Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Make it DARKER dammit. (Score 2) 233

The Trek franchise reads like a novice writer grappling with current issues and mistakes from previous ideas.

TOS - WW2 submarine warfare. The good guys were good guys, the bad guys were bad guys. Parallel's America's involvement in WW2. Color enhanced to show off capabilities of color TV. Lots of sexy 60s stuff, but a wildly diverse crew. Hard to appreciate now because aside from the skirts, cultural makeup looks like a typical office.

TNG - cold war superpowers. Lots of neutral zone talk and dealing with lesser civilizations. Federation flagship with a psychic and a super-robot deal with interpersonal issues. Very little sex because the boomers grew up, aids freaked people out and lots of preteens watching. First opponent is a god, because well, what other stories can you tell with superpowers and supermen?

DS9 - USSR is gone. Superpowers were boring to write about anyway. Story about a broken down space station on the edge of civilization. They have NOTHING. Maybe the captain, psychic and superman in TNG shouldn't have been white, white and ultrawhite. Brought back some diversity, extended the inter-alien diversity. Grapples with issues of multicultralism in an inclusive society while surrounded by warring cultures.

Voyager - stories about stations which can't move are boring. Story about a ship hopelessly far from anywhere. Easier to write for. Just flip coins to figure out crew diversity and use AD&D encounter tables to randomly generate plots.

Enterprise - Maybe it was too easy to write for Voyager, everything was new. Prequels are hot. Let's delve into the history and backstory.

Enterprise - hmm. maybe should have hired writers which knew the backstory...

"It's a pity because we love the iconic things this series has given us, but at this point I think the franchise is far beyond salvation."

Agreed 200%

Comment Re:Civil vs. Criminal law (Score 1) 246

It's true, but subtle and depends on the jurisdiction.

I should add all the qualifiers, IANAL, I don't play one on TV, blah blah. This is Law 101 stuff.

http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/breach-of-contract-defenses-unclean-hands.html

Suing somebody for selling you bad weed should be thrown out because you're committing a crime in buying it.

Why wrongful death could be tried by the family of a burglar against somebody who set up lethal traps in a house....... I have no idea. There's probably a good case with a lengthy judgement about it somewhere... but if you're ever thinking of doing it, in most places it's criminal to set up those kinds of traps.

Comment Re:Lenovo were already falling (Score 1) 266

Agreed that the Lenovos are pretty good. Current T-series and X-series are very good laptops. Carbon, Yoga and X1[234]0 being a little odd.

The Acer-built IBM Thinkpad i1400 sets a low-quality mark for the Thinkpad brand. I remember the 760 line burning people's laps, the 520 edge systems were flimsy... 600 systems were okay, but heat, power etc, not impressive. The T-series brought some consistency in quality, but there were always golden models a notch above the others. I still know of people clinging to their T20. I stil have a very much working X24...

It's hard to compare pre-2005 laptops though, materials, batteries, cooling, power consuption, etc, etc., have all improved so dramatically. The cost has dropped too, 'premium' machines are very affordable now. The x24 MSRP was >$2400. Today a Macbook Pro Retina starts at half that.

All this said, Lenovo bought the Thinkpad line a long time ago now. Anyone who thinks that Lenovo hasn't proven themselves yet, never will.

Comment Re:Phrasing? (Score 1) 108

The article's title is sensationalist and the caption feeds that sensationalism.

The content itself is more nuianced.

records were corrupted last year

"computer programmer pressed the wrong button between May and July last year".

we lost the outcome of it as a computer programming error.

"made a mistake in the language that I used"

He added: "That lost the results data from those records. So they had been properly put on the system by the officers as a result of stopping and searching people, but we lost the outcome of it as a computer programming error.

"We have been working really hard to recover that data. I have personally overseen the sending out of several thousand emails to officers and follow-up audits.

"Corrupted" could mean anything from the records being absent to the programmer forgetting to include references to officer badge numbers. The error may have been a missing test case in the code before it was promoted to production, or if they're not that automated, somebody in UAT missing something.

Although, maybe the corrected code was something like:
If ( ageofsuspect <= 12 )
{
printf("Error, you cannot randomly search people 12 and under. Did you mean 16?");
getuserinput(ageofsuspect);
}

Comment Re:STDs? (Score 1) 369

"The onyl solution to pregnancy and STDs is common sense, unfortunately this "solution" will only act as a smoke screen for many."

My girlfriend menstruates 24x7x365 when on birth control. Others affect her blood pressure severely or cause enormous weight gain and acne.

We've been monogamous for years and rely on condoms.

Your opinion that people in our situation don't matter is misguided and immoral.

Comment Re:300 mil... what about womens wages? (Score 1) 254

There's evidence that women are more discriminatory against women, so it's possible that an increased female workforce would encourage a greater wage disparity and fewer management opportunities.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070318083402/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/newspapers/sunday_times/britain/article1265356.ece

Slashdot Top Deals

If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it. -- Stanley Garn

Working...