Another small factor that they seemed to miss on here was skype. The ability to make video-conference calls probably eased the need of business executives to be there in person.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/A-Conference-Call-in-Real-Life

A Video Conference Call In Real Life (IRL) has been added as a related post - related requested by ant on that post.

A Conference Call in Real Life has been added as a related post - related requested by ant.

This is not going to go well for them. They are handling it terribly so far, having a press conference calling Officer Brett Olsen a "hero" and excellent officer, and complaining that people are now being 'disrespectful' to his officers.
Walk into my backyard and shoot my dog for doing his job of protecting my property from strangers, you'll get way more than 'disrespect', authoratah or not.
Here's hoping all involved loose their jobs quickly, particularly Brett Olsen.

I am running sleep deprived lately for the first time in months... I've got to agree with many of these. Fell alseep in a conference call the other day, not good.

Does it have to be a Christian church? Maybe atheists need to establish The Church of No God and attend regularly, possibly attending by way of webcast or Skype conference call.

What about churches such as those attended by members of the cult of Scientology? Does attending the church of a religion based upon a blatantly false premise exclude an individual from having to pay this proposed tax? Maybe this is an opportunity for religions to prove they are genuine, any religion that is unable to prove that it is based on genuine deities doesn't count and therefore its congregation must pay the tax.

There's potential in this idea if it gets thought out properly in such a way that causes problems for organised religion instead of benefits. Or maybe my mind is just too twisted and I should accept that it's a crazy idea that will never make it into any legislation

Very interesting. I wonder if they've been listening for quite a while and this was the first relevant recording they made, or if this was a one off. If it was a one off I don't really understand why they would release it, now they will have trouble getting access to further conference calls as the law agencies will no doubt use better security.

Introducing the new Apple iPerson complete with multi touch and volume control, doesn’t it feel good to touch, doesn’t it feel good to touch, doesn’t it feel good to touch.

My world is so digital, I have forgotten what that feels like.
It used to be hard to connect when friends formed cliques, but now it’s even more difficult to connect now that clicks form friends.

But who am I to judge…

I face Facebook more than books face me hoping to book face to faces, I update my status 420 space to prove Im still breathing; failure.
To do this daily means my whole web wide world would forget that I exist. But with 3000 friends online only 5 I can count in real life, why wouldn’t I spend more time in the world where there are more people that LIKE me. Wouldn’t you?

Here it doesn’t matter if I am an amateur person, as long as I have a pro-file, my smile is 50% genuine and 50% genuine-HD, you will need blu-rays to read the whites of my teeth, but im not that focused.

Ten tabs open, hoping, my problems can be resolved with a 1600 x 1700 revolution, this is a problem with this evolution, doubled over, we used to sit in tree tops, till we swung down and stand up right, then someone slipped a disc, now we’re doubled over at desktops.

From the Garden of Eden, to the branches of Macintosh, Apple picking has always come at a great cost.
iPod, iMac, iPhone, iChat, I can do all of these things without making iContact.

We used to sprint to pick and store Blackberries, now we run to the Sprint store to pick Blackberrys, it’s scary.
I can’t hear the sound of mother nature speaking, over all that Tweeting, and along with it is our ability to feel as it’s fleeting.

You would think these headphone jacks inject in the flesh the way we connect, the disconnect, power ON. So we are powerless, they got us love drugged. Like e-pills, so we e-trade, e-mail, e-motion like e-commerce because now money can buy love, for 9.95 a month – click!

To proceed to checkout – click! To X out where our hearts once were – click!
I’ve uploaded this hug, I hope she gets it – click!
I’m making love to wife, I hope she’s logged in – click!
I’m holding my daughter over a Skype conference call while shes crying in the crib in the next room – click!

So when my phone goes off in my hip, I touch and I touch and I touch, because in a world where there are voices that are only read and laughter is never heard or I’m so desperate to feel that I hope the technologic in reverse the universes so the screen can touch me back, and maybe it will, when our technology is advance enough to make us human again.

Another ironic thing about the French?

They have a reputation for being rude and arrogant. They also are extremely polite, as I learned when I tried to buy some bottled water from a street vendor in Paris, which my creaky never-very-good high school French. I spoke "French", he answered in English. So I said -- oh, you could tell from my bad accent that I am American.

He replied -- no, you didn't say "please." He was then embarrassed by his truthfulness, and tried to apologize, but I just agreed with him. Americans don't say "please" or "thank you."

It's true -- for all their rudeness and arrogance, it is always "s'il vous plait." And "bonjour, madame" and "au revoir, monsieur" when entering and leaving the small shops.

There are none so blind as those who will not see, ya? Or rather, oui?


>> ^9547bis:

>> ^Diogenes:
trying to speak french as a foreign language in france is incredibly frustrating
no matter how much you've studied and practiced, your best efforts are met with, at best, disdain (no that's not a stereotype) - heh heh

Which is quite ironic, since few people are as careless regarding their accent and grammar when speaking English as the French. I'm having meetings or conference calls that include French participants every other week or so, and it can be quite painful, to the point of being fascinating (how can you sound so bad and yet not notice?).

>> ^Diogenes:

trying to speak french as a foreign language in france is incredibly frustrating
no matter how much you've studied and practiced, your best efforts are met with, at best, disdain (no that's not a stereotype) - heh heh


Which is quite ironic, since few people are as careless regarding their accent and grammar when speaking English as the French. I'm having meetings or conference calls that include French participants every other week or so, and it can be quite painful, to the point of being fascinating (how can you sound so bad and yet not notice?).

Yeah exactly. What can our politicians do for us to help rebuild the American Dream? Let's take out another astronomical loan, this time from India! This time give it to the lower-class and the lower-middle class. Let's experiment. I know what I'll buy with the money! - a plot of land and a tiny home in Canada.

That way if the lower and middle classes move out the upper-class will get what they want. They won't have to pay us these expensive $12/hr jobs. And they can sit in their offices picking their noses erm managing some guy who can't even understand in some other country. America will just be a country of managers, just the way they want it. District Managers managing Senior managers managing assistant managers managing part time assistant managers managing the managers somewhere else who are doing the same damn thing except over there, there will probably be someone doing some god damn work!

I've noticed that mostly managers seem like they're official, doing "important" things but a lot of them are just listening to other people talk - all day long. Conference calls, blah, blah, sitting on their asses. Lazy asses I tell you.

Straight on the phone to the joint chiefs, set up a conference call, order the military to defcon 2, order all airports shut down and any planes not responding to be declared possible enemy and have fighter escort with authority to shoot down if deemed necessary.

More than sit on his ASS for 10 min and then run around thinking about what his fucking PRESS release would say.

"The 2nd tower has been hit, the US is under attack"

THE US IS UNDER ATTACK.....and he asks his advisers what he is gonna say at his press meeting...for fuck sake man, hes the HEAD of the defence force, he could of done several key things to give the army / airforce / navy / marines the power to lock the country down and secure anyone from entering / leaving until the situation had been under control and assessed where the threat was coming from, and how best to deal with it.

You don't sit in a fucking kindergarten classroom continuing to read a book with a bunch of brats when you are told that your country is under attack.

>> ^MarineGunrock:
Wow, in 8 years of governance she's racked up THREE ethical scandals? I'd hate to think about what she would do as Vice fucking President.



Damn straight MG. But I think your tally of only three ethics scandals will probably be an understatement soon enough.

Pat Buchanan called McCain "Bush on steroids" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCnjBrueji4) on the Jan 22nd edition of "Hardball". So the even scarier question is if Palin is "Cheney on steroids"?

It seems that the Cheney/Palin comparison is much bigger than some think, especially considering the "special conference call" with the biggest oil execs in the state, just leaked today:
http://www.andrewhalcro.com/palin_requests_talks_with_oil_executives


I love this line:
"Nothing goes ahead unless Exxon is happy with it."

>> ^Mgshadow:
Dispite the fact that the episode 1-3 movies were disliked by a large majority of the so called Star wars fans. I still like them because they make my life fun. People should just learn to enjoy movies instead of ripping them apart. There are a ton of perfectly crappy movies out there, and these movies were not part of them. Try to get your sense of wonder back people. Just sit down and watch a movie without an agenda. You know what I mean?

Trouble is, Episodes 1-3 were so simplistic when compared to 4-6 that it became (for me) a real chore to get into them.

Just one example, during one of the many conference calls they showed us in Episode 1, featured a fellow saying "A communications disruption can only mean one thing. Invasion." Ex-fucking-cuse me? Sorry, but my powers of disbelief suspension are not that great. Maybe if I were still 7, that reasoning might be solid.

So you see, disliking a shitty movie can only mean one thing: it's shitty.