Two things,
First, considering the dregs topping the box office (Transformers, Battleship), and what passes as 'smart' (Prometheus, Star Trek), I'm afraid a good chunk of the business can be more-or-less predicted.
Second, they're not pretending to be oracles, they're just doing stats. They are probably only providing ballpark estimates, and as they've been around for decades, it looks like they're doing fine.

Large publishers, whether it is for books, music, or movies, all rely on the same strategy: for every 10 works produced, they expect 1 to be successful and pay for all the others. I'm guessing these people are in the business of providing estimates to budget the 9 others.

It's all fun-and-games until that seal takes a friendly face-chunk out with those pit bull choppers...

It's such a shame that collective public memory is so short when it comes to such things as huge chunks of the earth's population being wiped out by pandemics before vaccines came into existence.

People are so quick to argue with the opinions of scientists who have dedicated decades of their life to understanding a particular field with utmost rigour, yet if you were to question their opinions on whatever they were expert in (eg. horses), they'd demand to know what authority you had to question them. And that's because people don't understand just how rigourous and punishing scientific investigation is. If there is anything you can trust in this world, it's the consensus of the scientific community.

Shame we can't do some sort of savegame, go without vaccines and watch everyone die, then load the game and say "see? now shut up."

Fuck this video. Repeat; FUCK THIS VIDEO.

This country needs less ignorance, not more. It pisses me off to no end, that a sizable chunk of this country somehow thinks that not raising the debt limit is a viable thing to do. This video does nothing but play into that.

All raising the "debt limit" does is allow the treasury to cover the money that congress has ALREADY spent.

An accurate allegory would be to compare the "debt limit" to paying your credit card bill at the end of the month, because, bitch, you already spent that money.
Not paying your credit card bill isn't going to help your finances, it IS going to ruin your credit.

You want lower debt, fine. Raise taxes or don't spend so much in spending authorizations. But not paying the debts you already agreed to? Fucking stupid.

I'm not in your industry, but the first thing I noticed is how the "classic" box WASTES less cardboard when being die cut out of the cardboard roll, whereas their box won't fit together with other boxes, leaving huge chunks wasted between them.

One of my ex-coworkers actually was part of a company that makes 3D printers that are just about cheap enough to buy yourself. Starting at $2200, it's reasonably feasible to buy one yourself if you have a good chunk of disposable income.

http://makerbot.com

Another cool thing that came out of this is http://www.thingiverse.com/, a huge database of models you can print out.

I sound like a marketer, but I promise I ain't.

Reminds me of an old video on the internet, where they used dynamite to try to disintegrate a beached whale back into the ocean. Didn't go so well and chunks of blubber landed on spectators and broke windshields, leaving the majority of the whale still intact on the beach. I think they eventually buried him with a bulldozer.

Here it is, still cracks me up:
http://videosift.com/video/Dead-Whale-Exploded-on-Beach

Very cool. So, there's this story that when Lucas washed the rushes (early film edits) without music, he thought he had a total dud on his hands---it was after the iconic John Williams' musical score was added, that it suddenly fleshed out into the space opera that we know and love so much...

I wish Episodes I,II, and a good chunk of III hadn't, uh, gone astray (Jar Jar Binks must die!)---and Ewoks???
Sigh.

Still, Star Wars...

Uggheellck!" Who likes these?!
The one's from McDonald are like bad pie crust filled with half-cured cinnamon caulk with dehydrated chunks of apple.

I'll take this one: Bjork is in a category of Bjork all her own-Her vocal styling was unusual, maverick for the time-She's a multi-instrumentalist ( heard Gaga play the piano and sing acapella?... not very good) T

Iceland: Not many bands form there anyhow, and she was showcased at 11 on the ONLY Icelandic radio station at the behest of her....classical piano teacher-The girl worked her ass off in several iterations, always changing and pushing the innovative envelope.

Gaga writes trite pop tunes and dances around (quite un-coordinately so) in some pretty tasteless gear while claiming some mastery of taste and style, the same based ENTIRELY in her pop persona. Can't stand her taste in fashion and her music blows sell-out-show, chunks.

At least with Bjork the journey has some changing scenery-Gaga will age like the cheap vintages of Madonna or Mariah Carey, the latter of which has more talent in her wardrobe than Gaga has in her songwriting and musical ability.

At least Carey has a range and some control, gaga sounds like she's grunting when she sings. When you want that, pull out a frikkin' Throbbing Gristle LP!

I know....can't stand modern pop culture-very played, very tired.

Build a sling to toss chunks of space debris at planets to destro....disrupt them-Call it, the Extinctionator™-Just as fucking scary-urgent?? I think so!

One of the most intriguing aspects of this to me is that in spite of our total acceptance of it currently, we didn't see it coming at all.

Ultima Online, one of the first MMOs, allowed people to do "bad" stuff like steal from or kill other players, but made the assumption that such things wouldn't happen much because the in-game society would regulate itself like a real face-to-face society. ...Yeah, didn't work out so well.

Makes me wonder what the next few generations that grow up with social media representing a hugely significant chunk of their human interaction will be like. Maybe I'm just cynical, but it's a scary thought.

It's my understanding that if (after their claimed tips) a server's hourly wage doesn't add up to the minimum, then the employer has to make up the difference. Maybe this varies state by state?

In all my years working in restaurants this has never come up though, since servers almost always make more on average than most line cooks. And certainly more than any min wage dishwasher busting his ass scrubbing pots in the heat all day. Not to mention that there is a large chunk of tips servers just keep as cash in their pocket and never claim.

I'm not saying servers don't have it rough. And I generally tip on the heavy side when I go out. All I can say is, I have never heard a waitress say she wished she was a cook.

Don't see how it'd work.

However the more I think about phones and how I see them in the future. I don't see them remaining as a one device "thing" like it is now.

I see them being more like a PC. With a processor/storage/etc "brain" bit, a display, extra stuff you have now like headphones etc....and maybe a battery/powering device although I'd hope eventually batteries wouldn't need to be as big as they are...or solar/some other kind of wireless power shows up.

The reason I see it this way is that eventually we're going to have displays where having a big chunk of extra stuff attached to it is going to be really damn annoying....like google glass....or displays that be rolled up....or holographic..or whatever. And I hope we advance past touch screens, because I really dislike them. Really don't like having my finger/hand in the way of what I'm trying to see/accomplish.

So people are going to want a display of choice when "other" stuff shows up.

Then the other guts of the phone....well if you can get them in a case that fits in your pocket, wristwatch, wallet, shoe, keychain, whatever...they are going to be a lot harder to break and need replaced less...or be pretty cheap. Plus if done right they could tie into your home, car, office, etc for more processing power if needed. Then work as more of a conduit to your display than the main processor in circumstances where you're near faster devices.

So in essence, your display would replace a lot of "other" displays potentially as your brain unit connects to other devices to serve up it's abilities to your display....tv, home pc, work pc, car hud, etc.

Course there'd need to be some speed increases in wireless communications...and either some sort of wireless power or some big changes in batteries.

It's also my hope this is the way it goes, because carrying around tech like a phone and trying to work with a tiny display just wears me out.

I hate Chunk! But Desi is sweet!

*scanning Craigslist for DILF ads.