FrankBlack

Not to be a spoil-sport, but what good is a dictionary if you remove the word origins? It might just be me but that is the best part of a dictionary.

Per the EU, shutting down a plant can take 20 to 30 years (assuming it is planned and not due to a crisis a la Fukushima) https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/nuclear-energy/decommissi...

Back in the day we used to download files from certain FTP servers via an email with the correct terms. I never found it very interesting, but it was novel. It would have been much cooler had smartphones been around then.

Oh, how shocking! Google is scrapping a project! Someone catch me, I'm going to faint!

I have no beef with 8K in a philosophical or technical sense, but I only worry about bandwidth. To me, 1080p alone is already taxing the infrastructure given the mass of humans incessantly streaming. While my old eyes can certainly grok the difference between 1080p and 4K, I just wonder if it is really worth it in most cases? Do I need to see a sitcom in 8K? Is an unboxing video in 8K going to sell the product better than 1080p? I game quite a bit and I still think 1080p is the sweet spot for most games given the cost/benefit ratio of hardware and gameplay. The skeptic in me can't help but think it is nothing more than a ploy by the camera manufacturers and the ISPs to get me to spend more money. But then, I'm old, so take it for what it is worth.

My very first computer purchase was a ZX81 with 16K memory expansion and "high resolution" graphics expansion. Cost a bunch, everything was a tad confusing, crappy graphics looked crappier on a tiny black and white television, loading a cassette took more than 20 minutes... but it got me started in my career. Best purchase ever.

I enjoyed the series produced by public television called "Irasshai". The lessons are available on the Georgia Public Broadcasting site and texts can be purchased from Amazon. For those who have fond memories of "French In Action", this will give you a similar vibe even though it isn't quite the same thing.

http://www.gpb.org/irasshai

Perhaps I am just dense, but the article references, specifically, the "Pro" market. For most pros that I know (and I am among them), our OS choice is often based on our tools, not the other way around. If I need Photoshop, Lightroom, Logic Pro, Visual Studio, etc., switching will be quite a chore. For the average user, this is probably a much more appealing argument.

I am sure it was a slow change that we hardly noticed. I think a couple things contributed to this mentality (there are plenty of others): 1) The tragic death of Adam Walsh became national news and spawned his father's advocacy for victims of crime. That spawned "America's Most Wanted"; a show that convinced viewers that each person wearing a sleeveless undershirt was a criminal. Faces of missing people appeared on milk cartons. No one wanted their child to be next. 2) Cable TV news needs to fill up 24 hours a day, so it breathes fear into us with each story so we don't dare change the channel.

Or not...

I had a conversation today at work that was on an unrelated topic, yet still dealt with the difficulty of operating in the vortex of left-leaning politics. The main issue that drove me away from being active after many years in the fray was the blazing passion that came from many within the group (almost always young people) who wanted to emphasize their one-key issue over the broader message. Meaning, issues such as, environment, LGBT, animal rights, women, race, peace, etc. were more urgent as a particular issue than finding consensus for a broad range of issues as a unified political group. This splintering caused dissipation of unity, energy and resources. In the end, this behavior caused me to lose any motivation to work for the cause in any real "boots on the ground" way. I wasn't alone in that sentiment. This article echoes a bit of my feelings. I am not pointing fingers and saying this one is right and this one is wrong, I am just saddened because it seems so much energy is being used to attack those with whom we are allied or to preach to the converted just so we can hear our voices through a megaphone. If one was interested in making a particular group impotent, this strategy would appear to be quite effective.

Simpsons did it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j73cxLiqc2U

I think most of the networks stream their shows for a short time on their web sites. At this point I just wonder, why not just cut out the middle-man and get on with it? I'll pay for subscriptions, but not for endless commercials and 490 of 500 channels that I don't even watch. Not for TV shows that have stupid animations in the corner every five minutes. Since the cable and satellite companies refuse to give us the choice we want, we simply choose to opt-out. Once communities start installing their own low-cost fiber and free wi-fi en-mass without the litigation, the last hope of Time Warner and such fossils will be gone. TV isn't dying, it is dead and just too stupid to realize it.

I guess it won't be long until the Discovery Channel hosts "Meditating With The Stars" and "Ultimate Meditation Championship".

For a fleeting moment, my work-weary eyes thought the title was, "Alabama Is Said to Move Toward an I.P.O. in the U.S.". After recognizing my mistake, I decided my first reading was more reasonable.

He didn't stop eating. He stopped chewing.

I think that comment is Quickmeme-worthy. http://www.quickmeme.com/Captain-Hindsight/

Way back in the 90's, when this new-fangled web thing was just starting to take off (especially the .com side) I was teaching an "Introduction to the Internet" course at my college. I took meticulous care in trying to explain what was happening, why it happened and how to best sort through the voluminous information resources. To me, the web was about information. To my classes (dozens of classes after a while) all that mattered was they could "surf the net". They didn't care about information, they cared about seeing pictures. They were seduced by the flashy images and bored by the banal information resources available. This is when I learned that the web is just TV with a more precise remote control. Who cares if you have (more or less) the sum total of human knowledge at your fingertips? All that matters is "Dancing Baby" and "Peanut Butter Jelly Time".

sigh

I know this is all still proof-of-concept, but I think the only feature that was even remotely interesting in that demonstration was the ability to bridge your display to an adjacent tablet. The rest... it just seems like novelty for the sake of novelty. Maybe I'm just missing something?

In other news, scientists find that water appears to be wet.

While I agree with your points in the technical sense, I think there is a more overarching concept that is the "hard part": There are too many people who want to "make it" in the music business ("make it" means different things to different people: by "make it" I mean make a living). I am sure if I changed the term to "performing arts" it would still be valid. While it is hard to get your music into people's face (which then gets into their ears and then into their hearts and then into their wallets) all the music business does is craft celebrities, images and trends in order to make a profit. In general (I know there are exceptions) the labels don't give a rat's ass about art and music; all they want it the money. They survive because of the money. You are very, very correct when you say there are untold numbers of talented musicians (emphasis on both "talented" and "musicians") in the world. But the fact they are talented shouldn't guarantee them the right to make a living from their craft. The market is just too saturated. In the end, it ends up being a business if you need to make money. This is the point at which one either gets a lucky break or sometimes compromises to become more of a celebrity or image rather than just a musician. I wish every artist could make a living from their craft. Sadly, someone has to grow their food, fix their vans and shuffle their paperwork. I think the best strategy for would-be pro musicians at this point is to self-produce, self-market and self-motivate. Sure, there may be a loss of quality by not using pro services or labels, but if they tour heavily and get a relatively small, yet faithful fan base they just might be able to make a living. I know many, many musicians who do this successfully.

I think this is broken. I entered, "Bite my shiny, metal ass!" and all I got was some weird, Barney-like purple robot. I'd suggest special sub-routines for certain phrases including, but not limited to: "Ex-Ter-Mi-NATE!", "Danger, Will Robinson!", "Crush, Kill, Destroy!", "Beedeebeedeebeedeebeedee!", "We've got movie sign!", "Blah, blah, blah", "I'll be back", etc.

;)

Yikes! I can foresee potential pitfalls when one loses track of the cap and the Sharpie!

"This week, each one of you has a homework assignment. You're going to go out and start a fight with a total stranger... You're gonna start a fight...and you're gonna lose."

I'll get my mom on this right away. :)

Thank goodness some dumb-ass got a job at the web-hosting company where his blog resides. And thanks be to g-d someone got a job building the computer upon which he typed it. I am pleased that some poor fool is in servitude to a farm so he could gain strength from the nourishment they provide to write this prescient piece. I could go on, but I have to go vomit now.

AdBlock Plus, ColorfulTabs, Downthemall, FaviconizeTab, Favicon Picker 3, Greasemonkey, Greasefire, IdentFavicon (obviously, I am into icons), Quickpagezoom, TabRenamizer

And why aren't the dishes done? And who the hell ate all my Oreos... AGAIN!?

Bombs. Lots and lots of bombs. And, apparently, we love to use them. Prisons. We're good at those. Oh, and flags. We like to wave those a lot, too. Especially about the fact that we are "free" compared to those "socialist" menaces around the world. So, we pay an average of 40% in taxes, but does that pay for your higher education or your kid's higher education? Not likely. Does it pay for your health care? Probably not all of it (in some cases, none at all). Does it pay for daycare? Good retirement? So, when you factor that and a lot more into the equation, some countries don't have it so bad. The sad thing is, we could be doing SO well here if we just tweaked things a bit. Tweaking, apparently, is out of the question,

I don't think most people have an issue with profit, it is just the "profit at the expense of others" (people, environment, justice, etc.) and the "never enough" mentalities that raises hackles.

I'm sure real estate, mortgage and contracting corporations hate the heavy hand of "government bureaucracy" holding them back, but have no trouble taking whatever help is offered from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, local tax incentives and the like. Don't worry, the taxpayer will give you some help. It isn't a handout, it is a hand-up.

I'm sure the banks, insurance industry and the investment houses despise all those layers and layers of red tape that tie them up and prevent them from helping Americans reach their God-given right of financial independence. No worries, you are all too big to fail and we'll just pass the payments on to the generous citizens of the United States. No, really, it is our pleasure. In fact, why don't you give yourselves a bonus?

Wal-Mart, America's greatest economic success story, loves America and loves regular folks. You know, the sort of folks that work at their store for minimum wage. The sort of folks who, upon becoming employees, are given paperwork to help apply for government assistance when it comes to medical care and such. Why would they share a tiny fragment of their distended profits reaped from cheap foreign-made American flags and "God Bless America" bumper stickers when they can just help their employees go on public assistance? If we gave them more money, how would that teach them to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps? Sheesh, you just don't know business, do you?

GM, fed up with all those unions, OSHA standards, foreign companies who collude with their governments and incessant regulation decided it was time to close up shop. Sure, they've been moving jobs out of the nation for years and years even while they were making record profits, but that is just business, right? I mean, we need MORE profits, don't we? So, it is a good thing that TARP money was around to help them back on their feet so they can put more Americans out of work. But it is an American company, right? Yep, a good old American company with a few Americans still building cards and getting paid and paying taxes and buying things in their home town. And, they've even started paying back that money (with more TARP money... you know... taxpayer money). You see, capitalism DOES work!

After watching this PBS program, I see the next bubble rising in the distance. These visionary capitalists are throwing off the dusty shackles of dated institutions and bringing a new model to the world. If only the government would step aside and let them realize their dream of educating those who might not otherwise receive education! Why must the Nanny State always talk about standards and expectations and accreditation and other big words? Begone, you scoundrel! Yes, I am talking to you accreditation and regulations and truth-in-advertising! Just get out of the way Uncle Sam and just keep those student loan checks coming. Stop obstructing the market, comrade!

Same old shell game. Bang the drums of free market capitalism with one hand and hold out the other hand for government money. Exploit whomsoever you can and call it freedom. So glad these forward-thinking capitalists are running this and not the evil commie-socialist-fascist (or whatever term they are using this week on Fox News) government. Why won't the government just get off our backs (and just start sending us checks). No, it isn't all bad, I'm sure, but I guess I'm just jaded after all these types (and I didn't even start on the military industrial complex or the medical industry) screaming about freedom and free markets until they need money or help. Good thing the teat of liberty is full (just like the Gulf of Mexico is full of oil).

/rant