for about the first ten minutes. Three hours later, it tends to lose its charm.
Thank God for the tech of noise-canceling headphones :-(
I really can't stand football.
Well, I finally had enough of Sunday, all-day, football. My roommate is loud, obnoxious and despite my repeated engagements with him regarding his volume--both TV and voice--while I'm studying on Sunday afternoons, he continues to watch and comment at unbearable decibels.
None of us actually have a TV--we all use the internet to watch programming through network sites or services like Hulu.
I am the only automations-saavy person in the house, so I manage our network.
Today, I managed it in my favor, as unethical as that is, and changed the password to the router.
His connection immediately dropped off, and after several shouts against his computer he came down the hall and asked me to help.
I showed him that the connection was fine, and I guessed the problem was on his end. I promised to take a look after I finished my essay and readings for the day.
He promptly left for a local sports bar, and I re-changed the password.
Some interesting ethical issues arise from this week's episode.
Spoiler:
Put yourself in the shoes of one of the crew. It's your turn to Stone back and visit Earth.
What are the limits that should be emplaced on both parties? With schedules you could work around obvious problems of the crewman who can't wait to eat a hotdog and Stones into a vegetarian, or gender switches. What other rules might perforce be stipulated?
I, for one, would not approve of my body being used to make love to someone else's spouse. Nor am I keen on the idea of my consciousness riding another's body and then me riding--you get it, right?
I wonder how Tielford feels when he wakes up with Young's wife staring down at him? I'll say he's not too happy, cueing off his look of regret and consternation as he fiddled with his wedding band.
How does Young get around the idea of how (apparently) his wife got around the whole consciousness-transference concept easily enough to have sex with another man's body? (and she looked pretty into it, in my opinion)
Here are some great "quotes" regarding the angel-demon, PowerPoint.
"Despite the level of cadet complaints about the 'Death by PowerPoint’ phenomena, I have found that they (cadets) are quite willing to inflict this upon their colleagues."
- LTC J.B.
USMA Faculty
"PowerPoint presentations are a new form of anesthesia and torture. They were even used at the Abu Ghraib Prison."
- Anonymous
"His knowledge on that topic is only PowerPoint deep."
- MAJ
(JS)
"PPT is a triumph of process over product. Knowing what you are doing is more important than getting the right answer."
- Tom Lehrer
"I recently exchanged comments with someone on a similar briefing (earlier version?). I told him that Power Point briefings do nothing but obfuscate. If you cannot explain what you are doing in three pages of text, you are BSing. That's what the slide show is: BS."
- Senior Army Officer
"The genius of it is that it was designed for any idiot to use. I learned it in a few hours."
- David Byrne
formerly of the Talking Heads
"Power corrupts and PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
- Vint Cerf
Internet pioneer
"My belief is that PowerPoint doesn't kill meetings. People kill meetings."
- Peter Norvig
Google, Inc.
"Using PowerPoint is like having a loaded AK-47 on the table: You can do very bad things with it."
- Peter Norvig
"If your words or images are not on point, making them dance in color won't make them relevant."
- Edward Tufte
Professor Emeritus, Yale University
"PowerPoint presentations too often resemble a school play - very loud, very slow, and very simple."
- Edward Tufte
"PowerPoint is designed for making a slide show a little more attractive with images and text that move, but when an idiot makes them all move, interest is lost."
- Anonymous
"You can't speak with the U.S. military without knowing PowerPoint."
- Margaret Hayes
National Defense University
"Shelton's order is only the Pentagon's most recent assault on a growing electronic menace: the PowerPoint briefing."
- Anonymous
"The idea behind most of these briefings is for us to sit through 100 slides with our eyes glazed over, and then to do what all military organizations hope for ... to surrender to an overwhelming mass."
- Richard Danzig, Navy Secretary
"Navy Secretary Danzig announced late last year that he was no longer willing to soldier through the slide shows. He maintains that PowerPoint briefings are only necessary for two reasons: If field conditions are changing rapidly or if the audience is 'functionally illiterate.'"
- Anonymous
"The PowerPoint syndrome isn’t just the misuse of specific technology. It’s a cultural disease."
- Giancarlo Livraghi
"We had 12.9 gigabytes of (Microsoft) PowerPoint slides on our network. And I thought, 'What a huge waste of corporate productivity.' So we banned it. And we've had three unbelievable record-breaking fiscal quarters since we banned PowerPoint. Now, I would argue that every company in the world, if they would just ban PowerPoint, would see their earnings skyrocket. Employees would stand around going, 'What do I do? Guess I've got to go to work.'"
- Scott McNealy
Sun Microsystems, quoted in the San Jose Mercury News, January 27, 1997
"Funny. I always thought that PowerPoint was already at least as destructive as macro viruses to corporate productivity. You ever watch a suit fiddle with his presentation?"
- CmdrTaco
"One of the criticisms that's been raised about PowerPoint is that it can give the illusion of coherence and content when there really isn't very much coherence or content."
- Edward Miller
"At a place like IBM, there's an infinite world of products that you can create. But, too often, management would say, "Great, you big-idea guys, go go go." But then they give all the money to the people who control the revenue streams, the people with the overhead projectors and PowerPoint slides."
- Ted Selker
"Flash is the PowerPoint of the internet."
- Anonymous
"My plan for improving the quality of presentations used to be two-fold: DESTROY EVERY COPY OF POWERPOINT (and assorted functional clones) in existence, and GIVE OFFENDERS REMEDIAL "HOW TO TALK" CLASSES, emphasizing the content-based logical mark-up portions of HTML as a mechanism for making slides. (The hardcore hopeless cases would be forced to learn TeX.)"
- John S. Jacobs Anderson
"The 'PowerPoint syndrome' is a well known disease, clearly diagnosed not only by brilliant cartoonists such as Scott Adams, but also in a variety of analyses of corporate efficiency and communication. It’s called 'disinfotainment.'"
- Giancarlo Livraghi
I realize that veganism isn't for everyone (sigh!), but if everyone would commit to just one or two vegetarian meals a week (no animal products) it would make a huge difference. We only have one planet to live on-please be gentle with it, even if you don't care about animals.
I think I read somewhere that Thanksgiving is a unique holiday for Americans in that the only expenditure are travel costs and food. So grocery stores should do better this month.
I know we always update or repurchase Thanksgiving decor in September and early October, because much of the fall/Halloween decor is shared by Thanksgiving.
Same here, though--I started buying Halloween candy the day of or before the same year the kids got old enough to eat it all before the 31st. Yesterday morning, I had to go around all the Xmas lights and trees and wreaths before I could find the already on-clearance Halloween stuff.
I read a few posts back (and now can't find it for a reply) a concern of how all these people made it through the SG program in the first place--wouldn't SG personnel, military and civilian, be, at the worst, astronaut program second string?
Being a career military man myself, trust me when I tell you there are no SEAL, Ranger, or SF cooks--there are simply cooks who randomly get assigned to an SF Group. As to civilians, the military is very happy to take the best and brightest civilian contractors and GS employees and bring along a couple Navy or Army shrinks to deal with their foibles and psychoses. From my point of view, and given the original set of circumstances in the pilot, the crew makeup is pretty believable.
I went to the commissary and picked up a ton of candy this morning for the trick 'r treaters tonight. My roommate, when I walk in the front door, "f##~ man--are you giving out candy tonight? I guess I get to listen to the doorbell go off all night, huh?"
I sat on the front porch until 9 PM, handed out treats by myself, then headed off to the "Haunted Leavenworth" walking tour.
I'm enjoying school; I dearly miss my family (especially tonight), and I can't stand my roommates :-(
Filming events and uploading to YouTube would be great advertising for the 2011 Paizocon.
With the exception of YouTube duration (10 minutes) policy, I agree wholeheartedly. Perhaps a teaser trailer pointing to the full video for each event ... hmmm
If you have a Director account, you can go up to 3 hours!
It should be pointed out that Bill Gates took a LOA from Harvard and simply never returned...
Tensor wrote:
Not true. He is finishing on-line. Bill Gates speaks about it in >this lecture< .
On another note, they now say a Masters Degree is the new Bachelors Degree. Undergrad work is so watered down these days it is just like High School. Maybe this is because they have to cater to the lowest common denominator, kinda like how high school used to be. I guess high school is just day-care for teenagers now.
Regardless, my comment is concerned with the invocation of Gate's name with respect to dropping out of Harvard, insomuch as it's used, in conjunction with his professional success and fortune, as fodder for the crowd shouting, "University is pointless--look at Bill Gates! He dropped out of Harvard!"
Harvard gave him an honorary degree in 2007. As to him completing a degree program online--I haven't heard anything on it. I didn't hear him say as much in the lecture. He said he is fond of online coursework--not that he has returned to Harvard (which offers online coursework, by the way), or that he is pursuing a degree.
As to undergraduate degrees being less important to industry than intermediate degrees--that's a twofold result of salary usually being commensurate with education and certain sectors of industry being technically complicated enough that advanced learning (and the analytical skills learned in graduate school) is necessary in order to do the work.
It should be pointed out that Bill Gates took a LOA from Harvard and simply never returned. Had he stayed in school, the likelihood of him and Ballmer creating Microsoft is immeasurably thin. Gates was at a crossroads: seize the initiative with Altair, or continue on as a directionless student at Harvard.
He (and Steve Jobs, amongst others) is not a good example for the argument that college is unnecessary for personal or professional success. It's similar to the argument that since Einstein didn't speak well until he was 9 years old, your nonverbal child might also be the smartest man in the world.
My degree was a requirement of commissioning (I needed it for my job because Title 10 Law requires commissioned military officers on federal service have at least a baccalaureate).
The fact that it is in English reflects the military's philosophy that the area of study, save in cases where specialized education is required for work in a specialized field (e.g., medicine or law), is a matter of individual interest and irrelevant to the organizational expectations of the officer. Rather, the process of the educative experience itself, which earns you the degree, is more vital.
My PhD is also in English, and while it virtually guarantees me promotion to colonel some years from now, it is relatively functionally useless to the Army. Nonetheless, they paid for it under those same philosophical considerations as mentioned above.
A college degree is only meaningless if you assign it no meaning.
I just got back from seeing this movie. Absolutely recommended. I think it's the scariest film I've ever seen.
There's one great scene: if you haven't seen the movie, don't read the spoiler--
Spoiler:
Katie is pulled from her bed and down the hall her second-to-last night. The scene is so unexpected and her screams so genuine, the hairs on my arms and neck were at attention and I was honestly on the verge of tears. Spectacular.
EDIT:
Just caught the original 2007 ending to this film thanks to YouTube; in my opinion it's much better than the theatrical ending, and I'm kinda bummed Paramount changed it :-/
Right now I'm listening to the football game going on in my roommate's cell at the end of the hall. I have no idea how he fit two teams and a crowd-filled stadium in his 10' x 10' cloister.
His sudden outbursts of "COME ON!!!! and "Fuuuuuu_ _" the last moaned in a drawn-out, frustrated tone, are equally annoying and amusing.
His running commentary is actually funny...for about the first ten minutes. Three hours later, it tends to lose its charm.
Thank God for the tech of noise-canceling headphones :-(
An advantage to B&N ebooks is that they can be read on your Mac or PC--Kindle books can't be read on the computer. For me, this makes the higher prices at B&N a little more palatable.
Andrew Turner
(Pathfinder Chronicles Charter Superscriber),
