Aside from whatever extra cash it may have generated, Niven and Asimov both revisited their flagship works after long layoffs to tie up loose ends in the stories. Easier to do that with a sequel than a prequel. With a prequel all you do is mess with the story that people think they already know and, broadly generalizing, that tends to piss people off (e.g. SW Episodes 1-3 as prequel for Episode 4).

Pulling my copy of Foundation's Edge off the shelf (old school print, yo!)...and your suspicion about the publisher's wishes shows up in the afterword... it's all references to other books that would now tie in to the new storyline. Bald-faced profiteering! This is why I avoid sequels (and prequels) and look for the new, fresh stuff. Good for director Scott, I hope this new project is worth watching.

As someone who has owned a video copy of SW since RCA Selectavision (gack), I welcome our new format overlords.

The only thing that elevates 2012 over the monstrosity that was The Core is the 'little commuter plane that could' in 2012, you know, the one that pulls off turns, dives and climbs that an F-22 would envy. otoh, Woody Harrelson being blown up by the Yellowstone caldera? yeah, i'd buy that. besides, the Bad Astronomy guy has been doing this list for years. NASA must love old ideas as much as they like old computer hardware.

The IT org where I work now, in a Fortune 25 company, is trying to boot all the support people out to WFH, so that they can house the contractors and resident offshore peeps in cheaper digs (main building instead of renting extra space for them). So nobody here cares what size their cube is, since the cubes are about 2/3 empty now, and many are used simply as hotel space.

btw, typing this from my cube at work, since it's now much quieter here ;0.

Seriously guys...

from 5 years ago...

August 28, 2005 CrossUSA Gets National Attention I have had a few postings on the outsourcing of tech jobs to rural America, a couple of them mentioning CrossUSA. Here is a link to a SlashDot posting sourcing ABC.com. The article is standard information on CrossUSA but the conversation that follows that is very interesting.

that the center of Nevada isn't more remote, but there are McDs in Battle Mountain and Ely. Hmm. Probably still a wait at the damn drive-thru there, too.

The blonde paint job in the blog picture, if that's her, isn't making my social calendar. Geeks want someone who can relate, and who they can relate to. If you're a woman and I ask you how'd you'd like to be Little Sister to my Bioshock Big Daddy at Halloween time, try to a) know what I'm talking about, and b) not flake out when you know what I'm talking about. Especially when you see the big drill.

I think Morticia Addams is a good example of this... sharp looker, can't be fazed and has her own weird vibe going. just a thought.

So when incandescent bulbs go away, can someone point me to bulbs which will continue to light the inside of my oven?

uh, no. More like 5-6000 feet at the max, and even then, if you're not right on the river, the canyon is broad enough that line of sight should still be sufficient for GPS. Remember, fate protects children, drunks and the chronically stupid, so of course *their* GPS will work.

This thread is interesting to me, mostly because I'm currently looking at options for a Western US vacation that is likely to feature a national park or two. I think there should be sme sort of brutally simple signage system for these places. Badlands national park = green, rather tough to get lost. Can't find the road? Climb up on one of the many round knobby hills that the park features and scout around. Bryce Canyon = red. Get lost there? Good luck, sucka.

Now that Slashdot has been taken over by 4chan, the least they could do is change the logo at the top of the page.

From what I was told by a USPS carrier back in about 2004-2005 (knew her socially, she wasn't the one delivering my mail), the carriers got more money from manually sorting more pieces of mail, and because of that moving the Netflix stuff off the sorters was a win/win for them because the disk mailers were leaving trash behind when they got shredded. Not sure how the piecework for pay thing works, may be part of their union contract or something.

from the article (remember, reading is FUNdamental....):

Using data from a NASA radar that flew aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists have detected ice deposits near the moon's north pole. NASA's Mini-SAR instrument, a lightweight, synthetic aperture radar, found more than 40 small craters with water ice. The craters range in size from 1 to 9 miles (2 to15 km) in diameter. Although the total amount of ice depends on its thickness in each crater, it's estimated there could be at least 1.3 trillion pounds (600 million metric tons) of water ice.

The great thing is, once it's being used, the moon craters provide convenient locations for wastewater impound lagoons; cheaper than 100% recycling.

Reading through this thread, I expected to see many inappropriate directors mentioned, but for god sakes, Kevin Smith? What would he do, film the entire 3-book series from one camera angle? And what parts would Ben Affleck and Jason Lee play? Smith himself as Hari Seldon, stoically delivering messages from beyond... Jay would have to be the Mule, of course, willing entire planets to give him more chronic blunts and such. Hmm, come to think of it, could be worse.

Not sure what other places use, but the last 3 places I've worked all put this stuff (it may also be labeled HB Institutional or some such way)... 5 minutes on the burner and this stuff turns black as used motor oil. gaack.

I drink it anyway. It's free.

Bennies taken away.... company phones are gone now. Comp time's all but dead. Don't get me started.

OK so I'm not the only one wondering why the Russians are offended by implications of terrorism, when they're apparently not offended by implied gross incompetence, which the latest (C&C RA3) seems to promote with great comic effect. For god's sake never let Tim Curry mess with the space/time continuum!

"at least I have job..." lol