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The Mindset of the Class of 2029

theodp writes "In response to Beloit College's 10th Annual Mindset List, which takes a stab at describing the worldview of the incoming Class of 2011 (grew up with bottled water; have always had the World Wide Web), Valleywag's Nick Douglas presages The Mindset of the Class of 2029 (have always been able to use a cell phone on a plane; 'Lord of the Rings' looks fake and the effects are laughable)."

277 comments

  1. Not sure thats a good thing by also-rr · · Score: 5, Funny

    The mindset of anyone who has had to sit on a plane for 9 hours listening to an inane cellphone call will not be healthy. The only hope of salvation is that by then your cellphone/camera/gps/projector/printer/mp8player/s extoy/flashlight/pda/radio convergence device will have a battery life of 3 seconds, and/or banned from the plane by the government to stop you pirating the in flight movie.

    1. Re:Not sure thats a good thing by Praedon · · Score: 5, Funny

      The only real hope for this mindset list, is that all of us will be in power by the time it rolls around. We must spread the word about Mario, 4chan, Mr. Rodgers, and Dick Chaney. We must also clone Robin Williams. We must also keep George Lucas around to digitally remaster Lord of the Rings. We also need to conspire against silicon valley in the future. The world can never forget!

      --
      Just me
    2. Re:Not sure thats a good thing by Ayavaron · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Something tells me that even if people forget about lolcats, 4chan will stick around. lolcats are just a meme like dozens before it. There'll be new memes and the evil forces of /b/ will continue masterminding them all.

      I think Nintendo will be able to keep Mario around through endless ports of old games to new portable systems and new games. They intend to keep their best franchises around forever.

      Sadly, all hope is already lost for "Chaney" and "Rodgers."

    3. Re:Not sure thats a good thing by reeve · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Spread the word?  About 4chan?  The mindset of a generation growing up on 4chan...  *shudder*

      --
      Reeve the cat
    4. Re:Not sure thats a good thing by DeadboltX · · Score: 1

      planes will only take 1 hour to get to the other side of the world in 2029, duh!

    5. Re:Not sure thats a good thing by Bill+Dog · · Score: 1

      The mindset of anyone who has had to sit on a plane for 9 hours...
      Additional entry for the Mindset of the Class of 2029:
      • People have always had to sit on planes for about 9 hours. Before taking off.
      http://www.cnn.com/2007/TRAVEL/02/15/passengers.st randed/index.html (8 hours)
      http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/01/trav el_nightmare.html (9 hours)
      http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/business/15ro ad.html (10 hours)
      --
      Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
    6. Re:Not sure thats a good thing by cashman73 · · Score: 1
      We must also keep George Lucas around to digitally remaster Lord of the Rings.

      George Lucas?!?! What? Are you crazy? He wouldn't DARE touch anything Peter Jackson has put together, or else the whole of slashdot would revoke HIS geek card!!!! I don't even want to think about Lucas redoing LOTR ... after what he did to the prequels. I'm sure he'd have Gollum acting like some looney gungan,... "My precious" would somehow have a jamaican accent,...

    7. Re:Not sure thats a good thing by hahafaha · · Score: 1

      BUMP!

    8. Re:Not sure thats a good thing by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 1

      You know, some of us liked the prequels, so don't be too hard on Lucas. I thought they were, overall, stronger than the original trilogy. It's not as if he made movies that no one liked, and slapped the Star Wars name on them. I would even go so far as to say those fans aren't a tiny minority, but a more well-organized sample than just the people I knew in college would have to be used to determine that with reasonable accuracy.

      --
      "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
    9. Re:Not sure thats a good thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RULES 1 AND 2

    10. Re:Not sure thats a good thing by rhartness · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think Nintendo will be able to keep Mario around through endless ports of old games to new portable systems and new games. They intend to keep their best franchises around forever.


      I was born in 1981 so, of course, Mario in one form or another has been a constant of my life. I, personally, beleive that the video gaming industry is certainly going to continue to grow and since it is an 'industry' just like movies and music, companies like Sony, M$ and Nintendo understand the idea of branding young impressionable minds with familiar concepts.

      Mario is an icon and by 2029, it wouldn't suprise me that he and his friends (Peach, Luigi, DK, etc.) are just as famous as Mickey Mouse and his firends were in the 80's (appx. fifty years after his introduction). Mario is an icon of video games that children recognize all over the world. It would be foolish for Nintendo, or any company that might buy them out in the next 18 years, to discontinue such a long running and successful trademark that literally millions of young and old people associate with happy, youthful memories.

      Anyways, that's my two cents.
    11. Re:Not sure thats a good thing by kaizokuace · · Score: 0, Troll

      We must also keep George Lucas around to digitally remaster Lord of the Rings.

      What so Sam shoots first? (and by shoot I mean in Frodo's face)
      --
      Balderdash!
    12. Re:Not sure thats a good thing by NaDrew · · Score: 1

      You know, some of us liked the prequels Ah, you're the one.
      --
      Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
  2. They can't believe... by DynaSoar · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... that people were ever against euthanasia. If all those old people were ever to accumulate the hospital industry would collapse. Maybe that's why they called them "boomers".

    --
    "I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
    1. Re:They can't believe... by lawpoop · · Score: 1

      If all those old people were ever to accumulate the hospital industry would collapse. Don't you mean, 'boom'?
      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    2. Re:They can't believe... by The+One+and+Only · · Score: 1

      Depends. Sure, they may get billed for hundreds of thousands of dollars, but if most of that goes uncollected, you have a business collapse that's only as obvious as your accountants are honest.

      --
      In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
    3. Re:They can't believe... by Captain+Sarcastic · · Score: 1

      I'm reminded of an advertisement that was put in a Cyberpunk supplement:

      "The Happy Valley Euthanasia Center - because nobody likes to see their parents suffering."

      --
      Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
  3. I don't think LOTR will look fake by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Rather, I think they'll find it boring because it's not interactive.

    1. Re:I don't think LOTR will look fake by Loke+the+Dog · · Score: 1

      Yeah, like all of todays movies are boring because they're not in 3d.

    2. Re:I don't think LOTR will look fake by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It already looks fake.

      Towards the end of the helm's deep battle, watch the riders as they ride out from the keep. Don't watch the ones in the lead, watch those that are back just a little bit. They stab and hack at the air; the orcs are nowhere near them, but they flair about like they are striking at something. A lot of other scenes are similar where if you look at anything other than the main focus of the shot, it looks really bad.

      Couple that with the lack of wounds, blood, and evidence of contact in most of the fight scenes and the cgi starts to look pretty crappy.

    3. Re:I don't think LOTR will look fake by MartinB · · Score: 1

      ...and the helicopter shot in FOTR when they're passing the ruined fortress on the mountain top doesn't even work on normal DVD, let alone HD. And while Andy Serkis' performance is believable, Gollum is not as the textures and lighting aren't *quite* there in TTT.

      Kong, otoh...

      --

      The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's

  4. They will be horrified... by nebaz · · Score: 5, Funny

    That the government was so big and bloated before Emperor Bush dissolved the Senate.

    --
    Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
    1. Re:They will be horrified... by smchris · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I was going to say the list obviously depends upon the selectors who do the selecting and it seems a bit negative this year. But you are right. It could be worse. There's already nobody under 30 who remembers a pre-Reagan world when government could do anything right like infrastructure or the space program.

    2. Re:They will be horrified... by GPL+Apostate · · Score: 1

      You misspelled '....who remembers Tip O'neil. The ol' gravy-stained necktie bureaucratic bloat, and a time when the Union Bosses had Real Clout(tm)'

      --
      Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
    3. Re:They will be horrified... by Original+Replica · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "There's already nobody under 30 who remembers a pre-Reagan world "

      So in another 50 years no one will ever remember having faith and pride in the US government? I'm 32 and I have never had any faith or positive feelings towards Congress. I faintly remember liking Reagan, but at the time I knew nothing of politics or policies, just that Regan gave good speeches. Outside of that I have never felt proud of our government, or had an elected leader that I actually wanted to follow. I have often felt pride in being American, when traveling overseas or helping with my small part of some charitable work, but that is pride in our culture not our leaders. It seems to me that the USSR collapsed not too long after the last generation to actually believe in it died. I fear if things continue the way they have been, the same will happen here.

      --
      We are all just people.
    4. Re:They will be horrified... by cashman73 · · Score: 1

      Don't you mean, "Emporer Cheney"? "Darth Bush" is just a servant,... ;-)

    5. Re:They will be horrified... by Belacgod · · Score: 1

      It seems to me that the USSR collapsed not too long after the last generation to actually believe in it died. I fear if things continue the way they have been, the same will happen here. The difference between the USSR and the USA is that in the USA you can believe in the USA and hate the government.

    6. Re:They will be horrified... by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 1

      For now. That could still go either way, imo.

      --
      "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
    7. Re:They will be horrified... by amishdisco · · Score: 1

      I'm your age and when I think of Reagan I think of the Iran Contra scandal (which marks the beginning of my political awareness). I feel like I've never really known honest and open government in this country, and wonder if it ever actually existed. I'd certainly like to see it sometime before 2029.

    8. Re:They will be horrified... by jombeewoof · · Score: 1

      I feel like I've never really known honest and open government in this country, and wonder if it ever actually existed. I'd certainly like to see it sometime before 2029. good luck with that.

      I'm 28 and feel pretty much the same way you do, I have high hopes but low expectations.

      They say you have to hit rock bottom before you can start to dig your way out. We might not be there yet, but Bush has another year it's possible the majority of Americans will get fed up with the system as it currently is and do something about it.
      But where is the alternative, you can either vote Republican or Democrat. When given the choice of two evils, how do you decide?
      You could always give a pity vote to a third party but that's not really a solution, unless more people would do it, but even then we'd need to get rid of the electoral college. wow this turned into a rant.

      anyway, like I said, good luck with that open and honest government thing.
      --
      Linux Zealots: Smarter than Mac Zealots, but still zealots.
    9. Re:They will be horrified... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The difference between the USSR and the USA is that in the USA you can believe in the USA and hate the government. Apparently you don't know many Russians.
    10. Re:They will be horrified... by Maznio · · Score: 1

      "It seems to me that the USSR collapsed not too long after the last generation to actually believe in it died."

      That may come as a shock, but there are still people who believe in it. The USSR just wasn't economically viable.

    11. Re:They will be horrified... by FLEB · · Score: 1

      We could really use a Ross Perot type of election right now. Political stance aside, the next election would be perfect for a self-backed third-party candidate with the resources to actually wedge themselves into the realistic political arena.

      --
      Information wants to be free.
      Entertainment wants to be paid.
      You just want to be cheap.
    12. Re:They will be horrified... by Enlightenment · · Score: 1

      The hell with it: Me too. -1: Redundant, I know. But sometimes it must be said.

    13. Re:They will be horrified... by pla · · Score: 1

      I'm 32 and I have never had any faith or positive feelings towards Congress. I faintly remember liking Reagan, but at the time I knew nothing of politics or policies, just that Regan gave good speeches. Outside of that I have never felt proud of our government, or had an elected leader that I actually wanted to follow.

      "The America you come from. Who was president when you left?"
      "I didn't leave. Or maybe... Well. Clinton. Bill Clinton."
      "And before him?"
      "George Bush".
      "Ah. And before Bush, Reagan, and before him... Who?"
      "Jimmy Carter."
      "Ah, you come from one of those Americas. You have my sympathy."

    14. Re:They will be horrified... by AgentSmith · · Score: 1

      Yes. Prez Rickard, where are you?

  5. for the class of 2029, they forgot... by wpegden · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... "grew up on bottled air"

    1. Re:for the class of 2029, they forgot... by Praedon · · Score: 2, Funny

      They also forgot: "Half of them didn't make it during the invasion of robots."

      --
      Just me
    2. Re:for the class of 2029, they forgot... by jonfr · · Score: 1

      It's aliens, not robots.

    3. Re:for the class of 2029, they forgot... by proxy318 · · Score: 1
      --
      Saying your "phone ran out of batteries" is like saying your "car ran out of gas tanks".
    4. Re:for the class of 2029, they forgot... by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      Yes, and providing free air will be made criminal, because it hurts the business of the bottled air producers.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    5. Re:for the class of 2029, they forgot... by jombeewoof · · Score: 1

      robot aliens. or alien robots

      --
      Linux Zealots: Smarter than Mac Zealots, but still zealots.
    6. Re:for the class of 2029, they forgot... by Original+Replica · · Score: 1

      Finally an economic reason for Brazil to keep it's rain forests. If you think the oil countries are rich, wait 'til the oxygen countries start charging.

      --
      We are all just people.
    7. Re:for the class of 2029, they forgot... by captjc · · Score: 1

      mmm...Peri-Air

      The only air available in Spaceballs - The Fragrance!

      --
      Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
  6. add another one to the list by wwmedia · · Score: 4, Insightful

    add another one to the list

    Osama Bin Laden is still the boogey man

    1. Re:add another one to the list by friedman101 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Believe Memphis was always a popular surfing destination

    2. Re:add another one to the list by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I doubt it.

    3. Re:add another one to the list by Schemat1c · · Score: 1

      Believe Memphis was always a popular surfing destination And believe Elvis is actually dead.
      --

      "Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
    4. Re:add another one to the list by DaTFooLCaSS · · Score: 0

      there is great web surfing here all the time..........

    5. Re:add another one to the list by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      add another one to the list

      Osama Bin Laden is still the boogey man And still on the CIA payroll
    6. Re:add another one to the list by pokerdad · · Score: 1

      add another one to the list Osama Bin Laden is still the boogey man

      Does anyone remember when the tabloids regularily announced that Hitler was alive and just found? This was still going on when I was a kid and I was born 30 years after WWII. My point is that even when the government and serious new outlets give up on Osama, he will still have a presence in our lives.

    7. Re:add another one to the list by Deliveranc3 · · Score: 1

      Still better than the president, well unless you live in South America.

  7. if i have kids.. by jimbug · · Score: 2, Funny

    They don't know what a LOLCat is or why it talks that way. i will make sure this NEVER happens
    --
    Bite my shiny metal ass.
    1. Re:if i have kids.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      "They don't know what a LOLCat is or why it talks that way."

        Though ironically, Tubgirl & Goatse remained a staple of internet culture that everyone clearly understood.

    2. Re:if i have kids.. by rcrush · · Score: 1

      i'm afraid I do not know what a lolcat is.

    3. Re:if i have kids.. by khellendros1984 · · Score: 1
      --
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
    4. Re:if i have kids.. by sakasune · · Score: 1

      Though ironically, Tubgirl & Goatse remained a staple of internet culture that everyone clearly understood. However they will be on IPv6 adddress....oh wait, 2029 you said? Nevermind...
      --
      "You're arguing for a universe with fewer waffles in it," I said. "I'm prepared to call that cowardice."
  8. They won't actually talk on the plane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They'll be texting, or neural stimulation exchanging or whatever kids do in 20 years.

    1. Re:They won't actually talk on the plane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      neural stimulation exchanging

      you mean they'll have sex?

    2. Re:They won't actually talk on the plane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, just like in Demolition Man.

  9. In 2029... by Stanistani · · Score: 5, Funny

    The world's largest Theme Park is HolyLand, run by the Disney Corp. It "features the colorful and historic actual former countries of Palestine/Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan. Of course, all inhabitants are Disney employees wearing colorful costumes. Parting of the Red Sea at 10 am, noon, and 2 pm. When asked what happened to the former inhabitants, the tour guides always say, "We don't like to talk about that," and offer a two-for-one coupon for the donkey ride in Jerusalem.

    1. Re:In 2029... by GPL+Apostate · · Score: 4, Funny

      Also, people who ask how all the prop sand from the beaches of the Indian Ocean was transported onto the large sheet of glass are asked to leave.

      --
      Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
    2. Re:In 2029... by CheeseTroll · · Score: 1

      Right on! I've often said (mostly to myself) that if I were ever President, I'd threaten Israel & Palestine that if they didn't try harder to abide by an existing peace plan (pick one - any one), our next idea would involve Disney mgmt taking over Jerusalem. Of course it would be a mockery to 3 major religions at once, but would it be any worse than what they've made of it already?

      Not sure I'd like to ride the 'Crucifixion' ride, though.

      --
      A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
    3. Re:In 2029... by Stanistani · · Score: 1

      No, that's the 'Pilates of the Mediterranean' ride.

  10. My Guess by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Brave New World

  11. And by AbbyNormal · · Score: 5, Funny

    Duke Nukem is still not out yet.

    --
    Sig it.
    1. Re:And by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And neither is Windows "07".

    2. Re:And by cashman73 · · Score: 2, Funny
      And Windows Vista still won't run on any existing hardware,...

      And 640 terabytes ought to be enough for anybody,...

    3. Re:And by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 0

      And Windows Vista still won't run on any existing hardware... You do know that Vista is capable of running quite well on some existing hardware, right? Your shot at Vista doesn't hold true even now, what'll make it become true in 2029?
      --
      "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
    4. Re:And by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And Windows Vista still won't run on any existing hardware... You do know that Vista is capable of running quite well on some existing hardware, right? Your shot at Vista doesn't hold true even now, what'll make it become true in 2029? DirectX13. The one which no single graphics card manufacturer will get right. :-)
      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    5. Re:And by ncc74656 · · Score: 1

      You do know that Vista is capable of running quite well on some existing hardware, right?

      It doesn't work well on any hardware when the WGA servers are tango-uniform.

      --
      20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
  12. Add one by nxtr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Current terrorist witchhunts were as laughable as the McCarthy Hearings. Oh wait, they already are.

    1. Re:Add one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One more to add:
      Left-wing nutbags have always been nutbags. Oh wait, that one *has* always been true.

    2. Re:Add one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If communism is as bad as nazism, then the McCarthy hearings were not laughable.

    3. Re:Add one by WilliamSChips · · Score: 1

      except that the McCarthy hearings captured maybe two actual communists out of the thousands he had blacklisted.

      --
      Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
  13. an oldie but a goodie by larry+bagina · · Score: 5, Funny

    2.5 million B.C.: OOG the Open Source Caveman develops the axe and releases it under the GPL. The axe quickly gains popularity as a means of crushing moderators' heads.

    100,000 B.C.: Man domesticates the AIBO.

    10,000 B.C.: Civilization begins when early farmers first learn to cultivate hot grits.

    3000 B.C.: Sumerians develop a primitive cuneiform perl script.

    2920 B.C.: A legendary flood sweeps Slashdot, filling up a Borland / Inprise story with hundreds of offtopic posts.

    1750 B.C.: Hammurabi, a Mesopotamian king, codifies the first EULA.

    490 B.C.: Greek city-states unite to defeat the Persians. ESR triumphantly proclaims that the Greeks "get it".

    399 B.C.: Socrates is convicted of impiety. Despite the efforts of freesocrates.com, he is forced to kill himself by drinking hemlock.

    336 B.C.: Fat-Time Charlie becomes King of Macedonia and conquers Persia.

    4 B.C.: Following the Star (as in hot young actress) of Bethelem, wise men travel from far away to troll for baby Jesus.

    A.D. 476: The Roman Empire BSODs.

    A.D. 610: The Glorious MEEPT!! founds Islam after receiving a revelation from God. Following his disappearance from Slashdot in 632, a succession dispute results in the emergence of two troll factions: the Pythonni and the Perliites.

    A.D. 800: Charlemagne conquers nearly all of Germany, only to be acquired by andover.net.

    A.D. 874: Linus the Red discovers Iceland.

    A.D. 1000: The epic of the Beowulf Cluster is written down. It is the first English epic poem.

    A.D. 1095: Pope Bruce II calls for a crusade against the Turks when it is revealed they are violating the GPL. Later investigation reveals that Pope Bruce II had not yet contacted the Turks before calling for the crusade.

    A.D. 1215: Bowing to pressure to open-source the British government, King John signs the Magna Carta, limiting the British monarchy's power. ESR triumphantly proclaims that the British monarchy "gets it".

    A.D. 1348: The ILOVEYOU virus kills over half the population of Europe. (The other half was not using Outlook.)

    A.D. 1420: Johann Gutenberg invents the printing press. He is immediately sued by monks claiming that the technology will promote the copying of hand-transcribed books, thus violating the church's intellectual property.

    A.D. 1429: Natalie Portman of Arc gathers an army of Slashdot trolls to do battle with the moderators. She is eventually tried as a heretic and stoned (as in petrified).

    A.D. 1478: The Catholic Church partners with doubleclick.net to launch the Spanish Inquisition.

    A.D. 1492: Christopher Columbus arrives in what he believes to be "India", but which RMS informs him is actually "GNU/India".

    A.D. 1508-12: Michaelengelo attempts to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling with ASCII art, only to have his plan thwarted by the "Lameness Filter."

    A.D. 1517: Martin Luther nails his 95 Theses to the church door and is promptly moderated down to (-1, Flamebait).

    A.D. 1553: "Bloody" Mary ascends the throne of England and begins an infamous crusade against Protestants. ESR eats his words.

    A.D. 1588: The "IF I EVER MEET YOU, I WILL KICK YOUR ASS" guy meets the Spanish Armada.

    A.D. 1603: Tokugawa Ieyasu unites the feuding pancake-eating ninjas of Japan.

    A.D. 1611: Mattel adds Galileo Galilei to its CyberPatrol block list for proposing that the Earth revolves around the sun.

    A.D. 1688: In the so-called "Glorious Revolution", King James II is bloodlessly forced out of power and flees to France. ESR again triumphantly proclaims that the British monarchy "gets it".

    A.D. 1692: Anti-GIF hysteria in the New World comes to a head in the infamous "Salem GIF Trials", in which 20 alleged GIFs are burned at the stake. Later investigation reveals that mayn of the supposed GIFs were actually PNGs.

    A.D. 1769: James Watt patents the one-click steam engine.

    A.D. 1776: Trolls, angered by CmdrTaco's passage of the Moderation Act, rebel. After a sever

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    1. Re:an oldie but a goodie by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 1, Interesting
      There is only one question which burns, lingering, in my mind after reading this.

      Who/what the hell is ESR???

      --
      "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
    2. Re:an oldie but a goodie by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 3, Informative

      Who/what the hell is ESR???

      a nobody that pretends to be somebody. Move along, nothing to see here.

    3. Re:an oldie but a goodie by GPL+Apostate · · Score: 3, Funny

      Who/what the hell is ESR???

      Don't worry about it.

      It's easily wiped off with a dilute solution of bleach in water, and a garage rag.

      --
      Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
    4. Re:an oldie but a goodie by Bananatree3 · · Score: 4, Informative
    5. Re:an oldie but a goodie by Apocros · · Score: 1

      i always think "equivalent series resistance" initially, and often find myself confused for a moment when reading those three letters on slashdot...

      --
      "onward!" cried the copper man, little knowing brass corrupts...
    6. Re:an oldie but a goodie by endlessoul · · Score: 1
      I may not have gotten some of those jabs, but damn, that was funny.

      "... I have a dream that my geek little geeks will one geek live in a nation where they will not be geeked by the geek of their geek but by the geek of their geek."

      Priceless.

    7. Re:an oldie but a goodie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ESR is the geek version of Britney Spears. Did something of note (though in the grand scheme of things little value) to begin with, then revealed themselves to be a more and more worthless attention whore.

    8. Re:an oldie but a goodie by glwtta · · Score: 1

      Who/what the hell is ESR???

      This is weird: I'm pretty sure that, logically, the person who posted the above can't exist.

      Someone who reads Slashdot, but doesn't know who ESR is, clearly has to be relatively young (late teens, at most), yet that would make them a part of the generation that (as the article describes) has no trouble with concepts such as "Highlight -> Right Click -> Search Google for ..."

      It's baffling.

      --
      sic transit gloria mundi
    9. Re:an oldie but a goodie by Stormwatch · · Score: 1

      A.D. 1478: The Catholic Church partners with doubleclick.net to launch the Spanish Inquisition.
      I didn't expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition.
    10. Re:an oldie but a goodie by Canordis · · Score: 1

      Another one for class of 2029: "ESR has always been irrelevant."

      --
      I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.
    11. Re:an oldie but a goodie by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 1

      Y'know, considering I had no idea who Eric S Raymond was before today, even if I had run a google on it, I'd have learned nothing. ;)

      --
      "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
    12. Re:an oldie but a goodie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No-one expects the spanish inquisition our...

    13. Re:an oldie but a goodie by sootman · · Score: 1

      You stopped a hundred years early and missed one: A.D. 2101: War was beginning

      --
      Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
  14. Teledildonics by goombah99 · · Score: 1

    I'm more worried about all 16 yearolds having neural teledildonics controlled by their skull phones, video tatoos, and computers that are smarter than they are.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:Teledildonics by Jaknet · · Score: 2, Funny

      Looking at some of todays teenagers I think you are a bit late with "worrying about computers that are smarter than they are." It's already here

    2. Re:Teledildonics by Iron+Condor · · Score: 1

      I'm more worried about all 16 yearolds having [...] computers that are smarter than they are.

      Most 16-year-olds already have computers that are smarter than they are. Heck, when I was 16 we had Atari-400s and I'm pretty sure most of us were less smart than that...

      --
      We're all born with nothing.
      If you die in debt, you're ahead.
    3. Re:Teledildonics by jombeewoof · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Looking at some of todays teenagers I think you are a bit late with "worrying about computers that are smarter than they are." It's already here It's not the kids you have to worry about with computers. They have always had them, and kids from now on will always have them.
      It will be second nature, and they'll actually know how to use the computers that are smarter than they are.
      I'm worried about the vast majority of people around 35 and up that have no idea how to use a computer, and likely as not they never will.
      technology will get better and better and these people will be forced to use it just to fit into society, but they will have no idea what
      they have and how to use it properly.

      It seems to me as technology gets smarter the kids are able to cope with it better than adults.

      By 2029 the people in power will have absolutely no idea how to handle the technology they have in their hands. So basically, it will be
      exactly the same as it is today.
      --
      Linux Zealots: Smarter than Mac Zealots, but still zealots.
    4. Re:Teledildonics by Enlightenment · · Score: 1

      It amuses, yet frightens me that 'teledildonics' is now officially a word.

    5. Re:Teledildonics by WilliamSChips · · Score: 1

      Well, computers have always been smarter than the majority of the Baby Boomers and their parents...

      --
      Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
  15. Kiwi Mindset lists by echucker · · Score: 2, Informative
  16. 'Lord of the Rings' looks fake??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    'Lord of the Rings' looks fake

    Yes, everyone knows that orcs, trolls and ents don't look like that.

    1. Re:'Lord of the Rings' looks fake??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought it did look fake actually. Not the mythical creatures, they mostly looked great.
      But look at the difference between the acted characters and the CG characters - the CG characters are beautifully crafted with wrinkles and imperfections, while the acted characters are airbrushed to buggery.

  17. Or it could be really different... by 3seas · · Score: 1

    ...we could have blow ourselves up and be starting all over again...

  18. Sea change by lawpoop · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Last year I was walking through the Home Depot. I needed an item of certain specs for a project, but I didn't know if that item even existed. I asked several employees for help, but if it didn't have a name, the thing didn't exist, as far as they were concerned. I wandered around for a little bit, wondering which isle I might find my mythical device. Then it struck me -- "I'll look it up on google!"

    In retrospect, this seems astoundingly obvious. I was using my 2400 baud modem to dial-up BBSes before "The Internet", and I was asking my college classmates if they had tried Google yet for their internet searches back in '98-'99. But even though I'm relatively young and computer savvy, the information revolution has not completely saturated my mind. I'll be a foreigner who learned to speak the language late in his teen; I'll forever have an accent. I grew up in a world of libraries and card catalogs, of unhelpful adults who knew little of the subjects I wanted to learn about, and experts who couldn't answer questions that I didn't know how to pose. The world I grew up in was opaque, by default. I grew up in an information famine. If there was a weird or esoteric subject that made itself known to me somehow -- perhaps a short reference in a comic book -- I would spend days or weeks wondering about it. I would spend fruitless hours in the library trying to look it up, or getting blank stares from librarians or store owners.

    But the kids these days -- anything they might want to know is sitting there in the computer room. They will never know a world of informationlessness. Everything from obscure programming langauges to Hatian Gods to currrent events, right in front of them.

    Amazing things are in the pipeline. I hope I live as long as I can!

    --
    Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
    -- Pablo Picasso
    1. Re:Sea change by pete-classic · · Score: 3, Funny

      I hope I live as long as I can!


      You're in luck! I assure you that you can!

      -Peter
    2. Re:Sea change by lawpoop · · Score: 1

      That's wonderful news! Thanks so much :)

      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    3. Re:Sea change by Anonymous+Cowpart · · Score: 1

      > I hope I live as long as I can!

      Don't worry about it, I'm pretty sure you will ;)

    4. Re:Sea change by superdude72 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      On a semirelated note, I'm struck by how much easier kids today have it when it comes to discovering new music. I had an appallingly limited selection when I was growing up in the suburbs in the '80s. Bands that we now think of as seminal--early REM, the Pixies, Husker Du--weren't played on commercial radio, and there was no college radio in my town. A lot of these bands were actually rather obscure at the height of their careers. Maybe in Los Angeles there was a station that played them. Not in my town. My parents wouldn't subscribe to MTV. There were mail order clubs like BMG (what Ben Stiller referred to as "Baby's first scam,") but selection was worse than what you might find at even a crappy record store. Basically the only way to hear something new was to make friends with other music geeks and trade mix tapes. Which I guess encourages social interaction which is a good thing, but it's a very laborious process if all you want is to check out the latest from the Pixies. Oh and I guess you could purchase music from a store. If you had a car, which I didn't until I was 16, and anyway purchasing tapes without hearing any of the music on them first is a prohibitively expensive way to discover new music, particularly when you are on a (stingy!) allowance or working 12 hours a week at a pizza place and also have to pay for your own car and clothing.

      This actually influenced my life choices. My desire to live in a large city largely stems from the fact that they had decent radio stations, clubs, and record stores. (Yes, I still call them record stores even though I bought mostly tapes when I was a kid, and later CDs.) Nowadays, the big city radio stations have mostly come down to the craptastic level of the small city stations. (I don't blame technology entirely--telecommunications reform and consolidation hastened its demise.) There are a few record stores that are better than ever, but a lot of the smaller ones have closed. Clubs survive. My little hayseed cousin in Outer Bumfeckistan can download the same stuff that I moved to the city to get.

      The downside, I guess, is that the used record stores are in trouble along with the rest of the record industry, although I think things are actually better for the more obscure artists who have access to a vastly larger audience due to the Internet. I wish radio didn't suck, although I don't think technology is entirely to blame there. I don't know what my teen / college years would have been like without mix tapes. I imagine the kids will adapt. I just hope they learn to socialize somewhere other than in front of a computer screen.

    5. Re:Sea change by Guido+von+Guido · · Score: 1
      No kidding! In Detroit, one or two of radio stations had "new wave" shows you could catch over the weekend. WABX was briefly an "alternative" station, before they changed formats. Close to the time I graduated, I discovered the Avondale high school radio station, which played a pretty wide range of material. I think that was about it

      When I went away to college, it turned out conservative Cincinnati actually had a greatradio station, WOXY (AKA 97X), which has sadly left the airwaves in the last couple of years (although they're still alive on the web). 97X was even within walking distance of my dorm (albeit a long one). When I moved to Wisconsin after college I made a point of listening to WXRT on my way through Chicago, another great radio station.

      Ah, the good old days--when were they again?

    6. Re:Sea change by Stiletto · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But the kids these days -- anything they might want to know is sitting there in the computer room. They will never know a world of informationlessness. Everything from obscure programming langauges to Hatian Gods to currrent events, right in front of them.

      On the flip side, however, this generation is useless when the power goes out. Most of them can't recall basic historical facts, spell properly, or do basic arithmetic without a machine to help them.

      It's the "I don't need to know---I'll google it!" generation.

    7. Re:Sea change by glitch23 · · Score: 1

      Last year I was walking through the Home Depot. I needed an item of certain specs for a project, but I didn't know if that item even existed. I asked several employees for help, but if it didn't have a name, the thing didn't exist, as far as they were concerned. I wandered around for a little bit, wondering which isle I might find my mythical device. Then it struck me -- "I'll look it up on google!"

      Is this Home Depot actually located in the future of a water world a la Kevin Costner?

      --
      this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
    8. Re:Sea change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I hope I live as long as I can!


      I hope you don't die before you reach that goal.

    9. Re:Sea change by Breakfast+Pants · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Yes, the calculator made it's appearance *this* generation; sure, whatever.

      --

      --

      WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
    10. Re:Sea change by lawpoop · · Score: 0

      Just think about what will happen to world culture, music, and programming when the OLPC project reaches critical mass, and some kid in the desert is mixing his father's zither music with chanting he downloaded from a kid in the jungle on the other side of the world.

      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    11. Re:Sea change by rantingkitten · · Score: 3, Funny

      Well, did you find the item or not? Don't leave us hanging!

      --
      mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
    12. Re:Sea change by lawpoop · · Score: 1

      Sorry, to tell you the truth, I don't recall what it was. Could have been cactus potting soil, but I seem to remember it being a bit more complicated than that!

      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    13. Re:Sea change by ResidntGeek · · Score: 0, Troll

      I just hope they learn to socialize somewhere other than in front of a computer screen.
      Don't worry, they definitely know how to do that. You're in the minority caring about something like music; most teenagers spend their time talking about nothing with each other, and necking. They listen to the crap on the radio, and they LIKE IT because they know nothing else and don't care.
      --
      ResidntGeek
    14. Re:Sea change by ottothecow · · Score: 1
      89.3 The Current

      Queue their live stream up and see what good radio should be. My two favorite DJ's on radio are on on weekdays. 3-7pm gives Mary Lucia (She used to host a "regular" show and a great local music show on Rev 105 before Disney purchased it and eventually fired the entire staff) and 7-10 has Mark Wheat (who I first discovered on the University of Minnesota's station and is so incredibly knowledgeable about music). Bonus points for not having commercials--it's a radio station you can just turn on and listen to music.

      Somewhere on their site they also have a full listenable archive of in-studio performances, most of which are quite good.

      --
      Bottles.
    15. Re:Sea change by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      But the kids these days -- anything they might want to know is sitting there in the computer room. They will never know a world of informationlessness. Everything from obscure programming langauges to Hatian Gods to currrent events, right in front of them.
      Yeah! For instance, they can learn that the US Government demolished the WTC with space lasers while a bunch of Jews danced, that the UFO in Roswell isn't really saucer shaped, that we never landed on the moon, the holocaust never happened, communism will solve all the world's ills, Islam is the religion of peace, Cuba has the worlds best health care, and battery acid cures the common cold.

      Right.

      Realistically, even if we ignore the fact that most people lack the curiosity to research anything, their research and critical thinking skills are so poor that the internet serves as a fountain of misinformation rather than true knowledge. 90% of the people I know are too stupid to check Snopes before forwarding the Nigerian Banker scam, let alone go research "weird or esoteric subjects".
    16. Re:Sea change by Guido+von+Guido · · Score: 1

      The odd thing is that I've just discovered the Current. I live in Madison, but I go to Minneapolis a few times a year on business, and in June 89.3 was interfering with the signal for my iPod car radio adapter (usually set to 89.5). I haven't given it a try on the Internet, though.

    17. Re:Sea change by Seumas · · Score: 1

      But the kids these days -- anything they might want to know is sitting there in the computer room. They will never know a world of informationlessness. Everything from obscure programming langauges to Hatian Gods to currrent events, right in front of them.

      On the flip side, however, this generation is useless when the power goes out. Most of them can't recall basic historical facts, spell properly, or do basic arithmetic without a machine to help them.

      It's the "I don't need to know---I'll google it!" generation. Neither can most adults.

      Also, in the future, nobody will know free speech or a life without being constantly surveiled.

      Remember, the current generation of highschool and college kids largely believe "we have too much freedom of speech" and that we should give up some liberty for "security". And once that's gone, you don't get it back.
    18. Re:Sea change by superdude72 · · Score: 1

      On the 89.3 front page right now:

      Son Volt, Wilco, the Rentals... What year is this, 1996? I don't mean to snark but that is exactly what I was listening to in 1996 in Chicago. Except Son Volt and Wilco had only recently risen from the ashes of Uncle Tupelo. I'm glad to see Farrar and Tweedy reunited, if only on the same home page leading separate bands. Uncle Tupelo was the best band ever. Saw them at Lounge Ax, Chicago.

    19. Re:Sea change by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      Just think about what will happen if that other kid discovers copyright law and demands royalties from the first kid?

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    20. Re:Sea change by lawpoop · · Score: 1

      Yes, they will 'learn' all those things, or at least be presented with them. Most people won't believe them, just like most don't believe any 9/11 conspiracy theories. No amount of web pages, youtube videos, or self-appointed researchers can convince most people that there was anything suspicious about 9/11. Forget about alien saucer crashes or the health benefits of battery acid.

      It seems to only be a special variety of internet geek, the conspiracy theorist, who believes everything they read on the internet. Better internet saturation will probably lead to more beliefs for any conspiracy theorist, but on the whole, I can't believe your average person would turn into a conspiracist upon exposure to the internet.

      If anything, exposure to more sources of shaky information will lead people to be *more* critical of media and their own beliefs.

      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    21. Re:Sea change by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      No amount of web pages, youtube videos, or self-appointed researchers can convince most people that there was anything suspicious about 9/11. Forget about alien saucer crashes or the health benefits of battery acid.
      48% of Americans believe UFO's have visited the earth.

      And, if I remember correctly, something like 70% believe that JFK wasn't killed by Oswald.

      So I think you're being overly generous (to put it mildly) in your estimation of the intelligence of others. Even the 9/11 "truth" movement - possibly the dumbest bunch of bastards I've ever met - continues to grow and can probably count 15% of the US population amongst it's ranks, and a greater percentage in other countries. Judging by the figures on JFK, you can probably expect that by 2029 at least 50% of Americans will believe that 9/11 was pulled off by the CIA.

      Human stupidity is nothing new. Beliefs in ESP, paranormal phenomena, aliens, miracle healing, etc, have been with us for a long, LONG time. The only difference is that now people can read about them online, and convince themselves that they are learning something useful.
    22. Re:Sea change by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2, Funny

      And, if I remember correctly, something like 70% believe that JFK wasn't killed by Oswald.

      But he really wasn't killed by Oswald. He was killed by a bullet! :-)
      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
    23. Re:Sea change by 3ryon · · Score: 1


      Amazing things are in the pipeline. I hope I live as long as I can!


      I'm pretty sure that you will.

    24. Re:Sea change by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      :p

      Guns don't kill people! BULLETS kill people!

      If you really want to be technical about it, he wasn't killed by a bullet either, he was killed by the sudden relocation of large quantities of cranial matter. Nobody is ever killed by a bullet, they're killed by the resulting effect on the body.

    25. Re:Sea change by projectmalamute · · Score: 1

      88.3 WCBN ann arbor amazing radio, look for anything hosted by arwulf

    26. Re:Sea change by lawpoop · · Score: 1

      Well, from what you're saying, it doesn't sound like the internet is giving people anything other than the ability to read about their crazy beliefs on a computer screen. Will there be newer, crazier stories? Certainly. Will there be more crazy beliefs, or will it still be proportional to the population? I'm betting not. Up until some 300 years ago, nobody really very many accurate, truly abstract ideas about the universe ( such as the laws of motion, the nature of the sky, atomic theory, genetic theory, etc), aside from obvious, in-your-face things, like the sky being blue.

      However, what I believe is novel about the internet is that it has the potential to become an almost-instantaneous source of accurate information. We haven't had that before. So we will have the inaccuracies -- we always have. We also will have in incredibly fast, incredibly pervasive medium for the accuracies.

      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    27. Re:Sea change by wizardforce · · Score: 1

      It's the "I don't need to know---I'll google it!" generation.
      there are some things you shouldn't waste your brain cells remembering yet once in a while need to use; you don't commit to memorization every slashdot post ever created, you search for it when it suits you. although you do have a point about the general erosion of basic skills, people use technology as a crutch. most people my age don't do well without their calculators or their computers in regard to well... anything beyond multiplying 2 one digit numbers together and some can't even manage that "feat."
      --
      Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
    28. Re:Sea change by Chandon+Seldon · · Score: 1

      And once that's gone, you don't get it back.

      You can. It requires that well-educated people have a comparatively large amount of social power while the economic / political establishment is somewhat in flux. It could take a long, long time - but unless we get into a global self-sustaining degenerate police state culture as described in 1984 or Brave New World we should eventually be able to get our freedom back. Hell, even the degenerate cases are escapable with a big enough natural disaster.

      That doesn't mean that we should put less effort into fighting to keep the freedom that we have (and get the additional freedom that we should have), but I don't think it's quite as bleak as you make it out to be.

      --
      -- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
    29. Re:Sea change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, you just brought a strange memory back....

      I am a Floridiot, and as a kid with nothing else to do I went to the record store; this day was special, the Broward County Sherrif's Office was busy taking Two Live Crew's Album out of Uncle Sam's Record store for obscenity, I remember seeing it on CNN. I wonder what the people then would think of little Johnny on the internet watching the retinal burning tub girl video.

      Then again I thought national news was local news when I was a kid as I'd see so many news items from South Florida.....then there was Miami Vice too, not until I left the state for a length of time did I relize this is in fact...not normal. Oh as a reminder, most of the 9-11 hijackers were staying in Broward pre-strike, yeah, WTF am I still doing here!

    30. Re:Sea change by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      [quote]On the flip side, however, this generation is useless when the power goes out. Most of them can't recall basic historical facts, spell properly, or do basic arithmetic without a machine to help them.[/quote]

      So what? Do you know how many firkin are in a hogshead? Or rundlet in a tierce? That was a pretty standard basic measurement so I hope you know the answer without Google and/or Wikipedia.

    31. Re:Sea change by Kuvter · · Score: 1

      S4dlee thye st1ll tALk lIke diS.

      One of my younger friends that does this knows the grammar rules and intentionally breaks them. However I can pretty much assure she's and outlier.

      I miss the good old days of arguing with my sister about song lyrics. Some times we never found out who was even right.

      --
      "To be is to do." --Socrates
      "To do is to be." -- Aristotle
      "Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
  19. That's all fine by batquux · · Score: 1

    As long as they stay off my lawn!

  20. Movies have always come in the mail by Aqua+OS+X · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Really? With OnDemand, iTunes, UnBox, Xbox Marketplace, P2P, etc. ?

    Snail mailed disks are antiquated you damn old timer. Non-downloadable movies will be a laughable distant memory in 18 years.

    --
    "Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
    1. Re:Movies have always come in the mail by GPL+Apostate · · Score: 1

      Actually, capital-intensive studio-produced movies will be extinct by then. People will still be able to shuffle around copies of 'the classics' (digitally remastered!) but the P2P 'revolution' is already in the process of running the studios out of business. Anything large and capital intensive is destined to be 'mobbed' into ruin.

      I'm afraid in the future, we'll just have to settle for watching edited montagues of YouToob snippets. Maybe somebody brilliant will come on the scene who can figure out how to edit all that disjointed footage into feature-length shows. Who knows, anything is possible.

      I know!! We can just play back the tapes of music and images that the Seti Project will reveal!

      --
      Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
    2. Re:Movies have always come in the mail by Belacgod · · Score: 3, Funny
      I'm afraid in the future, we'll just have to settle for watching edited montagues of YouToob snippets.

      So they'll have won the format war with the YouToob capulets?

    3. Re:Movies have always come in the mail by westlake · · Score: 1
      Snail mailed disks are antiquated you damn old timer. Non-downloadable movies will be a laughable distant memory in 18 years

      Never underestimate the bandwidth of a postal truck.

      The 50 GB Blu-Ray disc is here now. The future may be the 4 TB HVD Holographic Disc. You won't be renting a movie - you will be renting an actor, a series, a character, or genre.

      Everything James Bond.

    4. Re:Movies have always come in the mail by ncc74656 · · Score: 1

      I'm afraid in the future, we'll just have to settle for watching edited montagues of YouToob snippets.

      So they'll have won the format war with the YouToob capulets?

      Well played, sir...quality humor like that is something the next generation isn't likely to grok.

      --
      20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
    5. Re:Movies have always come in the mail by Smight · · Score: 1

      You have to realize this list is assuming that all technological and cultural advancement stops now and nothing significant happens in the world in the next 18 years. This would be like seeing a list in 1990 that mentions how you have to realize that kids in 2007 aren't going to get all of the Dan Quayle jokes that we're going to be shouting to them over their Discman as they Rollerblade past you.

      --
      IOU one (1) signature
    6. Re:Movies have always come in the mail by Chris+Pimlott · · Score: 1

      "Snail mail? What's snail mail? Mail comes from the internet, not from some pretentious slug..."

    7. Re:Movies have always come in the mail by WilliamSChips · · Score: 1

      Quality humor is something that exists now but would have been considered grounds for being labeled as a communist during the 1950s.

      --
      Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
  21. Price of gas by Matt+Perry · · Score: 2, Insightful

    have always been able to use a cell phone on a plane
    I imagine that by 2029 the price of gas will be so high that only the extremely wealthy will be able to afford plane travel.
    --
    Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
    1. Re:Price of gas by kaizokuace · · Score: 1

      hopefully we run out of gas by then! I want easy retail access to high density, fast charging batteries for cheap! Electric cars ftw!

      --
      Balderdash!
  22. The Lucas Factor by Treskin · · Score: 5, Funny

    'Lord of the Rings' looks fake and the effects are laughable)

    My prediction: Lord of the Rings will become a cult classic among the youth of the next 20 years. When it has become accepted as a mainstay of American culture, Peter Jackson will admit he was never truly satisfied with the poor quality of the special effects and release 3 "Special Edition" movies. These will feature new special effects and opening sequence in which Sauron was just actually just kicking back in Mordor, enjoying a lemonade on his gazebo with the orphans he just adopted - when suddenly Elendil walks up and pimp slaps Sauron across the face with a mace. This will trigger a campaign known as "Sauron maced first" seeking to restore the original concept and flavor of both characters.

    After meeting with some success with these Special Editions, Jackson will decide to release a 3 movie prequel based on The Hobbit which will feature the dwarf Thorin replaced by a lovable anthropomorphic fish-dwarf who likes to say "Mesa gonna havea big adventures with yousa Hobbit, sah" who everyone will hate. Following their release, the class of 2029 will complain that Peter Jackson has ruined their childhoods by destroying the movies they had grown up loving so much.

    1. Re:The Lucas Factor by Albert+Sandberg · · Score: 1

      ... and many will insist that you should see them in order 4,5,1,2,3,6 so they don't spoil the ents.

  23. Re:HEADLINE: 10th dirty nuke detonated this year by JamesRose · · Score: 2, Insightful

    HEADLINE: 100th nuke detonated this year

    Remember back when we should have taken care of those fundamentalist christian extremists running america?

  24. The new mindest... by iminplaya · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Comin' up next on The Violence Channel: An all-new "Ow, My Balls!"

    --
    What?
  25. Tales from a Beloit non-grad by SuperBanana · · Score: 3, Funny
    Just FYI- Beloit is the armpit school of the midwest. When I went there in the late 90's:

    • An entire dorm left mid-term. Something like 1/4 of the freshman class was "asked to take a semester off" (I was one of them, and I suspect it had more to do with them grossly overbooking dorm rooms and classes.)
    • My physics class was taught using a self-published physics textbook developed by a nearby university. The previous year's physics 101 class sent in FORTY pages of corrections, and ours were wrong in all sorts of new and exciting ways. The class was useless, because the professor had to have the entire class go over the homework together, and you never knew if you were doing the problem set wrong, or if the problemset itself was wrong.
    • the facilities were a mess (we couldn't even get lightbulbs for common areas)
    • students were crammed into every available space; there were 6 and 7 people in some converted lounges. I was shoved into a double with three people, and it was a fight with res life to get furniture for the third guy; they gave us two desks, TWO BEDS, and two dressers.
    • They don't serve anything except brunch on Sundays. This sucks more than you could possibly believe when you're in the middle of nowhere. It's not like you can walk a block or two into town and get something tasty and cheap. Your choices: pizza and...pizza.
    • The town is full of really bigoted, angry, poor people. My roommate, who was seeing another student who had come from Indonesia, had a run in with a guy who said: "Yeeer girlll-friend Chaneeeeese?" "Uh, no, she's Indonesian." "She LOOKS Chaaaaaneeeeeeese". The guy then followed them back to campus in his pickup truck.
    • The only exciting thing to do in Beloit...is to drive to Madison. YEEEHAA. Sucks if you don't know anyone with a car!
    • The nearest transportation to Chicago (where you will be flying in/out of) is several MILES off campus. Do you know how much that sucks any time from fall to late spring, ie, the academic season?
    • My dorm freshman year was infested with cockroaches- the basement lounge was full of them, and our room had them as well, despite it being the start of the year and the room being very clean.
    • By 4-5PM people are drinking and smoking pot, and every Friday/Saturday night, the lounges would turn into what a nightclub looks like after it closes; full of broken glass, beer cans/bottles everywhere, beer coating *everything* (the furniture was never cleaned, so...yeah) and recycling bins and trashcans filled to the brim with beer.
    • We had wonderful militant feminists and lesbians who all strong-armed the campus into giving them the nicest dorms on campus and making them women only. One was called "The Womyn's Center". Their favorite activity was scrolling sexual slurs like "DYKE!" on the walkways to get a rise out of people.
    • Relations are so good with the town that the Beloit police department spends all night "patrolling" "town property" (aka the one public road that goes through the residential section) and ticketing people for anything they possibly can. I was never ticketed, but half my dorm had been ticketed for "open container of alcohol" because they crossed the street from one dorm to another with a can of beer.
    • The local canned food plant (the only real place for people to work- General Dynamics shut down its plant and is mostly why the town was/is a hell-hole) regularly belches forth clouds of artificial cheese smell or baked beans. The student-run "Coughy Haus" is named for the cough people make when they smell the "cheese breeze."
    • There's a freight train line nearby that blows its horn at every crossing....at about 5AM. EVERY MORNING.
    • Thefts on campus were rampant. I repeatedly had stuff stolen off my bike by townies who considered campus an convenient automatic teller machine.

    It's the fucking armpit of the midwestern liberal arts schools. Give it a WIDE BERTH. If you're stupid enough to go, don't even think of staying in "810", or its nearby dorm (I forget the number...6-something?)

    1. Re:Tales from a Beloit non-grad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I went to Beloit from 1999 - 2003 and actually _graduated_ (major in Anthropology, now I do OSS software development), and I had none of the above experiences. My college time at Beloit completely rocked. I suspect if the OP hadn't actually bombed out, s/he'd have liked it more. Before I came, they completely renovated a bunch of dorms, built "townhouse" dorms, trains didn't come through, moved the fire station down the street from my dorm somewhere else, had pretty good food. Best CS class I had (minored in it) was designing my own 8-bit processor in simulation, with some ROM. People there are more laid back, more fun, 10+% of the student body is international, and students come from almost all 50 states (#3 is Oregon). They're building a new science center to be finished in the next year or two.

    2. Re:Tales from a Beloit non-grad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So what you're saying is basically it's the Tufts of the midwest.

    3. Re:Tales from a Beloit non-grad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I went to Oberlin, where most every complaint you have is equalled or surpassed. Our campus dining services was mandatory - except if you joined a co-op or in limited other cases - and it was run by a company that specialized in prison services, while the administration admitted that funds from board fees were siphoned off to other areas of the school. If you want to be around militant feminists of any sexual orientation, just try Oberlin out - it's not that uncommon as a guy to have the experience of hanging out with a girl many times for extended conversations and then when you ask them to do something, they just don't know how to respond because they like you but they hate Men.

      Some of the CS kids (and others, too) would hide away in tiny groups and bitch about most everything and everyone on campus, but the thing is that it was a fucking prize of a place to be. They were just anti-social anal-retentive types. One of my brothers attended Beloit and, while I don't know everything about it and only visited it a few times, it seems like a pretty cool college from everything I know about it. To be holding on to the petty stuff well after you've left the school is a sad sign.

    4. Re:Tales from a Beloit non-grad by Vegeta99 · · Score: 1
      Sounds like my campus. I'm an RA in this mess, but:

      Relations are so good with the town that the Beloit police department spends all night "patrolling" "town property" (aka the one public road that goes through the residential section) and ticketing people for anything they possibly can. I was never ticketed, but half my dorm had been ticketed for "open container of alcohol" because they crossed the street from one dorm to another with a can of beer.


      So don't violate the open container law! What's the BEST way to let the cops know where everyone is underage drinking? Oh, yeah, walking in there 20 deep with open cans of beer. That law is there to protect you. If a bunch of kids walk in with backpacks full of beer on, a cop can't come up and bust your "study party" - but he sure is gonna take a visit if you walked in open beer and all!

      It's fuckin' freshman move in day... and I'm on duty.
    5. Re:Tales from a Beloit non-grad by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Our campus dining services was mandatory - except if you joined a co-op or in limited other cases - and it was run by a company that specialized in prison services, while the administration admitted that funds from board fees were siphoned off to other areas of the school.

      Haha, you think that's good? My college at university had mandatory charges for catering (breakfast, lunch and dinner). In my final year they admitted after a few weeks that they had used the food money to pay for a rebranding exercise. They spent millions of pounds on consultants who recommended they change the name from "University of Durham" to "Durham University", which they then proceeded to do, at a cost of further millions of pounds. From then on every night it was the same stuff - stew and if you got there early, rice too. Nobody ever figured out what the stew was made of.

    6. Re:Tales from a Beloit non-grad by dpiven · · Score: 1

      Jim Post once said that Beloit was the noise made by a quarter dropping into a toilet.

    7. Re:Tales from a Beloit non-grad by mikael · · Score: 1

      If the police did that on our campus block, our students would be transporting the beer cans from one dorm to another by string from one window to another - or otherwise digging an underground tunnel between the blocks.

      On our campus, administration tried banning multiplayer games from being played on the university network - so the students set up their own wireless network using a proxy router and network cables strung from window to window.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    8. Re:Tales from a Beloit non-grad by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      You're lucky. We figured it out.

      My university dorm cafeteria (which we were required to buy meal plans from) served spaghetti and meat sauce once a week or so. The veterans warned us on the first day not to eat the meat sauce. Naturally we all had to try it and learn the lesson ourselves.

      They had a sign: "Meat Sauce - 100% Meat." We figured it out when we realized that there were no natural predators keeping the slow, overfed pigeon population in check. Unfortunately the deer were too quick for the cafetorium cooks.

      Halfway through the year they took down the sign. I guess meat was getting scarce.

    9. Re:Tales from a Beloit non-grad by PresidentEnder · · Score: 1

      That law is there to protect you. You're an RA. Of course you believe that laws exist to protect people. Seriously, we had our RA indoctrination^h^h^h^h^h^h training shortly before school started, and the entire point seemed to be: you are an elite group, a brotherhood; everyone else is an outsider, terribly irresponsible and in need of protection. I almost walked out a few times during the police chief's talk. (Disclaimer: I'm a resident tech assistant, not a regular RA, so I'm not quite so into writing people up)
      --
      I used to carry a bottle of whiskey for snake bite. And two snakes. -Nefarious Wheel
    10. Re:Tales from a Beloit non-grad by KORfan · · Score: 1

      You didn't have to go to Madison. You could go to Rockford instead.

    11. Re:Tales from a Beloit non-grad by Vegeta99 · · Score: 1

      No no, no indoctrination here. I don't hand out underages, it's not my job. If a cop asks me if I carded people at a party, I say no, I'm not law enforcement. Hell, the only way I'll bust up a party is if bottles are getting winged off a balcony or other ridiculous stuff like that.

      Now, walking 20 deep across the parking lot all carrying beers? I'm going to tell you chug or dump, because otherwise, the undercover liquor control guys are going to join your group, follow you to the party, and then fry everyone with open container, underage drinking, and unlicensed sales if they're charging. It's not my job to enforce liquor laws, but walking around with an open container gives the cops REAL good probable cause to walk into the party.

      And don't think all the RAs act as if they're in an "elite group" - I spend my nights on duty hitting up anything going on in the buildings I'm in charge of just to make sure that the RESIDENTS are happy - most of MY problem is random townies and dorm kids coming up and trashing the place. Now, the reason that law is there probably isn't to protect you, but walking with a backpack full of beer to a party is a damn sight better than walking with an open bottle and chugging on it as you walk!

  26. what's mousepad? by roman_mir · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So no more 2-dimensional information entry that is easily mappable to a 2-dimensional visual display?
    Interesting. Maybe we'll have mind controlled computers finally.
    If alive, in 2029 I'll be 53, ouch.

    What will it really be like?

    All newborns are imprinted with DNA sequences, that uniquely identify a person. Basically everyone's DNA will have a serial number. Obviously many will resist this but the anti-terrorist laws will be strong, comrades. From then on this tech will proliferate into all aspects of life, various ID schemes will be implemented on top of this tech. Obviously people will find work-arounds, but all illegal of-course.

    Various genetic types of treatment, still no cure for AIDS, but people won't die from it directly anymore. Still no cure for many types of cancer, but detection is much better and if detected in time, survival rate will approach 90%.

    Patented life forms used in manufacturing of goods. Patented viruses, bacteria, insects, cows, pigs, wheat, rice, corn, apples, etc. used to efficiently provide the population of 9 billion people with food, shelter, clothing, energy, entertainment and medication.

    Patented people. AI built on top of a computer network that will use humans as nodes for intuition and any non-programmable functionality.

    Polygamy legalized in China, one woman will be able to have many husbands at the same time.

    Sex-bots.

    Sex-cyborgs.

    Arab Emirates run out of oil and become a gigantic Disney Land on drugs.

    All legally bought electronics have built-in DRM, digital fingerprinting, watermarking and such. The feedback loops allow the content providers to identify those, who release copyrighted materials into 'the wild' without authorization. Laws are put in place to make copyright violations to be the most heinous crime of all times, worse than murder but not as bad as tax evasion.

    Oh, and taxes. Well, they will grow.

    1. Re:what's mousepad? by gad_zuki! · · Score: 1

      >still no cure for AIDS, but people won't die from it directly anymore. S

      Except the poor and uninsured.

    2. Re:what's mousepad? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > If alive, in 2029 I'll be 53, ouch.

      As someone who will be 53 in 6 more weeks, I would just like to take this opportunity to say, "STFU".

      Thank you. :)

    3. Re:what's mousepad? by maxume · · Score: 1

      All babies today are born "imprinted with DNA sequences". You see, this "DNA" carries the information that makes them "alive". I guess your friendly neighborhood government might decide to start keeping a database of DNA sequences, turning DNA into handy serial number. Better make sure to get a couple of clones made, plausible deniability and all that.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    4. Re:what's mousepad? by roman_mir · · Score: 1

      I am talking about inserting DNA sequences, that are serial numbers into the original DNA of a newborn. Of-course the serial numbers of the parents will be carried to the children, but I guess the serials of the parents will be removed and a new serial will be inserted to ID the child.

    5. Re:what's mousepad? by maxume · · Score: 1

      To what end? I guess it would be nice to be able to slice out and sequence a small piece, but it isn't exactly going to be expensive to pull an entire genome by 2029.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    6. Re:what's mousepad? by scaryjohn · · Score: 1

      So no more 2-dimensional information entry that is easily mappable to a 2-dimensional visual display?
      Interesting. Maybe we'll have mind controlled computers finally.
      If alive, in 2029 I'll be 53, ouch.

      I think what they mean is that between the prevalence of lazer-mouses and laptops with integral touchpads, little grodolated carpet scraps of self-expression have become moribund and by the time today's newborns are old enough to form memories nobody will have them.

      Maybe I hath been trolled, but these are necessarily pedestrian predictions.

      I'll be 48.

      --
      One might ask the same about birds. What ARE birds? We just don't know.
    7. Re:what's mousepad? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Women don't have to become pregnant to get babies. Embryo matures in an artificial uterus instead of a woman's.

  27. Nothing new here by AndyMcL · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The article is just stating current events and the author's own current likes and dislikes. More than likely many of the companies and items mentioned will be different by 2029. Especially since the rate of change is increasing. Where was Google and Yahoo 22 years ago or many of the technologies we use today? Not even on the radar back in 1985. Many of the Slashdot readers may not have even been alive yet or were still in diapers.

    The only thing you can accurately predict is people will be fundamentally the same, only the tools they use will be different.

    Just my 2 cents.

    -Andy

  28. Don't remember a time when George Bush... by dircha · · Score: 1

    ...was not President!

    1. Re:Don't remember a time when George Bush... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...was not President!

      Haha. However, it's far more likely that Castro will still be Presidente-for-life in Cuba, and Chavez will be Presidente-for-life in Venezuela.

    2. Re:Don't remember a time when George Bush... by forkazoo · · Score: 1

      ...was not President!


      Well, we already have a significant number of people who don't remember a time when there wasn't a Bush or a Clinton in the White House. And, if Hillary gets two terms, Chelsea and the Bush twins could conceivable run against each other with a populace that has gotten used to 35+ years of familial duopoly...
  29. Lord of the rings looks fake in the future? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Which part? The giant flaming evil eye, or the running trees?
    Those damn kids, they wouldn't know a realistic effect if it bit them on the ass.

  30. My lawn... by st0rmshad0w · · Score: 1

    ...off it.

    Oh wait, that's "OF the class" not "ABOUT the class"...

  31. LOTR already looks fake by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    in certain places at least. For example, in the first movie when they go under the mountain, that big creature they fight that uses a mace or other swingable weapon(and it keeps hitting walls) - looks quite fake. Golem looks fake much of the time too - amongst other things.

  32. Onward and upward by Animats · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Views of 2029:

    • China is the superpower.
    • "What's your draft status"?
    • No more shaving. Laser hair removal. (It's only expensive now because the patent licensing terms are terrible.)
    • Cars plug in, and mostly drive themselves.
    • Getting a good job looks hopeless. Success requires picking your parents carefully.
    • Being a "knowledge worker" is obsolete; it's like being a manual laborer before heavy machinery. Computers are smarter than you are.
    1. Re:Onward and upward by glwtta · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Being a "knowledge worker" is obsolete; it's like being a manual laborer before heavy machinery. Computers are smarter than you are.

      Pft, yeah - that means that the people going into school now (who will design these systems) are freakin geniuses the likes of which the world has never seen before.

      --
      sic transit gloria mundi
    2. Re:Onward and upward by thermostat42 · · Score: 1

      Cars plug in, and mostly drive themselves.

      Heh. Are we going to be using the metric system too?

      --
      no comment
  33. Special effects by Yath · · Score: 1

    'Lord of the Rings' looks fake and the effects are laughable


    For those of you who scorn this prediction, remember that there are people alive who have seen only a few contemporary movies. For those people, LoTR effects are actually pretty good. After all, computer-generated effects, while still in their infancy, have gotten steadily better over the last couple of decades. So it's inevitable that there will be a few younger folks for whom LoTR's effects, when compared to most other contemporary movies, stand out as examples of quality.

    For the majority of us, of course, they look like crap compared to the models or the (gasp) REAL props they were forced to use in the past.
    --
    I always mod up spelling trolls.
    1. Re:Special effects by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do realize, don't you, that LoTR is not a "heavily digital effects-laden" movie in the same way that the Star Wars episodes 1-3 movies are?

      Peter Jackson and WETA used scale minatures, ie, models, quite extensively, as well as various kinds of forced perspective shots, body scale size doubles, cosmetics/prosthetics, and other costume "effects", all mixed together with digital effects. IMO because of this, LOTR is going to hold up quite well in future, compared to Star Wars epsidoes 1-3 with George Lucas' over-reliance on digital effects alone.

  34. aaand by kc2keo · · Score: 1

    GNU/Linux finally has a total of 9000 different distros. M$ is not longer in existance. All games are created for GNU/Linux and everyones happy.... :P

    1. Re:aaand by reeve · · Score: 1

      9087 actually, and MS will still exist as a mouse manufacturer.

      --
      Reeve the cat
    2. Re:aaand by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      GNU/Linux finally has a total of 9000 different distros. M$ is not longer in existance. All games are created for GNU/Linux and everyones happy.... :P ... except for RMS, because most people still don't say "GNU/Linux". Moreover the fact that after more than 20 years Linux still isn't GPLv3 bothers him a lot.
      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  35. Car Era by lobiusmoop · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I suspect they will only have distant childhood memories of everybody driving their own cars wherever they wanted.

    --
    "I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
  36. Re:HEADLINE: 10th dirty nuke detonated this year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    HEADLINE: Atomic Ayatollahs transfer more nuclear weapons to 3rd party terrorist groups.

    Remember back when Russia supplied nuclear technology to Iran?

  37. Lindsay Lohan was never innocent. by garett_spencley · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Lindsay Lohan was never innocent."

    Hopefully in the year 2025/2029 it will be "Lindsay who?" and "Paris who?" and "Britney who?". And if we're *really* lucky people might actually stop obsessing so much over the lives of people that they don't know personally or have anything to do with all together.

    But I guess I'm just a dreamer :(

    1. Re:Lindsay Lohan was never innocent. by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

      Well we still talk about bands from the 60s. And they were hardly innocent either. Just now we have 24/7 news coverage to really drive in the point.

      What? You think the Beatles were saints? They might have been bigger than jesus, but they're hardly without sin. Hint: They abused drugs to come up with their songs.

      Like omg totally what? no wai! ya rly!

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    2. Re:Lindsay Lohan was never innocent. by cashman73 · · Score: 1

      You seriously can't compare bands of the 60s to Paris, Britney and Lindsey. For starters, most bands of the 60s era actually had something the latter bunch don't have any of . . . TALENT!

    3. Re:Lindsay Lohan was never innocent. by garett_spencley · · Score: 1

      You missed my point entirely.

      The point was that I think it's silly that people obsess so much about other people that have nothing to do with them what-so-ever, besides the entertainment / art that they produce.

      Personally, I don't care at all about any band, artist, celebrity, movie star etc. outside of the entertainment that they produce. For any time period.

      I realize that I'm a minority, and that's why I have the problem to begin with (in other words, I'm the one who makes it a problem for myself by not being like everyone else and caring), but although the Beatles were before my time, if I were around when they had broken up I wouldn't have cared in the slightest. And I like their music. It has nothing to do with whether or not I like the entertainment that they produce.

      In fact, I actually liked the movie "Mean Girls". But I couldn't give the slightest care in the world about whether or Lindsay Lohan is guilty of doing drugs. I mean for crying out loud. Teenage girl does drugs. STOP THE PRESSES! /sarcasm.

      When Paris' (or Pamela's) sex tape was released it was soooo not news IMO. There's enough porn out there already if I want some. I don't care that John Lennon was shot. I don't care that the Beatles broke up. I don't care that Elvis is dead. I don't care that Princess Diana died in a car accident. I didn't care when that Kennedy brother died in a plane crash. Sure my hearts go out to the people who are actually affected by such things, like their family etc. But the fact that we have major network "news" shows like "Entertainment Tonight" and "The Insider" dedicated entirely to such trivial things and the fact that even major news networks like CNN talk about Paris going to jail is a major pet peeve of mine. WHO THE HELL CARES !? Is all I can think to myself. And then I get morbidly depressed when I realize "Oh right. Most people apparently :("

      Of course I can simply turn the channel if I don't like it and so I do. I just find it to be a very annoying aspect of pop culture.

    4. Re:Lindsay Lohan was never innocent. by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, it will be the opposite. With more and more automation, including in areas where humans reign supreme today, we'll have more and more free time. Just as it is today, a population with more and more leisure time will demand more and more "entertainment," strengthening Hollywood, it's larger cousin Bollywood, the music industry and the synthetic experience studios, mostly headquartered in south China. Not only will we follow every movement of young (and old) stars and starlets but also synthetic personalities, whose careers can be managed completely. Which personalities are genuine and which are synthetic will be closely guarded, proprietary information, protected by law.

    5. Re:Lindsay Lohan was never innocent. by The+One+and+Only · · Score: 1

      I think that says more good about drugs than bad about the Beatles. A better example would be Marilyn Monroe. On the other hand, Monroe's breakdown and death was seen as tragic, a consideration we never extend to celebrities anymore.

      --
      In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
    6. Re:Lindsay Lohan was never innocent. by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

      No offense, but for every "Beatles" or "Abba" or whatever, there are 10s of thousands of shit all bands. Let's not pretend everyone with a guitar from the 60s had talent.

      Granted, nowadays I too feel that most bands are just rehashing the same old formula, there are a few nuggets here and there of actual talent.

      That said, with people like paris and britney, it has nothing to do with talent, and everything to do with a trainwreck. It's fun watching people destroy themselves, and the more attention they can get the more spectacular their downfall. Nobody cares if another nobody ODs while masturbating to pictures of shaved goats. But if K-Fed started doing that, well people would pay to see that. Don't ask why voyeurism is important to people, it just is.

      Personally, I tend to get "attached" to bands that made their debut at least 3-4 years ago. That way if they make it through the initial one-hit wonder phase and are still being played, it's likely they have some clue.

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    7. Re:Lindsay Lohan was never innocent. by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      Hopefully in the year 2025/2029 it will be "Lindsay who?" and "Paris who?" and "Britney who?". And if we're *really* lucky people might actually stop obsessing so much over the lives of people that they don't know personally or have anything to do with all together.

      And if we are really, really lucky... People will realize that such obsessions are nothing particularly new.
    8. Re:Lindsay Lohan was never innocent. by mctk · · Score: 1

      Guess I won't be clicking that myspace link of yours...

      --
      Paul Grosfield - the quicker picker upper.
  38. NUMA, NUMA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "They've never danced to 'Numa Numa.'"

    That's a song about RAM, right?

    ~AC

  39. There won't be a class of 2029. by antdude · · Score: 1

    According to this game SkyNet is in full force. [grin]

    --
    Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  40. Ignores the big picture on exponential computing by Paul+Fernhout · · Score: 2, Informative

    Computers are increasing by a factor of about 1000X in performance per
    price per decade. By the time any toddler of today is finishing
    graduate school, computers will be about 1000X (for the first decade)
    multiplied (not added) by 1000X (for the second decade) or about
    a million times faster than they are now -- just like computers are
    about a million times faster than twenty to thirty years ago (at
    constant dollars, or so MIPS per $). Related links:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law
    http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?pr intable=1
    http://www.bootstrap.org/dkr/discussion/0126.html
    http://www.transhumanist.com/volume1/moravec.htm
    (The rate of exponential growth itself is even increasing!)
    According to that last link, those AI computers had about 1 MIPS
    processing power. (And it's a funny idea Hans Moravec had, and I think
    correct, that only for the last decade or so has AI been taking
    advantage of faster desktop CPUs going beyond 1 MIPS..)

    As an example, compare the late 1970s Apple II
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II
    with todays' (2007) eight core Mac Pro.
    http://www.apple.com/macpro/
    Then --> Now (approximate increase)
    CPU: 1 Mhz --> 8 * 3 Ghz (8000X faster, but about another 100X internal
    improvements from wider data operations and pipelining and such).
    (somewhere in x100000 to x1000000)
    RAM: 4K --> 4GB RAM just starting to be common. (x1000000)
    Disk: 300K disks --> 300 gigabyte disks. (x1000000)
    And all for about the same price (adjusted for inflation).
    Some other considerations:
    Bandwidth: 11 bytes/sec modem at $10 / hour --> 800000 bytes/second by
    cable at $60 / month (about x10000 faster, well that doesn't quite fit,
    but its still a big improvement -- and if you factor in the cost for
    continuous access, there is probably another 10x or 100X boost in there,
    producing effectively close to a x1000000 improvement of price/performance)
    Printing: about 1000 characters per minute for $1200 printer -> 10 pages
    per minute each with millions of color pixels -- with the printer often
    now free with the computer (not sure how to call this as a multiple,
    since quality has changed so much).

    So, here are possible specs for a personal computer of 2027 if it was a
    million times faster than today's:
    CPU: 8 * 3 Ghz --> 8000 X 3 THz (1000X more CPUs each 1000X faster,
    though I think it likely such systems might just instead have a million
    processors at about today's speeds, perhaps interweaving memory and
    processing power)
    RAM: 4GB --> 4000TB (enough to hold all of the current surface internet
    in RAM, see:
    http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/ho w-much-info-2003/internet.htm
    )
    See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte
    for MB, GB, TB, PB, EB series and their meaning
    DISK: 300GB --> 300PB (which is 300,000 TB)
    For reference, a DVD movie uncompressed is about 5GB.
    Note that, according to:
    http://elegans.uky.edu/blog/?p=49
    300 TB would allow you to record your entire life in video for 16hr/day
    for 100 years at 500MB/hr. So you could do that for 1000 people on just
    your own $3000 2027AD personal computer. Or you could just perhaps store
    the interesting bits of life video for perhaps a hundred thousand people
    or so. Needless to say,

    --
    A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
  41. Re:HEADLINE: 10th dirty nuke detonated this year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    New moderator guidelines:

    Cheap shot on Islamic Extremists: (-1, Troll)
    Cheap shot on Christian Extremists: (+5, Insightful)

  42. Re:HEADLINE: 10th dirty nuke detonated this year by falzer · · Score: 1

    Ahh the good old days. Life was simple then...

  43. Back to the future by Charcharodon · · Score: 2, Interesting
    'Lord of the Rings' looks fake and the effects are laughable/

    They look laughable now, no need to wait 20 some odd years.

    To be fair everything looks fake once you've seen a movie a few times. You spend less time engrossed in the story and more on the technical aspects. I've noticed much of it seems to be with inaccurate or sloppy lighting for composite images or things being too perfect or too perfectly imperfect (ie Star Trek & Star Wars), rather than the level of detail. That and how ridiculous the cliche flooded action scenes have become.

    My take on it will be kids of that generation will either wonder about a world that isn't entirely engrossed in civil and global conflicts or be so bored out of their minds that suicide at 40 is considered a proper end to a long and full life.

    1. Re:Back to the future by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmm. You're a fucking idiot.

    2. Re:Back to the future by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 1

      True about things looking fake after time... It took a few viewings of Back to the Future before they started to emerge. Like Marty's foot being composited into the edge of the fire trail in I, or the difference in the black level in II as Doc takes off from behind the sign showing where one block was composited in.

  44. Lame, yeah "lame idea" lame by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

    Why is it every generation thinks they're the rightful owners of society? I'm sure when the current 40-50 year olds were 16, their parents thought *they* were the rightful owners of society, and so forth.

    I'm sure the same people who get "where's the beef" (btw, I was born in 1982, and I get the joke too, so it's hardly a generation defining meme), probably wouldn't get the subtle Victorian civilities that made up the 19th century.

    In short, the article is full of Ric Romero substance and should be cataloged under "same shit, different day."

    Tom

    --
    Someday, I'll have a real sig.
  45. Saddest of all.... by wombert · · Score: 1

    FTA: No one's ever worn a digital watch.

    Sadly, they'll never really appreciate Douglas Adams' style of humour.

    --
    Did I say overlords? I meant protectors.
  46. Re:HEADLINE: 10th dirty nuke detonated this year by mikestro · · Score: 0

    Implying that fundamentalist Christians are responsible for (future) nuke bombings? Nice.

    How can this be anything but a troll or someone who's really naive?

    Mod parent down please.

  47. Cell phones on planes by RJBeery · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Airlines don't allow cell phones on planes for a reason that most don't understand - it's about control of information. When the passengers of a plane are in danger they are frequently kept in the dark to avoid the ensuing panic, and that wouldn't be possible if they all got phone calls about their plane being on television.

    As a side note, I asked a Southwest stewardess why they turn off the lights after dark, even when it's too early to sleep. She was real shifty in her response so I kept pressuring her. She finally admitted that it's so passengers' eyes are adjusted correctly so they could see while getting off the plane after an accident!

    -R

    1. Re:Cell phones on planes by FLEB · · Score: 1

      I've often heard that, aside from cockpit device interference, allowing widespread cellphone use on a quickly-moving plane with a wide range of "view" would overload the infrastructure on the ground, with the cellular network having to cope with handing off calls from tower to tower much more often, and at much more rapid a rate.

      Given that cellphones aren't outright banned on planes (just having them on is prohibited), television is sometimes available on flights, and by the time you're on TV, you'd most likely know something is up, the "panic prevention" bit sounds fishy.

      --
      Information wants to be free.
      Entertainment wants to be paid.
      You just want to be cheap.
    2. Re:Cell phones on planes by Enlightenment · · Score: 1

      I'm actually kind of glad that she was shifty about that. Just because they're prepared doesn't mean it's a good idea to call attention to the fact that it could happen.

  48. The REAL class of 2029 by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 2, Interesting
    1. Will have lived most of their lives in economic recession.
    2. Will ride bicycles and electric trikes - cars are too expensive.
    3. Will not be able to afford air travel, which will be largely the province of the super rich and the military.
    4. Will grow some fraction of their own food.
    5. Will be lucky to attend university.
    6. Will mostly graduate from trade schools in maintenance (plumbing, HVAC, cabinetry, ensolarisation projects, or agriculture.
    7. Will remember several small limited local nuclear wars, and know or know someone who knows someone who died in them.
    8. Will hate their parents and grandparents for being such an idiotic bunch of uniformed greedheads.
    9. Will bear the brunt of the Powerdown.
    10. Will know or know someone who knows someone in the refugee transit camps in eastern Oregon and southern Idaho.
    11. Will be trying to figure out a way to move north, or northwest, where it's cooler.
    12. Will consider gay marriage as normal as any other kind of marriage, because marriage is a matter of metaphysics, and government doesn't care about that - gov't cares about contracts and property.
    13. Will look back at the Bush administration as a complete and utter failure, and those who voted for Bush as complicit in his war crimes, as the German People were complicit in WW2 and the Holocaust.
    14. Will realise that technology is not energy, and will know how to calculate Energy Return on Energy Invested in their heads, much as the class of 1976 was able to calculate grams of coke vs. ounces of colombian pot...
    15. Will know how to darn their own socks.
    16. Will remember the internet as the predecessor of what became "transparent" and they simply see it as "media". 17. Will laugh at Kurzweil for being such a tool, as machine intelligence is STILL 30 years off.
    18. Will know that fusion is still 20 years away, just like it was 20 years ago.
    19. Will help tear up the broad asphalt streets to be replaced with narrow cobblestone.
    20. Will raze their grandparent's McMansions because they were build like crap, and the land is more useful as farm land.
    21. Will live in cities or in small towns clustered near railroad depots.
    22. Will eat organic food because there isn't enough natural gas left for fertiliser and pesticides anyway.
    23. Will know how to stoke a wood fire in the morning to warm the house in winter and get a pot of tea boiling.
    24. Will change their outer clothing less often, but change their under clothing every day. The outer clothing will be more strongly built and durable. They will repair their own underwear.
    25. will find digital media will not exist - it's all digital, so "digital" media has no meaning.
    26. Will be able to procure all of the films of Warner Brothers (or any other film company), including cartoons, on a single deeply encrypted drive.
    27. Will be able to procure a drive that contains every song ever released by a given music company.
    28. Will the depth of media daunting and much of it will be ignored.
    29. Fine Art will finally be completely digested and shat out by the entertainment industry as simple entertainment for the educated. Some will argue this had already happened by 1995...
    30. Will find The Long Emergency in full swing. Billions dying off in Africa and Asia, millions perishing in Europe and North America as the human species loses its fight against Mother Nature and the laws of thermodynamics.

    RS

    --
    Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
    1. Re:The REAL class of 2029 by c6gunner · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Hah. You know, I never understood why pessimists like you don't just off themselves, and leave more resources for the rest of us.

    2. Re:The REAL class of 2029 by roman_mir · · Score: 1

      Most of your 'predictions' are true today. Many people today have to make their own food, their own clothing, they can't afford cars, they hate the system around them and maybe their predecessors.

      You are not predicting anything that isn't happening today, but you are insisting that those of us who live in societies where it is not the case today will have to change our way of life. I totally don't believe that this will be the case. I believe that our technological advances will make it possible for us to work less and less for the same amount of comfort we enjoy today.

      Cheers.

    3. Re:The REAL class of 2029 by Councilor+Hart · · Score: 1

      18. Will know that fusion is still 20 years away, just like it was 20 years ago. Will know that at the beginning of the centery, the politicians (of the boomers generation) delayed funding for ITER by 10 years. Up to that point fusion technology was advancing faster that Moore's law. Now we have to play catch up.
      2007: Starting ITER constructing. Finally.
      2020: ITER constructed
      2020-2040: running ITER experiments, with short-sighted and short-term memory polictians asking the scientists and engineers why it's taking so long. They will also ask if more money will solve it faster. (1)
      2030-2050: designing and building DEMO, the first commercial Fusion prototype (actually several of them will be designed and build)
      2050 -20??: DEMO testing over: Fusion technology achieved, after 100 years and several generations of engineers and scientists of which most will never see the endproduct.

      (1) Sure it will, spend the extra money on a time machine, go back in time to 2000 and approve the ITER funding when you were supposed to. Oh, and at the same time, try to get more people into science.
    4. Re:The REAL class of 2029 by SteelAngel · · Score: 1

      Will look back at the Bush administration as a complete and utter failure, and those who voted for Bush as complicit in his war crimes, as the German People were complicit in WW2 and the Holocaust.
      I certainly hope that this isn't the case, otherwise either the concept of objective truth will be utterly meaningless in 2029, or all the female members of that class will be burkha-clad, if allowed to go to school at all.
    5. Re:The REAL class of 2029 by Eevee · · Score: 1

      2. Will ride bicycles and electric trikes - cars are too expensive.

      But not too expensive at Ralph Spoilsport Motors - the world's largest new used and used new automobile dealership - Ralph Spoilsport motors - right here in the city of EMPHYSEMA!

    6. Re:The REAL class of 2029 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Biggest pile of shit I've ever read on Slashdot. You Godwined yourself at 13, you stupid motherfucker.

    7. Re:The REAL class of 2029 by Watson+Ladd · · Score: 1

      Like kidnapping people, then torturing them, and finally dumping them in rural Albania by the side of the road is not a crime?

      --
      Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
    8. Re:The REAL class of 2029 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      30. Will find The Long Emergency in full swing. Billions dying off in Africa and Asia, millions perishing in Europe and North America as the human species loses its fight against Mother Nature and the laws of thermodynamics. The really scary thing is that the small tribal wars and genocides might have been the warm up act. When land for food production is destroyed those people won't just sit down and watch their kids starve to death, they will go take from their neighbor who is the wrong color or tribe or religion. I can't even imagine the scale of war that could result from a large enough food production failure.
    9. Re:The REAL class of 2029 by SteelAngel · · Score: 1

      Sure, if you're a private citizen.

      On the other hand, you would be hard pressed to find a government with a suitably clean track record.

    10. Re:The REAL class of 2029 by dfenstrate · · Score: 1

      OMG!

      And all this, could like, totally be prevented if we listened to the infinite wisdom of yourself and other self-accreddited intellectual elites, right?

      Like, totally it would be stopped!

      You're a twit. Your post reeks of sophmoric college politics, where a bunch of unnaccomplished nobodies* sit around praising each other on their depth and intellect merely on the basis of agreeing with everyone in the room.

      *This includes most liberal arts professors as well, possesing a title based mostly on the basis of agreeing with everyone in the room for a decade or so, and not actually having accomplished a damn thing.

      --
      Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
    11. Re:The REAL class of 2029 by WilliamSChips · · Score: 1

      Yes, Bush fended off so many attacks from Osama bin Mohammed bin Ladin! Oh wait, one isn't very many at all!

      --
      Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
    12. Re:The REAL class of 2029 by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 1
      You don't know anything about me. I happen to be DEEPLY involved with "The Problem" and spend much of my waking life working at pulling us away from the precipice. Unfortunately, I am continually faced with presumptuous no-nothings such as yourself who are not only willfully ignorant of the facts, but actively avoiding any consciousness (much less responsibility) of changing their lives in such a way as to help ameliorate the situation for their own health and safety as well as that of their children and their descendants.

      You want the facts? Go find out how global per capita energy peaked in the 1980s, and how the ineluctable and unavoidable facts of thermodynamics and the foibles of human nature are colluding to completely reshape civilisation as we know it and basically reduce the population by 90% within a few hundred years. IF the likes of your prevail, we will be left in a state not much better off than the superstitious know-nothings of the medieval period and slowly slink back to a permanent neolithic condition and die-off. IF me and my cohorts are able to affect the change we are advocating, there might (but perhaps not) be a thriving (if depopulated) future for humanity living a comfortable and colourful existence for thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years, permitting human exitinction to occur as we gradually evolve into some other kind of creature.

      When you've finished reading that entire site (it will take a few months - I know - I've read the entire site) get back to me.

      The next time you decide to spew, please think twice - of course, in your case, once would be a dramatic improvement.

      RS

      --
      Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
    13. Re:The REAL class of 2029 by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 1
      For some reason the link didn't take. This is the link for your edification:

      http://www.dieoff.org

      RS

      --
      Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
    14. Re:The REAL class of 2029 by dfenstrate · · Score: 1

      You don't know anything about me. I happen to be DEEPLY involved with "The Problem" and spend much of my waking life working at pulling us away from the precipice.

      Yes! RS and his kin are our savoirs! Hallelujah!

      Have you ever actually accomplished anything? Playing chicken little isn't an accomplishment, incidentally.

      Look, I checked over your link and there are some decent observations in there about energy usage, and then there are some absurd leaps of logic as well.

      Honestly it's rather what I expected. Take some facts, then attach an analysis and a call to action based on absurdly limited view that only addresses that which matches your political pet peeves.

      For example, your page speaks of the anarchy & poverty in africa and the backsliding population of russia as examples of what is to come for western civilization because of energy usage.

      I don't even know where to begin. Suffice it to say, many of the things you Observe are correct, but your interpretations and the plans based on them are quite suspect.

      What you base your interpretations and action plans on is verifiable fact. This gives you false confidence that you're right when combined with the consensus of the people you associate with.

      That you are missing other casual factors or other potential solutions where you are not the hero is completely hidden to you.

      --
      Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
    15. Re:The REAL class of 2029 by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 1
      Fine. Be that way.

      Firm conjecture:

      http://www.dieoff.org/page15.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page112.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page224.htm

      Science:

      http://www.dieoff.org/page140.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page178.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page170.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page199.htm

      You say:

      Suffice it to say, many of the things you Observe are correct, but your interpretations and the plans based on them are quite suspect.

      but you don't say which.

      Then:

      What you base your interpretations and action plans on is verifiable fact. This gives you false confidence that you're right when combined with the consensus of the people you associate with.

      Well, what would you have me base my plans in? WISHFUL THINKING? Read the above articles. If you still disagree, then a: you really don't get it, and b: at least when you're starving in some transit camp in Colorado, you can't say you weren't properly warned.

      RS

      --
      Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
  49. Re:HEADLINE: 10th dirty nuke detonated this year by Thexare+Blademoon · · Score: 1

    That's not new.

  50. Maybe it looks fake ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    because it is fake?

  51. Re:HEADLINE: 10th dirty nuke detonated this year by JamesRose · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It was a shot at the ignorant view that Islamic terrorists will be responsible for nuclear attacks. You know who I suspect are going to carry out nuclear attacks- PEOPLE WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

  52. Re:HEADLINE: 10th dirty nuke detonated this year by Kagura · · Score: 1

    This is a more clever post than anything I have read today. Too bad it's AC.

  53. A Truly Pointless Exercise by some+old+guy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Unless you just want to establish a baseline to prove the progression that the next generation, so full naive ideals, red-hot urine, and youthful self-righteousness, will turn out to be just as big a lot of destructive, selfish, short-sighted cretins as every other generation that has gone before.

    --
    Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
  54. Don't be so small-minded... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    By 2029 90% of Earth's land mass and currency will be owned by the World Bank and the IMF; essentially giving power over the whole planet to a handful of families. The hidden tax called Inflation will still be with us. A hamburger will cost $7.80 instead of $5.00 and minimum wage will have increased from ~$7.75 to ~$8.75.

    Here's to working for the Fed.

    Comrades.

  55. Warming? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Global warming has always been a major voter issue, and Republicans have always acknowledged it.

    Actually, by 2029 they'll be back to warning about Global Cooling and the coming ice age.

  56. sage by Jello+B. · · Score: 1

    SAGE GOES IN EVERY FIELD!

  57. if everything goes digtal by beanenator · · Score: 0, Troll

    then all the people will not know how to spell and i will not reading ebooks because all books would be rare to read them. 2 gigaherts will be seen as slower then grandma they will be a bunch of obese people roaming the streets nukes are not seen as dangerous books are only for the educated

    1. Re:if everything goes digtal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "then all the people will not know how to spell and i will not reading ebooks because all books would be rare to read them. 2 gigaherts will be seen as slower then grandma they will be a bunch of obese people roaming the streets nukes are not seen as dangerous books are only for the educated" Comrades! The future is here!

  58. Wait, wait, wait... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's not a documentary? Filmed in real-time?

  59. Re:Special effects, new prediction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Honestly, I don't get this. I'm already old, and the effects in LOTR not only looked fake to me but like many CGI effects laden movies, were also pretty annoying and difficult to follow. (I'm sure that comment will get me marked as a troll by a bunch of pimply-faced knuckleheads)

    Perhaps people younger than me have been playing fast moving video games so much that their perception of what looks realistic has been distorted.

    So my prediction is that in coming years younger people will perceive CGI that is less and less realistic as being much more realistic than their parents movies. And older people will understand what the hell is going on in CGI less and less and no understand why kids like it.

  60. Re:HEADLINE: 10th dirty nuke detonated this year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But apparently it's not old enough yet to convince the editors that it's time to go ahead and rename this site to DailySlashKos. News for nutballs, stuff that's back-asswards.

  61. Re:Special effects, new prediction by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 1

    I'm sure that comment will get me marked as a troll by a bunch of pimply-faced knuckleheads No, but that shot at the mods will.

    Anyways, I don't understand the big deal about CG. I am young, to be fair (22), but the CG in modern movies looks plenty realistic to me, unless I pick it apart. If I allow myself to be immersed in my entertainment, no problems. In contrast, the "real models" (as the GP said) look pretty fake to me. For all the respect I have for the original Star Wars movies for how good they were for their time, they REALLY look fake at times, and these times are often enough to get to me.

    --
    "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
  62. Are you kidding me? Mindset of class of 2011? by Etherwalk · · Score: 1

    > "Lame" is a limp idea or personality, not a description of a limping person.

    This has been true for ten years at least. And it's not strictly accurate, either--the one use doesn't preclude the other, and a college student can still use either meaning of "lame," though the former is far more common. It's basically just an adjective that's been extended slightly in scope of application.

  63. In Soviet USA, government hates you by dn15 · · Score: 1

    The subject of this message is a joke, but there's more than a little truth to it.

    1. Re:In Soviet USA, government hates you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not really a joke if only you think it's funny. Also, it doesn't make any sense. But keep at it...

    2. Re:In Soviet USA, government hates you by conureman · · Score: 1

      You were joking?

      --
      The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
  64. Sure... by wicka · · Score: 1

    Anyone who is ignorant enough to think that in 22 years Apple, Google, and Facebook will still be important just doesn't deserve to use the internet.

    1. Re:Sure... by cappadocius · · Score: 1

      Well, 22 years ago who were some of the important players? Apple, IBM, Microsoft were some.

      They are all still important, but in some pretty different ways. The companies have had to adapt, but they have thrived. It's not so implausible that another 22 years will see the same thing happen to Google and Facebook.

      --

      omnia tua castra sunt nobis

  65. Uh, dude, the word you're looking for is polyandry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Duh.

  66. 20 years in the future? by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    Sorry, predicting 5 years out is hard enough. We cant honestly guess what its like 20+ years out. Far too many variables involved.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  67. Re:HEADLINE: 10th dirty nuke detonated this year by mikestro · · Score: 0

    Interesting dodge.

    So the only ones with the power and the WILL to NUKE are Christian fundamentalists?

    I think that religious fundamentalism is wrong no matter what religion it is since fundamentalists typically don't give much creedance to anything other than their worldview. However, if it's about people with nukes and their will to use them that you feel are the threat then make it about that. Don't insert your own politically biased agenda into it please.

  68. A Couple More by E++99 · · Score: 2, Funny

    * That scientists had always agreed about the global cooling problem.
    * That /. had always been populated by retirees who had never had sex.

    1. Re:A Couple More by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      And MySpace was always something for middle-aged people.

      Oh, and of course Wikipedia was always the prime source of information (and the loss of the edit history in the 2017 disk crash didn't hurt too much anyway, because after all, it's obvious that facts never change, e.g. Wikipedia always had stated that the Bible was right, and that evolution is a pseudo-scientific theory that was held only by a few non-mainstream biologists of the 19th and 20th century; those people who want to prove otherwise by showing "old database dumps" are just crackpots who don't need to be taken seriously; everyone knows that such data can easily be made up by the current commonly available AI programs).

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  69. Re:HEADLINE: 10th dirty nuke detonated this year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Errr..... you need to wake up from your brainwashing.

    It was the jews who invented nuclear weapons. And it is the jews who run America. And it will be the jews who nuke their opponents in the Middle East.

  70. Re:HEADLINE: 10th dirty nuke detonated this year by SteelAngel · · Score: 1

    Oppenheimer wasn't Jewish.

  71. HAY GUYS! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Remember Desu?

  72. No going back by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 1

    I imagine that by 2029 the price of gas will be so high that only the extremely wealthy will be able to afford plane travel.

    Doubt it. First, there's a lot of oil - though the recovery process makes it somewhat more costly, the advent of recovery technology will mitigate that. Additionally, we've long had the technology to make liquid fuel from liquefaction of coal. The process would (in my estimate) cost $3 or so a gallon - meaning that it would be feasible now, except that OPEC would undercut it if they had to (as they did in the 80s). But if we run out of oil (and OPEC has nothing left to sell), we have a few hundred years of coal to power us.

    So in the end, scarcity will not cause us to stop using fossil fuels soon. And like it or not, people will tolerate global warming before they accept going back to the 1800s in terms of transportation. So I have to disagree with you - plane travel is here, and will be here until or unless something better and faster comes along.

  73. 2029 issues... by tempest69 · · Score: 2, Funny
    They will remember that movies came in the mail when they were kids. And consider it quaint.

    Photo scrapbooks will be digital, with printouts being kitschy..

    Most people will max out around a terabyte of music.. because its more than they will ever get around top listening to. This will be a small chunk on their thumb drives.

    The old Colbert reports will have references too obscure to follow.

    South Park will be mainstream wholesome viewing... While some new show comes along to violate our sense of morality.

    Mass Transit will still seem to be a pipe-dream for the US..

    People will still be procrastinating the 2038 audits..

    Storm

  74. Re:HEADLINE: 10th dirty nuke detonated this year by Beyond_GoodandEvil · · Score: 1

    It was the jews who invented nuclear weapons.
    Yeah, that promeninant Jew, Enrico Fermi.

    --
    I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
  75. Unfortunately it's real and not funny at all by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Class of 2029 [...] 'Lord of the Rings' looks fake and the effects are laughable

    And hopefully by 2049 humanity will have evolved enough to realise that LotR's direction looks fake and the acting is laughable.

    Which is a common problem with movies where 90% of the budget goes to the effects. Take away his CGI, and maybe Peter Jackson will actually be forced to pay some attention to things like the "story", "editing", "framing" and "acting". Then again, this is Peter Jackson, so take away his CGI and you'll probably get a gore movie that's so bad it's not scary, but not bad enough to be funny.

    Tim Burton could have done a better job (more watchable and more faithful to the books) with six puppets and Danny Elfman's armpit...

  76. Those lists are ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I looked at the one for the class of 2002, who were born the year after I was (they didn't have one for my year), and nearly all of the items on the list were absolutely ridiculous. They seem to assume that younger people either think of everything that happened before they were born as ancient history or know nothing about it at all. And they seem confused on actual history as well. I remember quite a lot of the things they claim I should never even have heard of. Really bizarre stuff.

  77. Another mindset of 2029... by professorfalcon · · Score: 1
  78. They need perspective by olivercromwell · · Score: 1

    Send them all to the sand box for a summer, and let them learn how precious life really is.

  79. "Lotr looks fake" - that wont happen by unity100 · · Score: 0

    There is a limit to human perception. just as you wont notice the difference between 2 samples of same graphic in the same physical size (not pixel) on a 3072x2304 monitor and a 6144x4608 monitor due to the limitation of eye perception, you wont be able to tell the difference between today's lotr and tomorrow's movies effects. because if it looks sufficiently real today, it will also look sufficiently real tomorrow since there is no change in the concept of physical reality.

    you can compare terminator 3's special effects and year 2028 movies' special effects and laugh at terminator 3, yes, but not lotr. there was tremendous development in computer graphics/effects tech between the time t3 was done and lotr was done.

    1. Re:"Lotr looks fake" - that wont happen by DigitalSorceress · · Score: 1

      Unity,

      What if by then folks have really convincing, non-glasses-based 3D movies? I bet LOTR would look pretty fake then...

      Not to me though: then again, I'm just showing my age because I still prefer the un-bastartized Star Wars.

      (and by the way, Han shot first!)

      --

      The Digital Sorceress
    2. Re:"Lotr looks fake" - that wont happen by unity100 · · Score: 1

      well, im sure then they would have invented a technology to translate lotr to that medium.

    3. Re:"Lotr looks fake" - that wont happen by WilliamSChips · · Score: 1

      The "bastardizations" are exaggerated due to the fact that 99% of complainers hadn't actually seen the originals since the special editions came out.

      --
      Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
    4. Re:"Lotr looks fake" - that wont happen by DigitalSorceress · · Score: 1

      You're probably right to some extent, but I can tell you that there were a lot less stormtroopers looking for the droids near the abandoned escape pod, Han shot first, that Han and Jabba didn't have that talk, that Mos Isley was a lot more desolate, that Alderan and the Death Star didn't go whoosh nearly so much when they exploded.

      Now, the extra troopers at the pod, the extra crowd at Mos Isley, and the extra zoomy planet 'splosions I can deal with, but Han and Jabba's conversation kind of changed the perception of their relationship to one another. The way things played out originally, Jabba was a more sinister, and totally unknown threat, in the remastered version, they seem downright chummy. It also doesn't make sense - Jabba put a price on his head, then goes to TALK to him in person? I dunno.

      The part about Han shooting first is the worst one (for me). I mean, in the original, Greedo has the drop on Han, yet Han cleverly keeps him talking long enough to blow Greedo away. In the revised edition, Greedo misses from point blank range, THEN Han shoots? I know that Lucas was trying to make it clear that Han was a good guy, but cummon, he was a scoundrel... a rakish rogue if you will. Han shooting first showed something about his character - that he wasn't exactly Mr. Do-gooder comic book hero who only ever fights in self defense.

      Still, you're right - over all, it could be worse - Lucas ~COULD HAVE~ pulled a Spielberg and replaced all the blasters with walkie talkies, and all the Jawas with Gungans! (ewww, I gotta go be sick now).

      --

      The Digital Sorceress
    5. Re:"Lotr looks fake" - that wont happen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry to burst your bubble, but "sufficiently real" *does* change over time. Nearly all movies are "sufficiently real" for their time but are unconvincing later. Go back and look at the original King Kong, Jason and the Argonauts, the original Star Wars trilogy, Superman, the first Jurassic Park, the Abyss, Willow, T2, Dragonheart, etc. These were all groundbreaking films and frighteningly real to the audiences of the time, but today we can look back and poke little holes in them. If we were to do them again today, they would be *even more* realistic, but there would still be holes that future moviegoers could see. We are not at the pinnacle of realism yet, and we certainly weren't when LOTR was made.

      One imperfect moment that sticks in my mind from LOTR was a shot from the Fellowship, when the fellowship members were cresting a peak single-file. To make the shot, the characters were shot in separate groups, then the hobbits and dwarf were scaled down before being composited back together -- you could tell because the characters and background moved a little differently from each other. In other words, it wasn't perfect, but it was close enough to convince today's viewer. If they were to redo this shot in the distant future, they would use full CG models instead of live action clips, eliminating the discrepancy.

    6. Re:"Lotr looks fake" - that wont happen by unity100 · · Score: 1

      original Star Wars trilogy, Superman, the first Jurassic Park, the Abyss, Willow, T2, Dragonheart

      all of these films were from an era that cgi was not sufficiently developed. i especially named even t3, leave aside t2.

      the scene you depict in lotr was notable yes, however its not due to technology. it was a rather clumsily constructed scene.
  80. They won't know... by kyncani · · Score: 1

    They won't even know what pacman is !

  81. Still no flying cars... by owlman17 · · Score: 1

    We're closer to 2015 than Marty's 1985, and we still have no flying cars in mainstream use. Or not even close. We still won't have them in 2029. Its not just about producing consumer-grade flying Toyotas or Hondas, we'd need a whole new sky infrastructure, or something like that.

  82. Re:HEADLINE: 10th dirty nuke detonated this year by WilliamSChips · · Score: 1

    Well, nobody else actually has nuclear weapons. (North Korea doesn't count, its nukes aren't going to be off the ground until at least a decade from now, and by then China will have taken it over)

    --
    Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
  83. Re:HEADLINE: 10th dirty nuke detonated this year by mikestro · · Score: 0

    Well, for you I guess ignorance is bliss isn't it?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_n uclear_weapons

    Have a nice day.

  84. Response from another non-grad by snowwrestler · · Score: 1

    I attended Beloit from 1993-1997 and did not receive my diploma because I never satisfactorily completed my geology thesis. Some of the description above sounds kind of true (the cafeteria doesn't serve Sunday night; the bus stop is a mile off campus), but a lot of it sounds like bad info or sour grapes.

    Beloit is a good small school. They take their academics seriously and that is why they have a high percentage of graduates go on to advanced degrees. My first girlfriend there went on to get her Ph.D. in biochemistry at U.C. Berkeley, and my wife (who I met there as well) has a masters in anthropology and manages the collections database for the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. When I was there I participated in two projects doing original geological research and published a poster at a GSA conference.

    Part of taking academics seriously is providing consequences for students who don't. I knew a couple people who were asked to take a semester off because because their grades were crap. I wonder if that's what happened to the parent. I didn't finish my degree, but apparently unlike him/her, I recognize that is on me.

    Maybe things have changed dramatically, but when I was there, my Physics 101 class was taught by Dan Schroeder (an astronomer who helped launch the Hubble project as well as extra-solar planet searches) using Tipler's Physics textbook.

    Maybe things have changed dramatically, but the lounges in my dorm (Bushnell) were used primarily for watching TV or card games. And they all had lightbulbs and did not have roaches. I honestly don't recognize any of that description.

    The college does give housing over to clubs. The Womyn's Center had their own house, but so did the Arts Co-op, the French Club, the Spanish Club, the Russian Club, and the Outdoor Environmental Club. And geeks would love it there--the Science Fiction and Fantasy club had their own DORM and were the biggest and most influential club on campus. They had more pull than the few fraternities or sororities. They held SCA practices every Saturday on their lawn if the weather was nice.

    The part about the Cheese Breeze is true, but it really only happened a couple time per semester. :-) The part about Beloit being in a small town is also true, although the BUS to Madison was like $3 each way.

    --
    Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
  85. Dirty nuke? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are you perhaps referring to a "dirty bomb" - a conventional explosive laced with radioactive material? I'm not sure what a dirty nuke would be.

  86. Hone your search skills by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    considering I had no idea who Eric S Raymond was before today, even if I had run a google on it, I'd have learned nothing.
    http://www.google.com/search?q=define:ESR
    Scrolling down to the Wikipedia disambiguation page en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESR