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Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.

• Did this bloke read Dune? I'm fairly sure that stillsuits were described as being slick. That is anything but slick.
• There is no sign of anything that can tighten across the chest.
• Those boots are not desert boots that can be "fitted slip-fashion at the ankles".
• The thing is too loosely fitting. I don't remember exactly but it seems to me that something that collects and filters expended moisture should be like a second skin. It shouldn't be so loose, especially at the wrists and collar where moisture could escape.
• Shouldn't stillsuits have some kind of integrated hood? I seem to remember Liet-Kynes or Paul adjusting a strap across the forehead "tightly, so as to prevent chafing". http://www.scifi.com/dune/gallery/d46.jpg shows a pic of Stilgar but WTF is that thing on his head? It's not what Herbert describes. IIRC he describes stillsuits as having a flap that can be fastened across the mouth, and nose-plugs. Chani is described as having a callous alongside(?) her nose from the tube from the nose-plugs. Nothing is mentioned about that thing on his head that covers his mouth and nose. His clothing is wrong too. Wasn't fremen desert garb described as flowing robes?

• Did this bloke read Dune? I'm fairly sure that stillsuits were described as being slick. That is anything but slick.
• There is no sign of anything that can tighten across the chest.
• Those boots are not desert boots that can be "fitted slip-fashion at the ankles".
• The thing is too loosely fitting. I don't remember exactly but it seems to me that something that collects and filters expended moisture should be like a second skin. It shouldn't be so loose, especially at the wrists and collar where moisture could escape.
• Shouldn't stillsuits have some kind of integrated hood? I seem to remember Liet-Kynes or Paul adjusting a strap across the forehead "tightly, so as to prevent chafing". http://www.scifi.com/dune/gallery/d46.jpg shows a pic of Stilgar but WTF is that thing on his head? It's not what Herbert describes. IIRC he describes stillsuits as having a flap that can be fastened across the mouth, and nose-plugs. Chani is described as having a callous alongside(?) her nose from the tube from the nose-plugs. Nothing is mentioned about that thing on his head that covers his mouth and nose. His clothing is wrong too. Wasn't fremen desert garb described as flowing robes?

With this in mind, I suggest reading Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age", since the "primer" in the novel represents probably the ultimate teaching tool - one that takes Nell from first words to computer programming and martial arts without needing adult intervention!

I am hopeful this one, by spending enough time, will have enough screen space to show everything that happens in the book. Still, seems like a tall order given that half of what "happens" is people thinking to themselves.

Moderator: Does the track record for epic SF in films - Dune, Waterworld - make you nervous about actually seeing your work on the big screen?

OrsonScottCard: Dune was a botch because they tried to keep the whole book in it. It can't be done - not well, anyway.

OrsonScottCard: It's like Gone with the Wind. Scarlett had three children in the book. In the movie, she has only one. There just wasn't time.

OrsonScottCard: The thing is, a movie is about a novella's worth of story. Dune was a botch because in order to leave in all

OrsonScottCard: the main high points of the movie, they had to cut out all the build-up that made each of those climaxes

OrsonScottCard: work. The "all-climax" version is just numbing. When Linda Hunt popped on the screen and announced,

OrsonScottCard: "I am the Kwisatz Haderach (or however the heck you spell it)," it got a laugh in the theater I was in.

OrsonScottCard: Not because she said it wrong, but because there was no buildup. It meant nothing to us.

OrsonScottCard: Also, I think evidence is clear that Lynch has no clue how to create a film that communicates with people.

OrsonScottCard: I mean that, of course, in the nicest possible way.

Click below for proof:
"asteroid"
Satellite of Love (of MST3K fame)

That won't work either if the hop is 4.3 light-years away. The standard TCP method is to hold a copy of the packet for retransmission until you know conclusively that it is no longer needed. In the case of USENET, articles can and do expire from the local disk storage before they can be transmitted to the next hop -- there are several "corrective" mechanisms for handling such overloaded feeds...

The next thing ya' know, the universe will filled with drone arms...

An elephant plummeting from the top of a building...you mean something like this?

--

Apparently YTV will be airing the reboot movies.

All i can say is great. It was an excellent series and i can't wait to see these movies.

This is probably the mini-series the Sci Fi Channel will be showing this fall. Here's a link to the information they've published on their Web site:

http://www.scifi.com/dune/

The official Dune site is up and running at:

http://www.scifi.com/dune

We've got pictures, a cast & crew list, press releases and notes about the production, with lots more on the way. Also, on our Dune bboard I've been posting some notes about my recent 5-day visit to the set of Dune, which is being filmed in Prague. Although I work for SCI FI so am not exactly an unobjective source, after having read the script, seen the sets, talked to the actors, etc., I'm thoroughly impressed all the way around. The miniseries will be much more theatrical than the Lynch movie and much more faithful to the book, and so far it looks great. And we're planning to create a v2.0 Web site around mid-year that hopefully will do justice to the miniseries, which I'm also pretty excited about.

Best,

Craig E. Engler

Executive Producer

SCIFI.COM

Yes - it will be on SCI FI. See Dune. I work for SCIFI.COM. It was nice to actually know the answer to something ...

There's also this:

http://www.scifi.com/dune/

With news, gallery, and other comments about the upcoming series.

I don't like a lot of OPEC's policies, but I'm not about to give up my car...

You have to strike a balance. If someone somewhere has done something you don't agree with, and they are associated with a particular product or service, it's cool if you protest and stop using that product/service, but if you tried to do that with every single thing, you'd never do anything, and you'd starve to death.

Also, be careful of characterizing Slashdot as a whole. This site is filled individuals that have widely varying points of view. It's possible that there are a lot of people that agree whole-heartedly with the MPAA, and they are the ones posting to this story (not likely, but hey, I don't know). Unless you went back to the MPAA stories and compared user ID's, you don't know if people are really being hypocritical or not.

C
(feeling bitter and disgusted tonight)

That's cool, it happens... :)

"... message passing as the fundamental operation of the OS is just an excercise in computer science masturbation."

duh. go here of course.

hmm..maybe you should build a sliding device like this one. that way, one earth you slide to will have hawaii in your exact spot. no travel required.
BTW, anyone note the resemblance to the sliders plot and this guys book ? methinks someones watching too much sci fi.

OK, so Lucas has an excuse -- but what about Straczynski? His CBS deal with Chris Carter is off, so maybe he can persuade WB to cut a deal for those anamorphic Dolby 5.1 DVD versions of the episodes of Babylon 5 we're still waiting for.... thanks for listening!
--
Paul Gillingwater

It's all a conspiracy.

Sir Authur has been using computers since the days of the Altair and CP/M. He has co-written books with Gentry Lee via e-mail. I've read text chats with Clarke. He has mentioned that he uses the Net quite a bit in other interviews.

That is what I get for not checking them, and assuming the /. discussion code would handle it the way I expect. They were:

• Vernor Vinge (the Singularity paper): http://meltingpot.fortuneci ty.com/kuwait/557/vinge.html
• Greg Egan (Permutation City):http://www.acme.com/~jef/reviews/g_ega n.html
• John Brunner (Shockwave Rider):http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue48/class ic.htm

Jack

Cell phones, satellite communications, the Internet, the Space Shuttle, mass murders supposedly caused by overuse of video games... Hell, look at what I do for a living! Computer programming as a vocation was SF fifty years ago.

Vernor Vinge was right all along (not that I ever doubted him). The real problem with writing SF these days is not that your ideas and predictions are too far out, but that they are probably not far enough. Some, like Greg Egan, make up for this by going all out and creating new physics and related cosmologies. Others descend into psuedo-science and write fantasies set on spaceships. (You know what I am talking about, no need to include a link to some trekkie site.)

The point is simple, there is nothing in this 'Smart Dust' - or any other new technology - that should surprise anyone who has been paying attention the last ten years. It is all going to happen, and probably sooner than anyone expects. Those of us who are mentally flexible enough to handle the changes are the new elite. Everyone else will be (or are now) left spinning in the shockwave.

Jack

Click on the "Moyer, Hatch continue Galactica plans" link. Man, I can't believe they expect to make a big franchise out of Battlestar Galactica. I thought the show was really cool when I was a kid, but whenever I catch a rerun these days, I think to myself, "That show really stunk". I'm 27 - is there anyone under 20 or so who even remembers that show?

BTW, I don't think Jake Lloyd would be too bad a choice for Ender. He will have grown up a good bit by the time shooting starts, and will have presumably taken some acting lessons. Also, Card is no idiot - if he likes Lloyd, there must be more to him than what we saw in TPM.

Yeah, I tried to post this as well, found both of these off of dvdresource.com: One from Variety Magazine and another from Sci Fi Wire

Haven't seen it myself, and I won't be seeing till July 16th (UK) but, the previews according to this article in SciFi Wire are not very promising...

Haven't seen it myself, won't be seeing till July 16th (UK) but the previews according to this article in SciFi Wire are not very promising...