Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Swiftness, Ender's, Streams
When it comes to records, context begets significance. Fandu writes: "In regards to the article about the new internet2 land speed record.. That is not correct, The Canadian CA*Net3 network is about 60X faster still. It may be a net speed record for Internet2, but it's certainly no new internet speed record. See the ABC Article about the network from a few years back and the NOC webpage."
And no one is in line for tickets yet? flea writes: "So, fans of orson scott card (to whom I was turned onto by luna) should be happy. The books Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow are on the track to being made into a movie. Script is being written and OSC is involved in the process. It's being made by Wolfgan Petersen, who has a few hits and misses (http://us.imdb.com/Name?Petersen,+Wolfgang); Air Force One and Outbreak are, well, ya know ... To his credit though, he did Enemy Mine, the movie with Louis Gossett Jr. playing the speach impediment'd alien trapped on a rock after a battle with Dennis Quaid and then LGj gives birth (wtf). C'mon, we all liked that. Anyway, it hasn't even started filming yet and the script isn't done, but things look good. More info here."
Speak up for Ogg Vorbis! SgtChaireBourne writes: "The BBC's testing period for Ogg Vorbis is now finished, but they are still soliciting feedback.
Now's the chance to add any words of encouragement to the BBC regarding Ogg, especially since, perhaps by oversight, RealOne (formerly RealPlayer) is now only available for Windows 98, 2000, ME, NT and XP. Currently, the download page for older versions seem to turn up empty for all requests for Linux versions, but deep links can still get you there.
As far as I can tell, the BBC is the first large (or even medium) news service to try Ogg. Here is last year's announcment on Slashdot about the start of the test."
"Sounds cool." blocksetter writes: "Cool Chips plc appreciates the interest of the Slashdot community. We've made an effort to address the points raised in last week's discussion of our technology and we've posted the resulting FAQ on our site. In the interest of conserving bandwidth, a text-only version is available for your viewing pleasure. We would like to thank everybody whose questions and criticisms inspired us to do this.
If there is something we haven't covered, you can also write directly to Cool Chips President Isaiah Cox, or to myself, Company Wonky Chris Bourne."
Click here or here.
I think the record wasn't just that they transmitted at that speed, but that they did it over the massively long distance which they did, over oceans and all. I don't think an intra-Canadian network can really claim that they transmit as far.
Man, I hope they find a lot of good child actors. With the exception of the sixth Sence and the City of Lost Children I have yet to see an excellent job done by a child filling a more adult personality.
(/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
Now's the chance to add any words of encouragement to the BBC regarding Ogg, especially since, perhaps by oversight, RealOne (formerly RealPlayer) is now only available for Windows 98, 2000, ME, NT and XP.
WinAmp has support for playing Ogg Vorbis files.
Funny someone would name an encoding format after a caveman...
transgaming is awesome software! I've just been playing Warcraft 2 (Battle-net edition, the old one was DOS and needs Dosemu), Deus Ex, and Counter-strike. All without leaving linux, and all *with* the ability to change workspaces to talk in Gaim while I'm playing (in between rounds of counter-strike can get tedious, after all).
They do have a version for linux that is either alpha or beta, the link is very hard to find.. if I find it again Ill reply to this..
Wolfgang Petersen also did Das Boot, one of the best war movies of all time. (IMHO) This could be a spectacular film under his direction.
It wasn't that good of a book (it won a 1986 Hugo? Geez. Must have been a dry year), so I can't imagine it will be a terribly good movie.
Give us Larry Niven movies instead!
What an unfortunate job title...what the hell is a 'Company Wonky'?
I bet that looks real good on a resume.
This space intentionally left blank.
Who is luna? Are slashdot submissions going to have shout-outs in them like MTV's TRL now?
i hope you were joking. if not you are one of the first people to say that about that book. personally, i really liked it, but thats just me.
-- john
Yes, but if you really read the books you'd know that that is how bugger colonies greet each other. Ender just shakes hands really enthusiastically, is all.
So they're finally going to do a movie based on it? Oh great. Yet another movie for the slashdot community to bitch about. ;)
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
The long developmental time for films is a frustrating and, sometimes, sad thing. One of our greatest writers, Philip K. Dick, died just before getting to see the screen adaptation of his fabulous novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.
That was particulary sad because, as told in Lawrence Sutin's excellent Divine Invasions : A Life of Philip K. Dick, this would have been a self-vindicating landmark in a life tortured by schizophrenia and criminal disregard by literary critics.
It's worth noting that Douglas Adams also died after years trying to get a film of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy off the ground.
There is NO direct link to the download because of theregistration process.
Here is how to get it:
1) Goto http://scopes.real.com/real/player/unix/unix.html
2) Fill in the form and Choose Linux 2.x (libc6 i386).
3) click on "Download Community Supported Player"
4) Don't click on the normal download links. Go look at the very
bottom of the page. You will see
" RealOne Player for Unix - Preview Release
If you would like to try the alpha version of RealOne Player for
Linux 2.2 x86, use the button below."
5) Click on that button and download.
I gotta say, I'm not to thrilled that he never thought a child actor could handle Ender until he (paraphrase) "suddenly realized it was possible to when he saw Episode I..."
I liked the book, but anyone who bases his faith in kids with the robotic acting ability of your skywalker in Episode I REAAALLY needs to raise his sights. I know a dog that could play the role with more charisma than that kid.
-rt
OK, so apparently these "Cool Chips" are based on quantum phyics... where can I find a good "Quantum Mechanics for Dummies" book? (seriously)
I'd settle for a good "introduction to quantum physics" article, but I think I need something to help me get my brain wrapped around these concepts. I understand the whole multiple universe thing (sort of), but it just seems so mind-blowing.
The land speed record is not how fast your network is in aggregate. It's how fast and how far you can push a single pair of hosts using TCP. How fast the backbone links are on CANet is entirely irrelevant. Lot's of big providers have links running at OC-12 or OC-48, both of which are faster than 400Mbps. Abilene itself routinely runs links at over 400Mbps 24/7. Check out the graphs
But how fast an aggregate link is isn't the point. It's how fast you can send data from one computer to another. If you've ever actually tried to send data at over 100Mbps on the WAN, you would know how hard it is. To get 400Mbps requires the link to not only be fast enough, but to have essentially zero loss. And to get several networks that are that clean, especially to Europe, is pretty amazing. If you don't believe me, try sending a CD's worth of data across your room at that speed. Never mind sending it across the Atlantic Ocean.
I am a huge fan of the book but has anyone read the scriptment that OSC put up on the net? Ughhhh it was BAD It sounded more like Wing Commander than Ender's Game. Anderson is turned into a woman, Bean is more prominent in order to do the sequel (sidequel), Peter and Valentine are removed from the story altogether. The P and V thing I understand, a lot of the other stuff just shows how bad a FILM writer OSC is.
my $.02
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
A - To the other side of the chip. From there it still has to be dissipated like normal except that the cool side stays cold and can be used to cool, for example, computer chips or the inside of a refrigerator.
Like the McDLT - The HOT side stays HOT and the COOL side stays COOL!
sulli
RTFJ.
At least the grammar on /. submissions will be better than on TRL, this crowd appreciates the finer points of the English language.
Wait a minute......
You zap the moderators with a wand of humor! The moderators resist!
my life makes it to the big screen!
I think the original author meant that they should make movies based on "Ringworld", "Rainbow Mars", "Protector", "A World Out of Time", etc.
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
It's really nice to get quality radio on a non-traditional device. I should mention that I'm posting this from my iPAQ too :-)
Paranoia isn't an infectious condition, it's a way of life
I found Ender's Game characters uninspiring and predictable.
The ending was also a real cop-out, I was as disappointed with the conclusion of Ender's Game as I was with Asimov's 3001.
According to someone on the Vorbis User and Discussion List, "Ogg Vorbis" is named after the "ogg tactical maneuver" in Netrek and Vorbis after the Terry Pratchett character from the book Small Gods.
What does the name "Ogg Vorbis" mean?
First, Vorbis was taken from a character of an ''exquisitor'' in the book
"Small Gods," a title in a series of Terry Pratchett fantasy novels.
Formally, Vorbis is the name for the specific audio compression scheme used
to create Ogg Vorbis files. It is ultimately part of the Ogg Vorbis CODEC
project (a branch of the overarching, open-multimedia Ogg project), which is
headed by Christopher Montgomery and his team.
cpeterso
I want to see GP hulls, Puppeteers, Kzinti, etc. on the big screen!
Maybe you are using the new Netscape Tab feature, as you posted under wrong story. ;-)
Help fight continental drift.
It's funny. Laugh. (tm)
Besides, for it to be 'karma drag-racing' would imply that I karma-whored my way up, which isn't true. I just don't bother posting unless I feel it's something worthwhile.
As a side note, I've decided to keep my sig only until someone comments on it. My new game is to see how quickly I can get someone to comment on my next sig.
Oh, and I'll quote my sig here, just so it's preserved for posterity after I go and change it: "Zero to 50 in only 88 comments!"
"Anything is better than IE, and you can quote me on that." -- Wil Wheaton.
That was an old script that no longer exists; I didnt like it much either. After reading his books since then (The Bean side tale) I think we should be in good shape. BTW, for those that dont know, Endercon is going to happen this July 5-6, 2002 at Utah Valley State College in Orem, Utah. I will be attending, and eagerly anticipating "Shadow Puppets" this August. I Eagerly await the movie, but will wait as much as nessecary. raVen
Man, I hope they find a lot of good child actors. With the exception of the sixth Sence and the City of Lost Children I have yet to see an excellent job done by a child filling a more adult personality.
Hardly movie-quality, but - the kid who played Picard in the "four people get turned into children" TNG episode did a damned good job.
Notice I said "most enjoyable". As much as we'd like to transfer all the great metaphysical scifi to the screen, such a transfer is likely to either create an unwatchable set of wooden monologues, completely toss the deep concepts, or both. Also, LOTR notwithstanding, short stories are easier to adapt than novels.
later,
Jess
I am programmed for etiquette, not destruction!
A couple folks have already observed that the casting of child actors would be difficult. I suggest it's impossible. Most of Ender's Game happens with VERY young children - preturnaturally brilliant kids. In fact the kids are written like adults, or at least adolescents, which is one of downsides of the novels. Now Scott will defend his characterization of children to the death but having raised three I say he seriously over-wrote them.
The thing that makes Ender's Game such a great book is that the small unwashed masses of alienated, hyper-intelligent geeks could truly empathize with Ender on an emotional level. We can understand his trials and feel his pains. We can also understand his pyrrhic victories. The rest of the books are good (for the most part) but that visceral sense of identification gets left behind. And, in Ender's Shadow, Card tries to shift that sense of identification from Ender to Bean. He fails miserably. He comes closer, yet also fails with Qing-Jao.
In the first book, Ender's Game, Card forges an emotional envolvement with Ender. (Well, if you're an alienated, hyper-intelligent geek anyway). The rest of the books in the initial series -- Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind -- are good. He comes closest to reforging that emotional link in the Xenocide/Children of the Mind sub-duology with the character of Qing-Jao. He doesn't quite make it though...I can truly empathize with a braniac with no friends, an obsessive-compulsive super-braniac is a bit beyond my league.
He repeats himself in the sub-duology of Ender's Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon. Yes, Bean is super-smart. But he's a genetically engineered human. Card has once again taken what worked with Ender and altered the character so much that readers can't truly relate.
Damn, I've been rambling. The point that I'm trying to emphasize (out of the many points that I've made) is that the appeal of Ender's Game is that readers could honestly and wholely identify with the main character. I don'think that the same sense of identification will come across on the screen.
Does it really matter if a movie is ever made from this book. I do not see why a one needs to made. It is a wonderful all by itself.
While I never got a change to try out the BBC Ogg Vorbis streams (because my net connection is a mere 56k modem shared to 3 computers) I am quite interested to hear how it would have sounded with the encoding settings they have used. Below is a quote from the BBC website explaining the settings they used.
:)
Currently there is a Radio 4 stream, and two Radio 1 streams using different quality settings to ices. The _low is using -q 0, whilst the _high is using -q 3. I'd be interested to know if anyone can tell much difference between them (challenge for all you audiophiles out there
Now I have been mucking around with Ogg Vorbis for a few months and I have encountered some quite impressive results. On my website I have music downloads and I store them at -q 2, which equates to a nominal bitrate of 80-96 and in my opinion is on par with a MP3 using VBR ranging between 112-160. At this setting it still has a few minor artifacts but for the most part they aren't noticable and thus makes a good setting for free music downloads.
Furthermore I encode my CD collection at -q 5 and on my decent stereo and headphones I can't tell the difference between the original CD and the Ogg Vorbis track. For those interested this stores my guitar based music at an average bit-rate of 160-190 and electronic at 190-250 roughly speaking.
Anyway long story short, from my past experience it sounds like the high quality stream at a quality setting of 3.00, which I am guessing equates to a nominal bit-rate of 135 or so would have sounded pretty darn good. Definitely better than FM reception and perhaps almost as good as CD quality depending on the setup used. Can anyone verify or comment on this?
aus.music.scrapbook
is it just me, or is Ogg Vorbis kind of a dumb name for a multimedia format?
I'm sorry, I don't mean to troll, I just want to find people who agree. Think of this-"I have 5600 MP3s".
Now replace it- "I have 5600 [Ogg Vorbis's|Ogg Vorbis Multimedia Files|Ogg Vorbis Audios]".
It doesn't work. It's like legos. You don't say I have 2030 Lego brand entertainment bricks, or 2030 Lego bricks. You say I have 2030 Legos. This, imho, is Ogg's greatest downfall. The project works great, the compression is good, the audio sounds pretty dang good, but it will never catch on, first because of the large installed base of mp3s and players, and second, because it just sounds dumb.
52
It wasn't bad, but then in the second to last stanza
Linux this and Linux that,
Open Source Mandrake Red Hat;
"I wanna hack my microwave!",
Piss off you stupid twat.
it went to hell as -three- unforgivable sins were committed:
1) The fourth line only exists to make the 2-4 rhyming scheme work. It's lame profanity that adds nothing to the content of the poem, the author just -needed- something to rhyme with "Hat". That's laziness.
2) "Hat" and "twat" don't rhyme. They aren't even close. Trying to read it so that they do makes it sound even more stupid.
3) The commission of sin #1 to make a rhyme, only to commit sin #2 and not rhyme at all!
I've heard poems and songs say stupid crap just to make a rhyme, but at least they then managed to rhyme! This is just sad.
So no, don't mod it up. It was done by a lazy hack, who should really be ashamed of themself for ruining a good piece.
By the way, for any revision, I recommend making the word to rhyme with "Hat" be "fat", since everyone knows Linux users are obese.
The enemies of Democracy are
Please quote where I said either "Hate" or "Extrememly Dislike".
What exactly about it wasnt polite?
Ok yeah, but you knew who I meant, so no need to get pedantic.
Anyway. I can see how the book would appeal to young nerd types as they would strongly identify with Ender, the typical hazing of nerdy kids, etc. (before you object - yes, I was a "nerd" too)
I guess as one gets older they expect more depth in their scifi. I found Ender's Game rather shallow.
Blood Music - another hugo winner in the same year as Ender's Game - is much better.
As long as they're not too short.
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
Okay, any Swedes out there? I've been trying to get SR to move away from RA and embrace Ogg Vorbis. It would be great if we could get together, write up something official'ish and all sign it.
If that is not your thing, consider simply emailing SR and let them know that you would prefer Ogg Vorbis.
When I did this a year ago they argued that a) RA is available for 'all' platforms and that b) HTTP is not suitable for streaming. I think those are pretty weak arguments, and so in about two months (making it a year since last time) I will again make my voice heard.
Also, that was before BBC did their tests, so that is new ammunition, especially if they start using it for "real".
Email me if you want to join up.
We're _paying_ SR via taxes, remember that. They should listen to us.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)"
dalamcd
--
"I'll be back," said the heavily-accented sexbot to the young boybot.
moer liek CELtroid prime!!@1!
I should mention that I'm posting this from my iPAQ too :-)
And I should mention that i'm writing this with my anus.
I seriously hope that nobody (at least nobody reading
But then, I equally hope that nobody considers the esoteric notions embodied in quantum physics to have the slightest foundation in reality, Schrödinger's cat notwithstanding.
Scientific theories (especially at the particle physics level) are neither true nor false. It really doesn't matter whether quarks and leptons and muons and suchlike really exist, or whether the truth is far stranger. You'll never find out for sure in this life, anyway. If a theory happens to coincide with observable events closely enough to be useful at making accurate predictions of real-world behaviour, then it is a good theory. It's a useful theory.
But don't confuse it with reality.
Believing in quantum physics is like believing in the Matrix. Or Star Trek.
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
While I really liked the Ender books, as well as some of his other series, probably one of the best Orson Scott card books I have ever read was Treason. It was fantasticly dark and with some increadible plot twists. Including the main character turning from a man into a woman and then growing extra appendages, to exactly what happened to his brother, the second heir to the throne. Fantastic stuff. Calmiche,
IMNSHO, anyway.
"Karma? Where we're going we don't need karma!"
"Anything is better than IE, and you can quote me on that." -- Wil Wheaton.
Ooh, I feel so violated! And you probably have a lower UID than me, too!
</sarcasm>
They are words ?
Gee as a Canadian I didn't know about this new network. I can't wait till they get fiber optics into my home. I'd love to try out WinMX on this baby. BTW Ender's Game was one of my favourite books. I'd love to see it made into a movie.
WTF indeed! you talk about peterson's movies but you don't mention "Das Boot?"
This Like That - fun with words!
Anyone remember Bugsy Malone ? It's a gangster film where all the roles are played by child actors; and no, it isn't too corny, but as I remember it it's a pretty good 'Untouchables' style romp (except the guns fire pies I think - it's been a long time since I last saw it).
I read the books a few years back, but seem to remember that Mazer Rackham was a New Zealand Maori. Perhaps he could be played by Temura Morrison, who played Jango Fett in Attack of the Clones. It's amusing that some in the US think that he's a Latino.
Paul Gillingwater
MBA, CISSP, CISM
Thank you! I've been trying to convince a friend of mine that McDLTs actually did exist at one time!! Thanks to that link you posted I can now prove that I'm not *completely* nuts (delusions of hamburgers? *g*)
I don't think the poster quite understands just how old that script is. When that script came out, I was a junior in high school. Right now, I'm a senior in college. No, I did not skip any grades.
While there are some things I don't agree with in that first attempt, there are also some things I think he did right. For instance, the insistance that there be no sound accompanying the explosions (it being in space and all). And while the various story choices may be suspect, I found the actual narrative and dialog to be quite good.
He's so far beyond smart, that even if you're smart, you're supposed to be alienated. And as he is, he is paying the ultimate price (his early death) for it. Now, you may sympathize -- since everyone different typically pays some sort of price, extracted by some peer group at some point -- but you cannot know him. Bean is also an asshole. He's out to accomplish his goals, and he's only really capable of non-manipulative human contact if he has nothing left to accomplish. If he's trying to do something, then look out -- he'll play everyone around him as he feels will best achieve his goal. Ender was unlike bean; Ender was a Carnegie sort of leader. He rallied people around him because he lifted them up and up, until they followed him out of love and admiration. That's why Ender was loved, and Bean does not inspire the same. But Ender grew up with 5 years of loving parents; Bean hid in a toilet to escape being killed as a baby, and spent his first few years staying alive on the streets.
I haven't read it but I hear another good introduction is "Taking the Quantum Leap" by Fred Allen Wolf.
A note - it doesn't just seem mind blowing, it is. Particle activity at the quantum scale is just not like the "normal" activity we intuitively grasp in matter at our own scale. Attempts to understand it in terms of a normal understanding of matter will fail. It's better to look at it all as an alternate reality (which it is in a sense) with its own unique rules and behaviors. Remember, even Einstein couldn't deal with the weirdness. Have fun.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Wether their cooling chips work or not, the company deserves some credit for a) posting a fairly informative FAQ (with references to peer-reviewed pub), b) making that FAQ available in a text-only version which will hopefully not get slashdotted again, c) using the following sentence: "However, the equipment needed to build chips capable of being accurately tested for cooling is expensive, and a royal pain to set up and calibrate.", d) giving our the name and e.mail of their two contacts, a suit *and* a geek.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
Screw "Ender's Game", the movie... when do we get "Ender's Game", the GAME? I mean, come on, it's right there in the title!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I liked a number of different elements in Ender's Game. How it makes you identify with the smart but disconnected Ender, the psychological manipulation Ender uses on others etc.
One of the reasons Ender's Game was such a joy to read is because I was (and am) heavy into Counter-Strike.
The book has some nice tactical combat insights that helped me understand and improve my game.
These tactics apply to all team based First Person Shooter like UT and Q3 DM, not just CS.
If you're smart, like Sci-Fi and games, you'll probably have a great time reading this book.
- -- Truth addict for life.
The brief summary:
The Trigger When Dr. Karl Brohier and his team of scientists accidentally stumble upon a field that can detonate gunpowder in bullets and bombs from a safe distance, they find themselves targetted by professional criminals, terrorists, and the military-industrial complex, all out to seize control of their invention. Reprint.
Vote Quimby.
I guess I am one of the lucky ones for OSC stuff, I live in Greensboro, where he does. He stops by the B+N and Borders here quite often. I have a few books signed.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
in my opinion two of Larry Niven's best books were Lucifer's Hammer, (which is so much better than Armageddon or Deep Impact) and Ringworld (which was the first Larry Niven that I ever read, and I was hooked!) but I can't really imagine Holywood making a movie of that. Actually, I could imagine it, but I can't imagine that they could do it justice.
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
There's lots of speculation of how studios are
longing for high quality CG in order to have
a better bargaining position with actors,
but child actors who don't prance like prima
donnas are still a major headache. They have
growth spurts in the middle of a shooting period,
or break their voices, et cetera. The first
massive use of CG actors IMO is likely to
be done for child characters.