samagon

Indeed the real footage is impossibly hard to watch - at least for me.  That is how it ought to be.  I can however, see that depictions of violence are also hard to watch.

Schindler's List - a movie - very, very hard to watch.  And everyone went home at the end of the day.  Perhaps its just good storytelling when one can be so engaged that they cringe at the violence, or swoon over the love, or feel betrayal or anger over the loss of a well liked character?

 

I very rarely get sucked into a movie so much that I begin to feel for the actors, but on the rare occasion that I do, that's when I consider it to be a really great film. In all honesty.

Schindler's List, that one is more than just a movie, in my opinion. 

I think I may be the lone conservative on this forum, so I'll try to succinctly convey that perspective:

 

The issue is not what people can tolerate, in the Grand Guignol way; the channel of what is "mainstream" can be infinitely widened.

 

Nor is it whether movie footage is more or less graphic than reality. People used to come from miles around, children in tow, to enjoy the spectacle of a hanging. At least one may offer the excuse that this perhaps functioned as the equivalent of a cautionary public awareness campaign in a brutal time, but it is not an impulse to honor. The past is not monolithic; I'm sure that there were right-thinking people who were appalled.

 

Our reaction to an image, and the images we seek, may tell us something about how in touch with reality we are. And by reality, I mean less, what is really bad - than what is good.

 

That very graphic depictions of violence should furnish light entertainment is decadent, and decadence usually presages the end.

 

I understand that when conservatives say such things, all people hear is: you want to take away our fun. No, no. It just makes you wonder what's coming.

 

Note: I have no particular axe to grind with any one show. I myself tried to watch that "True Detective" series, but couldn't get through it. I'm bored with dead, bound girls, the victims of perverted VIP sex rings. And yes, boredom is a sign of decadence, too. :-)

Well, it depends, is this just your editorial on violent movies, or do you want to have society live by your moral standard?

And what about other forms of sensationalism? Watching people eat live bugs on a show like fear factor, that makes me want to throw up, it is certainly a form of sensationalism to attract viewers. What about on the evening news? They have that sensational title for some breaking story that is always 'just coming up' but really, it's at the end of the show, and not nearly as sensational as the title suggested. It's not disgusting, but it is disgusting.

 

 

6) I disagree about History/National Geo/BBC others showing REAL war footage.  Yes it is hard.  Yes it is really, trully brutal, but unlike the made up stuff these are actually real humans who are going through this attrocity.  We need to show war for what it is: Hard.  Brutral.  Nasty.  Unkind.  Remorseless.  However there are ways to achieve that without going overboard.

 

War of the Century - When Hitler Fought Stalin (BBC - 2005) is a great documentary about the most attrocity filled conflict in history.  Its brutal to watch.  There are film reels that show attrocities against civilians... talk about rough stuff, but unlike made-up movies and TV this is something we should watch to understand that is how life was, how life will continue to be, and hopefully how life will be able to adapt so we will no longer have to endure such pain and suffering again.  War of the Century should be watched, at least once, as the educational benefit far outweighs the negativity surrounding the real violence shown.  If historical events cause people to have nightmares while movies and films do not, thats good.  History can't be undone, history can't be ignored.  Squashing a mans head and showing it just because... has zero value to it other than to be sensational.

 

If you pit reality versus film/TV, reality wins every time.

 

I guess at the end of the day there are films, TV shows, books and documentaries for every taste, every different set of eyes and ears.  Each of us reacts differently to each scene, and at the end of the film that is what the director and stars really wanted us to see and feel. 

Don't get me wrong, I think more people should watch the real footage so they aren't mistaken about the 'glories' of war, I'm just saying for me, I watch shows like GoT and think nothing of the violence that is depicted, but watch real footage from a war? I can barely look at the screen. Take for instance, the scene in the original Red Dawn, where the kids watch their parents and friends be executed over the mass grave they just dug, I can watch that every day, no problem. Show some footage of real people being executed over the graves they just dug? ugh. ugh. ugh. I watch, but I cringe, and I don't need to see it ever again.

 If we were watching those, then historical relevance and accurate dipiction of attrocities might in fact be needed more so to show just how bad things could be - than for any plot point.

I've read all the books, and am watching the series now, I've seen movies that are more gruesome than what the show is that were rated R (Saw movies for instance, gore flicks, but still only rated R). It's probably just that those movies aren't movies that you thought would interest you (so you didn't watch them), where you thought GoT would (or you were just tired of listening to everyone talk about the show for 3 days after it's aired), so it's a shock to see this kind of stuff.

I think the accurate depiction of the atrocities of war would make GoT look like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

I'm not talking about the fighting of iconic battles depicted on screen (such as the beach landing in Saving Private Ryan, which was supposedly very accurate and had veterans provide some feedback and direction), but real atrocities. Imagine seeing a movie where they realistically depict severed heads and bodies being thrown by a catapult into a town that is under siege, stuff like that. Real war, and real history is far more gruesome than GoT.

The 50s had tail fins, the 60s had muscle cars, the 70s was the decade of the malaise land barge brougham, the 80s started the FWD-ization (not a word) of today, the 90s brought about the jellybean shape, and the 00s the full size SUV craze. I guess the 2010s will be the decade of the silver or beige crossover?

Close, the 80s was all about the harsh lines and wedges. (See DMC for the classic example).

BMW (excluding the M1), and Volvo clearly didn't pay attention to the wedge, but were happy to do the whole harsh lines thing.

US auto manufacturers were too busy racing to make the worst cars possible they didn't care what anyone else was doing. Little did they know Chrysler had a winner in the Kcar early in the decade although the cadillac cimarron came a close second.

I just call it East Downtown, or "in the East End, just outside 59", or "in the East End near the soccer stadium"

As Houston19514 mentions, East Downtown is an area inside of the East End, just as Eastwood, Country Club Place, or old Harrisburg is a small area of the East End.

anyone who is willing to take a chance to wait until the month after their registration is due to get their car inspected can save a little money out of the way they are doing this.

the only thing I really miss from the houston area is astroworld as it was before fright nights.

things I miss from my stupid youth stage:

drag racing down the runway at andrau airfield in alief.

bb gun fights in the bayous.

yes, I said I was stupid. it was fun though.

Or the economy picked up around the time parts of it completed. Had it fully completed in the heart of the recession its economic impact would be zero.

Actually, the katy freeway is a terrific example of the whole point of the article.

Increase the lanes on the freeway and it will be used more frequently.

It's no secret that people bemoan that after the expansion that the drive times on the freeway are just as bad as they were pre-expansion. So what was gained by adding 20 lanes on each side?

There's a good point in his post though, increase the density of the traffic and you increase the commerce that will naturally occur on that corridor. Same as how rail ridership should increase the commerce because it's a denser form of transit, to deny that one has this effect and that the other does not, that's just silly.

As an anecdotal point to the katy freeway, my family lives in Alief, and I have many friends who still live there. Prior to the expansion, I chose 59 as the means to get from my house in the east end to my parents, or friends, but after construction was completed, I find myself using Katy fwy rather than 59.

I don't see an improvement for carpooling. Improving transit can lead to up to a 55% market share which dwarfs both of those numbers.

Doesn't matter in this discussion. Houston has really bad mass transit, yes, we need it.

Problem is, if this study is correct, which I believe it is, adding a congestion charge, and adding a few carrots for companies and motorists may help provide a bit of relief, and the money collected from the congestion charge could go to improving transit, and provide better maintenance on the roads we drive now.

The rather simple discussion point of the article is "If you add more lanes in an effort to reduce traffic, all you do is encourage people to use their cars less efficiently".

If you think that adding mass transit options would magically make people want to take mass transit, you're mistaken. Yes, some would shift, but the majority would not.

Look to europe for a case in point, in the countries, and cities where there is no congestion charges traffic is horrendous. The Netherlands are a terrific example, they have a world class mass transit network including local bus service, trolley lines, subway, commuter rail, long distance commuter rail, they have it all, but then they also have a really terrific road network, and whenever they upgrade the road network, more people shift to driving cars. 

You cannot just give people a mass transit solution and expect them to walk away from their cars.

For matches so far I've been to Munich, Phoenix (Firkin), and Junction. The first two had great crowds. Junction was fine but lacking fans of the actual teams (which was surprising for England Italy on a Saturday).

I've been watching what matches I can from home, I went to lucky's in the east end for the USA match, glad I rode my bike so the beer could air dry on the way home. that place was packed.

I love the enthusiasm that I see in USA fans these days (even if their soccer knowledge is a bit lacking, their heart is in the right place).

The stick (congestion charge) isn't the only option, and (hopefully) it wouldn't be implemented as the sole means of changing habits.

you'd hope for a carrot as well.

Offer incentives to companies that take steps to reduce traffic during peak times. Work from home (if possible), different work schedules (4/10), different work hours, incentives for taking public transportation, or carpooling (I think this one's already being done). There's lots of opportunity.

they didn't expand on that, but to me it makes sense.

let's take 2 scenarios, one where it would take 30 minutes to drive 5 miles, and one where it only takes 10 to drive the same 5 miles.

I'm more inclined to stack stops on the 30 minute 5 mile scenario, so if I go grocery shopping once a week, I'll not go to academy during the week to buy some new work out shorts, I'll go on the same day I go grocery shopping. So I'd end up with like, 3 or 4 places to visit on one trip.

In the second scenario, I'll just go when the need strikes, so I may go to the grocery store twice a week, or go specifically to academy to buy the shorts. taking more trips.

This doesn't work when you think specifically of commuting, but realistically, that's just 5 round trips a week I take, vs the 20 or so random other round trips I take. If congestion (or congestion charging) was high enough, I'd even be inclined to pack some of those trips into the second half of the commute trip. Even making the commute more efficient.

So the population is far less dynamic of a factor than the number of trips that any individual would take, and as congestion increases (or other costs of the trip, not just the time), so does the incentive to take fewer trips.

http://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand

From time to time Wired has decent articles, this is one of those.

 

In 2009, two economists—Matthew Turner of the University of Toronto and Gilles Duranton of the University of Pennsylvania—decided to compare the amount of new roads and highways built in different U.S. cities between 1980 and 2000, and the total number of miles driven in those cities over the same period.

“We found that there’s this perfect one-to-one relationship,” said Turner.

If a city had increased its road capacity by 10 percent between 1980 and 1990, then the amount of driving in that city went up by 10 percent. If the amount of roads in the same city then went up by 11 percent between 1990 and 2000, the total number of miles driven also went up by 11 percent. It’s like the two figures were moving in perfect lockstep, changing at the same exact rate.

worth reading, their suggestion is congestion charge, not a bad idea, but as it relates to Houston, not really feasible until alternate forms of transit are introduced. Doesn't do much good to have something like congestion charging if there are no other options available, and their examples of cities that have congestion charging, or have proposed it have very good alternate transit options. Also, the cities where they have successfully removed freeways had other transit options available as well.

Some of the employees in my office have laptops with win8, and there are a few servers with 2012, of course the software we use is supported on both win8 and 2012, so I have to know my way around.

It's not a bad OS, really, it just takes some getting used to, some things are easier to access, some things are harder. Overall, it's a more consistent interface.

Not even close to the worst MS OS, I think that one is nearing 20 years since it was released (win95a).

Today's the day.

Anything developed after 1960 (the year, not the road).

Watching anyone try to walk (regardless of sidewalks) outside of the beltway is pretty painful.

If they redeveloped all the surface parking into a garage, then there would be a lot of room for a safari like expansion.

This would be cool, that parking lot that used to be the clubhouse parking for the golf course, turn that into a parking garage, turn the whole parking lot into more zoo.

The Texas Folklife Festival is also up against a wall and there are rumors that this year will be its last. It sucks because they both offer so much in the ability for those who want to learn about different cultures to do so, and for those who are proud of their heritage can share. 

The problem with the Texas Folklife Festival is that the person who runs it has been running it from the beginning and isn't willing to adapt, or make changes, they just keep increasing the price of entry, increasing the cost to the participants, and wondering why it is dying a slow death as they don't have any kind of meaningful presence on the web. They don't work with Colleges and Universities that may have students who would be interested in participating, or attending either to enjoy it, or as part of their curriculum, it's sad that the same person/people that made this festival great 30 and more years ago are clutching onto it so desperately that they are squeezing the life out of it.

And I bet the Houston International Festival is the same way.

The only realistic way to not have local traffic use a freeway is to not have on/off ramps. As it goes, I know the interstate freeway system was intended to accommodate long distance travel, but local freeways are just that, local freeways and were designed for local traffic, 288, 290, 225, 59, 45 (as it was a local freeway prior to being an interstate), etc. Maybe I am mis-remembering, but from the Houston Freeways book it did mention that Houston was a catalyst of hijacking the interstate system as it went through towns to make it a local freeway with lots of entries/exits, and introduced the loop to augment as a sort of bypass. It's a quaint idea in Houston today, as the loop is in the middle of town pretty much, so there's not much bypassing able to go on.

I can't think of a city of a size with Houston where traffic isn't a problem, feeders or no. Pretty much every freeway in every town with/without feeders have just as many on/off ramps as those in Houston, so the lane changing is just as much a problem.

I think though that the scissor on/off ramps to the feeders is a great solution, and coupled with one exit per 2-3 streets is the best solution. You can't do that on a freeway without a feeder without making lots of people very angry. You can have a street crossing a freeway without an exit, but imagine if you're trying to get somewhere that is on a street that crosses a freeway without an exit and no feeder. Feeders and more exits may increase overall traffic, but I think that average drive time is reduced with feeders. Feeders really increase the convenience and utility of a freeway.

I think also that freeways without feeders may actually create more of a divide between one side of a freeway to another, at least for people driving.

I've lived most of my life with feeder roads, riding, or driving on roads without them is mostly alien to me.

That being said, I've lived in cities without, and visited many others without, the single advantage I see to not having a feeder road is the potential of the freeway drive to look nicer. 9 times out of 10 though, driving on a freeway without feeders is just as ugly a drive as driving on a freeway with them.

In fact, with a large enough median between freeway and feeder and some greenery planted in that space, it is just as nice to drive. 

Look at the examples of freeways in Houston without feeders to see this in motion, while yeah, 59 between shepherd and the spur is one of the nicest looking sections of freeway, it's the exception rather than the rule, you've got 59 inside the spur up through downtown. ugly. pierce elevated, ugly. most of the westpark tollway, ugly. sections of i10, ugly. 

thinking of other cities without feeders that I've frequented, LA, all their freeways are ugly and there's not a feeder road to be had. Chicago, no thanks. I haven't been to NY, but I don't suspect it's teeming with beautiful freeways.

I have to start thinking about the smaller towns I've visited to start seeing some freeways that aren't ugly, and even still it's few and far between. so what's the advantage of no feeder again?

If anyone is interested in the history of the phone system (more focused on the hacking of it by phone phreaks) there's a great book called Exploding the Phone. It's mainly about how the system evolved as a response to hackers, but it has a lot of really cool info on how the system was built.

I, as a voter, will vote (again) no on any project asking for tax dollars to be spent on this structure.  I think that's what the "No" vote was mainly about.

Would you say that it's more beneficial to spend nearly 3 million per year in upkeep on something that brings in 0 direct revenue, or spend more money to fix it up and get revenue, both direct and indirect (hotel rooms, cab rides, etc)?

At this point, I'd say that the chances of it being turned into a parking lot are nill, so these are really the options we're faced with.

Maybe if the county hadn't been horrible at managing the place for the past 20 years it would already be a parking lot (which taxpayers would have paid 80 million to accomplish anyway) and you'd not have to consider paying for upkeep on a 0 revenue facility, or paying to have it revitalized into something new that will bring in revenue.

Maybe you should vote no on the people who let this happen in the first place, could we be faced with spending another 60 million over the next 20 years while it continues to generate 0 dollars?

If Ed Emmett wants to start this charade all over again, that's his prerogative. But like Subdude said up-thread,  nothing's going to happen that doesn't  align with either Rodeo's or Texans' interests.  So, either they pay every dime associated with re-purposing the dome, or not.    Voters made it clear they don't want any more public money spend on it.  Perhaps the impending shame-fest will convince the two interested parties they need to work together and open their wallets.

I wouldn't say that voters don't want to spend money on it, I would say that voters don't want to spend money to turn it into a convention center when we've got a perfectly good one already.

I bet, if they had held a vote to turn it into a place to house one of the space shuttles, the voters would have been willing to spend the money, we may have even gotten one of them too.

lol. the comments on SL are great. They're worried about increased traffic. I mean, not that I want to see more traffic, but jeez, Lawndale and Telephone have a lot of capacity to give before it will be close to a noticeable amount of traffic.