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One might consider this pollution to be a clear and present danger to the health of loyal Americans.

So what are you suggesting? A pre-emptive nuclear strike on China?

How does a reference to "Strange Brew" get marked insightful?

Or from a detective

I just love all the articles that get past the firehose, that offer no scientific benefits except "theories" or rather predictions on the future... Still waiting on my flying car, and no, the German scientists haven't offered me sex for it yet.

Yes, dumb everything down. By law. That'll work. Don't do something about the lack of education, dumb it down! Why, oh why, does this remind me of Idiocracy ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ ) ?

Surely you don't believe that a law degree should become part of compulsory education?!? Because that's what it would take to actually understand some EULAs.

But something needs to be done. Since I can't imagine legal services becoming cheap enough that practically anyone can hire a lawyer for every little legal blurb they encounter, it's going to have to involve simplifying and translating the language from legalese to common english.

It may be something along the lines of invalidating any contract of adhesion that cannot reasonably be understood by the person it's being applied to. I'll bet that suddenly companies would find a way to make EULAs understandable.

They may have a hand in bringing them back from the dead.

Yes, dumb everything down. By law. That'll work.
Don't do something about the lack of education, dumb it down!
Why, oh why, does this remind me of Idiocracy ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/ ) ?

Not to be confused with "Chubby Rain".

Annie, are you back?

Forgot to add that there is a really good movie about one American musician's journey to Tuva in order to compete in the national throat singing contest over there. It is called Genghis Blues.

Its privately called

the Big Tomahawk

and the students on campus are called

The Little scalps.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076723/quotes

One might consider this pollution to be a clear and present danger to the health of loyal Americans.

Like the reports people get in Gattaca on potential partners' genetic makeup.

Connor. The Highlander's first name is Connor:
"I am Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. I was born in 1518 in the village of Glenfinnan on the shores of Loch Shiel. And I am immortal."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091203/quotes

No, getting back at Kent and Dr. Hathaway is a moral imperative. Cheating on taxes is just greed.

Wait.. Let me get this straight, your upset over people getting access to all of the camera feeds and not the fact that your life is basically the Truman show because of all of the surveillance implemented in the UK now?

Here is a hint. When ever government claims something will only be used on the bad guys, eventually you become the bad guy. And if your not the bad guy, prove it by letting the government do their thing because you shouldn't have a problem with it unless you have something to hide. That is why everyone cries fowl in American. Of course it is fun to blame everything on Bush, but that only takes the focus off the congresses that enable him. And no, I don't support the if you have nothing to hide argument. I'm simply saying it gets used all to often to paint you into giving up.

These are usually local ordinances. They are fairly rare as whole cities go, but if you live in a community with a "Homeowners Association" then they can have all sorts of crazy "laws". Junk vehicles in your driveway, bushes are too high, need to rake leaves, children are ugly, daughter is a floozy, etc. More often than not, the elderly are in charge of the Homeowner's Association, and spend their days looking through binoculars to see if that no-good 30-something couple's dog is making on their lawn again... and they didn't pick it up!

Welcome to The 'Burb's.

It is Newark.

Keanu Reeves will (eventually) save the day.
With a little help from Ice-T and his cyber dolphin friend Jones.

Conspiracy to Commit *insert felony here*

So now we're arresting people on the assumption that they may commit a crime in the future. We don't know what they may have done, so we charge them with a "fire code violation".

This sounds a lot like "Precrime" as seen in Minority Report

Dave

so it seems Hitler had some time travellers to aid in his fight against the jews leaving the country.

Oblig:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057701/

I'm glad to see someone in this thread is showing some decorum instead of making tasteless jokes or asking "who?"

I agree entirely with what you've said, the H2G2 radio shows were fantastic (and a regular fixture on my iPod), I was always disappointed they didn't continue the story after the end of the second series (although Dirk Maggs did a decent job more recently).

Another Perkins favourite of mine was KYTV, a spoof on satellite TV channels with lots of tacky low budget game shows and news channels.

RIP Geoffrey.

Forensics is about law courts and medical knowledge used in legal matters or police investigations. SETI is about searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. With evolution creating life on earth I'd say it's highly unlikely out of billions of billions of stars in the universe there isn't another planet orbiting another star where life didn't evolve as well. As Jodie Foster's character in "Contact" says "That's an awful waste of space."

Are you counter-claiming that these disciplines do not employ testable and falsifiable hypotheses to detect evidence of intelligent tampering?

No, they are testable and falsifiable. I'll also admit that a supreme being might just might be testable and falsifiable. But I have no idea how it can be done such that someone can't twist any results around to say whatever they want.

Again, I said all this in my original post, so please respond to this specific point.

Can you show me anywhere in this thread you said anything about forensics or SETI? This is the first tyme I recall reading either one. As for points 1 and 2 I did answer those. I even included them when I answered.

You might be able to argue that archaeology, at least to some degree, is not founded on falsificationism

Actually no, I wouldn't say archeology isn't falsifiable. For instance some archaeologists have argued the Clovis people in North America were the first humans in the Americas. However Monte Verde on the southern tip of Chile predates Clovis thus falsifying Clovis. Monte Verde even predates the land bridge between Russia and Alaska thus falsifying the notion the first people in the Americas crossed the land bridge.

Falcon

7. Hans' car is intelligent like Herbie, but in a fit of jealous rage his car kills Hans' wife. To protect his friend, a car, from dissection, he tries to cover up the murder and ends up getting caught.

Of course! And the car's name is Christine (book here).

How about Robbie Hart's band?

mrpull

So, a score of 1 on SlashDot is a good thing?

:P

Idiocracy?

Hmm, debate. That's a good idea. In fact, let's just completely open up all of the recorded knowledge of all mankind to debate, making sure that we confuse the children of the world so much so that society devolves into completely dumbed-down anarchy, where Scientific Theory can walk hand in hand with Faith to the nearest Buttf*ckers.

I'd mod your comment all the way up to six if I could!

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to 6. Look, right across the board, 6, 6 and...

Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most slashdot comments go up to 5?

Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.

Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's funnier? Is it any funnier?

Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one funnier, isn't it? It's not 5. You see, most blokes, you know, will be modding at 5. You're on 5 here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on 5 on your original posting. Where can you go from there? Where?

Marty DiBergi: I don't know.

Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?

Marty DiBergi: Put it up to 6.

Nigel Tufnel: 6. Exactly. One funnier.

Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make 5 funnier and make 5 be the top number and make that a little funnier?

Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to 6.

Of course, this is from someone who understands math, finance, and economics. I understand your generation never got even the basics of those in your public school years or your college years.

I'll be sure to stay off your lawn, old man, if you promise to stay off of mine. My degree was in Accounting with a minor in Economics, and I work as a programmer for a bank (one of the largest who didn't get involved in the sub-prime mess). One of the most arrogant things that one can do in life, is always assume that you are more intelligent, or educated than the next guy. If it's true, it shouldn't need to be said. Human progress and the American Dream depends on one generation teaching the next, if my generation lacks any knowledge you consider 'basic', it's your failing, not ours. Education is only as good as its funding and leadership, kids don't pay or lead.

You mentioned the bubbles, and I think that history will see the three bubbles (tech stocks, real estate, and oil) of the naughts at least in part as a result of Baby Boomers chasing after wealth using the seed money from their depression era parents. The real irony is that the story of Gordon Gekko was supposed to be a cautionary tale, and has been practically inspirational to (guessing) your generation. As it showed many that real wealth could be generated practically from nothing but hype. "Greed is good", well only when manipulation isn't one of the tools people are allowed to use. However, lately manipulation has been the name of the game. The Republicans have been using negative campaigning, the oil barons have been rigging oil prices, and etc [manipulation is fairly common theme].

It would certainly explain the sheer amount of credit card debt you've run up.

uh, Bankruptcies Soar for Senior Citizens

Actually, until last year I was a card-carrying Libertarian (finally got fed up with the pot-smoking crazy wing of that party). Now I'm just a libertarian with a small "l".

The disastrous 'War on Drugs' is the only wedge issue the Libertarian Party has that has not been fully co-oped by the Republican Party, and as they are larger and more successful it's only natural (well at least in the U.S.) that the Libertarian Party would be much smaller. However, if the Republican Party really does fall apart this election cycle, I suspect that the Libertarian Party would gain membership exponentially. Sort of like rats leaving a sinking ship, except they're Republicans (as if there's a difference, lol). Also, I'm certain that many would hold your conservative social views like Bob Barr, but they'd still have to lighten up their stance on pot, as true libertarians believe 'my body, my rules'.

What the hell do you think HTML, XML, news stories, book descriptions, and reviews are? Are they not text?

Yahoo Shopping was written in Lisp. It was later rewritten, in sections at least, by a mixture of C++ and Perl. They wrote a Lisp interpreter in C++ to facilitate this.

Yahoo would have never happened without Perl.

Slashdot already ran a story about the BBC making a Rails-like framework for Perl because they liked Rails but prefer Perl as a language. The article at that second link says they're pretty dedicated to Perl for their whole Web infrastructure.

Amazon use Perl as a major component gluing the front end order-entry system to a back-end database, and also for part of their document authoring chain.

Amazon (for Amazon.com's own site) uses Mason (a Perl website templating system) as their official web development template system, and they're hiring for people with that skill set. They do use a lot of Java, too, apparently, but Perl is an important part of the site.

IMDb uses Linux, Apache, Perl and mod_perl to run pretty much the whole site, and is part of Amazon.

Google is using quite a bit of server-side JavaScript -- on the JVM as a replacement for Java in many cases.

Google uses C++, Python, and Java for most public-facing sites, and much of the management of the systems is done with Python.

This Google job (for a software engineer) lists C++ as a must and Python as a plus. This other job (for a software engineer) requires both one or more of C, C+, or Java and one or more of shell, Perl, PHP, or Python.

The nation of Scotland used Perl to migrate millions of land records between systems, which certainly is data munging, but a pretty important bit of it.

It was way back in 1999, but Agilent used Perl to build their big customer-facing e-commerce site.

Booking.com (part of Priceline) uses primarily Perl to run their site.

This PowerPoint presentation says Morgan Stanley in 2004 was using Perl written by over 500 developers on over 9000 (no, that's not a /b/ ism) systems to keep their network running smoothly, for a web front end development language, to develop middleware, and to develop backend applications.

ValueClick and TicketMaster make much use of Perl, too. That's along with the content management system -- Bricolage -- used by the Dean for President campaign, ETOnline, and the World Health Organization being written in Perl. You may have also heard of MovableType, which is a serious CMS from Six Apart. Or maybe you've heard of a site that runs it, called The Huffington Post, who right now is looking for someone to work on it?

I haven't managed to find the patent application yet, but I wonder if Connectix's RAM Doubler product would be considered prior art.

If not, this probably is...

I would like to have seen Montana.

I don't think I've ever thought "aw, shit" with more feeling than when I saw that scene. Poor bastard.

In the TV series Dark Angel the paraplegic character Logan is able to walk using a leg exoskeleton.

It's nice to see how science fiction catches up to, say, nature...

kudos tiny spider

Never saw M.A.N.T.I.S But I did see "Exo-Man" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076008/ Man, I'm old.

This reminds of a TV series, M.A.N.T.I.S., not a huge success though :P

Here it is: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110414/

Yeah, but I think the idea first came from M.A.N.T.I.S. Captcha: amplify

If you are working in the vacinity of dials that go to 11, as long as you aren't the drummer, you should have nothing to worry about.

Probably even closer to M.A.N.T.I.S

In the TV series Dark Angel the paraplegic character Logan is able to walk using a leg exoskeleton.

Don't you have a Wikipedia article to edit?

You could even play your Wiz soundtrack on it! For when you're easin' on down the road...

In the TV series Dark Angel the paraplegic character Logan is able to walk using a leg exoskeleton.

It's nice seeing how science catches up to science fiction.

We have known for a long time that Neanderthal had a larger brain than modern human and a sophisticated culture, including burial rites. There was no scientific consensus that Neandethal was stupid.

It's quite possible the Neanderthal's were of equal or greater intelligence than Homo Sapiens and were merely less aggressive (or had less advanced weapons) or had lower birthrates. There's no reason the more intelligent species has to survive if there is an evolutionary conflict.

The same thing is likely going to happen with games is my point. Games can definitely make statements, but to really see what the form is capable of, you're going to have to wait for videogame making to evolve.

We already have all the technology we need. Graphics quality has reached a very comfortable level. If you use an art style like Eternal Sonata's, then you're already on the level of animated films, which can be just as serious and "artistic" as live action ones (see Spirited Away for example). Motion capturing, voice acting and realistic facial expressions allow for very convincing cutscenes and such.

The technology is there and the medium is ready, but the developers are lagging behind. I'm not feeling very optimistic about their ability to pull off anything that intelligent and knowledgeable non-gamers would be comparing to established cinematic works of art. And on the other hand, do gamers really care? Is anyone going to buy an adventure game in this day and age? Or would they rather just play Halo and Madden?

Of course, that applies to distopias too.

(Logan's Run, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074812/ ,
  THX 1138 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066434/ ,
  Fahrenheit 451 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060390/ and even
  Metropolis http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/ )

There's nothing stopping Dubai except the fact that the surrounding countryside couldn't possibly support that many people and the peak oil scenario would make transportation impractical (not impossible but impractical.)

That being said, it could be done elsewhere (Like population rich and land resources poor Bangladesh [where it would represent a tremendous rise in living standards {and they literally won't have any choice.}])

Of course, that applies to distopias too.

(Logan's Run, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074812/ ,
  THX 1138 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066434/ ,
  Fahrenheit 451 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060390/ and even
  Metropolis http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/ )

There's nothing stopping Dubai except the fact that the surrounding countryside couldn't possibly support that many people and the peak oil scenario would make transportation impractical (not impossible but impractical.)

That being said, it could be done elsewhere (Like population rich and land resources poor Bangladesh [where it would represent a tremendous rise in living standards {and they literally won't have any choice.}])

Of course, that applies to distopias too.

(Logan's Run, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074812/ ,
  THX 1138 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066434/ ,
  Fahrenheit 451 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060390/ and even
  Metropolis http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/ )

There's nothing stopping Dubai except the fact that the surrounding countryside couldn't possibly support that many people and the peak oil scenario would make transportation impractical (not impossible but impractical.)

That being said, it could be done elsewhere (Like population rich and land resources poor Bangladesh [where it would represent a tremendous rise in living standards {and they literally won't have any choice.}])

Of course, that applies to distopias too.

(Logan's Run, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074812/ ,
  THX 1138 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066434/ ,
  Fahrenheit 451 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060390/ and even
  Metropolis http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/ )

There's nothing stopping Dubai except the fact that the surrounding countryside couldn't possibly support that many people and the peak oil scenario would make transportation impractical (not impossible but impractical.)

That being said, it could be done elsewhere (Like population rich and land resources poor Bangladesh [where it would represent a tremendous rise in living standards {and they literally won't have any choice.}])

Gleemax makes it feel like it 72 degrees in your head... all the time!

The Romans managed to preserve their language and culture for 2000 years completely by accident

Umm.. no.
Having an Empire that covers most of the world (at the time) kinda sets your language as the main language by default.
Also, having it the main language of the church that kept the practice of torturing and burning alive everyone who didn't bow down to it's heavenly mandate.
And... when both of those fade... You still get to keep it through law and medicine - cause your empire officially invented those.
Or at least, that is what you have been telling everyone for the last 2000 years.

Do you really think all the stuff we're doing today will vanish in the same time span.

All the stuff? No. Lots of stuff? YES!
I still have some of my C64 tapes around, despite the fact that I've given my C64 to a cousin long ago.
And there was no DRM on those tapes.

In far less than 100 years the whole of today's Internet will fit on a single USB stick - smaller than a single shard of Roman pottery.

Soo... a lot of information, will be able to fit on a very small, proprietary medium in less then a twentieth part of time their spheres will last. OK...
What does one have to do with the other?

Rosetta disk spheres are imagined for the purpose of keeping VITAL pieces of information for MILLENNIA to come. Readable using only eyes and magnifying lenses.
Kinda like those talking rings in The Time Machine (1960).

NOT for storing porn.