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Neal Stephenson on Star Wars in the NYT
SnapShot writes "Neal Stephenson has an editorial in the New York Times about the difference between the old Star Wars and the new Star Wars, and the difference between geeking out and vegging out. Oh, and computer scientists and engineers are the Jedi of the U.S." From the article: "Likewise, many have been underwhelmed by the performance of Hayden Christensen, who plays Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader. Only if you've seen the "Clone Wars" cartoons will you understand that Anakin is a seriously damaged veteran, a poster child for post-traumatic stress disorder. But since none of that background is actually supplied by the Episode III script, Mr. Christensen has been given an impossible acting task. He's trying to swim in air."
So, first and foremost, I'm a programmer. Been programming for years, and it defines a hell of a lot about how I think.
I imagine I'm not the only one here like this. So, I gotta ask, does anybody else have problems ( internally, cognitively ) with this series being 1-indexed, instead of zero?
I mean, whenever I try to refer to "Star Wars: A New Hope" I always say "The third movie", because "Phantom menace" is the zero'th movie. This just makes more sense to me. Then I realize it's 1-indexed, and I stall cognitively like a backfiring yugo as I think... "shit, it's the *fourth*" movie...
Not that I'm suggesting they change the numbering, obviously. I'm just sayin'.
P.S. They *all* sucked.
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Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Your last statement is pure flamebait and is simply incorrect. The Bible is not some sort of anti-scientific tome and this is evidenced by the fact that some open-minded people are both scientist and believers.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
i tend to think that people who resist religion and treat it as if it is a non-scientific 'pathetic con' for un-intelligent people simply, have not had enough religion, and are more often than not unwitting members of extraordinarily secret and control-freaky cults themselves.
science seeks the truth and (most) religion claims to be the truth.
religion and science are, absolutely, nothing without the holder of the point of view, either way, who will perish sooner or later after a relatively short period of time
if you don't "believe" in "religion", it won't work for you. religioin is a point of view. science is too.
its like, a bicycle. if you don't "be the person riding the bicycle", you fall off. call it 'zen' of something, but it works for --all-- endeavours being recorded and used by the human consciousness.
just the same way that if you don't 'understand' 'science', you won't get the results predicted, religion is useless if you don't "use it" the way it is described.
so:
science seeks the truth and (most) religion claims to be the truth.
is totally true, as well as totally false. and all spaces in between, as well as not there at all.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Dr. Frist saying that AIDS may spread through tears and sweat and that he "doesn't know." He then changes the topic quickly to condoms.
He comes back at the end with
The reason why science and religion are usually at odds with one another is that science seeks the truth and (most) religion claims to be the truth.
The truths exposed via religion and the truths exposed via science are not necessarily incompatible.
Think of it this way: You've got one set of facts, observed via experimental observation. You have a second set of items you're taking as facts, read from the literal text of your religious book of choice. If these facts conflict, it's not necessarily that your observations are wrong or your religious book is wrong: It could simply be that your interpretations of either or both are incorrect. Burying your head in the sand and denying observed facts is obviously wrong, and giving up your religion because freshly observed facts conflict with your previous interpretation of that religion is arguably wrong as well. (Reasonable folks don't throw out all of science when they make a single observation contrary to their current theories, no? Theories are to science as interpretations are to religion; science shouldn't be thrown out when some theories are shown to be wrong, and neither should religion necessarily be thrown out when some interpretations are shown to be wrong).
So, if we observe physical evidence that the amount of carbon in various strata of the Earth implies that it's been around for a particularly long time, but $HOLY_BOOK says 7 days -- well, neither of those is necessarily wrong, so long as we appreciate that "days" in the context of $HOLY_BOOK's account of creation doesn't necessarily mean 24 hours. If we observe physical evidence of previous lifeforms which, over time, change until they're more like current ones, and $HOLY_BOOK says that current lifeforms were created intentionally -- well, neither of those is necessarily wrong, if the mechanism of that creation involved species which changed over time. None of these involve denying either scientific truths nor items from $HOLY_BOOK which one decides to accept as truth; it's simply a matter of tuning one's theories to match both sets of items accepted as facts.
No rewriting involved -- just reinterpretations, and ones minor enough that one accepting those interpretations can do useful work on the scientific side and write papers which they honestly believe to be factual which need not mention the interpretations used to clarify the interactions between the two sets of accepted truth.
Just as an aside: My own personal beliefs are just that -- personal -- and are not necessarily reflected in this post.
You also recieve the previous seven years' prizes in the same category, as you're the first in all that time to be eligible.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt