|
Post by MHall on Feb 4, 2005 18:06:57 GMT -5
Is it true that Firefly was cancelled before any of its episodes aired? Or was it only cancelled before the first episode aired, which wasn't the first episode aired? (I think only native English speakers have any chance of understanding that last question. )
|
|
|
Post by MHall on Feb 23, 2005 10:10:15 GMT -5
I'm an American who has travelled quite a bit, mostly in the U.S. and Europe.
In Europe I've seen England, Norway, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, and Turkey. In some places I've stayed for a month or more, and now I've lived in Slovenia for close to two years.
In (Athens) Greece, one of my two bags was missing after left it with the baggage check of my hotel. I told the manager. She got the main manager. He accused me of lying. I calmly tried to explain that I was not saying THEY did anything... I was simply stating the fact that my bag was missing. He again said I was lying and started loudly pounding his fists on the table and screaming and behaving like an animal. I don't know about in Greece, but in America, this is considered inappropriate behavior for a hotel manager. In America, no one can do this anywhere unless they wish to kill or be killed. I contacted the police, wishing to file a report on my missing bag, and they took me to the police station along with the female manager. I couldn't tell what she was saying in Greek to the police, but when I would speak in English she would tell them I was lying, when again, I was only stating exactly what happened. The police said I could either file a charge that the hotel staff stole my luggage (which I never thought) or else they could do nothing. This wasn't the only bad experience I had with Greeks, so I don't share the opinions of the Greek-lovers in this thread, and I saw a lot more than just Athens.
For best vacations...
#1...California: Fly into San Francisco, rent a car, and drive down the coast (route 1) to San Diego, with stops at Hearst Castle, Santa Barbara, Hollywood, and Hermosa/Manhattan Beach. Remember that it will be bloody cold along the coast even in (or especially in) summer! Best time is probably early October, but any time other than late-November to March should be fine.
#2... Central Europe: Fly into Munich, get rail pass and go via train Munich -> Prague -> Vienna -> Budapest -> Ljubljana -> Venice -> Salzburg -> Munich airport. (I haven't looked at a rail map to see if this actually makes sense.) The "must see's" are Budapest, Prague, and Salzburg. Timing is difficult because of temperature, but I suggest either middle June or any time in September. Early June can still be bloody cold, but late June can be hot!
I'm still looking for "that perfect beach." It seems impossible to find a combination of fine sand, warm water, comfortable air temperature, affordable prices, safety, quiet, no stinging jellyfish, and no mosquitos. Hermosa Beach (LA) has a nice night life and vast beach but has cold water and is not cheap. Cabo San Lucas has dangerous water currents. Aruba and Hawaii have astronomical prices. In Croatia, the beaches are made from anything BUT sand. The south coast of Turkey is "Deutchland", and there you had better like eating bratwurst, while the west coast of Turkey has mosquitos. And Greece has... Greeks. (Sorry, ducking.)
|
|
|
Post by MHall on Jan 30, 2005 5:48:00 GMT -5
The sonar dome on the front is made out of fiberglass. The blue tarp in the picture is to hide classified pulverized equipment. The inner hull is much stronger and was not breached.
I haven't seen any discussion about why it is that they cannot "see" where they are going. First, why not use active sonar? If a Rusky sub hears you stomping through the water loudly, that seems like a good thing in these modern times, so they won't blindly run into you or get spooked and go all Crazy Ivan on you and hit you that way. Second, don't American submarines have any technology to "see" undersea mountains without giving away their position?
|
|
|
Post by MHall on Jan 28, 2005 18:03:41 GMT -5
What got me into sci-fi... watching Star Trek while hiding my eyes during the kissing scenes, watching the Apollo-Soyuz blast off in person, reading Ben Bova, having a scientist for a father who had to answer every possible "why is the sky blue?" type question during dinner, and reading a college physics textbook "Black Holes Quasars and the Universe" (and it was profoundly disturbing for a sixth grader to realize that time is not at all what it seems.) There was also Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Space 1999, and Quark, but I think those came after I was already into sci-fi.
Remember Quark (1978)? What about bringing in Betty I and Betty II (the actresses, I mean, the Barnstable twins) for BSG TNS? They could even be old Sixes, if Ellen is not an old Six herself. They might still look hot. You know, there have to be SOME twins in the fleet, and so the writers should include at least one pair of twins to show how much suspicion they draw.
|
|
|
Titan
Jan 15, 2005 10:37:56 GMT -5
Post by MHall on Jan 15, 2005 10:37:56 GMT -5
To me, one of the few things more exciting than a new episode of Battlestar Galactica TNS is the exploration of a new planet (or moon.) The exploration of Saturn's moon Titan is so exciting, because it has an atmosphere 1.5 times as thick as Earth's and it is the only other place in the solar system with liquid on the surface besides Earth, though there it is liquid methane and ethane. The main website for the ESA mission to Titan is: www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/index.htmlOne of the best places on the net for pictures of Titan is: NASA's websiteThis looks to me (just me) like a volcano on the right next to the (liquid methane) sea on the left: photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07230(The brightest white part would be the right edge of the volcano crater's outer wall, but again this is just my speculation. I haven't heard anyone else use the word "volcano" in the context of this picture.) I want to see this picture in color! Given that the probe landed on land, I wish that it had landed on the sea, so we could perhaps see liquid methane sea slime creatures or something. I know life was not at all expected, because of the low temperature, but I hope to live long enough to see some sort of extraterrestrial life. If the probe had landed in the sea, and we saw featureless blackness, I would have wished it had landed on land. Would it be possible to terraform Titan, perhaps assuming easy/cheap fusion energy? If you heated it up, would the elevated lands melt and it all become one big ocean?
|
|
|
Post by MHall on Feb 2, 2005 17:14:56 GMT -5
Professional gambler for last 10 years. Before that, I was an artificial intelligence researcher at NASA.
|
|
|
Post by MHall on Jan 18, 2005 13:22:37 GMT -5
Here is my "33" experience. This is a true story of my last few days. "6:30" - - - A noise laps at the edge of my consciousness. "What is it?", I wonder. "Oh yes, this sound is called 'doorbell.'" In darkness, cold and confused, I look at the digital clock. 6:30. In the morning. I think. This time they said they would come at 6:00, so I guess I should be grateful. Yesterday they said they would come at 7:00, but they came early, also at 6:30. That wasn't nice for me, because my work time is in the evening and night, so I only got a couple of hours sleep each of the last two nights. Excuse me, that's the doorbell again. I throw on whatever clothes I can find by touch. A zombie staggers to the door. I open the door to a flood of workmen, who quickly fill every room and space in my apartment. 7? 10? I am too busy trying to get out of their way to count them. They are inhumanly active for this hour and have been hired to make my life hell for three days. My landlord has paid to replace all the windows in my apartment. I guess I should be grateful, but right now I just want my old windows, if that means I can have my sanity back too. I have been to hell, and it is here. Hell is not hot. Hell is cold. Hell is being woken up after two hours of sleep, having your windows taken away in a cold land near Outer Mongolia known as "Slovenia," enduring cold that a heavy coat makes only survivable, and being covered in dust, while loud noises slice at the remaining strands of your sanity. And not just one day, but now two, with a third to come. You might be wondering why I don't just leave. Well, I tried, yesterday. I found a nice quiet spot in a cafe, closed my eyes, and then my cell phone rang. My landlord asked where I was. He wanted me to be there in the apartment while the workmen are. Just what of HIS property the workmen might steal, I don't know. Might they pass up my projector and steal his old heavy wardrobe? Might they take a sink faucet knob? They could take the windows, yes, but they are supposed to. There just isn't much that he owns here that is movable. But, with my being American and my landlord speaking only a Russian-like language that makes Japanese seem easy, I wasn't able to verbalize an argument. I only understood that my landlord commanded me to return at once... to stand guard at the gates of hell! So for the second day in a row, I sit here, cold, dusty, and sleep-deprived, with my only music being that of the power drills. I have only one tiny consolation... my laptop computer and Internet access. I don't have enough cognitive skills left to do much. But I can visit the Battlestar Galactica 2004 forums, read the posts, and post sleep-deprived drivel! So that's what I do until evening comes. Then the workmen go, I clean a "bit" (including every glass, mug, and teacup I own, all the floors, every flat surface), and I work. I finally crash to bed at 4:00 in the morning. * * * There is a loud noise. Though drunk with sleepiness, I still know the proper answer and how to phrase it, "What is a doorbell." "Correct for $100!" I look at the clock. 6:30. They said they would come at 7:00 today. I wonder, "Why do the workmen always come at 6:30? Why isn't it 6:34 or 7:35 or even a civilized 9:00?" Another voice in my head snaps, "Shut up!" After less than six hours of sleep in 3 days, I am in no mood to take any nonsense from anyone, least of all myself. Regrouping, I say to myself, "I'll take 'Things That Go Bump In The Night' for $200." The doorbell rings again. "This person is ringing your doorbell at 6:30 in the morning." It is an easy one. I reply with an inflectionless question, "Who is a workman." As I struggle into my uncooperative clothes, I console myself that at least I will be warm today, since the windows have all been replaced and the walls just need finishing. I open the door, and my landlord dashes in. Nooo! While I am trying to figure out why my landlord is even here, he turns off the heat and starts disconnecting the radiators. What the frack? Heat. Who needs heat? The workmen arrive a half an hour later, on schedule today, and despite my hopes, all the cleaning I did yesterday evening is soon for naught. Dust from pulverized walls again covers everything, including myself. A hot shower would make me feel so much better, but by turning off the radiators, the landlord has turned off the hot water too. In my dusty cold hell, I look at the pictures coming in from Titan on the Internet. It's colder there, that's true, but it looks relatively appealing... not so much dust. My sleep-deprived mind starts coming up with ideas for Battlestar Galactica. I post them. "Water as a defense against nukes," "Everyone is a cylon," and so on, but I'm getting slower. Finally, the workmen are done, but the landlord stays on a few hours to finish his maintenance. In the late afternoon, as I lay clothed on my bed, blackness comes and takes me away, "maybe this time..." * * * THE DOORBELL RINGS. Heart pounding, I sit up wide-eyed and look at the clock. 6:30. I cry to myself, "It's the workmen. Damn it!" Yesterday was supposed to be the last. I console myself, "If not this day, maybe the next." Before I can struggle to my feet, my landlord speaks in a muffled voice from outside, saying "bye bye," which is almost all the English he knows. It is 6:30 in the evening, and my landlord merely wants me to know he has just left. No workmen. No landlord. Just me. The radiator creaks in protest of the hot water now surging through it. In the relative warmth, I go to bed. Work? What work could I possibly do now? In the next instant, the blackness comes for me again. - - - Now, having finally gotten one good night of sleep, I can reread my posts of the last few days and have a good laugh.
|
|
|
Post by MHall on Feb 24, 2005 12:21:55 GMT -5
Whoo hoo, thanks.
"People are led by baubles." -Napolean
|
|
|
Post by MHall on Feb 24, 2005 8:23:57 GMT -5
Sniff, sniff, boo-hoo. I'm a viper pilot with no call-sign. Here are some suggestions: Professional Pyramid Player Artificial Intelligence Researcher Simple Space Nomad (Is the card game still called Pyramid in the new series?) I'm a former artificial intelligence researcher who has become a professional poker player who travels a lot, so that's how the titles relate to me.
|
|
|
Post by MHall on Feb 9, 2005 8:43:20 GMT -5
I drink Slovenian beers: Laško and Union. My favorite is Union 1864. I'm American, and Union is more like American beers (that is to say, tasteless), so I like it more by default, but I'm trying to develop a taste for Laško, which is more of a flavorful and bitter beer.
|
|
|
Post by MHall on Feb 14, 2005 7:36:35 GMT -5
If number of lovers is less than or greater than 1, then Valentine's Day is a source of stress.
|
|
|
Post by MHall on Mar 1, 2005 13:43:41 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by MHall on Jan 20, 2005 9:34:31 GMT -5
Spudboy is at the very northern tip of Scotland, the Highlands, and Spider is in the middle of Greenland. Anyway, it's pretty obvious that these are just parodies of them.
|
|
|
Post by MHall on Feb 13, 2005 11:53:33 GMT -5
My forum display says there are -640 threads in this "Off-Topic" topic. What's with the negativity? I think we have been swallowed into a black hole or something.
|
|
|
Post by MHall on Mar 31, 2005 7:13:51 GMT -5
Uh, you spoiled.
Time will tell about the rest.
Soul transfer...
Whether you regard Cylons as basically computers or basically humans, the soul transfer mechanism could be "faked" in a very obvious way.
Let's first regard the Cylon minds as computers, and so their memories and consciousness are data. When your PC's hard disk totally dies, what do you do? That's right, you buy a new hard disk and restore the data from backup. (Or cry that you didn't make one.) Soon your PC is back on its feet and talking to all its PC buddies, who accept him as the same PC, like nothing happened. Almost. Your PC is missing the "memories" that occurred after the backup. Having no direct knowledge of how your PC was ressurrected, the other PC's shrug this off this discrepency. So, each PC comes to believe that when its hard disk dies it will have its consciousness transferred to a new hard disk.
Let's now regard the Cylon minds as biological. Now I unfortunately need to assume a replicator (Star Trek style.) But assuming the replicator can copy biological things, then everything can happen as above. The backups could be stored as data, or, if that is not possible due to the amount of data, as bodies in comas or in stasis.
In either case, the chrome toasters may do the job of undertaking and ressurrection, and so the humanoid cylons may not realize that their soul transfer mechanism is a hoax.
All I am saying in this thread is that because there is this obvious way the soul transfer mechanism could be faked, we should not assume that soul transfers work the way the humanoid Cylons seem to be saying. Additionally, there is no evidence that any form of soul transfer has taken place, be it faked or real. It appears that the Cylons believe in soul transfers, and that enables them to carry out suicide missions. The 9/11 terrorists believed they would live ever after in Paradise; should we believe they do?
Occam's razor says that restoring from a backup is simpler than whatever other mechanism you are likely to propose for soul transfer.
|
|