Re: Political Dementia
jon louis mann wrote: Maru is part of a Japanese ship's name, as in 'Kobayashi Maru.' On-List, it's used as part of a post signature title, and usually relates to the content of the post, with humor, silliness or even seriousness value-added. Debbi Helpful Not Meddlesome Maru ;) thanks debbie, i vaguely recall something about a test given to cadet at the federation academy and you could pass unless you cheated? wikepedia says it is attached to a ship's name so it will return to port 'full circle'. On the Federation Academy thing, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru It wasn't a matter of cheating or not, the test was to see how you did in a no-win situation. Kirk reprogrammed the simulator. Dang, I need to watch that movie again Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: Re Cost of conservation
You ignored my general call for less planned obsolesence and picked on only one example, that of home decor. Did you expect me to discuss every area of consumption in detail? I picked an example where fashion just gave one example. Debbie, I try to get to specific when I discuss things. I don't always have the time to find hard numbers, and they are not always available, but I find little growth in understanding resulting from the trading of generalities.unless of course they are well verified and precise generalities like the theory of gravity. :-) When I think of fashion, I first think of clothes...and then think of furnishing/décor trends. My understanding of the difference between lower middle class fashion and upper class fashion is not that upper class men and women have just a lot more stuff (although they do have more stuff), but that the main difference is that the upper class people have better stuff. Lower middle class people buy shirts at Wall-Mart for $10...rich people buy shirts from designer boutiques at $200. I'll agree that someone in an upper class household is more likely to have 100 dresses in the closet than someone from a lower middle class household. But, even upper class people don't buy dresses and throw them away the next year. They are cheap enough to give them to a consignment shop or let Goodwill pick them up. My Zambian daughter, Neli, picked up a nice woman's business suit for $80 from Goodwill when she needed something nice. Planned obsolescence was, in my day, usually a reference to cars and appliances that are made to fall apart, so you have to buy another one. But, if you look at cars, for example, you see that they last longer than they did 40 years ago. Only our diesel Rabbit died before 100k miles...and that was almost 25 years ago. Now, there are a number of people who do buy a new car every year. But, they don't throw their old cars away...they sell them. As long as someone uses the cars, it's not wasted. What people often refer to now, when they speak of planned obsolescence, is the tendency to throw something away when it breaks, instead of getting it fixed. But, that's a different phenomenon. Many items, such as TVs, are so cheap and reliable now that it doesn't pay to have a trained person spend hours trying to find and replace the bad component. I will have to find sites on the growth of Home Depots etc., and the logging of rare hardwoods to supply furniture, decking and so forth -- If you look at the trends, you will find a lot more use of treated pine instead of rare hardwoods at Home Depot, etc. I didn't find numbers on redwood harvesting, yet, but I know that the average picnic table, 4x4, etc. when I was a kid was made of redwood, while it is now made of treated pine. forests in Indonesia and the Amazon basin are being illegally and unsustainably logged so that somebody can have a mahogony table with matching sideboard and chairs etc. Mahogony tables and sideboards are not usually bought one year and thrown in the dump five years later because they are out of fashion. Plastic chairs that are cheap and easily break are thrown out. I'm not arguing that there aren't examples, such as rare wood harvesting, where consumption will have to be cut down significantly because we are running out. I'm arguing that this is not a general trend, as people 30 years ago were arguing. Commodity prices, on the whole, have gone down in real dollars during that time. Cows do indeed produce quantities of methane, as do all ruminants (well, actually it's the bacteria in their guts that produce methane and hydrogen sulfide gases etc.); reducing meat consumption, in addition to being healthier for the individual person, would definitely be healthier for the planet. Using range-fed instead of feedlot cows wouldn't use up perfectly good people-grade grain either. But, range feeding is a sensible use of land only for marginal land that cannot grow cropsor if there is so much land we don't need to worry. I don't think we need to worry about using people-grade grain for cows, when we have, in the span of a few years, increased our use of corn for fuel from a small fraction of the crop to half the cropwith only a minor impact on food prices. If gas goes to $8/gal, I will have to significantly increase my fees - which many of my clients couldn't then afford, as riding lessons are already cancelled for financial reasons (just this Monday past, in fact, one single mom apologized that she can't continue because she's had to take on a second job -- of course I told her that I understood times were difficult and I hoped things got better for her) - or get an office job, which would probably precipitate a return of major depression, with nasty consequences for me. And...$8/gal gas will just be a modest start if we really want to have no increase in the production of greenhouse gasses. The US's share would be
RE: Re Cost of conservation
At 11:31 AM Thursday 5/17/2007, Dan Minette wrote: [snip] What people often refer to now, when they speak of planned obsolescence, is the tendency to throw something away when it breaks, instead of getting it fixed. But, that's a different phenomenon. Many items, such as TVs, are so cheap and reliable now that it doesn't pay to have a trained person spend hours trying to find and replace the bad component. My recent question about security screws is directly related to this phenomenon: it is mid-May and the temperature has been in the 80s for several days already (although a front knocked yesterday's high down into the 70s and last night's pre-dawn low to around 50, making sweatpants and a sweater the uniform du jour rather than the shorts of recent days), so it's time to put out the fans. Those which have been used for awhile (like part or all of last year) tend to have accumulated dust and cat and human hair around the motor and shaft. In some cases I can clean some of it out with some kind of long probe and forceps and then use the straw provided on the can to squirt WD-40 into the works to get it going well again. In other cases, that doesn't seem to be enough and I need to take off the grill on the back to get at the motor and works. However, some of them are held together with the aforementioned security screws (in one case, alternating Phillips-head and Allen security screws). While I suspect that the company would say that the reason for using security screws is to keep kids from getting the back off the fan and sticking their fingers in to get mangled or shocked, I also suspect that they are happy that by using such screws they make it more likely that most people who might try to fix them themselves will have to throw them away and buy a new one . . . -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
2007 Upfronts
http://www.tv.com/special_feature/2007upfront/nbc/index.html The networks have announced the new shows (most of which will be cancelled of course) for 2007/8. Those of scifi-ish interest: NBC The Bionic Woman Jamie Sommers is a young woman working as a bartender and raising her teenage sister, Becca. When she is seriously injured in a car accident, her only hope for recovery lies in a top-secret experimental procedure involving bionic body parts! Chuck This new dramedy tells the strange tale of Chuck, a 20-something computer geek whose life changes forever when the US government downloads a secret database into his brain and recruits him for undercover missions of espionage! Journeyman A San Francisco reporter suddenly finds himself traveling through time, wreaking havoc on the future and making his present life incredibly complicated. ABC Cavemen Based on the famous Geico commercials, this new comedy follows three cavemen trying to find success, acceptance, and love in the modern world. Eli Stone (not yet scheduled) Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim bring us the tale of a San Francisco lawyer who finds out he has prophetic powers and decide to use them for good. Pushing Daisies This romantic drama shows us the strange world of a man who can bring dead people back to life through the power of his touch. CBS Moonlight This new drama tells the story of a private investigator who is also a vampire. Watch as Mick deals with the curse of immortality and his doomed love for a mortal woman. FOX New Amsterdam A New York City homicide detective is blessed and cursed with an immortality that will not cease until he finds his one true love. The Sarah Connor Chronicles The Terminator franchise arrives on TV with this serial drama. Set a year after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the series follows Sarah and John Connor as they hide from the authorities and Skynet's army of Terminators. The CW Reaper A twenty-something slacker finally scores a job as the devil's bounty hunter, collecting the souls of those who haven't fulfilled their part in a deal with Satan. It's hard to judge how good these shows will actually be from these descriptions. The Bionic Woman is a 'reimagining' from the producers of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica so it could be very good. Pushing Daisies is from the guy who did _Wonderfalls_ and _Dead Like Me_ (Bryan Fuller) and The people he touches, however, can only stay alive for one minute, and if they don't die again, someone else nearby will die. Ned decides to use his ability to solve crime. He and a local investigator, Emerson, bring murder victims back to life and find out who killed them, to cash in on case-solving rewards. But, when Ned brings an old crush back to life, and decides to let her live, things start to get complicated... A vampire called Mick? That Time Again Maru -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 2007 Upfronts
On 18 May 2007, at 01:53, William T Goodall wrote: http://www.tv.com/special_feature/2007upfront/nbc/index.html The networks have announced the new shows (most of which will be cancelled of course) for 2007/8. Those of scifi-ish interest: CBS Moonlight This new drama tells the story of a private investigator who is also a vampire. Watch as Mick deals with the curse of immortality and his doomed love for a mortal woman. Similar idea to the Lifetime series _Blood Ties_. FOX New Amsterdam A New York City homicide detective is blessed and cursed with an immortality that will not cease until he finds his one true love. I wonder if it will have Highlander style flashbacks? The Sarah Connor Chronicles The Terminator franchise arrives on TV with this serial drama. Set a year after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the series follows Sarah and John Connor as they hide from the authorities and Skynet's army of Terminators. Reminds me of _The Invaders_ ? Nothing New Maru -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ It was only after ordering the melon balls that Rick discovered he was at a drive through plastic surgery. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 2007 Upfronts
At 07:53 PM Thursday 5/17/2007, William T Goodall wrote: The networks have announced the new shows (most of which will be cancelled of course) for 2007/8. Those of scifi-ish interest: NBC The Bionic Woman Jamie Sommers is a young woman working as a bartender and raising her teenage sister, Becca. So she doesn't play tennis? When she is seriously injured in a car accident, her only hope for recovery lies in a top-secret experimental procedure involving bionic body parts! Exclamation points in reviews/previews make me nervous. Chuck This new dramedy tells the strange tale of Chuck, a 20-something computer geek whose life changes forever when the US government downloads a secret database into his brain and recruits him for undercover missions of espionage! They still make me nervous. Journeyman A San Francisco reporter suddenly finds himself traveling through time, Maybe he could go back in time a few seasons and get a job writing articles for the newspaper in _Early Edition_. wreaking havoc on the future and making his present life incredibly complicated. ABC Cavemen Based on the famous Geico commercials, this new comedy follows three cavemen trying to find success, acceptance, and love in the modern world. Oy. Eli Stone (not yet scheduled) Greg Berlanti and Marc Guggenheim bring us the tale of a San Francisco lawyer who finds out he has prophetic powers and decide to use them for good. That's nice of him. Pushing Daisies This romantic drama shows us the strange world of a man who can bring dead people back to life through the power of his touch. CBS Moonlight This new drama tells the story of a private investigator who is also a vampire. Watch as Mick deals with the curse of immortality and his doomed love for a mortal woman. Presumably not starring Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepard . . . FOX New Amsterdam A New York City homicide detective is blessed and cursed with an immortality that will not cease until he finds his one true love. . . . or tanks in the ratings, whichever comes first . . . The Sarah Connor Chronicles The Terminator franchise arrives on TV with this serial drama. Set a year after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the series follows Sarah and John Connor as they hide from the authorities and Skynet's army of Terminators. The CW Reaper A twenty-something slacker finally scores a job as the devil's bounty hunter, collecting the souls of those who haven't fulfilled their part in a deal with Satan. It's hard to judge how good these shows will actually be from these descriptions. The Bionic Woman is a 'reimagining' from the producers of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica so it could be very good. Pushing Daisies is from the guy who did _Wonderfalls_ Suppose it will last any longer? and _Dead Like Me_ (Bryan Fuller) and The people he touches, however, can only stay alive for one minute, and if they don't die again, someone else nearby will die. Ned decides to use his ability to solve crime. He and a local investigator, Emerson, bring murder victims back to life and find out who killed them, to cash in on case-solving rewards. But, when Ned brings an old crush back to life, and decides to let her live, things start to get complicated... A vampire called Mick? As opposed to one named Nick who is a police detective rather than a P.I.? Been Done Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: 2007 Upfronts
(Since William did it, I presume I can do it too . . .) At 09:12 PM Thursday 5/17/2007, Ronn! Blankenship wrote: At 07:53 PM Thursday 5/17/2007, William T Goodall wrote: The networks have announced the new shows [snip] ABC Cavemen Based on the famous Geico commercials, At least it's not based on the early-80s film starring Ringo Starr . . . P.U. Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
