Slashdot Mirror

Pliable, not so much -- the problem with growing new neurons at that age is that they're kind of stringy, so the thinking you get out of them is old and crotchety and has kind of a gamey feel to it.

That's just asking for trouble. Predicted over 18 years ago, too!

And how were you planning to verify the DNA?

The bomb was used as a last resort solution.

Well, as Maxim 6 of the Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries says, If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.

I'd like to point out that a considerable number of on-line graphic stories (and sometimes they are also very comical) have been published by their authors as dead-tree editions. Therefore those stories, at least, can be enjoyed either way. Some of them have been getting produced for enough years that multiple volumes are available, while the complete archive is usually also accessible on-line.
Since personal tastes differ, I'm not going to especially recommend particular comics. However, here are a few that I personally have enjoyed (in no particular order):
SchlockMercenary
Questionable Content
Sluggy Freelance (you might want to turn off Javascript for this archive)
A Girl And Her Fed
Girl Genius (has won multiple Hugo awards)
Freefall
Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic
The Monster Under The Bed
Grrl Power
General Protection Fault
Be warned, some are not particularly safe for work, and some have archives large enough to keep you busy reading for months.

Schlock Mercenary. 15+ years of daily comics, and still going strong. The first 5 years of art was pretty rough, but it's much better with that much practice now.

Slow news day, /. ? You could as well have titled this "Pensioner adherent of alternative explanation". More specifically, this is an (at least) decade-old proposed explanation of the Fermi paradox, among many others. Not to mention that the paradox itself is subject to debate; plug the right parameters in the Drake equation and there is no paradox....

So, nothing new to this story whatsoever - though it has lent itself to good science fiction (culture barbarian's link but I'm sure you guys can find "proper" classics illustrating my point).

Slow news day, /. ? You could as well have titled this "Pensioner adherent of alternative explanation". More specifically, this is an (at least) decade-old proposed explanation of the Fermi paradox, among many others. Not to mention that the paradox itself is subject to debate; plug the right parameters in the Drake equation and there is no paradox....

So, nothing new to this story whatsoever - though it has lent itself to good science fiction (culture barbarian's link but I'm sure you guys can find "proper" classics illustrating my point).

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/

I followed it for a year or so, but it got old. Don't know what it's like in recent decades. Schlock is an alien with a number of useful talents, but beauty isn't one of them. There is (or was) also a handsome captain, a (slightly) mad scientist, a "beautiful" nurse, etc. And they get in a lot of fights. (I may have misremembered some of that.)

So it's pretty much a standard formula, but not too bad. https://www.schlockmercenary.c... thanks to Google.

(Has S.M. started to compete with XKCD?) http://www.schlockmercenary.co... and http://www.schlockmercenary.co...

(Has S.M. started to compete with XKCD?) http://www.schlockmercenary.co... and http://www.schlockmercenary.co...

http://www.schlockmercenary.co...

http://www.schlockmercenary.co...

The first rule of AI kill-switches is "Don't talk about the AI kill switch".

http://www.schlockmercenary.co...

Ignoring any bias in the demographic itself, it seems to me that it's just harder to write right-wing sci-fi.

It's easy to write about an enemy that has all of the money, power, and control, providing a convenient struggle for the protagonist. It's much more difficult to write (and thus, more rare to find) a good story where the enemy is given the same circumstances as the protagonist, and both are given the same life choices. Sure, you can say that the antagonist was given too much freedom... but then you have to establish why he chose that way, and if you try to use any variation on "because he's evil", your story goes from being a thought-provoking philosophical adventure to being a heavy-handed morality essay.

You could more generally make a strong leftist state be the enemy. That's the dystopian road blazed by sci-fi in the 1960s, and several movies since the 1970s, notably Logan's Run and Soylent Green. It's a time-honored genre, but that's also the problem. It's old. Dystopian fiction dates back a few centuries, and combining it with science is hardly groundbreaking.

For a while, a popular trend was to base such stories on real people and events, who could be suitably framed for conflict while keeping their political slant. Of course, the reading audience quickly grew tired of every Nazi and Soviet alternate-history piece, and those have waned in recent years.

To more directly address your point, consider the alternative: Writing left-wing sci-fi is easy.

The plot is simple: An underdog wants freedom for himself against the oppressive regime of the evil overlord, who had freedom and used it to oppress others. What makes the underdog different is that he will stand for justice for everyone, show kindness to everyone the audience could identify with, and never miss a chance to help others. Relying on teamwork and everyone's unique (identifiable and presence-justifying) abilities, the protagonist establishes a utopian foothold, where all of the characters that the audience identifies with are loved and cared for.

In fiction, that plot is sufficient for a story. In reality, things are much more complicated. What happens if one of the protagonist's allies was really only following because his girlfriend was? What if the rules of the protagonist's new state really screw some of the wealthier folks? What if the protagonist himself is genuinely a right-wing capitalist who just wants to make money and retire in obscurity?

You're right - Political strife isn't where really good fiction comes from. The best sci-fi works are ones where every character has their own motivations, and they don't boil down to "be good" or "be evil". Rather, they reduce to things like "sleep safely", "get back to stability" or "avoid the consequences of a mistake". One particularly good sci-fi space opera work, itself nominated a few times for Hugo awards, has spent nearly two decades dealing with the indirect results of a mistake. Characters have come and gone through the series, and politics has been an issue, but by that time every character had their own long-established reasons to hold their preferences. At no point was the story ever purely about morality, even when the "definitely evil" characters were introduced - they eventually got their own motivations.

Those deep-rooted, long stories that take the time to establish characters and motivation are great sci-fi, and can avoid bias toward either political slant.

That's hard, though.

In our defense, the drumbeats *are* very soothing.

"We immediately stopped using the words 'lightsaber,' 'Jedi,' 'Sith' and 'The Force,' " the group's co-founder told the technology blog of the San Jose Mercury News, saying they've still been "aggressively pursued" for the last three months.

Episode 1: story opens with a trade dispute

Episode 8: story:

• opens with a cease and desist letter,
• continues through multiple "aggressive pursuit" scenes and near escapes,
• builds up to an exciting climax involving ... hmm, how about a fight between lightsaber-wielding cosplayers and many cloned attorneys?

Eh, I'll still go.

They do have some value.

And here I thought the artist was making a joke.

You clearly are not aware of how bad a no-bid procurement process can get. Sadly I've seen it in action and let's say it would put third world countries to shame.

Then again, there are rare times when no-bid contracts work just fine.
Start at http://www.schlockmercenary.co..., and read the next 6 pages...

Maxim 29: The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more. No less.

Although I will assure you that inside their heads, if you could spectate, that would be quite a sport.

It's probably more interesting than what's happening in baseball, anyway.

Certain other physiological limitations might end up overriding those concerns.

Ok, maybe repurposed is a better way of saying it.

Maxim 43: If it's stupid and it works, it's still stupid and you're lucky.

Credit goes to Schlock Mercenary.

Sure, just make sure the security on it is lock-tight. Bad things happen when you let enemies suborn your orbital mirrors (although in that case they were to counter global warming, not for power).

Who are we to take them away?

Of course, by the same argument, do you really have to make it a requirement? Better to make it an option so that those of us that don't want the extra noise don't have to pay you extra to get it.

Which is the real point of course - stop charging me for things you think I want, without getting my specific permission. This clearly should be an add-on option, not a requirement.

It's literally an apocalyptic weapon; unless you can figure out how to put transporter-proof shields around every valuable target you've got (and remember here that a planet counts as a valuable target, if you can beam a big enough antimatter bomb much less some "red matter").

Here you go. It definitely makes things more interesting.

It's literally an apocalyptic weapon; unless you can figure out how to put transporter-proof shields around every valuable target you've got (and remember here that a planet counts as a valuable target, if you can beam a big enough antimatter bomb much less some "red matter").

Here you go. It definitely makes things more interesting.

Any robot that can help a wounded person could easily be re-purposed to fire weaponry instead of administer first aid -- Especially if they can do injections.

And it's pretty much guaranteed that they will be coerced as demands dictate.

Dang. Typo broke the first, more-punchline-worthy, Schlock link.

I'm really begining to hate the keyboard on this new laptop.

This actually looks good to me. Most helicopters can be shot down with a rifle. They are huge engines with large fuel tanks and large, whirling blades, and it is not that difficult to get them to destroy themselves with their own momentum, height, or fuel.

I concur. Helicopters are a collection of single-points-of-failure, disasters waiting to happen. (Particularly the pilot - they have to be continuously controlled and crash almost instantly if anything incapacitates him.) Their vulnerability is justified only because their extreme usefulness oughtweighs it. With eight rotors I'd be surprised if this vehicle couldn't at least come to ground safely with at least two of them destroyed, and the multicopter approach has been under autonomous computer control from the start - made practical only by the automation.

I envision this thing's missions as being primarily extreme rough-country ground transport, with short hops to bypass otherwise impassible terrain, reach otherwise inaccessible destinations or targets, attack from above, or put on a burst of speed when time is of the essence. Think a truck-sized "super jeep" ala Superman. Being primarily a ground vehicle lets it perform longer missions and reduces its visibility and vulnerability compared to a helicopter.

Just because you CAN fly doesn't mean you DO fly all the time. As is pointed out in the webcomic Schlock Mercenary: "Do you know what they call flying soldiers on the battlefield?" ... "Skeet!"

This actually looks good to me. Most helicopters can be shot down with a rifle. They are huge engines with large fuel tanks and large, whirling blades, and it is not that difficult to get them to destroy themselves with their own momentum, height, or fuel.

I concur. Helicopters are a collection of single-points-of-failure, disasters waiting to happen. (Particularly the pilot - they have to be continuously controlled and crash almost instantly if anything incapacitates him.) Their vulnerability is justified only because their extreme usefulness oughtweighs it. With eight rotors I'd be surprised if this vehicle couldn't at least come to ground safely with at least two of them destroyed, and the multicopter approach has been under autonomous computer control from the start - made practical only by the automation.

I envision this thing's missions as being primarily extreme rough-country ground transport, with short hops to bypass otherwise impassible terrain, reach otherwise inaccessible destinations or targets, attack from above, or put on a burst of speed when time is of the essence. Think a truck-sized "super jeep" ala Superman. Being primarily a ground vehicle lets it perform longer missions and reduces its visibility and vulnerability compared to a helicopter.

Just because you CAN fly doesn't mean you DO fly all the time. As is pointed out in the webcomic Schlock Mercenary: "Do you know what they call flying soldiers on the battlefield?" ... "Skeet!"

You can't just eliminate the laws of supply and demand.

3) Not sure what the going rates are, but considering $50E9 would buy all the plants themselves, would that get you enough lobbying to solve the problem (although it's not completely clear to me who's working for who in this instance)?

Another possible field of research that leads to burger flipping
http://www.schlockmercenary.co...

What does IBM do anymore then?

Intragalactic Bowel Movements?

http://www.schlockmercenary.co...

until no-one in their right minds would countenance a human driver behind the wheel.

This reminded me of a schlock mercenary comic strip(and explanation). It's not quite XKCD, I know. It's also interesting to see how much better Tayler is at drawing now....

From what I've been told, Card will not get a dime of your money regardless of whether you see the movie or not.

Unless you've been living in a vacuum, you know that there are people boycotting the film in protest of Orson Scott Card's very public political positions. There are also people seeing it as a show of support. It's been pointed out that Card is not in for producer money--he got paid when the option was exercised, and won't see more money regardless of how well the film does. On the other hand, judging by Ender's Game's position on The New York Times Bestseller list (#1 on November 10th for mass-market paperback) this movie has sold some books, and those will cut Card some royalty checks.

That sounds nuts, but it is a time-tested method of data transfer, after all.

And it can be expected to be a handy way to bypass firewalls far into the future as well. B-)

Some industries and their customers may have less of an issue with the intellectual property side of this.

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-11-06

Obligatory Schlock Mercenary:
here

Sometimes I wish we lived the Schlock Mercenary universe where people could be executed for grand spamming.

One killer feature (point intended) that could actually make a difference to the soldiers themselves is a targeting line-of-sight camera \ giro that calculates the projectile course and displays a curve with wind correction and such. This will make shooting behind cover and from the waist possible at very long ranges.

A curve is complicated and will inevitably be misinterpreted by the dumb human under stress. We've got laser rangefinders -- measure the range, then move the aim dot compensating for trajectory. (Do note that wind correction, cool as it is, doesn't matter for 90% of the cases where your system can effectively do it, since on the long-range shots where it matters, wind conditions down-range are quite different from those in your sniper hide.)

In fact, despite having no practical use for it, I aim to experiment with this concept on my AR-15 once Google Glass or another suitable AR display becomes available in my price range (~$600).

Hell, Imagine all your grunts with Terminator 2 like mini-guns since those things can actually fire pretty accurately but the problem was the weak humans who couldn't aim properly while shotting from the waist and couldn't bring them up to the shoulder because they're way too big and bulky.

Uh, no. There was a notionally man-portable (in practice, always vehicle-mounted) 5.56 minigun, the XM214. The bare gun itself weighed 12kg, on par with a M1919. Aiming is not the issue -- you can easily hold the gun at your hip, or even at your shoulder, for a few minutes, but just like the M1919, adding ammo (and for the XM214, a lead-acid battery) makes it way too heavy. Even if we magically made it the same bulk and weight as an M4, all the XM214 will accomplish in a firefight is the ability to run out of the ammo you can carry in one-fifth the time.

The way to greater individual firepower is not increased rounds per minute, but increased firepower per pound of ammo -- i.e. explosive projectiles, such as the XM25. But yes, the only thing better than an XM25 is an XM25 with Glass integration for non-line-of-sight firing. (Of course, if you give a grunt that, they're gonna want a space station and a firmware upgrade to go with it.)

One killer feature (point intended) that could actually make a difference to the soldiers themselves is a targeting line-of-sight camera \ giro that calculates the projectile course and displays a curve with wind correction and such. This will make shooting behind cover and from the waist possible at very long ranges.

A curve is complicated and will inevitably be misinterpreted by the dumb human under stress. We've got laser rangefinders -- measure the range, then move the aim dot compensating for trajectory. (Do note that wind correction, cool as it is, doesn't matter for 90% of the cases where your system can effectively do it, since on the long-range shots where it matters, wind conditions down-range are quite different from those in your sniper hide.)

In fact, despite having no practical use for it, I aim to experiment with this concept on my AR-15 once Google Glass or another suitable AR display becomes available in my price range (~$600).

Hell, Imagine all your grunts with Terminator 2 like mini-guns since those things can actually fire pretty accurately but the problem was the weak humans who couldn't aim properly while shotting from the waist and couldn't bring them up to the shoulder because they're way too big and bulky.

Uh, no. There was a notionally man-portable (in practice, always vehicle-mounted) 5.56 minigun, the XM214. The bare gun itself weighed 12kg, on par with a M1919. Aiming is not the issue -- you can easily hold the gun at your hip, or even at your shoulder, for a few minutes, but just like the M1919, adding ammo (and for the XM214, a lead-acid battery) makes it way too heavy. Even if we magically made it the same bulk and weight as an M4, all the XM214 will accomplish in a firefight is the ability to run out of the ammo you can carry in one-fifth the time.

The way to greater individual firepower is not increased rounds per minute, but increased firepower per pound of ammo -- i.e. explosive projectiles, such as the XM25. But yes, the only thing better than an XM25 is an XM25 with Glass integration for non-line-of-sight firing. (Of course, if you give a grunt that, they're gonna want a space station and a firmware upgrade to go with it.)

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-03-16

For a humorous take on it, please read the author's text under this strip of Schlock Mercenary.

Wasted Talent is about an girl getting through engineering school and then in the real world. It's great art and really funny! My personal favorite is hugo-nominated Schlock Mercenary, which I consider the best overall. It's been around a while, and is always funny, and always updates (no missed comics in over 12 years, even when his datacenter exploded). For best artwork, and a great story, I agree with many other posters in saying that multiple-Hugo-winning Girl Genius wins hands down. I do love xkcd, and most of the other ones mentioned. I should also mention Foxtrot, which is not strictly a webcomic (it's also in newspaper syndication). I also read Sluggy Freelance, another really long-running webcomic. Lastly, I like Free Fall, a little less well-known comic about a genetically modified wolf who gets a job as an engineer for a petty crook, and tries to stop the robot apocalypse.

Wasted Talent is about an girl getting through engineering school and then in the real world. It's great art and really funny! My personal favorite is hugo-nominated Schlock Mercenary, which I consider the best overall. It's been around a while, and is always funny, and always updates (no missed comics in over 12 years, even when his datacenter exploded). For best artwork, and a great story, I agree with many other posters in saying that multiple-Hugo-winning Girl Genius wins hands down. I do love xkcd, and most of the other ones mentioned. I should also mention Foxtrot, which is not strictly a webcomic (it's also in newspaper syndication). I also read Sluggy Freelance, another really long-running webcomic. Lastly, I like Free Fall, a little less well-known comic about a genetically modified wolf who gets a job as an engineer for a petty crook, and tries to stop the robot apocalypse.