Slashdot Mirror

sci*ntology is a cult led by john travolta.
slashdot is deeply involved with Sci*ntology.
you should leave slashdot now or they may brainwash you.
check out anti sci*ntology sites
Fight this cult now!

Make that really huge American companies.
Anyone who messes with them is obviously some sort of evil, communist, hippie anarchist hacker bent on economic terrorism! And I bet they drown puppies and stomp on flowers, too! But don't worry, your friends at AOL/Time Warner/Microsoft/AT&T/Sprint/Verizon/Hewlett Packard Bell will save you!

Im really just trying to find a replacement for the Toshiba Libretto. After Toshiba stopped making the palm top, the only real choice people had was PDAs. I really need a wireless device, If I only wanted a calendar or contact list, I have PocketNet phone with Fonesync software. But I needed a true wireless connection with a tcp/ip stack(for SSH) so I picked up a CDPD modem. But carrying around a full size laptop sucks, so I migrated to a PDA. I first started off with an wireless Palm Omnisky. Battery life was nice, upto 1 week light use, and 2 weeks if it sat im my pocket. But I wanted color and sound, I migrated to the PocketPC (Ipaq) and CDPD modem. Not bad, I can surf websites in html not wap, and even listen to mp3s. (Very important for work ya know!) Battery life is weak, and I find myself letting the battery die right when I need. Picked up a IBM Microdrive. Fast, was able to move documents from my laptop and back, neat idea, but didnt use it as much I wanted. I gotta get around to trying out the Pocket Divx Player and put a divx movie on the microdrive. (Gotta watch Red Dwarf ep with the Sock Puppet.)

Heck, They even have PDA pr0n for those long boring conference calls. :)

The point is not that Bush is letting Microsoft off the hook

I figured this would happen; called it several months ago. But just like in the case of a certain football player some time ago, the damage has been done, and despite the lack of a serious criminal punishment, in both cases everybody knows what happened. In the one case, a certain induhvidual will never have a girlfriend with brains again, and in the other... well, we'll have to wait and see, but it should be an interesting ride.

--
Sooner or later, in light of all this, you're going to need a Linux guru

Oh, wow, I knew it was only a matter of time before Menudo got their own OS!

Have you seen a photograph of a Concorde cockpit? It looks like something straight out of a 707, it's ancient. There's not an LCD, CRT, or even an LED to be seen. The typical "flight computer" is usually the pilot's own handheld PDA, ditto for GPS. If I were going to pay $big for private use of a Concorde, it by gosh better have some real avionics.

Even the B-52H has a nice modernized cockpit with screens galore. If that old clunker can be up to date, there's no reason why a Concorde can't.

The White House went in the other direction. Around 1995, the White House phone switch was modified so that long distance billing information wasn't trackable back to the original phone. Custom software mods were made (expensively) so that the info wasn't logged.

foma - harmless untruths; useful and harmless b.s. -- coined by Kurt Vonnegut (This definition found here. I'm sure there are prettier ones)

Check all the spam he's done

Blocked from mailing by anti-spam lists

Someone adopted the spammer as a "personal pet"

Now what'cha going to do!? I have ideas, but they all may be illegal. ;-)

but the way events unfolded in this event i'm not surprised there were a lot of kneejerk reactions. On the aol message board there was a message from one of the trident developers and research people.. I'm surprised it didn't make news here, considering it happened like 2 months ago.

Steve Arlit, DK.

check out this site for some pictures. just try and slashdot it.

had a great time there, fucken drunk out of my mind.

a little essay I wrote on the whole subject concerning the politics surrounding this whole event, click on this .. should shed a little bit light into what happened and why.

IMO the whole project should have been scrapped but who the fuck am I to talk about this.. Life is such.

owell

Daniel J.

AOL/Gateway/Transmeta have already built such a device:

See links:

AOL's page

CNet Article.

In all the pictures they show it as a countertop item, but in the original press-release video they showed it wall-mounted.

Again, the pricing (at $599) and the ISP restrictions (AOL only) kill any chance of success for this device...

The slogan "imminent death of the net predicted" is one I know from usenet, but it applies here. Instead of asking whether non-commercial sites are the majority, ask whether they are growing. And whether they are cool, informative, etc. I mean, I doubt we need a zillion different people all providing stock quotes and weather - I don't see a problem if that kind of thing is owned by a few big companies. But are the small sites finding it harder to make it than in 1995? I'm guessing not - the small and cheap to run hobbyist site isn't affected by what is happening to banner ad prices. Just to pick a random example I ran across recently, Hippo World has everything you ever wanted to know about the hippopotamus.

Hick town eh?

Oh yeah, way out there in Fairfax County.

Funny, we have the NRO, one of the largest airports in the US, an 802.11b wireless network, SGI, a linux users group, and an Intel datacenter, not to mention also having a boatload of linux careers. Oh yeah, and don't forget that MAE-East often gets cut by cows chewing on the fiber out here in hickville. Oh, I forgot some little things like ThinkGeek, NSI, and ARIN.
Oh yeah, and that hick high school is getting me my CCNA.

I'm not even going to mention AOL, Erols, or the CIA.

But you get the picture.

- Cary

Here's some Zelda links: review, and Watch all the episodes here!

Now, about the Mario show as a whole:
Personally, want I remember about the show was Magic Johnson appearing, and the strange fact that since the series was released after Mario 2 (e.g. Mario Advance), they had all the critters and features from that game only (like Shy guys and vegetables, but rarely goombas and koopa-troppas), but yet Bowser seemed to be in charge. Where was Toad (not the mushroom retainer guy, the big frog)? Do the Mario! Swing your hips, From side to side. C'mon it's time to go, Do the Matio!
Pretty much all the info you need. Main page including all the Mario shows.
Another (less flattering) summary, including one of the episodes, and the original theme!

sci*ntology is a cult led by john travolta.
slashdot is deeply involved with Sci*ntology.
you should leave slashdot now or they may brainwash you.
check out anti sci*ntology sites
Fight this cult now!

fossil record? do you think a God that could create human beings would have trouble creating a fake fossil record? yikes.

El Edwards has a website with more of his voice work. Not surprisingly, it's an AOL member page. I listened to his demo briefly and I could swear I heard a faint tinge of desparation in his voice.

Full Throttle. Yep. Full Throttle. It was yet another story board adventure game from Lucasarts. The art and the music gave it a distinctive style that I wish they'd developed further. Here's webpage about it.

I got it up and running a while back because I remembered it so fondly, only to realize how amazingly short the game was. It was pretty easy, because even after a few years, I could still remember how to solve the puzzles. There's almost no replay value, which I guess fits its lack of popularity. It's really just like watching a really cool cartoon. You can watch it once but after that it's tedious. For that matter, I wish they had made it into a cartoon. It'd be one kick ass cartoon.

Huh? NCI as you describe it has existed for years. It's called AOL

heck, this was possible even under windows 95. there is a hack setting in the system ini someplace that you can edit for this.

Personally. I like Black Letters on a deep Satanic Red background. Seems apporpriate.

You can see how to do it here. If you know how, it will take you 15 seconds to set up.

Microsoft just gave you a gui interface to make it easy.

All I want in a PDA is "Box"!

Star Cops info and here too


CSG_Surferdude

The LA Times reports that the Pentagon is interested in developing a "space bomber" that could be used to drop bombs on any Earthly target within 90 minutes of takeoff --

So long Mommy!
I'm off to get a Commie!
So send me a salami,
And try to smile somehow!
I'll look for you when the war is over...
An hour and a half from now!
--Tom Lehrer, So Long Mom: A Song for World War III (1965)

__

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution - (grade: C+) "Maybe Darwin was wrong: this remake shows no sign of evolution."

• Chicago Tribune - "...a rouser, a screaming-banshee fun house."

• CNN.com - "...this is one really bad script."

• Deseret News (Salt Lake City) - (3 stars) "...when it's good, it comes close to being great."

• E! Online - (grade: C+) "...offers an eye-appealing world but a truly disappointing story."

• Entertainment Weekly - (grade: C+) "...[features] everything...but imagination."

• L.A. Weekly - "...underwritten..."

• Los Angeles Times - "...over-plotted and under-dramatized..."

• Mr. Showbiz - (rating: 2/5) "...despite its presentation, the film is so very ordinary, without urgency or revelation."

• New York Times - "...both a gas and distant, a toy sealed in its unbreakable box."

• People - "The fault lies not in the stars here but in the script."

• Roger Ebert - (2.5 stars) "I expected more."

• Salon - "...stops far too short of being completely seductive."

• San Francisco Chronicle - "...an amazing display of imagination."

• TV Guide - (2.5 out of 5 stars) "...sorely deficient on the story front."

• USA Today - (3 out of 4 stars) "...[the costumes] allow the power of the performer inside the ape gear to break on through."

• Search the Movie Review Query Engine

Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes" wants to be all things to all men, and all apes. It's an action picture and a satire of an action picture. It's a comedy and then it gets serious. It's a social satire and then backs away from pushing that angle too far. It even has a weird intra-species romantic triangle in it. And it has a surprise ending that I loved, even though Matt Drudge spoiled it last weekend with a breathless "scoop."

The movie could have been more. It could have been a parable of men and animals, as daring as "Animal Farm." It could have dealt in social commentary with a sting, and satire that hurt. It could have supported, or attacked, the animal rights movement. It could have dealt with the intriguing question of whether a man and a gorilla having sex is open-mindedness, or bestiality (and, if bestiality, in both directions?).

It could have, but it doesn't. It's a cautious movie, earning every letter and numeral of its PG-13 rating. Intellectually, it's science fiction for junior high school boys.

I expected more. I thought Burton would swing for the fence. He plays it too safe, defusing his momentum with little nudges to tell you he knows it's only a movie. The 1968 "Planet of the Apes" was made before irony became an insurance policy. It made jokes, but it took itself seriously. Burton's "Planet" has scenes that defy us to believe them (his hero survives two bumpy crash-landings that look about as realistic as the effects in his "Mars Attacks!"). And it backs away from any kind of risky complexity in its relationships.

The key couple consists of Leo (Mark Wahlberg), who is the human hero, and Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), who is the Eleanor Roosevelt of the apes. They're attracted to each other but don't know what to do about it, and the screenplay gives them little help. Leo is also supposed to be linked romantically, I guess, with a curvy blond human named Daena (Estella Warren), but her role has been so abbreviated that basically all she does is follow along looking at Leo either significantly or winsomely, as circumstances warrant. At the end, he doesn't even bid her a proper farewell.

Leo, to be sure, is not one for effusive emotional outbursts. He's played by Wahlberg as a limited and narrow person with little imagination, who never seems very surprised by anything that happens to him--like, oh, to take a random example, crash-landing on a planet where the apes rule the humans. He's a space jockey type, trained in macho self-abnegation, who is great in a crisis but doesn't offer much in the way of conversation. His basic motivation seems to be to get himself off the planet, and to hell with the friends he leaves behind; he's almost surly sometimes as he leads his little band through the wilderness.

The most "human" character in the movie is, in fact, the chimpanzee Ari, who believes all species were created equal, casts her lot with the outcast humans, and tells Leo, "you're sensitive--a welcome quality in a man." Helena Bonham Carter invests this character with warmth, personality and distinctive body language; she has a way of moving that kids itself.

There's also juice in a character named Limbo (Paul Giamatti), a scam artist who has a deal for everyone, and a lot of funny one-liners. That he sounds like a carnival pitch-man should not be held against him.

The major ape characters include the fearsome Gen. Thade (Tim Roth), his strong but occasionally thoughtful gorilla lieutenant Attar (Michael Clarke Duncan), and Sen. Sandar (David Warner), who is a parliamentary leader and Ari's father. There's also a cameo for Charlton Heston, as a wise old ape who inevitably introduces a gun into the plot and has a curmudgeonly exit line. Watching the apes is fun all during the movie, while watching the humans usually isn't; the movie works hard to bring the apes to life, but unwisely thinks the humans can take care of themselves.

It's interesting that several different simian species co-exist in the planet's ape society. It may be a little hard to account for that, given the logic of the movie, although I will say no more. One major change between this film and the earlier one is that everyone--apes and humans--speak English. The movie explains why the apes speak English, but fudges on how they learned to speak at all.

The movie is great-looking. Rick Baker's makeup is convincing even in the extreme closeups, and his apes sparkle with personality and presence. The sets and locations give us a proper sense of alien awe, and there's one neat long shot of the ape city-mountain that looks, when you squint a little, like Xanadu from "Citizen Kane." There are lines inviting laughs ("Extremism in the defense of apes is no vice") and others unwisely inviting groans ("If you show me the way out of here--I promise I'll show you something that will change your life forever"). And a priceless moment when Leo wants to stop the squabbling among his fugitive group of men and apes and barks: "Shut up! That goes for all species!"

"Planet of the Apes" is the kind of movie that you enjoy at times, admire at times, even really like at times, but is it necessary? Given how famous and familiar Franklin J. Schaffner's 1968 film is, Tim Burton had some kind of an obligation to either top it, or sidestep it. Instead, he pays homage. He calls this version a "reimaging," and so it is, but a reinvention might have been better. Burton's work can show a wild and crazed imagination, but here he seems reined in. He's made a film that's respectful to the original, and respectable in itself, but that's not enough. Ten years from now, it will be the 1968 version that people are still renting.

Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

Let's make a tradition of this!

If you want to spam proof your email addy with JavaScript for on your site, I have a bit of JS on my site that will split your addy up into several document.write() statements so that the harvester bots can't see it.

Email address hider

If you want to see a guy who spends way too much time with PI, check out Mike Keith. There is some other, truly amazing stuff on his home page as well.

> This is probably exactly what the guy's entire problem was. He was standing there, under attack, and thinking "Gee, I wish I had something that was suitable for use as a weapon, but all I have is this copper axe."

IIRC, he was found with partially finished bow and arrows. Looks like "they" found him before he was ready for them.

Ah! Check this out.

Other pages disagree on whether or not he was a meat eater; some say that the (purported) fact that he wasn't a meat eater means that his bow and arrows were for fighting rather than for hunting.

Also of interest, his bow apparently qualifies as a "longbow". See the entries for "iceman bow" and "longbo" at this site.

--

See this billboard spotted along the 710 freeway in Los Angeles. Yep. That's Rio from Burn Up W.

Wow, indeed! Although I think it's supposed to be Sardiny rather than Corsique (Corsique belongs to France, not Italy).

Now, check this against Mapquest, and be amazed at the level of details of the forgery! If you rotate the picture of the bloodstain by 90 degrees to the left, and scale it up by 13.7%, it almost exactly matches the map!

Got Chessie?

Yeah, but you're not thinking what I'm thinking...

by Judith Sears
issue:
Jul - Aug 2001

Lets stipulate from the outset that programmers are allowed to be quirky. Expected to be eccentric. But were not talking about the idiosyncratically intelligent or the interestingly offbeat. Were talking about the insufferable egotist who cant or wont Play Nice.

The syndrome often is found in someone like this: a young and brilliant software developer who lives and breathes IT. A true geek, Hal spends a lot of work time in techie chat rooms engaged in in-depth UNIX conversations, sharing code and discussing programming challenges. Despite his inclination to partake in on-the-job recreation, Hal is a prolific and productive programmer.
So far, so good. Just another proud member of the hacker tribe, right? But unfortunately, Hal has another side. He makes rude and disparaging comments about his coworkers. If he doesnt like a project, hell let it slide. In particular, he resists the drudgery of correcting or upgrading someone elses ugly program.

Hal also challenges managerial authority and expresses his contempt for his position. He tosses out statements like, I could be making $200 an hour doing security work, and makes other muscle-flexing gestures to show that he can do what he wants, when he wants.

Liz Rosenberg, IT director for Driehaus Capital Management [driehaus.com], an investment management firm in Chicago, recalls the Hal-type she managed a few years ago. He seemed to feel that he was this all-knowing programming god, she says. Brilliant but bratty, though, because for every technical problem he solved, he created a personnel problem for the team.

Like Hal and like most wizards, prima donnas really do have talent and a true love of IT. But, the prima donna combines this passion and expertise with arrogance or lack of concern for others. With Hal, it was constant complaining and carping. Other symptoms of prima donna syndrome include an obsessive desire for control, the attitude that the world revolves around them, and the conviction that the regular rules dont apply to them.

Control freaks
Ed Wojchiehowski, CIO of Menasha Corporation [menasha.com], a conglomerate of manufacturing and services companies headquartered in Neenah, Wisc., recalls an individual who created a very innovative logistics software package. Impressed, Wojchiehowski asked the programmer to work with others on the team to expand and modify the package to make it, oh, actually useable to the corporation.

But the programmer, call him Spock, refused to share information with other programmers. Spock claimed his innovation was too complicated to explain and that by the time he was done explaining, he could have changed the program.

Wojchiehowski concluded Spocks real agenda was control. Prima donnas hold back information or work 80 hours a week so they dont have to share information with anybody, the CIO says. Ive discovered in many cases, its almost physically painful for them to give it up.

All about me
At other times, prima donnas give the impression that they believe the world and the project revolves around them. Early in the beginnings of Perseus Development Corp., [perseusdevelopment.com], a provider of Web-based survey software and services in Braintree, Mass., Jeffrey Henning, president of the software division, was managing a developer who took the attitude of, Im the most important person in the company, and without me, you couldnt exist. Angela refused to help other programmers with their work, yet expected them to drop their work to help her.

This developer was very valuable: Shed written most of the early versions of the companys products. Nevertheless, she was close to being more trouble than she was worth, Henning says. Her exclusive focus on her own needs was a constant obstacle for the department.

The term prima donna comes from a difficult leading woman soloist in an opera, Henning reflects. I think soloist is a key word. A lot of prima donnas act like soloists they dont work well with the team, and they think their voice is the most important.

Beyond the rules
Some prima donnas behave as though ordinary rules, such as work schedules, dont apply to them. Andy Andretta, a senior partner with Daprex [daprex.com], a software evaluation firm in Stamford, Conn., recalls a prima donna who found just showing up to work regularly a problem. The employee, who held a second-level support position for a software product, often worked magic fixing bugs when he was there. But, as Andretta points out, hes not too valuable if hes not there, which was quite a lot.

The situation only deteriorated as the manager continued to accommodate the delinquent, Andretta says. To complicate matters, the prima donna had a shrewd sense of timing and organizational politics. Like the Lone Ranger, hed ride in just in time to play the hero in emergencies and take the credit. Hed put the bow on the package, Andretta says.

When the manager finally decided hed tolerated enough shenanigans, he confronted a loss of face and credibility with his superiors. Why? Because he had to tell upper management: I want to get rid of the most talented person Ive got. And his bosses thought hed lost his mind.

Theyre very smart, Andretta says of prima donnas. And they know who their audience is upper management and they play to them very well.

Seeing it from the prima donnas perspective
The trick for the IT manager is that some of these charges could also be made, to a lesser extent, against positive, contributing employees. For example, playing games or spending time in techie chatrooms is common and can help many programmers to be more productive. As Peter Seebach, a member of the technical staff of BSDI.com, a firm providing Internet infrastructure-grade systems, software and solutions in Berkeley, Calif., writes at his Web site The Care and Feeding of Your Hacker [http://web.demigod.org/~zak/geek/hack.shtml], Hackers, writers and painters all need some amount of time to spend percolating, that is, doing something else to let their subconscious work on a problem.

Menashas Wojchiehowski agrees that this kind of putzing around while searching for an idea is perfectly acceptable. I dont worry if theyre playing a game, he says. And, I dont have any problem with walking into somebodys office and finding them with their feet on their desk staring at the ceiling. They may be thinking about the problem.

Its also true that the best programmers drive for excellence can leave them understandably curt when others seem less committed. Eric Haddan, a self-described recovering prima donna, has been frustrated when working with team members who seem more motivated by opportunism than a true love of programming. The market is flooded with a bunch of people who just took some classes, but theyre not really into it, says Haddan, a software development manager for eSynch Corp. [esynch.com], a Tustin, Calif., firm which provides video delivery tools, streaming media services, and software utilities. They have a degree and theyve heard the moneys good.

As for the charge of arrogance or rudeness, some hackers argue that its just as big a failing for others to be too tender or defensive. I used to be a lot meaner to co-workers than I am now, Seebach, the hacker translator, reveals. People say, They worked hard on it, so dont trash it, but on the other hand, would you like to drive over a bridge with the assurance that people worked hard on it? Or do you want to know they got it right? A complete refusal to acknowledge either side of that constitutes failing to play well with others.

Signs that theyre going prima
So how do you tell the difference between someone whos just creative and frustrated and someone whos suffering from a bad case of prima donna syndrome? The true prima donna, according to managers, wont work with you or for you. Andretta believes that prima donna syndrome is marked by denial. They do not accept the fact that they are wrong, he says. Its not them, its everyone else.

As a result, a prima donna often leaves havoc in his wake. Not least is the damage to morale. Seeing someone else, no matter how talented, disregard the rules that others must follow can be dismaying to employees who are working hard and playing by the book. Once you start with favoritism you turn good people sour, Daprexs Andretta contends. Its never worth it.

Besides seeing someone get away with murder, colleagues may wind up doing the prima donnas work, which really causes resentment. In Andrettas situation, other employees often had to pick up the work of the AWOL programmer, delaying the completion of their own assignments. It affected our work load and morale, Andretta recalls.

CIO Wojchiehowski points out other hazards. The controlling prima donna who holds onto information will eventually move on leaving others to figure out what the blazes they were doing. Not surprisingly, such an event can delay or even doom projects completely. In either case, the company loses face with its clients. Its just negative in all aspects, he says.

Homing in on that giant ego
If youve determined that youve got a true prima donna on your staff, the next step is figuring out what to do. Sometimes you can make some management moves that rein in the runaway ego. But you must move quickly. I can assure you, prima donnas only get worse with time, warns Wojchiehowski.

If the individual is productive, but lacks elementary social skills, telecommuting may be an option. In other cases, selective delegation and assignments may give the individual enough challenge to keep them out of too much trouble. The best programmers, prima donnas or not, dislike repetitive tasks. Designing prototypes, for example, can be a good assignment for many of these very bright individuals. But Henning stresses that they are best assigned to prototypes, not actual products. Products, he points out, require team input.

Former prima donna Haddan suggests keeping a regular flow of applicants coming in for interviews. In other words, keep the feet of difficult techies to the fire. If you do find someone good, move her in and start weeding out the bad ones. I am willing to bet you would have to do this only one time, he says. If the attitude persists, repeat the process.

Straight talk express, tech-style
But, sooner rather than later, the employee will have to be confronted directly. Perseus Henning had been on the verge of firing Angela, but gave the situation one last try with a blunt performance review. He catalogued and congratulated her strengths and also described explicitly where her performance was failing. The review seemed to help Angela settle down. I think part of her behavior was insecurity, Henning says. She was afraid that she wasnt really valued.

Angelas successful turnaround appears to be rare, however. In the end, most managers arent optimistic about salvaging prima donnas. Instead, they aggressively rid their staffs of them as quickly as possible. Im a strong believer in people and am willing to invest in their development, Wojchiehowski explains. But, frankly, as soon as I understand that its a prima donna situation, I work to eliminate it. You work with those who are team players. And those who arent, well, in the most loving manner, you help them exit.

Daprexs Andretta dismisses the idea that a prima donnas talent makes the extra grief worthwhile. It doesnt matter how smart they are, they will hurt you, he warns. And, the smarter they are, the more they can hurt you.
He believes that its better to invest in bright but not brilliant people and train them to be more productive. You can buy talent, he says. Personality, by which I mean a good attitude, really cant be bought. Ill take a team player any day.

Sears (searscomm@aol.com) is a contributing writer in Washington, D.C. Know a prima donna? Tell us your most unbelievable anecdotes at editor@itrecruitermag.com.

While Los Alamos is, indeed, in New Mexico, the vast majority of US above- and underground nuclear testing took place in Nevada, at the aptly-named Nevada Test Site. I think (but I'm not certain) that only one test took place in New Mexico, at the Trinity Site.

My father, who is a nuclear physicist, participated in over two dozen of those tests, and had to fly to Nevada from New Mexico (where we lived) for every one.

By the way, there are also no deserts in New Mexico.

While it's true that Gaim does not run on Windows. AIM does run on Linux, Official AIM client for Linux. Also, the gateway device runs AOL on linux, which includes AIM.

So, in that sense, there is a possibility of confusion - because they both run on the same OS.

Even if not being able to run on the same OS mattered... I couldn't just call my Playstation 2 game Tetris, just because there's no tetris on the game system yet.

Joseph Elwell.

Visit this url .... Bu$h's House of Horrors

just saw A.I. Call me insensitive, but it took all my willpower to not shout "Use the Force!" during that one scene. You'll know the one. It's really quiet, too. I probably would have, if it weren't for the higher-than-usual odds that, if I were thrown out, I'd be recognized and denied admittance to that theater in the future. And while there are probably ample opportunities to yell "I see dead people", wait until the very end. Also, the theatrical trailer is right about the initial premise of an artificial child. He doesn't age. He is an artificial son. Now, call me insensitive a second time, but that sounds like the worst idea ever. Every parent would tell you that the best thing about having a child is that you're raising him, watching him grow, and building a future for him. Take all that away, and all you have left four-foot-fall Tamagotchi. Instead of growing old and dying after six weeks with careful attention, he lives forever and apparently runs on a perpetual motion device. Imagine a future where there are 80-year-old couples who have had an 8-year-old son for fifty years. There is only one reason a corporation would spend millions of dollars to develop such a contraption: to lure millions of moviegoers. The child has still more examples of bad design. The imprinting being irreversible, for one thing. Suppose after 20 years, having a child running around the house with its emotional neediness begins to wear on you. There is no painless way to end the relationship. Even a pet dies on its own, but this child must be driven to the nearest Robot Shack to be destroyed. I'll bet they even have a little observation window where you can watch them put him in the guillotine. Were this robot released to consumers, this is probably the first question people would raise. The question of love was raised at the beginning of the movie, but the Tamagotchi already answered those questions. The board member that would serve as the conscience of the meeting asked that if the robot could love, what responsibilities would the parent have to love a robot? At least some Tamagotchi owners loved their pets, and many of them mourn their death. But won't there also be people who bring the robot home, imprint him, and then abuse him? The Sims and Black and White allow you to abuse the residents of their particular dollhouses, and many people do. And when Monica imprinted David, he started calling her "Mommy". Did he start calling his father "Daddy" and start asking to play catch with him? How long was it before anyone in the household referred to Martin as his brother? Did anyone raise the question of whether our robo-child would go to school, or whether it would make any of its own friends independently? I suppose it works as a metaphor for how people bring children into the world without any consideration for the consequences.

While I'm waiting for the right email address, I thought I'd let the /. community tear apppart/improve my draft email to AOL-Time-Warner. I think it's important to come across as a reasonable person who (READER ALERT!: put down the hot coffee/soda now) generally likes AOL-Time-Warner, but is concerned about recent actions.

----
Draft of message to be subitted via AOL feedback and later sent to AOL-Time-Warner's public relations department:
----
While I generally have a good opinion of America Online, I would like to express some concerns regarding AOL's instant messaging system.

Market pressures appear to have created a need for an alternative to the current AIM interface to the AIM service. To many people, the AOL AIM client leaves much to be desired. The Linux AOL AIM client, in particular, is widely regarded as innadequate when compared to the alternatives (most noably the GAIM client).

To many people, myself included, it appears that AOL has not attepted to repond to the market demands represented by independent instant messanging clients. It appears that instead, AOL has chosen to use its massive legal resources to intimidate the volunteers producing the alternative clients.

Many users of alternative instant messanging clients do not wish to harm AOL's AIM advertising revenue stream. However, they have a percieved need for features not found on the AOL AIM client.

Many people, particularly in the rapidly growing open source / Linux community, would like to see AOL respond to the market pressures that cause people to use alternative AIM clients. Of particular appeal to GAIM users is an open framework that encourages free extension of the client. The GAIM distribution includes well defined APIs and support files to write "plug ins" in both the Perl and C programming languages. The AOL AIM client does not appear to provide any framework for free extension.

In addition, many people in the open source community would like to see AOL publish the source code ot the AIM client under a free liscence (as defined by the Free Software Foundation). Perhapse AOL feels that it needs to hide the source code for its AIM client in order to preserve the AIM advertising revenue stream. However, the present situation has demonstrated that the source code for a superior instant messanging client is available for others to build on. I personally believe that AOL would see a rapid increase in the functionality of the AIM client on all platforms if the source code for the AIM client was published under a free liscence.

Karl

I'm a slacker? You're the one who waited until now to just sit arround.

we already do

Unfortunately, the Turing test is no indicator of strong AI at all, just a very good rules system. Searle proved years ago that no rules-based system (ie. a Turing machine) can ever be truly intelligent, no matter how much so it seems.

Not everyone believes Searle really "proved" his case with the Chinese Box argument. I haven't read this particular treatment of it, but just the fact that a Ph.D. in philosophy was granted for it would seem to suggest that it's not such an open-and-shut case, huh?

It wouldn't be the first time that something someone "proved" didn't hold up when you look at it a different way. To say that "something can't be truly intelligent no matter how much so it seems" seems to rule out even giving the issue the serious thought it deserves.

Jamie

• From: "SuziQ"
  To: "BoB"
  Subject: YEW R NOT A COWARD, AN I DID NOT NO THAT TERVOR DIED!!!

  Why you call you a coward? I no that u r not because u send me this message! An wen did TREVOR DIE?!!? I CANT BELEVE THIS LIES! I have to go cry now.

  Suzi Q
  SuziQ@AOL.COM

My passion for science was inspired by the "Danny Dunn: Scientific Detective" series by Raymond Abrashkin and written by Jay Williams. http://members.aol.com/sharonr899/series/Dunn.html

Hey, weren't they the guys with the swords in The Big Lebowski? No wait, that was Nihilists. Never mind.

----
Capt' Trips

--

What do you call what N611FE did in EWR in 1997?

I mean, okay, it was landing already, and "any landing you can walk away from is a good landing," but still...

It is still around, http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/00.n.games.html has it for 14.99

Also, googling for it, I found an old journal from the version 1 of the game. It's pretty funny.


Brant

blenderking sent in this Wall Street Journal story about
Microsoft's new "Smart Tags" - auto linking to Microsoft
websites in any web page you visit.

...This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. If the problem persists, please contact the program vendor for resolution.
_____________________________________ _