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How can we forget:

The New Economy was powered by the Heart of Gold's Infinate Improbability Drive.

How else do you explain poop by mail.

SD

Orangatango is based on a pretty cool idea: Rather than my computer negotiating a connection with every site I want to connect to, my computer negotiates a connection with Orangatango, and Orangatango does the rest. To the outside world, it looks as though Orangatango is making all of the requests. Maybe it's not a unique idea, but they have implemented it extremely well.

That's what us computery people call a Proxy, or Proxy Server ...

The only true solution would be to eliminate money in the world and move to a non-magic-fish-based economy. Ideally, we'd all be practicing Utopian Socialism, but unfortunately people are inherently greedy and can't practice such a system without trying to take advantage of each other.

Hell, try finding one in Ireland. Corned beef is damned near inedible except for use as cold cuts and in hash.

Didn't know it was Msftie Paul Allen's venture, untill I read this.

Australians scientists found that by adding a single gene to mousepox they can create a 100% lethal virus (even to resistant mice), with the effect of vaccines being greatly reduced. It is thought that the gene placed in smallpox would have a similarly devastating effect on humans. heres an article and another.

Author of The Cyberiad, starring Trurl and Klapaucius, which inspired the game SimCity.

A articulate Polish universal fiction writer, who thinks that Philip K Dick is a Visionary Among the Charlatans.

Nobody can figure out how he writes in Polish, yet the English translations of his books are full of brilliant poetic puns and neological phonetic jokes. He's got a great translator, Michael Kandel, to say the least.

His son Tomasz Lem created and maintains his father's official Stanislaw Lem Web Site.

-Don

PS: But here's what Philip K Dick, another great writer, had to say about Stanislaw Lem to the FBI:

Philip K. Dick to the FBI, September 2, 1974

I am enclosing the letterhead of Professor Darko Suvin, to go with information and enclosures which I have sent you previously. This is the first contact I have had with Professor Suvin. Listed with him are three Marxists whom I sent you information about before, based on personal dealings with them: Peter Fitting, Fredric Jameson, and Franz Rottensteiner who is Stanislaw Lem's official Western agent. The text of the letter indicates the extensive influence of this publication, SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES.

What is involved here is not that these persons are Marxists per se or even that Fitting, Rottensteiner and Suvin are foreign-based but that all of them without exception represent dedicated outlets in a chain of command from Stanislaw Lem in Krakow, Poland, himself a total Party functionary (I know this from his published writing and personal letters to me and to other people). For an Iron Curtain Party group - Lem is probably a composite committee rather than an individual, since he writes in several styles and sometimes reads foreign, to him, languages and sometimes does not - to gain monopoly positions of power from which they can control opinion through criticism and pedagogic essays is a threat to our whole field of science fiction and its free exchange of views and ideas. Peter Fitting has in addition begun to review books for the magazines Locus and Galaxy. The Party operates (a U..S.] publishing house which does a great deal of Party-controlled science fiction. And in earlier material which I sent to you I indicated their evident penetration of the crucial publications of our professional organization SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA. "

Their main successes would appear to be in the fields of academic articles, book reviews and possibly through our organization the control in the future of the awarding of honors and titles. I think, though, at this time, that their campaign to establish Lem himself as a major novelist and critic is losing ground; it has begun to encounter serious opposition: Lem's creative abilities now appear to have been overrated and Lem's crude, insulting and downright ignorant attacks on American science fiction and American science fiction writers went too far too fast and alienated everyone but the Party faithful (I am one of those highly alienated).

It is a grim development for our field and its hopes to find much of our criticism and academic theses and publications completely controlled by a faceless group in Krakow, Poland. What can be done, though, I do not know.

-Philip K Dick

From Stanislaw Lem Questions and Answers.

So many possibilities...

handheld with projection system. It has the standard touch sensitive lcd (or LEP or whatever), but it uses a single chip reflective projector to put a *huge* picture up on any viewable surface. It's not very steady, so integrate some motion sensors in the device and some hardware to steady the projection (IR for distance to surface (image size), accelerometer for lateral stabalization).

When the projection is running, the touch screen on the device is still the input method.

But really, why not go all the way. I wear glasses, so give me a covert HMD. Something that can't be seen by the rest of the world, but that gives me unrestricted hands free access to my "handheld".

Then steal an idea from MIT and put a ring on each index finger. Radio connected, position sensing, and presure sensitive. Touch the left one with your thumb and the on-disply pointer tracks with movements of the right. Tap the right one, and it clicks, rotate the right one (around your finger) and it's like that little roller on your mouse.

Think all this is fantasy? I read too much science fiction? I think not.

single chip projectors
accelerometers for displacement
covert HMDs
The One Ring (fictional, I think)

The argument I see on the news stories is that Microsoft is whacking Opera and Mozilla because they don't fully support the W3C standards. AMAYA is available at www.w3.org and is the W3's benchmark standards compliant browser. It doesn't work either...

That Microsoft lies probably surprises no one. However, judging from these compliance tables, they are lying in a fairly major way:

Unix/Linux Chart
Windows Chart
Macintosh Chart

If they are letting Netscape 4.7 in, the Opera browser and Mozilla are more standards compatible and should have no problems at all!

The argument I see on the news stories is that Microsoft is whacking Opera and Mozilla because they don't fully support the W3C standards. AMAYA is available at www.w3.org and is the W3's benchmark standards compliant browser. It doesn't work either...

That Microsoft lies probably surprises no one. However, judging from these compliance tables, they are lying in a fairly major way:

Unix/Linux Chart
Windows Chart
Macintosh Chart

If they are letting Netscape 4.7 in, the Opera browser and Mozilla are more standards compatible and should have no problems at all!

The argument I see on the news stories is that Microsoft is whacking Opera and Mozilla because they don't fully support the W3C standards. AMAYA is available at www.w3.org and is the W3's benchmark standards compliant browser. It doesn't work either...

That Microsoft lies probably surprises no one. However, judging from these compliance tables, they are lying in a fairly major way:

Unix/Linux Chart
Windows Chart
Macintosh Chart

If they are letting Netscape 4.7 in, the Opera browser and Mozilla are more standards compatible and should have no problems at all!

They still have the original article on-line here.

You mean this http://ens.lycos.com/ens/oct2001/2001L-10-08-06.ht ml right?

That reminds me of this photo I saw while rummaging through footage from the disaster. How old can this kid be? I bet he already knows what a jihad is.

The software is still available both as source and binary RPM (legally, it's GPL!) from various mirrors. Get it while it lasts (and use it at your own risk)!

trying to stop a piece of software is ridiculous. (DMCA?) Its inevitable that information will become easier to collect. Society is becoming more transparent and that can be a good thing-

read some David Brin
Salon also had this to say

PC's are IBM clones, though IBM is now a bit player in the market they started. Apple produces Macintoshes. There are Apple enthusiasts who are turning over in their graves right now because evidently the world thinks that any metal box with a CPU inside is now called a "PC"!

When another company plucks away Wired's pride and joy, they advertise the competition.

and next yer gonna tell me these genii rebuilt a walkman, andwired it into an entirely alien configuration?

congratulations to those that guessed right. it's a joke. probably the most refreshing joke i've seen in a long, long time.

"Robo-cup" (audio, requires player) by Lee Gutkind, National Public Radio, Weekend All Things Considered, 28 July 2001

"RoboCup 2001 Marks SGI's Second Year of RoboCup Federation Sponsorship" (press release), PR Newswire, 1 August 2001

"Robot Competitors Meet on a Soccer Field of Dreams" (free registration required) by Jeffrey Selingo, New York Times, 2 August 2001

"RoboCup: Where Bots Kick Butt" by Jason Spingarn-Koff, Lycos News, 2 August 2001

"Rush is on for 'HAL'-like computer to perfect A.I." by Winda Benedetti, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 3 August 2001

"Robot world cup kicks off", BBC, 3 August 2001

"RoboCup 2001 boots up" by Helen Pearson, Nature Science Update, 3 August 2001

"Blutgrätschen ohne Blut und Beine", stern.de, 3 August 2001

"Roboter aus 23 Ländern tragen Fußballweltmeisterschaft aus", Net-Business Online, 3 August 2001

"RoboCup 2001, il calcio visto dai robot", Punto Informatico, 3 August 2001

"Building a better goalie (buzz, whir)" by Gregory Roberts, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 4 August 2001

"Man and machine take the field" by David Olsen, Seattle Times, 4 August 2001

"Robots Storm the Soccer Field" by Maria Godoy, TechTV/Tech Live, 6 August 2001

Information about live Webcast of Botball finals (an event distinct from Robocup) on 7-8 August

After reading the guidelines to the contest, I figured I'd offer the following models/design specs for those interested in participating:

• Understanding how the Brain works
• When will computer hardware match the human brain?
• How your Brain Works
• How the Human Brain Developed and How the Human Mind Works
• Theory of Sequentially Timed Learning
• If your toaster had a brain
• neuroinformatics (please don't confuse with clam-baking)
• Brain Implants Control Computers

Or, y'know, alternatively we could continue to fight on all fronts exactly as we've been doing already (and people do actually seem to be making money after all). Anyway, who the hell wants to spend their spare time working for a giant multinational Linux Corp? Not me.

BTW, I think I should point out that Jay's doesn't always hit the mark quite right. Take a look at his premature eulogy for Slashdot. Take what he says with a pinch of salt, folks.

Paul Boutin | writer unfit to tie Poul Anderson's sandals and amateur search engine optimization consultant

This link is a fine example... difficult to get out of on Microsoft browsers.

Click this

______________________________

______________________________

Lets face it, Radioactive material, when not handled properly, is very dangerous. I work with some radioactive compounds (biological research), and I have a healthy respect for it.

However, some notable people do not. I dont know what the situation is in the states, but BNFL (British Nuclear Fuels Ltd) have been involved in numerous scandals over the last few years. This has not just affected the UK either. And that scares the shit out of me. And some anti-nuclear campagners.

I'm just as big of fan of Google as the next geek, but.. Lycos has been doing this for a while..

It's nice to see John Lee Hooker and Bob Marley, instead of some of the lesser (no) talent folks:Lycos Top 50

Okay, first, mine. Then, a link to another review which may be a bit beyond the average Slashdot readers full comprehension. Both are filled with spoilers.

WARNING: Plot is discussed. This is more of an analysis of aspects of the movie, not a review. You should probably read this after you see the film.

Rating: 1 out of 3 thumbs up.

AI can be summed up in one word: cute. If you've seen ET, you've already seen AI, only AI is worse because it tries to do more, but fails. For example, when David becomes frozen in ice, that would have made a fair ending; not the best ending, but a decent one. Speilberg, though, is not content to let the viewer consider such a bleak, realistic fate, but gives the audience something that is beyond reason. As I point out later on, it only makes sense that David end, frozen in ice forever, but Spielberg wants a feel good ending that will keep Joe Average coming back for more.

The problems with the film really begin in the opening scene. An AI 'scientist' is explaining how he plans to make a more human Mecca, by making it love. He believes that if it can learn to love, then all other human characteristics will follow. Aside from the silliness of this proposition, the problem is the same problem Asimov's bots had: adversarial human attitudes. The humans want to make the AI love because they believe that will make sure that it will stay in line, not harm humans, and such. Spielberg, either by accident on purpose, doesn't state this explicitly, which hides this error from the smart but underinformed viewer.

You may be saying, what's so adversarial about keeping AIs from killing and why would such a thing be bad. The problem is two folded. On one hand, no system you try to implement is going to be fool proof. The AI is a lot smarter than any human (or at least can get a lot smarter) and can use what would look like magic to us. Secondly, regardless of smartness, the AI will face a philosophical crises that will probably be the end of it. For example, David is taught to love humans, but humans, from the start, did not love him by forcing him to love rather than trusting him.

BTW, this love thing is his undoing. Much like Asimovian bots that become stuck in logic loops, David becomes stuck in a love loop. The end of the film lets him out of it, because that's the happy ending, not the one that makes the most sense.

Okay, so if you can't be adversarial and lay down some Asimovian laws or something, what can you do. You can create Friendly AI. There is quite a lot written about this topic, but the best place to start is here. Please, click this link; don't just post like an idiot that I have no clue about AI. For many of you, this will also dispel myths about Classical AI and lead you to new ideas. Just in case you missed it, you can learn about Friendly AI here.

Now, I did mention that the movie was cute, which means it has some interesting parts. For example, Dr. Know was an interesting information retrieval system, though pretty dumb considering they could create David and Google gives back better info. Also, the Transhumans at the end of the film look cool, but act far too much like humans. BTW, that's Joe at the end of the film who talks to David, not an alien. My friend who went with me to the movie seemed a bit confused about this, but hopefully she'll get it later.

For those who you who have read 'Super Toys Last All Summer', the short story this film is based on, you'll notice when the story ends and the film begins, and at that point the plot shifts to a different story: Pinocchio. The parallels are almost embarrassing. Also, there is a hint of Wizard of Oz in there (think about what is said about Dr. Know at the end and you'll get it). There are probably more, but I haven't caught them yet.

So, to sum up, is this an SF classic: no. Does it make you think: only if you don't know what AI is. Is this a cute summer movie to take Grandma, the kids, and Fluffy the dog to: yes. Or, do like me and take a date; you'll have more fun (even if you're both smart and see problems with the movie)! ;-)

You can also find this Online at this place. Now, check out this more in depth review of the movie for those of you very knowledgable, seed AI type folks at, nope, sorry, no link available yet (it's on a mailing list). Well, I've pasted it below. This is by Eliezer Yudkowsky:

Isaac Asimov once observed that there are three types of robot stories;
robot-as-pathos, robot-as-menace, and robot-as-device. A.I. is a
robot-as-device story, and a fairly good one. There is pathos, owing to
David's emotions, but David's emotions are depicted as the deliberate
result of a deliberate design effort.

Most of the reviewers of this movie will undoubtedly say that the AIs are
more human than the humans. This is probably the single least accurate
statement it is possible to make about A.I. The AIs are more *humane*
than the humans but are *substantially* less human. A few behaviors (for
the embodied chatbots that were the previous state of the art) or a few
emotions (for David) have been selectively transferred over, and
naturally, they tend to be nice and neighborly behaviors or emotions,
because that's what the designers would want to transfer over. But the
AIs are visibly not playing with a full deck. Evidently Luddite movie
critics cannot tell the difference between "human" and "humane" even when
slapped upside the head with a double dissocation.

The very first thing that struck me about A.I. was the rather extreme
stupidity of the AI *researchers*. The consequences of this stupidity are
depicted with the same realism, attention to detail, and lack of
anthropomorphism that characterized HAL in 2001, but even so, the amount
of human stupidity I am being asked to accept is rather extreme.

David is beta software. His emotional responses are real - we are told so
in the movie - but they show a binary, all-or-nothing quality. We see the
first instance of this where David bursts out into extremely loud
laughter, laughs for a few moments, then switches off. Be it emphasized
that this laughter is both realistic and genuine. David is the first in a
line of robots with genuine emotions. The embodied chatbot that we see in
the opening scenes of the movie - the female android whose hand is hurt -
may have more gentle laughter, but only because it is preprogrammed.
David's genuine responses are as raw and as alien as might be expected of
a "child" who is, in fact, an infant, only a few weeks old.

Then the AI researchers had the bright idea of putting this beta software
into a human body, adding in those emotions calculated to produce maximal
emotional attachment on the part of humans, and giving it as a human
surrogate to a mother already in an emotionally unstable state because her
own child has been in medical cryonic suspension for five years.

>From this single act of stupidity, and the correctly depicted
consequences, the plot of the entire movie flows. Within a day of
imprinting, David realizes that his mother will someday die, and that he
will not, and wonders if he will be alone forever - foreshadowing the end
of the movie. His mother, for whom David is allegedly an artificial
surrogate to be disposed of when no longer needed, naturally feels
enormous emotional stress at the thought of returning David to be
incinerated. Nobody thought of this back when they were building a
loving, lovable, naturally immortal, allegedly disposable child?

(One of the genuine, oft-overlooked ethical questions this movie
highlights: "Is it moral to create an AI that loves you if the AI has to
watch you die?" The prospect of voluntary immortality in our own near
future creates similar present-day issues. If you plan on bringing a
child into the world, you should plan on choosing to live forever if the
option becomes available, because a child shouldn't have to watch its
parents die.)

When David's brother, Martin, returns from suspension, we see a darker
side to David's genuine emotions. The first near-catastrophe occurs when
David nearly kills himself competing with his revived brother, by
attempting to eat; the second catastrophe occurs when David nearly drowns
his brother. In both cases, the events that occur are excellent
robot-as-device scenarios; they are the consequence of the reproduction of
certain specific geunine emotions in a beta-quality infant psychology
taught certain preprogrammed complex behaviors and placed the body of an
eight-year-old. When David's pain response is triggered by a pack of
curious children, his raw fear, like his laughter, goes from binary off to
binary on. His fear manifests itself in the only behavioral response
David knows; hiding behind Martin. The fear continues to manifest,
preventing Martin's escape, even as David and Martin sink to the bottom of
the pool.

Again, realistic; again, the AI researchers should have thought of it.
Monica, the mother, is afterwards in a hideous position; does she endanger
the household by keeping around beta-quality embodied software, or does
she return David to the manufacturer - that is, give up her child to die?
Monica's emotions are also run ragged because she is being asked to react
without anger to David's near-drowning of Martin. Again, someone at the
mecha corporation was being damn stupid and deserves to be sued into
bankruptcy. You do not give embodied software with beta-quality genuine
emotions to a human mother and ask her to treat it as her own human child.

(Call it "personality abrasion". Personality abrasion may turn out to be
a very real problem for humans dealing with any AI capable of real
thought, even if the AIs don't have human-architecture emotions or
human-looking bodies. Only AI researchers, or other people who understand
the risks and are willing to expend effort in dealing with them, should
ever come into contact with raw AIs. A Friendly AI conversing with
ordinary users should have enough knowledge to fake taking 'offense' at
insults, just because an AI that genuinely doesn't care at all about
insults may be more alienness than an ordinary user should have to deal
with. In A.I., we see the effect of personality abrasion on some poor
shmuck of a human mother.)

The penultimate consequences of the AI researchers' stupidity is visible
when, following the near-drowning of Martin, Monica (the mother) tries to
return David to the manufacturer for destruction. Of course Monica is, by
this point, too attached to David to watch him die, and tries to abandon
him in the woods instead. David's extreme response, when he suddenly
realizes that his mother is abandoning him, is the movie's greatest
moment. I choked up myself. David is an AI with a few genuine emotions,
and the strongest of them is love, and now his mother is leaving forever.

(Genuine, affecting pathos in a robot-as-device story. Realistic,
theoretically accurate AI scenarios with powerful drama. All hail
Kubrick. However... am I really supposed to believe that nobody at the
mecha corporation saw this coming?)

Later: David, wandering the forest with only his supertoy
babysitter-in-a-box teddy bear as companion, comes into contact with a
group of androids who are scavenging spare parts from a dump. This, I'm
sure, is intended to be creepy and disturbing vintage Kubrick, but I
myself immediately started wondering how this social phenomenon occurred.
It's the same question that occurred to me when I saw Gigolo Joe carving
out his identity tag on the run from the police. Why do these
nonemotional androids want to survive? We see in the opening scenes a
female android who is stabbed in the hand as part of a demonstration; when
the lead AI researcher asks "Did I hurt you?" she responds "You hurt my
hand." Am I supposed to believe that this chatbot in human form would go
and scavenge parts if she were abandoned? Am I supposed to believe that
Gigolo Joe, on realizing that he has been framed for murder, would go
rogue out of self-preservation? Having androids scouring the countryside
for spare parts is a rather disturbing social phenomenon, as is having an
android flee a police investigation, and the embodied chatbots that are
supposed to be state-of-the-art are primitive enough that the programmers
could easily have prevented both responses.

And what's with the Flesh Fair bounty hunters who attack the scavenging
robots? Did these bounty hunters come through a wormhole from
_Bladerunner_? This is what happens when Spielberg rewrites a Kubrick
movie; you have cyberpunk grunge-neon motorcycle bounty hunters chasing a
lovable android and his animate teddy bear. At any rate, David is dragged
off to the Flesh Fair, where humans watch the destruction of androids for
fun... is this where the path of "Battlebots" leads?

(At this point in the movie, I must admit to a minor objection at the
Flesh Fair robot who asked another robot to 'disconnect my pain circuits',
mostly because this is a fundamentally human way of looking at the world
and any robot who makes this request may well have crossed the border, not
just into personhood, but into our particular kind of personhood. But
expecting Hollywood to know that is asking far too much.)

At the Flesh Fair, the embodied chatbots make a few conversational pleas
as they are loaded into the cannons and the acid platforms. David's
screams invoke greater sympathy, but I'm not sure the Flesh Fair audience
made a logical conclusion. I know that David's response is genuine only
because I was told at the beginning of the movie that David has a wholly
novel cognitive architecture designed to support humanlike emotions.
David's response is genuine, but it is not humanlike. A human child,
brought into that cage, would have been almost catatonic with fear; would
have been screaming and crying long before reaching the stage; would have
been struggling long before the first drop of acid fell on him. As at the
side of the pool, we see the binary, unpolished quality of David's genuine
emotion; his fear goes from off to on as soon as the first drop of acid
falls - and manifests in his screaming requests not to be burned.

And the crowd rises and boos the ringmaster off the stage - "Mecha does
not plead for its life!" - but their decision is correct only by
coincidence. From what they saw, David really could have been just a more
advanced chatbot. David's emotions were real, but David's behaviors
weren't the responses of a genuine eight-year-old except on the surface.

Shortly thereafter, the stranger half of the movie begins. David, in the
company of Gigolo Joe, wanders the world looking for the Blue Fairy. Even
for beta software, I'm not sure this fixation is realistic - surely an
advanced AI knows what 'fiction' is, and an AI boy knows that bedtime
stories aren't true. On the other hand, perhaps David's humanlike
cognitive architecture has unexpectedly given rise to the phenomenon of
self-delusion (flinching away from hypotheses which make unpleasant
predictions), or perhaps David knows the Blue Fairy's existence is
tentative but he still sees no more plausible path leading back to his
mother.

After Joe and David leave Dr. Know, the movie has its first real "Damn,
they blew it!" moment. (Though in Spielberg's defense, an AI movie that
starts at 8PM, and gets to 9:48 before messing up, has done extremely
well.) The moment to which I refer is Gigolo Joe's speech about how
humans resent robots because they know that, in the end, robots will be
all that's left. Where did *that* come from? Joe's speech is as out of
place as Agent Smith's speech of self-justification in _The Matrix_. It
has undertones of repressed resentment, of an entire underground society
of secretly rebellious robots, and other things that have no place among
chatbots and sex droids. Even David is only a fractional human; he has a
few selected genuine emotions but certainly not a full deck of them.

Apparently the Humans Are Obsolete Speech is simply mandatory for AI
movies, no matter how ridiculously out of place. The Speech is most
certainly not justified by "foreshadowing", since it sucks at least half
of the emotional impact out of the ending. If anyone creates a Phantom
Edit of A.I., the Speech should definitely be the first thing to go (and
the second thing, of course, will be everything after the Blue Fairy
Fadeout).

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The next major scene of significance is
David confronting David-2. David's destruction of David-2 struck me as a
little strange; it involved a bit more humanness, a wider behavioral
repertoire, than had been previously depicted. I suppose that some degree
of jealousy was visible earlier in the movie, so my immediate reaction of
"Why would they have ported *that* emotion over?" may be misplaced; even
so, that kind of directed, coherent-conversation destructive tantrum
struck me as being too complex for David.

The lead AI researcher's total lack of reaction to the destruction of his
own genuinely emotional surrogate child, and his revelation that the
corporation has been directing the entire course of events since the Flesh
Fair for publicity purposes, shows again that the AI researchers are the
least humane people in the movie.

Later on, David confronts the vast hall full of Davids, a scene that was
intended to creep out the audience. But again it gives rise to questions
on my part. If there are that many Davids, why are they all designed to
have the human emotion of wanting to be unique? Was it an unintended
consequence? For that matter, what possessed the idiots in Marketing to
produce a batch of identical AIs all named David, instead of giving them
individual faces and individual voices and maybe some quirks of
personality? Do these people think that no two couples with a David will
ever meet? I'm not a parent, but I know that I'd be creeped out if I went
to a barbeque and every couple there had a copy of my little sister.

Finally, after David realizes that he is not unique, he deliberately
topples off a window ledge into the ocean. Uh... why? How is that a
means to the end of getting his mother to love him? Or alternatively, who
drew up the design specs and added in a requirement that David feel
suicidal despondency under certain conditions? Ordinary despondency I can
see, but not suicidal despondency; not in an expensive, partially human
being that parents are supposed to grow attached to. Plus, David can
operate underwater, and he knows that. This scene makes no sense.

Later, when David seeks out the Blue Fairy, and begins repeating his
eternal request, and the screen fades to black, I had the same reaction
everyone did: "Okay, movie's over! Please tell me the movie's over...
damn, it's not over." The Phantom Edit version of A.I. should end here.

After the Blue Fairy Fadeout, we see what I can only describe as Spielberg
messing up Kubrick's movie. To start with, the aliens - pardon me, I
meant the Successors - are Spielbergs. "Spielbergs"; that's the only
thing I can think of to call them. They are classic Spielberg aliens and
they don't belong on the set of A.I.

Lest I be too negative, however, I'll take this time to focus on an
example of what A.I. does right. David, revived by the Successors, leaves
the aircraft and heads for the Blue Fairy. He touches her, and she
shatters. At this point, a *bad* movie - which A.I. is not - would have
shown us some breakdown, some feeling of despair on David's part.
Instead, nothing happens - there isn't any emotion in David's limited deck
for this occasion. Three cheers for whoever wrote that scene! It's this
refusual to take the easy way out that puts A.I. into the class of science
fiction rather than space opera.

However, we then move directly on to the second "Damn, they blew it!"
moment in the movie, occurring at 10:28, when one of the Successors begins
spouting gibberish about yada-yada space-time yada-yada pathways yada-yada
DNA yada-yada only one day yada-yada. I'm sorry, I don't care how
dramatic your plot device is, you need to think up a better way to justify
it than making up totally arbitrary rules on the spot. Plus, if you can
bring back Monica for one day, you can scan her memories into permanent
storage; and, if they're retrieving Monica's immortal soul from 2000 years
in the future, they should be retrieving an old Monica from just before
the moment of her death, not the one David remembers... oh, forget it.

Finally, David gets his one day with Monica - being a little too human
throughout, it seemed to me, especially as he watches her go to sleep for
the last time. He goes to sleep with her, and - according to the final
voiceover - for the first time, begins to dream. Dream *what*? Why? I
wasn't really happy with this movie's ending.

One of the basic issues at the beginning of the movie is one that the
ending totally fails to resolve, even after going to all that plot-effort
to bring David to the one place where the question can be answered. David
is a partial human. He is both immortal, and fundamentally incomplete.
David was created without the potential to grow; he is forever young...
but on the other side of time, he can be improved and extended. David
could become a real human, if he wanted to be. Except that David doesn't
want to be human; he wants to stay with Monica forever, and being human is
only a means to that end.

The Successors could easily have given David a full deck of emotions, or
could easily have created an immortal virtual Monica that was real to the
limit of David's limited perceptions. Why didn't they? Was David, by
their standards, citizen enough not be lied to? Citizen enough not be
'improved' without consent? I know how I would have solved that problem;
I would have made David human for the course of the one perfect day he had
with Monica, and at the end of that day, he would have experienced great
grief... but he would have healed, and moved on, as complete humans have
the potential to do, and eventually joined the Successor civilization.
Both the moment of David becoming human, and the moment of his grief when
Monica faded, would have been a fine conclusion to the movie.

The ending I saw left me feeling incomplete because this basic issue went
unresolved. From the beginning, there were only four possible resolutions
to the movie: David dies; David lives forever with Monica, eternally
happy; David lives forever without Monica, eternally lonely; or David
grows beyond his limits. The ending we saw doesn't tell us which of these
events has occurred! Did David effectively switch himself off? Did David
go on forever dreaming of his last perfect day? Does David's dreaming
indicate that the Successors have gently begun to improve him out of his
cul-de-sac? Are David's dreams eternally lonely because Monica isn't
there?

I know there is a certain style of filmmaking that holds that the viewer
should be allowed to pick their own ending, and I hate that style with a
fiery passion. For me, a vague ending can ruin the impact of an entire
movie, and that came very close to happening with A.I.

Oh, well. A.I. is still a good movie. It's just that, as with many good
movies, A.I. could easily have been so much better.

And that's it. I hope you learned something.

AltaVista

Corbis

Ditto.com

Lycos

Photos To Go

Diggit!

Lycos already provides such a facility. You can check it out at http://www.lycos.com/l/?2i.

One wonders why, if the above is true, you are checking back in here to read the replies to your own post. By contrast, we *all* know why this link to search engine optimization is here. ;-)

But seriously, you've got a good point. I'm following the same model these days - giving away free search engine optimization advice online and sticking to print media and broadcast TV/radio for my journalism career. It just seems to be what audiences want.

That said, Wednesdays without Filler just won't be the same.

I agree with what some of the people here are saying. Kids - inner-city kids especially - will be bored out of their minds with most computer operations that they don't percieve as relevant to their everyday lives, which is most everything, since few of them have access to a computer outside of school.
The only other way to get through to them is by making it fun. I learned LOGO in a "gifted education" class in elementary school. I loved it, but I'm a computer engineer; I know there were other people in the class that hated it. In elementary school, the only computer that was crowded was the one running Oregon Trail, as others have mentioned before me.
With the technology of games - even the simple ones at Pogo and Lycos - I would think you could teach the kids more than they would realize. Using simple online games would introduce the kids to a fun environment while providing a chaperone to keep the kids polite while communicating with other users. I'm not advocating censorship, but I'm certain suggesting that children be taught by more than an "Acceptable Use of Internet" form.
The number of hardcore computer geeks is growing, but we are still outnumbered by huge margins. Most of these kids will probably use databases, spreadsheets, word processors, or other everyday-corporate-America-type programs when they grow up. They'll learn that stuff later. I think the goal of an elementary computer education should be to provide a very basic skill set to every student, and remove any fear or prejudice they have against computers in general. They should just have fun.

Some researchers have found it may be possible to produce antimatter using femtosecond lasers. Take a look Here.

Also, for those who didn't understand the linked article too well, there is a nice article on Lycos.

Heh, Please mod me up!!

finding out where all the links go to in these articles?

sorry, couldnt resist... there are sooooo many links in this one, i got confused :o)

Some usage I remember:

1. (Describing a PC) Equipped with sound, video, and CD-ROM.
2. (Describing a game or web site) Graphically intensive, with sound and/or video.
3. (Describing a data protocol) Able to support multiple services - e.g. ATM, which is designed to support voice, data, and video
4. (Describing an industry segment) Broadly defined to include game developers, web designers, software developers, and editors of fancy magazines about same
5. (Describing a neighborhood) A place where innovative, cutting-edge companies producing 1, 2, and 4 (but not 3) locate.

But it's really obsolete usage by now. I haven't seen it in common usage in several years, except to describe slow, graphically intensive web sites that make me want to uninstall Flash.

(Note that it's 404 in the Jargon File. Probably because it's so amorphous as to be useless as jargon.)

In short, Philip and ArsDigita have done a lot more than just try to make a lot of money. Unlike Yahoo who just uses free software, Philip and aD actually create it and then go a step further -- They train you on how to use it and make a slew of resources about it and related technologies available on their dime and no cost to you. That's a lot more than most companies can say.

...the Red Hat IPO (they're being sued for fraud now, aren't they?)

That's a cheap shot. They're being sued by Milberg Weiss, who with an ounce of research you'd find sue any company whose stock drops a lot. The scam, of course, is "give us some settlement money or we'll trash your company in the press and drag you through court for the next five years. Past victims include VA Linux, amongst many, many others.

Fun links: Milberg Weiss nailed for $45M
An article titled "Bloodsucking Scumbag"
... or try searching for "Bill Lerach" on Google.

I personally feel it is too bad that the Linux community can't agree to build on one graphical environment.

Yes, Linux needs to grow up and have a single, consistant interface, just like Windows. Look at the many products which accept the need for conformance under Windows. Products like Softimage (example) (though they may have an advantage, being owned by Microsoft for a while), LightWave [6] (example, check out the conforming buttons and tabs), and Kai's Power Tools (example)

Media players naturally conform to the standard Windows look and feel. Winamp led the way. Soon there were competitors like K-Jofol and Sonique which felt that they could make their mp3 players conform even better to Windows GUI standards. RealPlayer quickly followed. Apple realized they couldn't rehash the Macintosh interface for QuickTime, and delivered a version that perfectly matched the Windows standard. Not to be out done, Microsoft released a new version of the Windows Media Player which perfectly complied with the Windows standards for interfaces.

Even the next version of Windows, Windows XP, has been carefully crafted to conform to existing standards. With such strong and unwavering leadership, no one would even think of using an alternate shell or replacing the entire widget set.

Thank you, Microsoft, for getting the world to agree on one graphical environment. Thanks to your efforts to end competition, there is no risk of the Windows platform fragmenting into a pile of inconsistent applications, each making their own rules.

Natalie Portman: an actress many slashdot trolls seem to be obsessed about. Her most well known role is as Queen Amidala in the latest Star Wars movie.

grits: ground up corn as far as I can tell/know. Most popular in southeastern US. A popular side dish like mashed potatoes.
All your base are belong to us: net humor/fad. Based on a poor english translation of a japanese video game called "Zerowing". It is mentioned on the lycos 50.
It us understandable to be surly sometimes.

I've heard ... well, OK, I've passes a few idle hours on some web gambling sites and the (free) ones all use this method, quite effectively I'd say. Take, for example, lycos gaming, a free gambling service (free as in beer, as in you don't bet any money but you can win money), uses forced adds between games. I'd imagine they have a high rate of exposure and clickthrus since most gambling fools are just staring at the screen counter waiting for thier next fix. If you have a site with periodic content like this, forced ads are great. *I deny sigs exist*

Unfortunately it seems a lot of the Linux companies aren't making money, not just TurboLinux. All of their stocks have been dropping dramatically. In fact judging from this article, written in January, Linux stocks were going down even before the .com stocks started slipping (correct me if I'm wrong).

Actually, it's a lot more expensive than you might first think. A good bit of adult sites now use streaming video, which not only eat up bandwidth like you wouldn't believe, but also costs a LOT to license to use. Also, most adult sites have to pay constantly for new content (whether it be pictures, stories, etc.).

Now, you mention that an e-zine needs marketing and PR people. Why? Marketing for a standard content site can be as easy as going to places like Lycos' Affiliate Program and signing up. Boom. Ad space is sold. Why complicate the matter and hire 6 figured executives to do the same thing? And why does a site need PR? If the content is useful, people will find it though links from related sites, search engines, etc. A web site that needs PR needs PR because the niche that they're trying to fill may not be there. I seriously doubt that magazines that cater to specific content areas have PR people.

No, I really think that the business models of adult sites and e-zines are almost exactly the same, with the only difference is that one is paying for writers, and the other is paying for pre-prepared content. There are very large adult web site companies such as IDG which are making money hand over fist. I don't think that their business model is that different, from say, Salon's.. Other than content, it's exactly the same. The difference is mindset. Most people in the adult industry are the kind of people who want to run a business as best as they can, and who start in their basements witha single PC and a dialup account. More 'traditional' companies, on the other hand, are started by manager types, and start out with bank loans, offices, etc. They're expensive from the get-go because the management doesn't know any other way to do it.

Agreed, but the question that raises is wether that was the result of the fact that those FTP sites were really hard to find or the fact that the amount of people on the internet was relatively limeited back then. I think I can safely state that over here the MP3/Napster hype came into existence at the same time the general internet hype came into existence.

I wouldn't say they were that hard to find, after all there have been services like mp3.lycos.com around fo years allowing you to search for MP3s on the net. It's just not as easy for the average net user to use and hear about these services, whereas the amount of publicity (ironically, much of it from the RIAA) Napster received was staggering.

Remember, most people on the internet rarely leave the specified "domains" that ISPs like AOL and Freeserve create. These companies specifically try and keep their users within their sites in order to maximise ad revenues, and many people are happy with what these companies provide. So unless there's huge publicity other services will remain a minority interest...

The truth is that security cameras and other surveillance technology is ubiquitous and the technology behind them is only going to improve and get as cheap as dirt. The question is, as a society are we going to do about it? Judging from how the discussion has gone so far, i can only shake my head. Lets move the discussion passed, the police surveillance is "good vs evil" stage.

For those who believe that having the police check every ones face as they enter the gate at the Super Bowl is a good thing, are you naive? How do you know that your not? I'm sure they kept the camera's secret because It would creep people out to know that they were being scanned against known criminals, yet they did it anyway. How do you know that they are just looking out for your interests, what did they do they deserve this level of trust from you? This is a very powerful tool in the hands of the police that can be used for both good or ill. What's to prevent them from betraying this trust in the future?

For those who are apposed to this kind of Technology, lets get past the 1984 analogies. Let me remind you that, You don't need technology to create a very chilling authoritarian state, and technology only played a minor role in the book. For better or worse the technology exists and fortunately the picture of the future for most of us is not a "boot stomping on a human face". In fact surveillance can act in reverse, making the police much less likely to beat someone if they believe that they themselves are being
watched. Watching the watchers watch may one key to preventing the abuse of this technology.

Someone who has put a great deal of thought on the matter is David Brin, and I'm quite surprised that is lucid thoughts on this matter has not yet come up in this thread. This short piece in Wired and this Discussion are a good place places start. From what I can tell, many of you have not been exposed to these ideas yet. I put these in the "must read" category.

Enjoy.

Webmonkey has a brand spankin' new article on streaming video that might be of some use. http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/01/03/index4a. html

[begin included text]

From legion@dimensional.com Thu Nov 30 19:50:14 2000
Subject: Re: copkiller.org
To: mpaa23@pacbell.net (mpaa23)
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 19:50:09 -0700 (MST)

To Whom it May Concern:

My initial response to your threats of legal action ("Go fuck yourself") did not address the irony of this situation. Allow me to educate you.

I had the DeCSS source up on copkiller.org for about a week, way back when all of your threats were just starting. I voluntarily removed it because the administrator of Dimensional was already receiving grief from people upset about the nature of my page, and I felt that he shouldn't have to take any more problems on my behalf. Since DeCSS has not been available on copkiller.org for quite some time (what is it now, a year?), I can only assume that you're basing your "knowledge" off of a few lists cirulating around the internet.

The irony, of course, is this: now that you've decided to come after me (albeit extremely late) for DeCSS, I plan to link to a lycos search on decss.zip. Note that this is a link to a search engine, not to a particular file, and you'll damn well have to drag me to court to get a ruling on it. If Dimensional wants me to remove the link (and by this I mean *Dimensional*, not MPAA or its slime-sucking lawyers), I will do so immediately and without question, but this will not stop me from hosting the actual DeCSS file from a country with smarter laws, nor will it stop me from distributing the file via other means.

Let me spell out the irony for you: I've had little actual interest in DeCSS since it all started, but now you've renewed that interest, and I can fully assure you that I will not let this matter go.

-steve

[Original text appears below]

From mpaa23@pacbell.net Wed Nov 29 17:56:12 2000
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 16:46:38 -0800
From: mpaa23 <mpaa23@pacbell.net>
Subject: copkiller.org
To: Legion@copkiller.org
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200

MOTION PICTURE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, INC. 15503 VENTURA BOULEVARD ENCINO, CALIFORNIA 91436

UNITED STATES

PHONE: (818) 728-8127 Email: MPAA23@pacbell.net Anti-Piracy Operations

November 29, 2000

Steve Pordon Squealing Pigs, LLC 123 Main Street Yourtown, CO 80201 Legion@copkiller.org

RE: Distribution of Unauthorized Product Site/Email Address: copkiller.org MPAA File #: 5-671-267

Dear Steve Pordon:

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) represents the following motion picture production and distribution companies:

Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. Disney Enterprises, Inc. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. Paramount Pictures Corporation TriStar Pictures, Inc. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation United Artists Pictures, Inc. United Artists Corporation Universal City Studios, Inc. Warner Bros., a Division of Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P.

We have received information that you are unlawfully offering product at the above-referenced web site. We have notified your ISP of the unlawful nature of this web site and have asked for its immediate removal. Our letter to your ISP is set forth below for your reference.

Please contact us at the above listed address or by replying to this email if you should have any questions.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Very truly yours,

Motion Picture Association of America

MOTION PICTURE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, INC. 15503 VENTURA BOULEVARD ENCINO, CALIFORNIA 91436

UNITED STATES

PHONE: (818) 728-8127 Email: MPAA23@pacbell.net Anti-Piracy Operations

November 29, 2000

Chuck U. Farley Dimensional Communications, LLC 910 16th Street Suite 1015 Denver, CO 80202 Copyrightwrong@dimensional.com

RE: Illegal Provision of DeCSS/Circumvention Device Site/URL: copkiller.org MPAA File#: 5-671-267

Dear Chuck U. Farley:

The Motion Picture Association of America is authorized to act on behalf = of the following copyright owners:

Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. Disney Enterprises, Inc. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. Paramount Pictures Corporation TriStar Pictures, Inc. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation=20 United Artists Pictures, Inc. United Artists Corporation Universal City Studios, Inc. Warner Bros., a Division of Time Warner Entertainment Company, L.P.

We have knowledge that the above-referenced Internet site is providing a = circumvention device commonly known as DeCSS. DeCSS is a software = utility that decrypts or unscrambles the contents of DVDs (consisting of = copyrighted motion pictures) or otherwise circumvents the protection = afforded by the Contents Scramble System (CSS) and permits the copying = of the DVD contents and/or any portion thereof. As such, DeCSS is an = unlawful circumvention device within the meaning of the Digital = Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. Section 1201(a)(2),(3). Providing = or offering DeCSS to the public on your system or network violates the = provisions of Section 1201(a)(2) which prohibits the "manufacturing, = importing or offering to the public, providing, or otherwise = trafficking" in an unlawful circumvention device. (17 U.S.C. Section = 1201 et seq. hereafter is referred to as the "DMCA").

On August 17, 2000, a federal district court in the Southern District of = New York confirmed that offering, providing, or trafficking in DeCSS, or = any other device designed to circumvent CSS, violates the DMCA. The = district court granted a permanent injunction against (1) posting on = any Internet site, or in any other way manufacturing, importing or = offering to the public, providing, or otherwise trafficking in DeCSS or = any other technology primarily designed to circumvent CSS, and (2) = linking any Internet web site, either directly or through a series of = links, to any other Internet web site containing DeCSS.=20

The district court's ruling makes clear that by providing DeCSS, the = above- referenced Internet site violates the DMCA. We therefore demand = that you:

1) take appropriate steps to cause immediate removal of DeCSS from the = above identified URL, along with such other actions as may be necessary = or appropriate to suspend this illegal activity;

2) provide appropriate notice to the subscriber or account holder = responsible for the presence of DeCSS on your system or network, = advising him/her of the contents of this notice and directing that = person to contact the undersigned immediately at the e-mail address = provided above;

Failure to comply with these measures will subject you to liability as = described above.

We also request that you maintain, and take whatever steps are necessary = to prevent the destruction of, all records, including electronic = records, in your possession or control respecting this URL, account = holder or subscriber.

By copy of this letter, the owner of the above-referenced URL and/or = email account is hereby directed to cease and desist from the conduct = complained of herein.

On behalf of the respective owners of the exclusive rights to the = copyrighted material at issue in this notice, we hereby state, pursuant = to the DMCA that we have a good faith belief that the acts complained of = are not authorized by the copyright owners, their respective agents, or = the law.

Also pursuant to DMCA, we hereby state, under penalty of perjury under = the law of California and under the laws of the United States, that the = information in this notification is accurate and that we are authorized = to act on behalf of the owners of the exclusive rights being infringed = as set forth in this notification.

Should you have any questions, please contact us at the above listed = address.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter. Your immediate response = is requested.

Respectfully, The Motion Picture Association of America

[end included text]

-Legion