The issue here is that coding is not the shortcomings of most current games. Q3 looks incredible. It has great bots. It has no plot. It is the last of these statements which is its the greatest criticism.
Carmack is a coding god but his games reflect what he enjoys. Simple shoot-em ups. He is the Swartzeneggar of gaming, looks pretty but poor content. This is what is running gaming into a rut.
Half-Life was not a great game because the engine was incredible. It was great because it was immersive. It felt real, you could believe you were Gordon Freeman. It explained away some of the conventions of gaming, like health recharges, in a believable way. This and its AI is what made HL a great game.
Games need better writing not better engines. Graphics and multimedia are part of this, a well made environment adds a lot to a game just as a poor one subtracts from it. Think of how crappy level design hinders a good engine, like in Twisted Metal 3 on PS. What people need to teach the next generation of game makers is dramatic construct and basic fictional writing abilities, not necessarily just coding which is actually a relatively small part of the total game design.
Right now Napster is simply building up market share. They're building up a lot of it. If they start charging is the question... Remember when Netscape/McAfee/tons of other software used to be free... I do.
I'm kind of doubtful right now. There are tons of things that could cause this deflection that are not light pressure. Most notably the laser probably heats the sail up incredibly, this would create force due to heat convecting off the sails surface. I just can't bring myself to trust someone saying "yes, its the laser we checked", without even giving a list of what he checked.
Question: Is cyberspace governed by laws regarding speech or property?
Case in point: A hacker breaks into a computer, looks around, downloads a few document and leaves. Is this a crime? Well he has essentially committed electronic breaking and entering. If he did that you your house and got caught he would be going to jail. But today, if he gets caught he gets charged with stealing said documents, which aren't really worth much at all no matter how sensitive the information they contain is, so he gets a slap on the wrist.
Does there need to be an stronger electronic equivalent to B&E in the information age? Is there one since IANAL?
The bible is the most censored book in the world. In many muslim countries it is illegal to possess one. Even in the US, teaching it in schools is almost impossible despite the fact it contains a huge amount of literary value. Its worse than trying to teach Huck Finn.
Literary value? Yes, the Bible is the greatest epic ever written. It contains and develops themes that are at the root of the human condition, good vs. evil, nature of truth, free will, etc. It was addressing these before the societies most "modern" thinkers come from were even formed. Even without looking at it in any religious context it still is worthy of study. There is a reason most authors can't even try to touch the bible until the ends of their careers, take Norman Mailer and "Gospel According to the Son". Great author, but the book paled in comparison to the richness of the real thing.
Damn this has turned into a rant hasn't it. Oh well.
Ouch $45 at thinkgeek. Methinks I'll buy it somewhere else. Here's a short price list. Fatbrain has it for $40, Amazon has it for $35, and bookpool.com has it for $31.
Ok, education worked at Skidmore, a liberal arts college of 2200 students, most of whom probably don't live in residence halls and therefore don't use the campus network 24/7. Now try the same tactic at University of Delaware, for example. 16000 undergrads, 8000 living on campus and potentially using the LAN for high bandwidth NAPSTER connections. We haven't had to shut down NAPSTER yet because we have 2 T3s, one going in and one going out. We have enough excess bandwidth to take the losses. That may change though...
Educating a small school probably works, there's only a few abusers. But the technique doesn't scale. In a large technically oriented school there are potentially hundreds of major offenders. A more drastic solution is probably necessary.
Incidentally people keep saying the mp3s are legal. This is true, there is nothing illegal about ripping a CD you own. However there is most likely something illegal about sending the ripped mp3s over the internet. You are retransmitting content without any sort of license to do so. It is this retransmission that is the essense of what NAPSTER does and in 99% of cases this retransmission is illegal. How many mp3s do you have where you own the CD?
I have a possibly scary hypothesis. Microsoft creates it own linux distribution, but it deliberately makes it incompatible with standard linux. It then releases MS Office for its version of linux, but MS Office still won't work on ours.
How is this possible, you ask? Wouldn't the GPL prevent this awful event from occuring? Not really. Microsoft would have to disclose any changes it made to the OS because of the GPL, but what if they made other applications changes. They could create their own fully proprietary X-server for instance. MS Office could only run on MS X and no other. Suddenly everyone who doesn't know any better is buying Gatesux from MS. All the stability of linux with full application support from Microsoft...
A scarier thought is what if they deliberately try to fork the code. MS could concievably make some really stupid changes to the OS. No one else would support them because they were obviously so stupid. It would be a matter of principle to most coders to refrain from adopting them. Then suddenly office is released and depends on them. All other linux distros are suddenly screwed. Insert BSD-like code fork here.
Is it possible? Dunno, but kind of a scary thought though...
People said newspapers were going to cease to exist when radio came along. They were wrong. People said they were going to disappear with the advent of TV news. They were wrong. Now their demise is caused by the internet? Gee I think I've spotted a trend here...
The problem is this, newspapers are really cheap compared to the amount of content in them. TV and radio news are reduced to sound bites. Bandwidth and screen size have dictated similar constraints on the internet. Newspapers have no length constraints as such, so they can have more in-depth content. In theory they also could put the time into crafting well-balanced stories too, but for some reason they don't bother. In theory, they also can carry better local news, although my local TV stations do a good job of that too.
Newspapers also have an air of permamence about them and some people like that. The internet is changable, as is TV and radio, but paper is not.
Besides, when all is said and done, what am I going to light my fireplace with if I didn't have newpaper...
I recently got the Sci-Fi channel and I'll be damned if Farscape hasn't significantly improved since the last time I saw some episodes over the summer.
Finally a show with aliens that don't all look like people in rubber suits. Finally a show with some fresh ideas unlike recent Star Trek series. Granted its not as cool as Crusade was, but its still damn cool.
I believe the fundamental nature of the questions to be asked were ones not covered in Stroustrup's FAQ. This post is. Sure this flood is funny, but it also fictional and probably offensive to Stroustrup.
I think the question Katz is asking is, why are idyllic environments always lush, deserted, tropic islands with no technology and scantily clad women? Well, the women I can understand, but why no modern conveniences...
Is it because these movies are inherently written by low-tech writers? Is it because this is a more socially traditional viewpoint and therefore shows up more? Is it the minimalist in all of us? Or is it because modern technological inter-connectivity is not necessarily a good thing?
I'm guessing the whole desert island motif is going to show up more and more. Hopefully in better movies than this one. I personally will not be buying a cell phone any time soon, I like to be alone occasionally without people calling me left and right. I liked it a lot better when my friends couldn't ICQ me every three seconds when I'm trying to do work. Even the friends I like. Seems like modern communications are changing the signal to noise ratio in peoples lives for the worse with email and newsgroups, etc.
Could the reason for the low numbers of women in tech fields have to do with the differences in the way the sexes think?
Women tend to look at things subjectively. They empathize and get hands on. Men tend to judge thinks objectively. They step back and try to get the big picture. Most tech fields reward objective analysis and design, but don't really like subjectivity. In engineering things are fundamentally judged on metrics not mushy feelings. In CS programs need to flow analytically and logically, again objectively.
I could be completely wrong of course. The real reason could be something like negative social pressure on adolescent girls, too.
"Free movies eventually mean no movies" is not the same as an equivalent statement about writing, coding, or speech. Why? Because writing, coding, and speech effectively only take time. A writer can write when he isn't at his day job, so can a programmer, etc. The cost of entry is very low for high quality product.
However, books are not free writing nor is TV free speech in the monetary sense. You have to pay money for books. You watch commercials on TV. There is a market for $7 paperbacks out there, that is why they are made. There are no more scribes, there are now printers, but job of putting words on paper still costs $.
Now look at free movies. All you need is a camcoder, tv card, and some software and you can make a cheap movie for practically nothing. However you still need lots of $ to distribute it. Robert Rodrigues made El Mariachi for $5k but it still cost $100Or you can distribute it on k to distribute it. Well, you could distribute it on the internet for free, this works for fan movies like on theforce.net. But you don't recoup any of your losses so making the next one gets harder. And because of the cheap equipment you recorded it on, the movie will probably look like crap.
Have you seen low budget movies? I have and they tend to suck. Bad. Pro movies can hide their flaws, they have learned to professionally and pay people to find them. Amateur movies don't. The only good amateur movie that has come close to Hollywood is The Blair Witch Project. That's because they managed to write the cheap production techniques into the script.
So Hollywood or some other proprietary institution will still have control of all the really good content out there. Should they offer it to people at home for free instead of on VHS? No putting the movie on VHS or DVD costs money, why bother. Instead they simply will abandon the home market and put their movies on cable and broadcast TV, because this costs them less and they make a small profit.
Woah! A short column from Katz! I think I hear the earth's core freezing up. What's even more unlikely, I wish a Katz column was actually longer to explain his reasoning behind the classifications. I never thought I would actually want more Katz...
Anywaym, seems like many of these can be subsets. TechNet, GameNet, GodNet and X-Net are arguably just a very large neighborhoods in the umbrella of the CultureNet. (Geek culture, Xian culture, etc.)
Some of these need to be rearranged and re-edited too. For instance there are many CorpNet sites which are part of other categories like BuyNet etc. I think you need to concentrate on the actual content instead of who puts it up. Basically the internet has communities and services. Slashdot, tv, etc sites are communities. Auction, eBusiness, and most corporate sites are almost pure services. Need some sort of EduNet section in there somewhere too.
Seems to me Mr. Valenti has a surprisingly good head on his shoulders. Of course he doesn't seem to understand DeCSS doesn't prevent pirating material (look at all the Chinese DVDs out there), but he seems to have some clue.
Valenti seems to have some valuable points. The regional lockout is technically meant to protect individual companies regional distribution licenses. Disabling it devalues those licenses. Likewise, I doubt the legality of iCraveTV. Sure it may be legal to purely rebroadcast a signal under Canadian law, but is internet transmission really broadcasting and are they putting adds with their signal which would invalidate it as a pure rebroadcast?
I think Valenti would love to make money off the internet. He just can't figure out how without destroying the current regional licensing system the MPAA uses. He's just having backward compatibility problems. He can't figure out how to regulate it so he can't figure out how to sell it. In order to maintain his products value he needs regulation.
Many slashdotters think all information should be free and given away. This is actually kind of stupid, because if studios can't make a buck somehow they won't make a movie. That's how capitalism works. Free movies eventually mean no movies. The truth is distributed efforts like Open Source work well of some things and badly for others./. doesn't seem to grasp this very well.
Don't get me wrong, I hate the inflated price of DVDs. Studios could widen their market and make more money by offering them for less, but they don't because they're short sighted and greedy. DVD is the future. The MPAA is a lot like the teamsters, they're protecting the good and the bad indiscriminantly.
Can anyone here think of a good way to license movies over the internet that works with the MPAA system? Please post if you can. If not seriously consider that before you start rampantly criticizing the MPAA.
Sorry, I seem to have sparked an I hate God rant unintentionally. My apologies.
Science is dedicated to naturalism. A scientist cannot really say "God did it." This is not a natural cause of the given phenomenon, it is a supernatural one. The funny thing is, even if God did do something through direct divine intervention, science would be unable to give him credit for it.
Such is the controversy with biochemists advocating Intelligent Design over Evolution. They do this because they believe fundamental cellular structures and functions are too complex to simply evolve. Remove one little atom and they will fall apart or cease to function. Their conclusion is that someone must have made these structures. Of course they're in hot water because this hints towards science, which is supposed to purely natural, advocating a supernatural solution. Science can permit improbabilities but it cannot condone calling them miracles.
My point is that saying science has proved there isn't a God or saying God isn't needed is foolishness. Science is dedicated to proving things without including God. Its a given that he won't show up due to nature of the conclusions they must draw in order to be scientific. If, hypothetically, science was given absolute proof of God they still would not be able to conclude he exists! It is against the fundamental nature of modern science.
I've been going back and forth on the whether-I-like-Katz issue lately. The big problem is that the articles are so very long. I mean 28k and only answered 7 questions. Thats a long interview.
The big problem I see is that Slashdot in general has very little tolerance for long anythings. The internet is a community more for sound bites than long discourse and Katz doesn't quite fit that. An average Katz article is repetitive and doesn't concisely say what he means. You know the article's thesis, but it just keeps hammering on it for paragraph after paragraph. Perhaps if there were more time to write and condense, but topics on Slashdot tend to get old fast too. Such is the nature of the medium. Often Katz's topics have already been beaten to death in the threads by the time his article comes out as well. That's one reason why people seem so annoyed. After all, why is his opinion worth so much more than ours?
As for grammar and such, thats an excuse. Frankly the grammar around here, mine included, is attrocious. Grammar is what works. If its understandable, its good. Why stand on ceremony and specifics?
I liked Katz work at Hotwired. He sat up and said that geeks were taking over the world. We couldn't be held down and here's stuff we need to do as we climb the ladder. His current articles just don't seem to capture that spirit. They're more reactionary than proactive.
IMHO, what slashdot really needs is a voice for the under-represented. There are too many posts in threads that languish because they get drowned out or are not popular with moderators. Its sad because slashdot has an increasing mob mentality that is killing real discussion on many levels. Most of the good counter opinion posts have conspicous "MODERATE UPS" in their replies. We are badly in need of a community conscience and a devils advocate.
Wow, I start out critizing Katz for long windedness and then I write this monster of a post. I guess I'm a hypocrit. Oh well. Probably be stuck at 1 anyway.
No, the idea is that if the DoS attacks were a government conspiracy, then why is the FBI seriously trying to stop them? If the NSA did do it, the FBI would never have gotten involved because their director would have gotten a note saying "Butt out. -NSA"
I find it much more likely that some cyberterrorists had been planning those attacks for months for some reason unknown outside of themselves.
I really really hope they manage to do the series right. But the problem is that its bound to be expensive in live action. Lots of money for makeup and special effects. If its not shot right and done right it could really really suck. Honestly cartoons is probably a much better format for it. It could lead to much funnier DeFladermouse jokes though.
"Why are you wearing skin tight rubber?" -Tick
"What?"
"Oh, I see, well we all grow out of that stage sometime chum..."
Drew Carey is way to big to play Arthur. The guys built like a linebacker and is an ex-marine. He just looks like of short and dumpy on TV. Besides do you want to see him in tights?
Question: How can you use science to test whether there is a God or not?
As I see it, science cannot answer this most fundamental of human questions. It cannot tell us if there is a purpose behind it all. God, if one exists, is an innately supernatural and immaterial being. He would have to be if he created the whole natural universe right? Science is a study of the natural and material. If he did a good job of creation it should be practically impossible to tell he exists at all because creation would run itself.
Can you gather data on angels, or prove how many can be on the head of a pin? Sure, you can test specific religious doctrines, but this is just testing a religious belief. You can prove the Bible or Koran is inaccurate, but not that there is no God. All you've proven is that someone's concept of God is flawed, which isn't the same thing at all. Even if God never shows himself he could still exist.
BTW, I am a Christian. So as a good Christian I would like to say that proving the Bible is inaccurate is actually harder than it seems. Most people simply assert the Bible is innaccurate without proof to other people who feel likewise. Surprisingly these same people have quite often not read the Bible for years or at all. I would love to debate this sometime but Slashdot is obviously not the place.
Ok, if the NSA was behing the massive denial of service attacks a few days ago, they would not tell anyone. Why? Because the NSA can keep a secret but the CIA and FBI can't. The NSA and the rest of the intelligence community knows the CIA and the FBI can't. Thats why the DIA never talks to the CIA if they can help it. The NSA would not trust the FBI like this.
Why only binaries? Because the government is the ultimate proprietary organization and because they don't want to tip their hand on what they know.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, it says I'm a JonKatz wannabe. How'd they know? I mean...
*insert 10k of redundant drivel here*
:)
The issue here is that coding is not the shortcomings of most current games. Q3 looks incredible. It has great bots. It has no plot. It is the last of these statements which is its the greatest criticism.
Carmack is a coding god but his games reflect what he enjoys. Simple shoot-em ups. He is the Swartzeneggar of gaming, looks pretty but poor content. This is what is running gaming into a rut.
Half-Life was not a great game because the engine was incredible. It was great because it was immersive. It felt real, you could believe you were Gordon Freeman. It explained away some of the conventions of gaming, like health recharges, in a believable way. This and its AI is what made HL a great game.
Games need better writing not better engines. Graphics and multimedia are part of this, a well made environment adds a lot to a game just as a poor one subtracts from it. Think of how crappy level design hinders a good engine, like in Twisted Metal 3 on PS. What people need to teach the next generation of game makers is dramatic construct and basic fictional writing abilities, not necessarily just coding which is actually a relatively small part of the total game design.
Right now Napster is simply building up market share. They're building up a lot of it. If they start charging is the question... Remember when Netscape/McAfee/tons of other software used to be free... I do.
I'm kind of doubtful right now. There are tons of things that could cause this deflection that are not light pressure. Most notably the laser probably heats the sail up incredibly, this would create force due to heat convecting off the sails surface. I just can't bring myself to trust someone saying "yes, its the laser we checked", without even giving a list of what he checked.
Ok, this is probably off topic so sue me.
Question: Is cyberspace governed by laws regarding speech or property?
Case in point: A hacker breaks into a computer, looks around, downloads a few document and leaves. Is this a crime? Well he has essentially committed electronic breaking and entering. If he did that you your house and got caught he would be going to jail. But today, if he gets caught he gets charged with stealing said documents, which aren't really worth much at all no matter how sensitive the information they contain is, so he gets a slap on the wrist.
Does there need to be an stronger electronic equivalent to B&E in the information age? Is there one since IANAL?
The bible is the most censored book in the world. In many muslim countries it is illegal to possess one. Even in the US, teaching it in schools is almost impossible despite the fact it contains a huge amount of literary value. Its worse than trying to teach Huck Finn.
Literary value? Yes, the Bible is the greatest epic ever written. It contains and develops themes that are at the root of the human condition, good vs. evil, nature of truth, free will, etc. It was addressing these before the societies most "modern" thinkers come from were even formed. Even without looking at it in any religious context it still is worthy of study. There is a reason most authors can't even try to touch the bible until the ends of their careers, take Norman Mailer and "Gospel According to the Son". Great author, but the book paled in comparison to the richness of the real thing.
Damn this has turned into a rant hasn't it. Oh well.
Ouch $45 at thinkgeek. Methinks I'll buy it somewhere else. Here's a short price list. Fatbrain has it for $40, Amazon has it for $35, and bookpool.com has it for $31.
Ok, education worked at Skidmore, a liberal arts college of 2200 students, most of whom probably don't live in residence halls and therefore don't use the campus network 24/7. Now try the same tactic at University of Delaware, for example. 16000 undergrads, 8000 living on campus and potentially using the LAN for high bandwidth NAPSTER connections. We haven't had to shut down NAPSTER yet because we have 2 T3s, one going in and one going out. We have enough excess bandwidth to take the losses. That may change though...
Educating a small school probably works, there's only a few abusers. But the technique doesn't scale. In a large technically oriented school there are potentially hundreds of major offenders. A more drastic solution is probably necessary.
Incidentally people keep saying the mp3s are legal. This is true, there is nothing illegal about ripping a CD you own. However there is most likely something illegal about sending the ripped mp3s over the internet. You are retransmitting content without any sort of license to do so. It is this retransmission that is the essense of what NAPSTER does and in 99% of cases this retransmission is illegal. How many mp3s do you have where you own the CD?
I have a possibly scary hypothesis. Microsoft creates it own linux distribution, but it deliberately makes it incompatible with standard linux. It then releases MS Office for its version of linux, but MS Office still won't work on ours.
How is this possible, you ask? Wouldn't the GPL prevent this awful event from occuring? Not really. Microsoft would have to disclose any changes it made to the OS because of the GPL, but what if they made other applications changes. They could create their own fully proprietary X-server for instance. MS Office could only run on MS X and no other. Suddenly everyone who doesn't know any better is buying Gatesux from MS. All the stability of linux with full application support from Microsoft...
A scarier thought is what if they deliberately try to fork the code. MS could concievably make some really stupid changes to the OS. No one else would support them because they were obviously so stupid. It would be a matter of principle to most coders to refrain from adopting them. Then suddenly office is released and depends on them. All other linux distros are suddenly screwed. Insert BSD-like code fork here.
Is it possible? Dunno, but kind of a scary thought though...
P.S. Yes the Gatesux pun was deliberate...
People said newspapers were going to cease to exist when radio came along. They were wrong. People said they were going to disappear with the advent of TV news. They were wrong. Now their demise is caused by the internet? Gee I think I've spotted a trend here...
The problem is this, newspapers are really cheap compared to the amount of content in them. TV and radio news are reduced to sound bites. Bandwidth and screen size have dictated similar constraints on the internet. Newspapers have no length constraints as such, so they can have more in-depth content. In theory they also could put the time into crafting well-balanced stories too, but for some reason they don't bother. In theory, they also can carry better local news, although my local TV stations do a good job of that too.
Newspapers also have an air of permamence about them and some people like that. The internet is changable, as is TV and radio, but paper is not.
Besides, when all is said and done, what am I going to light my fireplace with if I didn't have newpaper...
I recently got the Sci-Fi channel and I'll be damned if Farscape hasn't significantly improved since the last time I saw some episodes over the summer.
Finally a show with aliens that don't all look like people in rubber suits. Finally a show with some fresh ideas unlike recent Star Trek series. Granted its not as cool as Crusade was, but its still damn cool.
I believe the fundamental nature of the questions to be asked were ones not covered in Stroustrup's FAQ. This post is. Sure this flood is funny, but it also fictional and probably offensive to Stroustrup.
I think the question Katz is asking is, why are idyllic environments always lush, deserted, tropic islands with no technology and scantily clad women? Well, the women I can understand, but why no modern conveniences...
Is it because these movies are inherently written by low-tech writers? Is it because this is a more socially traditional viewpoint and therefore shows up more? Is it the minimalist in all of us? Or is it because modern technological inter-connectivity is not necessarily a good thing?
I'm guessing the whole desert island motif is going to show up more and more. Hopefully in better movies than this one. I personally will not be buying a cell phone any time soon, I like to be alone occasionally without people calling me left and right. I liked it a lot better when my friends couldn't ICQ me every three seconds when I'm trying to do work. Even the friends I like. Seems like modern communications are changing the signal to noise ratio in peoples lives for the worse with email and newsgroups, etc.
Oh well enough of my wining...
Could the reason for the low numbers of women in tech fields have to do with the differences in the way the sexes think?
Women tend to look at things subjectively. They empathize and get hands on. Men tend to judge thinks objectively. They step back and try to get the big picture. Most tech fields reward objective analysis and design, but don't really like subjectivity. In engineering things are fundamentally judged on metrics not mushy feelings. In CS programs need to flow analytically and logically, again objectively.
I could be completely wrong of course. The real reason could be something like negative social pressure on adolescent girls, too.
"Free movies eventually mean no movies" is not the same as an equivalent statement about writing, coding, or speech. Why? Because writing, coding, and speech effectively only take time. A writer can write when he isn't at his day job, so can a programmer, etc. The cost of entry is very low for high quality product.
However, books are not free writing nor is TV free speech in the monetary sense. You have to pay money for books. You watch commercials on TV. There is a market for $7 paperbacks out there, that is why they are made. There are no more scribes, there are now printers, but job of putting words on paper still costs $.
Now look at free movies. All you need is a camcoder, tv card, and some software and you can make a cheap movie for practically nothing. However you still need lots of $ to distribute it. Robert Rodrigues made El Mariachi for $5k but it still cost $100Or you can distribute it on k to distribute it. Well, you could distribute it on the internet for free, this works for fan movies like on theforce.net. But you don't recoup any of your losses so making the next one gets harder. And because of the cheap equipment you recorded it on, the movie will probably look like crap.
Have you seen low budget movies? I have and they tend to suck. Bad. Pro movies can hide their flaws, they have learned to professionally and pay people to find them. Amateur movies don't. The only good amateur movie that has come close to Hollywood is The Blair Witch Project. That's because they managed to write the cheap production techniques into the script.
So Hollywood or some other proprietary institution will still have control of all the really good content out there. Should they offer it to people at home for free instead of on VHS? No putting the movie on VHS or DVD costs money, why bother. Instead they simply will abandon the home market and put their movies on cable and broadcast TV, because this costs them less and they make a small profit.
Woah! A short column from Katz! I think I hear the earth's core freezing up. What's even more unlikely, I wish a Katz column was actually longer to explain his reasoning behind the classifications. I never thought I would actually want more Katz...
Anywaym, seems like many of these can be subsets. TechNet, GameNet, GodNet and X-Net are arguably just a very large neighborhoods in the umbrella of the CultureNet. (Geek culture, Xian culture, etc.)
Some of these need to be rearranged and re-edited too. For instance there are many CorpNet sites which are part of other categories like BuyNet etc. I think you need to concentrate on the actual content instead of who puts it up. Basically the internet has communities and services. Slashdot, tv, etc sites are communities. Auction, eBusiness, and most corporate sites are almost pure services. Need some sort of EduNet section in there somewhere too.
Still, cool idea. Thanks a lot.
Seems to me Mr. Valenti has a surprisingly good head on his shoulders. Of course he doesn't seem to understand DeCSS doesn't prevent pirating material (look at all the Chinese DVDs out there), but he seems to have some clue.
Valenti seems to have some valuable points. The regional lockout is technically meant to protect individual companies regional distribution licenses. Disabling it devalues those licenses. Likewise, I doubt the legality of iCraveTV. Sure it may be legal to purely rebroadcast a signal under Canadian law, but is internet transmission really broadcasting and are they putting adds with their signal which would invalidate it as a pure rebroadcast?
I think Valenti would love to make money off the internet. He just can't figure out how without destroying the current regional licensing system the MPAA uses. He's just having backward compatibility problems. He can't figure out how to regulate it so he can't figure out how to sell it. In order to maintain his products value he needs regulation.
Many slashdotters think all information should be free and given away. This is actually kind of stupid, because if studios can't make a buck somehow they won't make a movie. That's how capitalism works. Free movies eventually mean no movies. The truth is distributed efforts like Open Source work well of some things and badly for others. /. doesn't seem to grasp this very well.
Don't get me wrong, I hate the inflated price of DVDs. Studios could widen their market and make more money by offering them for less, but they don't because they're short sighted and greedy. DVD is the future. The MPAA is a lot like the teamsters, they're protecting the good and the bad indiscriminantly.
Can anyone here think of a good way to license movies over the internet that works with the MPAA system? Please post if you can. If not seriously consider that before you start rampantly criticizing the MPAA.
Sorry, I seem to have sparked an I hate God rant unintentionally. My apologies.
Science is dedicated to naturalism. A scientist cannot really say "God did it." This is not a natural cause of the given phenomenon, it is a supernatural one. The funny thing is, even if God did do something through direct divine intervention, science would be unable to give him credit for it.
Such is the controversy with biochemists advocating Intelligent Design over Evolution. They do this because they believe fundamental cellular structures and functions are too complex to simply evolve. Remove one little atom and they will fall apart or cease to function. Their conclusion is that someone must have made these structures. Of course they're in hot water because this hints towards science, which is supposed to purely natural, advocating a supernatural solution. Science can permit improbabilities but it cannot condone calling them miracles.
My point is that saying science has proved there isn't a God or saying God isn't needed is foolishness. Science is dedicated to proving things without including God. Its a given that he won't show up due to nature of the conclusions they must draw in order to be scientific. If, hypothetically, science was given absolute proof of God they still would not be able to conclude he exists! It is against the fundamental nature of modern science.
I've been going back and forth on the whether-I-like-Katz issue lately. The big problem is that the articles are so very long. I mean 28k and only answered 7 questions. Thats a long interview.
The big problem I see is that Slashdot in general has very little tolerance for long anythings. The internet is a community more for sound bites than long discourse and Katz doesn't quite fit that. An average Katz article is repetitive and doesn't concisely say what he means. You know the article's thesis, but it just keeps hammering on it for paragraph after paragraph. Perhaps if there were more time to write and condense, but topics on Slashdot tend to get old fast too. Such is the nature of the medium. Often Katz's topics have already been beaten to death in the threads by the time his article comes out as well. That's one reason why people seem so annoyed. After all, why is his opinion worth so much more than ours?
As for grammar and such, thats an excuse. Frankly the grammar around here, mine included, is attrocious. Grammar is what works. If its understandable, its good. Why stand on ceremony and specifics?
I liked Katz work at Hotwired. He sat up and said that geeks were taking over the world. We couldn't be held down and here's stuff we need to do as we climb the ladder. His current articles just don't seem to capture that spirit. They're more reactionary than proactive.
IMHO, what slashdot really needs is a voice for the under-represented. There are too many posts in threads that languish because they get drowned out or are not popular with moderators. Its sad because slashdot has an increasing mob mentality that is killing real discussion on many levels. Most of the good counter opinion posts have conspicous "MODERATE UPS" in their replies. We are badly in need of a community conscience and a devils advocate.
Wow, I start out critizing Katz for long windedness and then I write this monster of a post. I guess I'm a hypocrit. Oh well. Probably be stuck at 1 anyway.
No, the idea is that if the DoS attacks were a government conspiracy, then why is the FBI seriously trying to stop them? If the NSA did do it, the FBI would never have gotten involved because their director would have gotten a note saying "Butt out. -NSA"
I find it much more likely that some cyberterrorists had been planning those attacks for months for some reason unknown outside of themselves.
I really really hope they manage to do the series right. But the problem is that its bound to be expensive in live action. Lots of money for makeup and special effects. If its not shot right and done right it could really really suck. Honestly cartoons is probably a much better format for it. It could lead to much funnier DeFladermouse jokes though.
"Why are you wearing skin tight rubber?" -Tick
"What?"
"Oh, I see, well we all grow out of that stage sometime chum..."
Tick's suck blood, do you suck blood? Tick: well, yeah... Oh really? Tick: Look I got a straw right here buddy!
Drew Carey is way to big to play Arthur. The guys built like a linebacker and is an ex-marine. He just looks like of short and dumpy on TV. Besides do you want to see him in tights?
Question: How can you use science to test whether there is a God or not?
As I see it, science cannot answer this most fundamental of human questions. It cannot tell us if there is a purpose behind it all. God, if one exists, is an innately supernatural and immaterial being. He would have to be if he created the whole natural universe right? Science is a study of the natural and material. If he did a good job of creation it should be practically impossible to tell he exists at all because creation would run itself.
Can you gather data on angels, or prove how many can be on the head of a pin? Sure, you can test specific religious doctrines, but this is just testing a religious belief. You can prove the Bible or Koran is inaccurate, but not that there is no God. All you've proven is that someone's concept of God is flawed, which isn't the same thing at all. Even if God never shows himself he could still exist.
BTW, I am a Christian. So as a good Christian I would like to say that proving the Bible is inaccurate is actually harder than it seems. Most people simply assert the Bible is innaccurate without proof to other people who feel likewise. Surprisingly these same people have quite often not read the Bible for years or at all. I would love to debate this sometime but Slashdot is obviously not the place.
Ok, if the NSA was behing the massive denial of service attacks a few days ago, they would not tell anyone. Why? Because the NSA can keep a secret but the CIA and FBI can't. The NSA and the rest of the intelligence community knows the CIA and the FBI can't. Thats why the DIA never talks to the CIA if they can help it. The NSA would not trust the FBI like this.
Why only binaries? Because the government is the ultimate proprietary organization and because they don't want to tip their hand on what they know.