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Adapting stories from other media for videogames isn't a new idea. It's just that films have been the usual source, perhaps because they're culturally/commercially closer, especially if you compare the AAA game title to the blockbuster Hollywood film. Films also come with a built-in visual style to adapt, which helps with the recognition. The practice has become prominent enough that the only major general study of adaptation between mediums that I know of actually spends a decent amount of time discussing videogame adaptations of films, film adaptations of videogames, and so on (usually videogames get ignored in these sorts of media-study analyses).

But... they're mostly not that good. I think this could be said even if we try to look at things sympathetically. The aforementioned book argues that adaptations often get a bad critical rap, because there's a certain mystique around "the original", and assumption that a mere adaptation is always a bastardization of the original that can't possibly capture it. But let's accept that argument, and treat adaptations as interesting and legitimate in their own right, trying not to start out with an assumption that all adaptations are bad. Even then, can you really say that adapting films has been a successful way to make videogames? The only ones that come out even reasonably okay imo are sort of "adaptation light"--- where you borrow some visual elements and general setting/characters from the film, but otherwise mostly ignore it. This works best in big-universe films, like Star Wars, where you're not really adapting an actual film so much as a set of ideas.

Will this all fare better for literature? I can see adapting the general setting of a book as plausible. In fact, that's been done successfully in a few interactive fictions, which share with books the text medium (perhaps like graphical videogames share the visual medium with film). I've played some good Lovecraft-mythos IFs, for example, like Anchorhead (this book on IF discusses the issue of IFs being adapted from literature a bit further). But adapting the book itself? Perhaps as the storyline for a linear RPG-style game? Or something more fundamental than that?

I guess what I'm saying with all this in a roundabout way might be something like: yes, interesting idea, but how? Not asking that as a purely skeptical question; I think there may be ways it'd work. There might even be multiple different kind of adaptations that would work. But I think there are a lot of pitfalls. In particular, a sure pitfall is making "this game is an adaptation of 'real literature'" be the selling point for the game.

Proposing to adapt literature to videogames is the starting point, and you need a vision beyond that for why or how. Why is it interesting to adapt literature to a videogame? Why aren't you just writing a novel on the one hand, or making a non-adaptation videogame on the other? I think there might be good answers for why, but I don't see them here, at least not yet--- I don't think the mere idea of making games tackle "serious" subject matter is enough of an answer.

...realizing that they sounded absolutely awful live and that the sound on their records has been manipulated to the point of being false...

False? In what sense? We have been "manipulating" sound since the beginning of recorded music, everything from choosing which takes to master all the way up to the highly produced sound of today's radio music. One can look at the modern recording studio as just another instrument (one which the producer is playing, usually with the input of the artists) and the recording session as just another "live" venue. Just because they've edited something together and modified the sound extensively doesn't mean the performance is any less "true" or "real". It's just different.

You might check out the book "Perfecting Sound Forever" by Greg Milner about the arguments that have been debated over this point since the first audio cylinders were produced. You can probably tell that I come down on the side that says that whatever gets the artist(s) vision across is fair game, whether it is the perfection of a studio production or the energy of a less perfect, but live, human performance.

Do not take from this the notion that I support the RIAA or the current corporate system. I think that small labels and local acts are more than capable of producing art that is just as good (and potentially better) than a lot of the ones promoted by major labels. Every large metropolitan area has many small studios that are capable of doing a very good job at rates that are within the reach of independent musicians. However, the studio version of an artist's music will still not necessarily sound like the live performance (nor necessarily would I want them to) - even classical recordings are "enhanced" during mastering these days (usually with slight amounts of eq, reverb and, in some cases, even compression).

In other words, it was your expectation of the (relative) perfection of the studio product at a live performance that disappointed you (or else the bands had a really crappy night - and you can't get more "true" than that). Next time go to a live performance without the preconceptions and prejudices and you might be surprised how much there is to take away from both the live and studio "performances".

I think we (as a society) still haven't worked out what we want to do about this as the problems become more apparent. I wouldn't call the ownership-of-information view as dead as you seem to think it is. If anything, it has considerable support among moderate conservatives or libertarians who agree that we need to do something about privacy and large aggregate databases of personal information, but are wary of more centralized, paternalist solutions based solely around regulation. If you have that combination of traits---want something done, but want it not to be paternalist---a property right in personal information is an attractive idea. It's a few years old now, but this book has a good concise overview (pp. 76-79; might be able to get enough of an excerpt on Google Books if you're lucky) of a bunch of the proposals.

An interesting variant are those that revolve around the idea of default implied contracts. The way that in normal contract law, there are all sorts of implied things for what happens if the contract doesn't explicitly specify terms governing a particular situation, some of the proposals would have default terms include some sensible governance for ownership and use of private information, and require deviation from those to actually be agreed by both sides (this might require broader EULA reform, though, to make sure people really do know what they're agreeing to).

To be fair, the book also (pp. 81-92) has a decent summary of problems and criticisms of these proposals. Some are from people who'd love to aggregate huge databases of information and use it without any restraints, but there are a number from well-meaning people too. The problem is that the property rights are really the means, not the end--- it's not that we think having property rights in information is an inherent ethical good, but that we want to avoid some sort of dystopian surveillance society, and having property rights in your personal information is one possible proposal for how to avoid that. But designing markets is tricky, and subject to unintended consequences and loopholes, or just failing to really produce what we'd like them to produce.

This sort of data-mining of quasi-private data to spot anomalous behavior is sometimes referred to as "terrorism informatics", since lots of the funding for it and interest in it comes from the case where anomalous=terrorist. Not sure it's going to be good for society to be applying the same sorts of intrusive analysis to legal things that are merely bad for business.

Of course, it's a tricky regulatory issue. On the one hand you might say that a business should be able to analyze its internal data however it wants. But on the other hand, most people view the phone companies as infrastructure, and people don't expect them to be analyzing their calls--- just providing them with service at the stated rates. And since they form a oligopoly of sorts with very high barriers to entry, it's not clear that "just don't do business with the shady ones" is a feasible solution.

I mean, what can you expect from a company that was perfectly willing to profit from the Holocaust?

Actually, aircraft don't really have any advantages. Once you get over 100 mph, the air friction becomes the primary problem. What makes the airplane (sometimes) more efficient than the car is quantity. The average bus gets about 180 passenger miles per gallon, while most planes manage about 50

(from a cursory Google summary of various sources.)
http://www.terrapass.com/blog/posts/the-denialism-s
http://www.grist.org/article/coach-buses-provide-long-distance-low-emission-convenience
http://www.ridemcts.com/about_mcts/index.asp
http://askville.amazon.com/miles-gallon-jet-fuel-boeing-737-carrying-250-passengers-500-mph-30000-feet-cost-gal/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=10537954

The problem is I can't seem to get any one to send me a blank notebook

Well...you could always build your own.

Maybe the tragedy of the commons problem isn't so bad after all. Maybe we should just reduce parking enforcement to the barest minimum - have a guy with a piece of chalk walk around marking tires - pay his salary from the property taxes of the stores along his route. If a car is in place for more than a couple of days, tow it. Leave it at that and forget about all the expense - monetary and socially - of massively complex and invasive enforcement systems.

You might want to read Don Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking before you go advocating that position widely. Turns out, we know quite a bit about what happens with different street parking regulation approaches.

and to convince Asus and other manufacturers to sell machines with Linux

You mean, like this:

http://www.amazon.com/7-Inch-Display-Mobile-Processor-Preloaded/dp/B000YG646Y/

or this:

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Processor-Drive-Linux-White/dp/B001HPPAQQ/

and to convince Asus and other manufacturers to sell machines with Linux

You mean, like this:

http://www.amazon.com/7-Inch-Display-Mobile-Processor-Preloaded/dp/B000YG646Y/

or this:

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Processor-Drive-Linux-White/dp/B001HPPAQQ/

The EULA is available here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200144530

Specifically, it says:

Changes to Service. Amazon reserves the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue the Service at any time, and Amazon will not be liable to you should it exercise such right.

Amazon modified the service by removing the book.

End of discussion.

if and when science turns to answering the real questions with real answers, not simply commercial products.

I am afraid the way we apply and use science is increasingly for things that keep us in the dark about the bigger questions of, what gravity truly is? Is free energy obtainable? If not how close can we get?

If we turned to these questions as a species looking for answers, instead of dismissing them outright because the answer doesn't include a 5 car garage, and a vacation home or stock options I believe we could conquer the distances in ways that are not obvious because we simply refuse to look without a cash incentive.

This new science as I call it, is not really science, but "consumerism science". Which, pretty much offers nothing too society except gadgets which don't last and just one more thing to spend money on, which is the main goal.

But, this "consumerism science" and its "technology" it produces is not really improving your life at all.

I personally believe that Earth's, like ours are rare. Maybe 100 in the galaxy.

Here is an awesome book which should rattle the brain:

http://www.amazon.com/Rare-Earth-Complex-Uncommon-Universe/dp/0387987010

So, although I doubt the galaxy is like Star Trek, it is probably somewhere in between only us and Star Trek.

I think 10 earth's with complex life is a good guess.

Good Book, read it and try and refute Dr. Ward's argument points. If your a Star Trek fan like I am you will find a lot of the book depressing because I think we would like to believe that the Universe has all sorts of aliens in it we can talk too AND his points are VERY hard to compromise on.

-Hack

Read Bachelard Formation of the scientific mind and weep. If only it were so easy and blame everything on the catholic church. For a very long period of time, it looks as if entertainment value was put way above scientific rigor... that and scientific thinking is quite a recent thing. From the book, experiment held around 1700 (from vague recollection): Electricity from a battery cell passes through a liquid and the experimenter's tongue. Experimenter then "tastes" the electricity. Taste through milk? "Soft and sweet" as opposed to electricity flowing through vinegar "strong acid taste". Anyway, interesting read.

In the really old days, a platform was almost synonymous with its hardware: when you wrote straight assembly on the Atari VCS and directly controlled the video interface, the hardware was your game platform. What you could or couldn't do on the platform was more or less defined but what you could or couldn't get its bizarre hardware to do. (There's an excellent recent book that traces just how big an influence the Atari's odd hardware had on its game design, among other things.)

But that hasn't been true for a while. Sure, hardware is still an important part of the platform. But so are lots of other things. What's the programming model? What kind of SDK do you have? What libraries are there? How does the platform look to a programmer? What can they do with it easily and what's hard to do on it? Hardware is only one of the things from that perspective; unless you're programming on bare metal, what matters is the entire stack. The hardware could be so terrible or so great that it makes or breaks the entire stack. But I would suspect that of the things that can be an impediment to producing a good game on a particular platform, "the hardware just couldn't support what we wanted to do" is the bottleneck less and less often.

And they aren't the only ones.

Are you kidding?

It had some great concepts (I loved the wolf-like alien hive-mind-via-high-pitched-audio things), but, man, what a boring slog of a book. It's exciting at the start, and somewhat exciting at the end (if you can get past the Deus Ex Machina ending), but it has an extremely tedious and longest middle. If the book had been compressed to half its length, I could have tolerated it. Great ideas, terrible story.

The book is Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep": http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Upon-Deep-Zones-Thought/dp/0812515285/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248976673&sr=8-3

The topic of ocean mixing is a huge subject, and seems to implicate just about everything you can think of: the atmosphere, geologic activity, emergent effects from complex system dynamics, boundary layers, energy dissipation, fluid turbulence, climate change, dissolved minerals, the rotation of the earth, gravitational effects of the moon, etc., etc. It's not particularly surprising to me that the actions of marine life are a significant component as well, though it's interesting to see actual numbers claiming to demonstrate it.

He's obviously read "Psychology of Everyday Things" (later reprinted as "Design of ..."), where this door UI issue is discussed in several case studies. "POET" is a classic must-read for anyone that designs anything that anyone might be expected to use.

http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/dp/0465067107/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1248908564&sr=1-1

not to mention Simple Simon (which was turned into Mercury Rising.)

Although it's hard to find the right store to look in, independent Adventure Game makers are at a really good time right now. You just never know which one will be good or awful, because sometimes they're only on the game shelf to offer a cheap alternative to the mainstream games.

There have recently been an influx of games by Jonathan Boakes, who does some really good creepy work. Dark Fall and Lights Out are about a haunted hotel, and haunted lighthouse. They are just about good enough to leave you with nightmares. He also lended a hand with Scratches (another excellent game) and Barrow Hill.

If you like a more Myst-like game experience, Benoît Sokal's games Siberia and Siberia II have some amazing graphics.

For pure puzzle-solving goodness, Safecracker will drive you nuts with its ingenius puzzles. And well-thought out story, because the puzzles actually fit in with the plot.
 
Sorry, I know you were talking about 2D. And I got my love of Adventure games from Space Quest II first, and Myst second. But Myst stuck with me the longest. I would love to see Myst expanded. I'd love to see a theatrical film version of the story. There's so much backstory, 3 novels have been published to cover it all.

Although it's hard to find the right store to look in, independent Adventure Game makers are at a really good time right now. You just never know which one will be good or awful, because sometimes they're only on the game shelf to offer a cheap alternative to the mainstream games.

There have recently been an influx of games by Jonathan Boakes, who does some really good creepy work. Dark Fall and Lights Out are about a haunted hotel, and haunted lighthouse. They are just about good enough to leave you with nightmares. He also lended a hand with Scratches (another excellent game) and Barrow Hill.

If you like a more Myst-like game experience, Benoît Sokal's games Siberia and Siberia II have some amazing graphics.

For pure puzzle-solving goodness, Safecracker will drive you nuts with its ingenius puzzles. And well-thought out story, because the puzzles actually fit in with the plot.
 
Sorry, I know you were talking about 2D. And I got my love of Adventure games from Space Quest II first, and Myst second. But Myst stuck with me the longest. I would love to see Myst expanded. I'd love to see a theatrical film version of the story. There's so much backstory, 3 novels have been published to cover it all.

Although it's hard to find the right store to look in, independent Adventure Game makers are at a really good time right now. You just never know which one will be good or awful, because sometimes they're only on the game shelf to offer a cheap alternative to the mainstream games.

There have recently been an influx of games by Jonathan Boakes, who does some really good creepy work. Dark Fall and Lights Out are about a haunted hotel, and haunted lighthouse. They are just about good enough to leave you with nightmares. He also lended a hand with Scratches (another excellent game) and Barrow Hill.

If you like a more Myst-like game experience, Benoît Sokal's games Siberia and Siberia II have some amazing graphics.

For pure puzzle-solving goodness, Safecracker will drive you nuts with its ingenius puzzles. And well-thought out story, because the puzzles actually fit in with the plot.
 
Sorry, I know you were talking about 2D. And I got my love of Adventure games from Space Quest II first, and Myst second. But Myst stuck with me the longest. I would love to see Myst expanded. I'd love to see a theatrical film version of the story. There's so much backstory, 3 novels have been published to cover it all.

Although it's hard to find the right store to look in, independent Adventure Game makers are at a really good time right now. You just never know which one will be good or awful, because sometimes they're only on the game shelf to offer a cheap alternative to the mainstream games.

There have recently been an influx of games by Jonathan Boakes, who does some really good creepy work. Dark Fall and Lights Out are about a haunted hotel, and haunted lighthouse. They are just about good enough to leave you with nightmares. He also lended a hand with Scratches (another excellent game) and Barrow Hill.

If you like a more Myst-like game experience, Benoît Sokal's games Siberia and Siberia II have some amazing graphics.

For pure puzzle-solving goodness, Safecracker will drive you nuts with its ingenius puzzles. And well-thought out story, because the puzzles actually fit in with the plot.
 
Sorry, I know you were talking about 2D. And I got my love of Adventure games from Space Quest II first, and Myst second. But Myst stuck with me the longest. I would love to see Myst expanded. I'd love to see a theatrical film version of the story. There's so much backstory, 3 novels have been published to cover it all.

Although it's hard to find the right store to look in, independent Adventure Game makers are at a really good time right now. You just never know which one will be good or awful, because sometimes they're only on the game shelf to offer a cheap alternative to the mainstream games.

There have recently been an influx of games by Jonathan Boakes, who does some really good creepy work. Dark Fall and Lights Out are about a haunted hotel, and haunted lighthouse. They are just about good enough to leave you with nightmares. He also lended a hand with Scratches (another excellent game) and Barrow Hill.

If you like a more Myst-like game experience, Benoît Sokal's games Siberia and Siberia II have some amazing graphics.

For pure puzzle-solving goodness, Safecracker will drive you nuts with its ingenius puzzles. And well-thought out story, because the puzzles actually fit in with the plot.
 
Sorry, I know you were talking about 2D. And I got my love of Adventure games from Space Quest II first, and Myst second. But Myst stuck with me the longest. I would love to see Myst expanded. I'd love to see a theatrical film version of the story. There's so much backstory, 3 novels have been published to cover it all.

Judging by the fact that this comment has been modded up, I suspect the readers of /. must be more conservative than most. I have never even looked at Facebook or Myspace, and I'm not sure exactly what Twitter is, but the current crop of people under 40 seem to think that having an "online presence" is not only good, but downright required. I recently talked to a friend who is manager of a game software company, and he said he wouldn't even consider hiring anyone who doesn't have a Facebook page. "What's he got to hide?" was his comment about whether he would consider a hypothetical candidate who doesn't have an online presence. Other comments on this subject on /. have said pretty much the same thing.

There's much talk about privacy, but the collective actions of the people in our society says quite clearly that there is no real desire for privacy, and that this commodity is not appreciated. It's only occasionally when someone realizes that what he has written or imaged and posted on a web site was badly received by someone with the ability to hurt him that you hear someone regret flaunting his every trivial action and opinion in a way that is both public and enduring. By then it's too late, of course.

I often think of how badly the science fiction writer Vernor Vinge got it wrong in his novelette True Names . Vinge pictured a society of elite computer network users who considered one rule to be paramount: never, never give anyone your true name. Never let them find you; your cyber-persona is a mask that must not be penetrated, or you will suffer the consequences. Of course, the computer-users of today—the epigonoi of the Eternal September—are far from the elite who populated the USENET of old...they are the dumb masses. And they give everyone their true names. How sad.

This sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite place it; thanks to Google Books I'm remembering a pretty cool section in Robot Builder's Bonanza on DIY robot firefighters, building up simple circuits to ever more capable, fire-detection systems, control schemes, and automatically controlled extinguishing apparatus.

Obviously not quite the same thing, but it was pretty cool when I read it, and so I'm taking this opportunity to plug the awesomeness of building DIY firefighting robots. =]

in the book, AI evolves as competing programs in a computing environment through natural selection. it was a pretty good book published in the 80's. the robots wind up on the moon (i don't remember how they got there in the first place) and eventually overthrow the humans there. here's an Amazon link http://www.amazon.com/Software-Rudy-Rucker/dp/0380701774/

know it's not exactly a big seller anymore, so I suspect it quietly receives a new "version X" upgrade and only briefly hits store shelves before dying out.... but only 2-3 years ago, I'm pretty sure I saw a new version of it at the local Office Depot or OfficeMax?

Oregon Trail never "dies out."

Bestsellers in Games for Children

Well, if you mean in the psychological sense (as in not 'what' but 'how'), then there are many answers out there, most of which gravitates towards parental responsibility. Responsibility, that is, in upholding and executing the way of upbringing that ultimately leads to a mindset of a reactionary, fascistic individual, regardless of what it manifests itself as ('etnocentrism', nationalism, redneckism, and all other extreme isms).

You can read about it at least in this one place (I also recommend it). Also, refer to Alice Miller's work if you are interested.

"We are Team America..."

There is no "we". The violence of the U.S. government has not benefited U.S. citizens. If you got in the way of the controlling groups, they would kill you, delt0r, and your family.

"US anti-terror officials"

The "anti-terror" is only a smokescreen. The U.S. government spends more money on surveillance and war than any country in the history of the world. That taxpayer money partly helps some people profit, for example: House of Bush, House of Saud, and hurts U.S. taxpayers.

The U.S. government has invaded or bombed 25 countries since the 2nd world war. Most or all of the interference was for profit. Quote: '... although nearly all the post-World War II interventions were carried out in the name of "freedom" and "democracy," nearly all of them in fact defended dictatorships controlled by pro-U.S. elites' The dictators pay the corrupters, of course.

U.S. citizens don't want to believe that their government is as corrupt as it is, even though the recent financial corruption has made many of them poor.

Aftermath very well explained in RULES OF THE GAME (a quick read)
http://web.archive.org/web/20060221022525/http://www.liddyshow.us/mustread11.php
by G. Gordon Liddy, as well as in ONE SECOND AFTER by William Forstchen
http://www.amazon.com/One-Second-After-William-Forstchen/dp/0765317583/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1248755961&sr=8-1

And then he drops something the size of a cigarette pack into the drink or into the sand and it's all gone. They need to make sure they buy 2.

Not a problem.

This is a business where a Nikon lens can set you back $5-$10,000, easy - and the $30,000 lens isn't unknown. Sigma Ultra-Telephoto Lens

which is the impact of street protest/riot on the military and specially the grunts.

Ah but you missed where military personnel and dependents supported the Montgomery Bus Boycotts. And as I said before I was in the Army, I was one of those grunts. My MOS was 11B, Small Weapons Specialist, or infantry which is often called grunts. Actually my first unit was one of the oldest army units and had the song "The Battle of New Orleans" written about it, the 7th Infantry Regiment or Cotton Balers that was led by Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812. Stationed at Fort Benning, GA, my unit trained the Officer Cadet School cadets and the Rangers and we also trained with the Special Forces. Please don't think that I'm bragging or anything I just wanted to point out I was one of those grunts and have inside knowledge of how other grunts will act.

Grunts fragged their CO's not because they didnt want to kill the 'little people', but because they didnt want to be killed for a pointless cause.

Some but not all.

don't kid yourself that locking up 20-30K dissidents (the leadership) won't have a chilling effect on the masses.

It will chill some but outrage others. Some will clam up and others go underground. I knew some who would take it as the ride of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as in "Behold a Pale Horse". Others would see it as a sign of the New World Order. Yes, I knew some of each, both civilians and in the military.

Given sufficient stressors people will turn on, even torture and kill, their neighbors.

Oh I agree, I also agree it will be bloody and messy but some will rise up to oppose the government. Look even now there's conspiracy theories floating around 911. Look at all the militia groups in the US. Heck the government can't stop the drug trades.

Falcon

58. Putting film in your camera: 35mm may have some life still, but what about APS or disk?

If you think disc is obsolete, try telling that to the owner of a DVD-R camcorder.

60. Having physical prints of photographs come back to you.

Tell that to the users of the one-hour SD-card-to-prints stations in every Walmart and Walgreens store.

62. Getting lost. With GPS coming to more and more phones, your location is only a click away.

Until "more and more phones" include those sold by bargain-basement pay-as-you-go carriers like Virgin and TracFone, it's not a thing of the past just yet.

66. Pay phones.

Pay phones are still around; they're just portable and sold by Virgin and TracFone. They're useful for people like me who make most calls from land lines and use a cell phone mostly to arrange rides.

68. Fax machines.

That's an artifact of the law more than anything. Legal professionals depend on the fact that courts recognize signing a form and faxing it as a valid acceptance of a contract under the statute of frauds as amended. Internet mail is newer, and there isn't as much precedent in all the federal circuits about it. Besides, not everybody has a flatbed scanner to scan in a document's signature panel, and if you're thinking about replacing physical signatures with digital, few people know about key signing parties.

70. Taking turns picking a radio station, or selecting a tape, for everyone to listen to during a long drive.

It's still illegal for the driver to use headphones with an MP3 player.

71. Remembering someoneâ(TM)s phone number.

Until more cities adopt 10-digit dialing and more voice recognition processes come off patent, it'll usually be faster for me to key in the number than to scroll through the contact list.

74. Toys actually being suitable for the under-3s.

Since 1986, when Edward M. Swartz wrote Toys That Kill, makers of infant and toddler toys adhered to stricter toy safety standards. Ever noticed how Fisher-Price's nostalgic Little People are significantly bigger than the original toys?

78. Neat handwriting.

This is only obsolete in states that have moved to fully electronic prescriptions. Otherwise, you have to rely on the doctor's handwriting to save you from the wrong drug or the wrong dose.

84. Trig tables and log tables.

Handheld video gaming devices and other embedded systems often don't have a floating-point unit that can compute sine, cosine, and especially arctangent faster than a lookup table + linear interpolation.

90. A Marathon bar (what a Snickers used to be called in Britain).

Snickers has reintroduced the Marathon brand name for a high-protein "energy bar" variety.

91. Having to manually unlock a car door.

This might become obsolete faster in countries with cash-for-clunkers programs designed to get low-MPG cars off the streets.

92. Writing a check.

I write fewer than five checks a year. But there are still places that charge a convenience fee for use of a debit card, such as my dentist's office.

93. Spending your entire allowance at the arcade in the mall.

The DDR machine at the arcade has more responsive controllers than what one can buy in Best Buy. Not everyone knows about mail-order metal pads such as Afterburner and Cobalt Flux.

You are engaging in an ad hominem (personal) attack and creating strawmen arguments, and saying there is no point to dialog, which all suggests your points are weak.

The differing underlying premises we operate from, and how that will generally make us talk past each other, is detailed in part by Thomas Sowell in A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time or inclination to write a book, so I merely allude to the fact that the premises underlying our positions are drastically different and vitally important.

As for the rest of your post, you evidently place a great deal of confidence in specific articulated rationality. Unfortunately, much of what you rely on is unproven theory, or merely opinions, as it is not positited in any way that can be tested.

Tossing around rhetorical terms like 'ad hominen' imply a preference for a specifically rational methodology, but the way to verify the rationality in all those grand-sounding thoughts is sorely absent.

These opinions masquerade as social science, but the prerequites of science are lacking- making them again, no more than opinions.

Further, most of these opinions are not even based on experience in the market or effectively governing a country, but merely a twisted wreckage of baseless half-logic that sounds good on paper.

Actually they did. It's in their terms of service on their website. People at work were raving about the kindle and I pointed out the section where they could do this. I thank the slashdotter who posted the link I forwarded to my coworkers making me look like a genius. Section 5. sub section information received was a red flag for me and my coworkers. http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200144530

There are scientists who amongst other things make predictions of possible human extinction events. Yet I don't see the causes at the top of that list being talked about as much as global warming.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13613339/Global-Catastrophic-Risks-Nick-Bostrom-Milan-M-Cirkovic

Why not?

And I'd have to side with Bjorn Lomborg any way. Even assuming global warming is real - we basically can't do anything about CO2, not somethin that would have any effect anyway. We can however do lots, already today, about the things we think global warming might cause. For a fraction of the cost. I strongly recommend reading "Cool It":

http://www.amazon.com/Cool-Skeptical-Environmentalists-Global-Warming/dp/0307266923

(PS: The models you talk about, how well-studied they are, have so far not been able to predict anything at all. On the contrary, all of them have completely failed to predict the climate of the last decade)

You're right, the *copy* is owned. That was made clear when you bolded, "Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content." So yes, they stole your PS3 and left $400 behind.

So let's rewind and ask what they should have done. According to Amazon, the PS3 they sold you was bootleg and made in China. It's not a "real" PS3 and shouldn't exist. Like a twin from the future, Amazon believes that if your PS3 is allowed to exist, a rift could open and the fabric of spacetime could be destroyed.

But here's where it gets strange. Your bootleg PS3 works just fine. It's virtually identical to the real thing; in fact, neither you nor Amazon noticed the difference, which is how we got into this mess in the first place. And it's not like the PS3 is a dead product; from the way Amazon is behaving, you'd think the PS3 was an EV1 destined to be crushed into a cube.

Check Amazon, 1984 is available for download on Kindle. If that's the case, then why does it need to be deleted? Is there some bootleg Amazon store that I'm not seeing?

Use of Digital Content. Upon your payment of the applicable fees set by Amazon, Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service and solely for your personal, non-commercial use. Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon under this Agreement unless otherwise expressly provided by Amazon.

I guess that since they returned the money, the assumed a defacto reverse logic to the terms of their agreement. How many times in logic courses was it emphasized that:
if a then b
does not necessarily mean
if b then a
I guess they missed that lesson

However... further down in the TOS they state (as will be an argument for their defense):

No Illegal Use and Reservation of Rights. You may not use the Device, the Service or the Digital Content for any illegal purpose. You acknowledge that the sale of the Device to you does not transfer to you title to or ownership of any intellectual property rights of Amazon or its suppliers. All of the Software is licensed, not sold, and such license is non-exclusive.

and to be clear, they define software as

4. Software: Definitions. The following terms apply to the Device and to (a) all software (and the media on which such software is distributed) of Amazon or third parties that is pre-installed on the Device at time of purchase or that Amazon provides as updates/upgrades to the pre-installed software (collectively, the "Device Software"), unless you agree to other terms as part of an update/upgrade process; and (b) any printed, on-line or other electronic documentation for such software (the "Documentation"). As used in this Agreement, "Software" means, collectively, the Device Software and Documentation.

Therefore the content (the book) is not defined as software, and therefore the content, in their own words, is OWNED not licensed.

For those who had this book removed, you have been stolen from and should press charges. If someone breaks into your house, takes your PS3, and leaves $400 cash where it was, does that mean they are not stealing?

Use of Digital Content. Upon your payment of the applicable fees set by Amazon, Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service and solely for your personal, non-commercial use. Digital Content will be deemed licensed to you by Amazon under this Agreement unless otherwise expressly provided by Amazon.

I guess that since they returned the money, the assumed a defacto reverse logic to the terms of their agreement. How many times in logic courses was it emphasized that:
if a then b
does not necessarily mean
if b then a
I guess they missed that lesson

However... further down in the TOS they state (as will be an argument for their defense):

No Illegal Use and Reservation of Rights. You may not use the Device, the Service or the Digital Content for any illegal purpose. You acknowledge that the sale of the Device to you does not transfer to you title to or ownership of any intellectual property rights of Amazon or its suppliers. All of the Software is licensed, not sold, and such license is non-exclusive.

and to be clear, they define software as

4. Software: Definitions. The following terms apply to the Device and to (a) all software (and the media on which such software is distributed) of Amazon or third parties that is pre-installed on the Device at time of purchase or that Amazon provides as updates/upgrades to the pre-installed software (collectively, the "Device Software"), unless you agree to other terms as part of an update/upgrade process; and (b) any printed, on-line or other electronic documentation for such software (the "Documentation"). As used in this Agreement, "Software" means, collectively, the Device Software and Documentation.

Therefore the content (the book) is not defined as software, and therefore the content, in their own words, is OWNED not licensed.

For those who had this book removed, you have been stolen from and should press charges. If someone breaks into your house, takes your PS3, and leaves $400 cash where it was, does that mean they are not stealing?

Since I like history and dead-tree, anyone have a suggestion for a good book covering the history of these 1990s hacking/security/blackhat/whitehat/grayhat groups, and what you might call the fragmentation/dissolution of the underground? There's good material on the 80s, but much less on the 90s, it seems, despite a decade having passed.

The only one I know of with more than a passing mention is a 20-page overview in Ch. 3 ("Hacking in the 1990s") of the book Hacker Culture (2003). Others?

Masters of Deception: The Gang that Rules Cyberspace comes to mind.

Since I like history and dead-tree, anyone have a suggestion for a good book covering the history of these 1990s hacking/security/blackhat/whitehat/grayhat groups, and what you might call the fragmentation/dissolution of the underground? There's good material on the 80s, but much less on the 90s, it seems, despite a decade having passed.

The only one I know of with more than a passing mention is a 20-page overview in Ch. 3 ("Hacking in the 1990s") of the book Hacker Culture (2003). Others?

Masters of Deception: The Gang that Rules Cyberspace comes to mind.

It was the future in 2001; inspired the masses with its vision of the glorious future in 2003; and of course we are presumably right on the cusp of this golden future today.

It was the future in 2001; inspired the masses with its vision of the glorious future in 2003; and of course we are presumably right on the cusp of this golden future today.

If your teacher is fine with it, voice recorders work quite well. That's why I did in college. It's much easier to listen to the lecture later on than struggle to read what I wrote.

There are battery extenders that double the battery life and size of the iphone for $100.
http://www.amazon.com/Mophie-Juice-Rechargeable-Battery-iPhone/dp/B001E42QBW

The book The Best of 2600, a Hacker Odyssey is pretty good. http://www.amazon.com/Best-2600-Hacker-Odyssey/dp/0470294191 . And while it might not have the scope you are looking for on the groups themselves, it does seem to give mention to every major event in hacker history since 1984 when the magazine was published. Plus its pretty recent being published just in July of 08.

Since I like history and dead-tree, anyone have a suggestion for a good book covering the history of these 1990s hacking/security/blackhat/whitehat/grayhat groups, and what you might call the fragmentation/dissolution of the underground? There's good material on the 80s, but much less on the 90s, it seems, despite a decade having passed.

The only one I know of with more than a passing mention is a 20-page overview in Ch. 3 ("Hacking in the 1990s") of the book Hacker Culture (2003). Others?

To me, Linus' statement does not seem to be about free software. It seems to be about social consciousness.

I admire Mr. Torvald's leadership of the Linux kernel, but he is not someone I would go to for social wisdom. I'm not sure what his intention was in saying that Microsoft hatred is a disease. It's not really hatred, it is dislike, and dislike of Microsoft is becoming widespread. Even the New York Times expresses dislike for Microsoft in the title of this February 13, 2009 article: Will Clippy Be a Greeter at Microsoft's New Stores?

The actual effect is the opposite of what Mr. Torvalds is overtly saying. The actual social effect is something like, "The dislike of Microsoft is becoming so widespread and intense that it is like an epidemic." Mr. Torvalds is publicizing Microsoft "hatred", not stopping it.

Dislike of Microsoft is not new. Pam Edstrom's daughter, Jennifer Edstrom, wrote the 1998 book, Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, with a former Microsoft manager. Quote from the first Amazon review in the list of reviews: "The authors are evidently very anti-Microsoft, yet at the same time their stories come across not so much as how stupid Microsoft is, but how mismanaged and lucky Gates & Company have been, which is closer to the truth than many people think." Pam Edstrom is a former Microsoft employee, and one of the founders of Waggener Edstrom, Microsoft's public relations agency.

Who would you believe about the subject of dislike of Microsoft, a former Microsoft manager who wrote a book about the subject, or Linus Torvalds? Perhaps Mr. Torvalds just doesn't have sufficient experience, or sufficient awareness of the experience of other people. There is a cure for that. He could install a few Microsoft Windows computers and maintain them.

The New York Times covered this story on February 13, 2009: Will Clippy Be a Greeter at Microsoft's New Stores?. One way to know that Microsoft is not doing well is to realize that the New York Times has joined the Microsoft bashers. Perhaps the amateur bashers will upgrade their skills now that the professionals have moved in.

I admire Linus Torvald's leadership, but in saying Microsoft hatred is a Disease, he seems to be more and more alone. It's not really hatred, it is dislike, and dislike of Microsoft is becoming widespread. I'm not sure what Torvald's intention was in saying that, but of course the actual social effect is the opposite of what he is overtly saying. The actual effect is something like, "The dislike of Microsoft is becoming so widespread and intense that it is like an epidemic."

Microsoft hired this man to be the head of retail sales: Microsoft Appoints David Porter as Corporate Vice President of Retail Stores. Note in the upper right hand corner of that article, under "Press Resources", that Waggener Edstrom is still Microsoft's public relations agency. That's interesting, since Pam Edstrom's daughter, Jennifer Edstrom, wrote Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, published in 1998, with a former Microsoft manager. Quote from the first Amazon review in the list of reviews: "The authors are evidently very anti-Microsoft, yet at the same time their stories come across not so much as how stupid Microsoft is, but how mismanaged and lucky Gates & Company have been, which is closer to the truth than many people think."

What do you think of Microsoft's new vice-president? Looking at his photo, is he the kind of person who can make retail stores that people admire? He doesn't know how to tie his tie. Can he make stores look good?