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Apocalypse - Vista Now:

USER: " Are you a service?"
WILLARD GATES / VISTA: " I'm an OS."
USER: " You're neither. You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill."

WILLARD GATES / VISTA is then put in a cage.

This is ridiculous. People are becoming such neurotic queens (no relation to sexual orientation, thx) that they can't be offended, are afraid of conflict, and won't stick their necks out because someone might disagree. As a result, we can't make decisions, and we get weak.

"Saigon, shit. I'm still only in Saigon. Every time I think I'm going to wake up back in the jungle. When I was home after my first tour, it was worse. I'd wake up and there'd be nothing... I hardly said a word to my wife until I said yes to a divorce. When I was here I wanted to be there. When I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle. I've been here a week now. Waiting for a mission, getting softer. Every minute I stay in this room I get weaker. And every minute Charlie squats in the bush he gets stronger."

Transcript

'My Dinner With Andre' was a revelation.

G. fascinated me as he spoke of 'objective truth'. The cosmology is incredibly interesting and the 'Weltanshauung' is pervasive across many disciplines. There seems to be a truth behind it, or a human racial memory that I recognize. Again - too much fallacy and commentary has muddied his 'Fragments of an Unknown Science'. Even he disguised what he could in 'Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson' - one book out of ten I would have if stranded on an island.
There is a warning that he wrote about in a preface to Beelzebub's Tales (Vol 1). If you ever read it, then I too ate a whole bag of hot peppers!

And slightly off-topic, here is the only meaningful excerpt from Monty Python's Meaning of Life. It occurs about half-way through the film, just before the Crimson Permanent Assurance attacks corporate USA.

-----------

[A lettering artist is just finishing painting the words
'Liver Donors Inc' onto a wall plaque enumerating all the
subsidiaries of the Very Big Corporation of America.]

Chairman: [of the Very Big Corporation of America]... which brings
us once again to the urgent realisation of just how much there
is still left to own. Item 6 on the Agenda, the Meaning of
Life... Now Harry, you've had some thoughts on this...

Harry: That's right, yeah. I've had a team working on this over the
past few weeks, and what we've come up with can be reduced to
two fundamental concepts... One... people are not wearing
enough hats. Two... matter is energy; in the Universe there
are many energy fields which we cannot normally perceive. Some
energies have a spiritual source which act upon a person's
soul. However, this soul does not exist *ab inito*, as
orthodox Christianity teaches; it has to be brought into
existence by a process of guided self-observation. However,
this is rarely achieved owing to man's unique ability to be
distracted from spiritual matters by everyday trivia.

[Pause.]

Max: What was that about hats again?

Harry: Er... people aren't wearing enough.

Chairman: Is this true?

Edmund: [who is sitting next to Harry] Certainly. Hat sales have
increased, but not *pari passu... as our research -

Bert: When you say 'enough', enough for what purpose...?

Gunther: Can I ask with reference to your second point, when you
say souls don't develop because people become distracted...
has anyone noticed that building there before?

[They all turn towards the window to see a building
approaching or sliding into position outside.]

All: Gulp! What? Good Lord!

http://corky.net/scripts/meaning_life.html

Trivial you may say, but it is probably the clearest explanation of one central 'reality' of the human condition as expressed by Ouspensky and G.
You should also look a classical Sufism and Daoism (Taoism), Zoaroster (Hierarchy of Angels) etc

However, let's not forget Western Philosophy. It is a very sound discipline!
I agree that the world is no illusio

SAM: You got the wrong man.

JACK: (a little heated) I did not get the wrong man. I got the right man. The wrong man was delivered to me as the right man! I accepted him, on trust, as the right man. Was I wrong? Anyway, to add to the confusion, he died on us. Which, had he been the right man, he wouldn't have done.

SAM: You killed him?

JACK: (annoyed) Sam, there are very rigid parameters laid down to avoid that event but Buttle's heart condition did not appear on Tuttle's file. Don't think I'm dismissing this business, Sam. I've lost a week's sleep over it already.

SAM: I'm sure you have

JACK: There are some real bastards in this department who don't mind breaking a few eggs to make an omelette, but thank God there are the new boys like me who want to maintain decent civilized standards of terrorist eradication. We've got the upper hand for the moment, but they're waiting for us to slip up, and a little slip- up like this is just the chance they're looking for.

--- Brazil

I can't wait to hear the crunching sound...

"I wrote them down in my Diary so that I wouldn't have to remember!"

smart and get things done

it was frustrating because I clearly knew what I wanted to be doing but it wasn't available to me at the time. It was always: if you want to do computers you need to go to MIT then you go work at a corporation as an engineer and follow "the path." But I dropped out of college, and started my own company. My brother followed a more conventional path. He got a degree and became a stock broker and that's what my mother expected that you're supposed to do. And he's doing OK for himself, but there's nothing like a few Ferarris to rub your parents face in." John Carmack

for those not treading a worn path, what matters (in software anyway) is the quality of the code, delivered on time meeting the design critera. JOS has consistantly made the point (the right one) that he's looking for the top 5%.

but guess what ... this isn't a rant about hiring. This is a gorilla marketing campaign .... We're goin' up to slashdot to put the word to the net .

Why not? I mean, it's a deterrant isn't it?

Ok, only one quote comes to mind...

Strangelove: Yes, but the whole point of the doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, eh?

Seriously, how many people other than us geeks are aware of these? Personally, I've seen references to them on slashdot over the past few years but that's it. These references have caused me to do research to find out more about them, but how many people who read this article had any idea EDR's or CDR's even existed?

Personally, I think every car with an EDR/CDR should have a warning label "This car records data that will be used to testify against you." Unless you're warned that such a device exists and can be used against you, I think it should be considered much the same as electronic eavesdropping without consent.

As much as I dislike people who break the law, and even kill others in the process, I find use of this data to be tantamount to self-incrimination, a concept which is completely unconstitutional. Of course, by presenting only this sort of worst-case scenario to the general public, law enforcement and the insurance companies will get the go-ahead from the general public. From there, it should get easy for the EDR's data to be subpoenaed for everything from major accidents down to traffic violations. "Claim you weren't speeding, eh? Lets take a look at the data. Yup, 58, and you were in a 55. Look, we know your speedometer said 58, its recorded right here."

I'm usually not prone to paranoia, but this is one of the few subjects that strikes a chord.

Henry: I am Henry the Red, Duke of Shale, Lord of the Northlands and leader of its peoples.

Ash: Well hello Mr.Fancy-pants. I got news for you pal, you ain't leadin' but two things right now. Jack and shit... and Jack left town.

Does anyone have a release date for the game? The web site isn't very helpful.