yes yes, I know, I just wasn't sure what the parent post was referring to.
I finally found Dark Side of the Sun this summer (in London) and rather liked it. However, I'm not sure I would recommend it to a lot of Discworld fans, because it doesn't have a lot of the same liveliness. And no, it's certainly not DW.
I've lost track of how many times I've reread Strata, but it took me a look through the Annotated Pratchett File to confirm that yes, it was a Ringworld parody of sorts. It's got some cute stuff, like the Reman empire and the ships disappearing off the edge of the world. But the grander concept of fossils and history and past civilizations screwing with our minds was definitely food for thought. It's like time travel; think about it enough and your head starts to hurt.;)
Have ye read The Carpet People? That was definitely... an experience.
-J
Re:_The Truth_ quite different than other novels
on
The Truth
·
· Score: 2
Hehehe... that's entirely possible. He does that occasionally.
One instance comes to mind... I believe he was mocking the shorthand phrase "IMHO." Some Ankh-Morporkian aristocrats are having a discussion, and Lord Rust "reflects on the fact that there is really no such thing a humble opinion."
Oh gods...I remember some time ago reading, online, a prototype (is beta better word?) script for a film version of Ender's Game...it began with some military officers who clearly didn't get out enough getting ready to launch some attack from/on asteroid Eros...and they spent somthing like ten minutes chuckling over how everyone would call it "the erotic war" and such forth. -Ravagin "Ladies and gentlemen, this is NPR! And that means....it's time for a drum solo!"
Re:_The Truth_ quite different than other novels
on
The Truth
·
· Score: 2
Not only serious and pointed, but downright dark. Carpe Jugulum, in particular, startled me with its darkness. Fifth Elephant was a bit better, but again, there was a sense of impending doom, almost what one might expect to feel when being chsed by wolves.
I certianly agree that this is growth. He has matured, and his writing has become more effective on more levels, so that it conveys a point and entertains.
Are you talking about Strata? That one is of course a prototype of the Disc concept, but I don't know if he went any further. I don't think so.... (you know, it took me three readings to figure out that those people were our ancestors. I don't pay close enough attention 8) )
If you're referring to Dark Side of the Sun, I can't recall. It very well may have. That was a zany book. Even though "only redheads in 50s sitcoms are zany.";) Or was that wacky? It's been a while since Equal Rites...
Yes, exactly. And while that can theoretically be done in cinema or TV.... It's somehow not the same. But other elements that are best read include things like, in that same book, the gollum joke. Of course you can do it with a visual gag, but it's the way he writes.
Also pretty strong are his metaphors, which are sooo outlandish.... none come to mind, but they're usually pretty good. Finally, the footnotes are cute. The play adaptations have a guy dressed as asterisk reading those bits, but I think the effect is different.
I'm a big Pratchett fan (my summer trip to London finally let me complete my book collection), and eagerly awaiting the Thief of Time (April 2001). However, what worries me is concepts like cartoons and movies of DW.
OK, Pratchett's got the British humor and slapstick thing down pat, and he's really funny, but the "low humor" elements are NOT what make the writing. For me, the best part of Pratchett is his masterful command of the English lanugage, his clever wordplay and creative methods. All stuff that translates poorly into theatre and worse into a cartoon.
Pratchett is not just about things like "The Hedgehog can Never be Buggered at All." You can amek a cartoon with that, a cartoon with pahllus jokes, with all sorts of visual gags and one-liners. But that's not what his work is about. It's about ideas (Small Gods is brilliant), it's about society (Soul Music, The Truth, etc.), and it's about the writing. Espiecally intersting his ability to make his own unique style mimic, chameleon-style, a genre like the cop thriller or th travelogue.
Well, I had been working on a review of The Truth for my school online paper (silverchips.mbhs.edu), but other stuff had gotten in the way. I guess I'd bvetter get back to it.
PS. Quick review of non-DW books: Having read and enjoyed Niven's Ringworld, I found Pratchett's Strata to be quite fun. The Dark Side of the Sun is sort of a Foundation parody, and not as engaging as DW, but still fun. The Carpet People is VERY early Pratchett, and astute readers of his work will notice many prototype ideas and jokes. Finally, Good Omens (co-written with Neil Gaiman) is a very enjoyable book about the apocalypse. A bit more of the "low-humor" there, but that's not a bad thing. The former three are out of print in the US, but you never know....
A rather good piece, if I may be allowed to say so. However... I strongly disagree with Mr. Katz's statements about geeks "obsessing over pop culture." No. No. I proudly consider myself a geek, and for me one of the greatest things about it is not being like everyone else. I can't stand most of pop culture. In terms of music, I listen to Celtic, Blues, "classic" rock like Clapton, and classical, venturing into "pop" only for They Might Be Giants. The only TV I watch is Star Trek, when I can. I find pop culture repellant. So either I am unique for a geek (oooh, rhyme), or else this is yet another generalization which cannot be made about geeks. In fact, that's quite interesting. Maybe one of the great things about geeks is that you can't generalize them too much. Hmmm... -Ravagin "Ladies and gentlemen, this is NPR! And that means....it's time for a drum solo!"
I seem to recall that our depth-perception abilities result from the fact that we have two eyes. So you can prettily render something all you wan,t but to be able to recosntruct the 3D image truly, you need two different shots. Mind you, if taken at the same time, action will be preserved, which could be very cool for sports and suchlike. === -Ravagin
To what extent would you be willing to comply with 'them'(ie, the MPAA, the gov't...)? Is there anything(code- or principle-wise) that you would be absolutely unwilling to compromise? === -Ravagin
Er. I didn't watch it, but only because I was alternately playing NetHack, playing Rogue, and checking my e-mail...a friend of mine kept me up to date on the last couple of minutes, though... === -Ravagin
Exactly. All I'm saying is that from their point of view, the player is probably nearly as important as the player. I certainly don't agree with them! === -Ravagin
Anyone else notice that he didn't actually link to the sites in question? Perhaps it is because his quotes from them seem to be propoganda by selective quotation? Or maybe he just doesn't want anyone getting any ideas... === -Ravagin
He does have a point. The encryption is there to ensure a profit for liscensed DVD player manufacturers. By busting it, someone can potentially create their own, unliscensed player, taking profit from the manufacturer. My response to this, however, is that anyone who cares enough can go out, buy all the parts, and build their own VHS player. It seems to me that distributing DeCSS is akin to distributing the plans and circuitry diagrams to a basic VHS player: It tells you how to make a player, if you want to make the effort. === -Ravagin
Another benefit of the Station...
on
On to Mars
·
· Score: 1
...is in-orbit construction. You save a whole lot of fuel if you don't have to bust out of earth's atmosphere and gravity. With the ISS, we can bring modular parts of a Marsship from Earth's surface with surface-to-orbit craft(hereafter referred to as SOC), then construct it in orbit, and send it on its merry way, like in Clarke's writing. Then, upon arrival at Mars, we can construct another, simple station for fueling and suchlike. We bring on the Marsship a couple of SOCs, and with these we land on Mars. The only problem, of course, is that if the SOCs are lost, the {cosmo|astro}nauts are lost. So maybe the interplanetary ship should be able to land and takeoff just once, for emergency rescue. Or, we could just build an orbital elevator....:) === -Ravagin
...is definitely Timothy Zahn. No, he isnot just a Star Wars author! Some of his best work has been non-Star Wars. *ahem* My picks: + The Conquerors trilogy: Conquerors' Pride, Conquerors' Heritage, Conquerors' Legacy.......First contact has gone horribly wrong. Mathematics are supposed to be universal, right? So why do the aliens - dubbed the Conquerors by a slimy race called the Mrachani - open fire seconds after the First Contact vessels begin transmitting the FC Package? In the first book, Zahn constructs a picture of a human civilization attacked in cold blood by an indestructible alien force. In book #2, he builds the picture again...of a sophisticated, complex alien civilization attacked in cold blood by a powerful human force. In book #3, we find out why both pictures are accurate. It's a bit weak on characterization, and lacking in romance where any author would have put some, but it's a very powerful saga with a rich universe and one that I personally feel everyone should read. +Triplet.......There's that old saying - Clarke's Second rule? - that sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic. And this book proves it. Swords that shoot lighting, flying carpets, demons...The world of Triplet is actually three worlds, literally right on top of each other, linke dby mysterious 'Gateways': Threshold, a barrren wasteland just emerged from nuclear winter, Shamsheer, a medieval world of hidden high technology, and Karyx, where everyone can summon spirits to do their bidding. But the spirits don't have to like it... +Cobra.......I laugh every time I read this book, and its sequels (Cobra Strike, Cobra Bargain). Zahn let me down here: There are these soldiers who have lasers impanted in their limbs, servos in their muscles, and armor over every bone. They are....Cobras!....hee hee hee....it reads like a comic book...and yet raises some good points. If you can track down a copy, read it. Please. +The Icarus Hunt......Zahn's latest work. Marvelous! I can't tell you anything beyond the premise (a down-on-his-luck smuggler gets hired to carry a mysterious cargo, which every person in the galaxy is after), 'cause it'll ruin the book and its ending, which is borderline deus ex machina. But prods some serious buttock, as Terry Pratchett says. Well, enough melodramatic reviews out of me. Enjoy! === -Ravagin
The Guide is an excellent book for an aspiring sci-fi fan, especially because she can go back and read it again. But it gets better: The Guide is not hard sci-fi. It is an excellent way to get readers interested in other grandmasters who blur the line between sci-fi and fantasy, like Terry Pratchett, whom I strongly recommend. Pratchett is well-known in some circles for his marvelous Discworld Chronicles (see above). Premise: The world is flat and disc-shaped, and sits ont he backs of four giant elephants, who ride on Great A'Tuin, a gargantuan interstellar turtle (gender unkown). In the begnining, it made of fun of conventional 'trash' fantasy (hack-and-slash, wizards and swords, you the style). But now the fantasy is in the background, and it only serves as a vehicle for some of the greatest wisdom and insight of nay science fiction book. Pratchett has also written some marvelous sc-fi, which is unfrotunately a wee bit hard to find, at least in the US. Strata, an unrelated precursor to Discworld is a wonderful book about a 200-year-old woman who creates planets and who discovers a disc-shaped world. It's like a comedic, sexless version of Ringworld. Intentionally, though. Niven apparently loved it. Shame on any/.er who has not read Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's hilarious and magical book about the Apocalypse, Good Omens. It's marvelous. I am still in the process of tracking down Pratchett's other, older sci-f books, such as The Dark Side of the Sun and The Carpet People. If you live in the UK, this might be a bit easier. *deep breath* Lerry Niven is very good too, though possibly for someone just a bit older. Certainly one of his greatest books, Ringworld has a bit too much sexual content. But Protector is excellent as well. I would highly recommend Arthur C. Clarke, especially the Rama books. But only the first one, Rendezvous With Rama. They go completely downhill after that (my theory: Clarke writes an excellent sci-fi book. He gives it to Gentry Lee, who takes out the best parts and puts in a lot of silly sex.) That's all for this post... === -Ravagin
the patch creates a new problem with Windows 2000 news server service. That's what you get when you rush a patch. They probably really didn't know about this hole until it was discovered. So they cobbled together a patch in a rush job. Probably self-conscious about public image. === -Ravagin
That was a great article. I read the whole thing, and loved it all. One thing that he didn't address was the title bar. One of the most useful funcitons of the title bar is to provide a "grabable" section of the window which I can click on to activate the window, without risking any other action to the window. The problem is that it's only at the top of the window. When I have numerous windows on the desktop, it can be a real pain to move some windows aside to find the title bar of another. The is especially true in the current MacOS GUI, which has no funcitonal equivalent of the Task Bar. It is also apparent in Windows, when I am using child windows of an application, which normally do not have a Task Bar. So wouldn't it be great to stretch the title bar around to the left side of the window, too? Maybe have the window icon at the vertex, and some more window functions at the bottom... Thoughts? === -Ravagin
Ah-ha! This is a good use for the technology. We can download the minds of the greatest theologians of our time, then when we need answers to questions like this, we can just open up the program... Dear gods, I can see it now: Microsoft Theology Assistant...it's a little paperclip...NOOOO!!!!! === -Ravagin
BTW, this is addressed in Tad Williams' excellent four-book saga Otherland. What would be the point of uploading your brain to a computer? It wouldn't be you. Or would it? It would think that it's you. Is that all that matters? In Otherland, the problem is solved by terminating the "real" brain at the same time as the computerized mind is activated. Hmmm... === -Ravagin
If you warp enough of them properly, you can set a matrix of parabolic mirrors. Not sure what that's good for; bound to be something... Centerpiece Menorah (with a little work) Really Big Sequins Hats Bike Reflectors Hubcaps === -Ravagin
Slashdot Mirror
yes yes, I know, I just wasn't sure what the parent post was referring to.
;)
I finally found Dark Side of the Sun this summer (in London) and rather liked it. However, I'm not sure I would recommend it to a lot of Discworld fans, because it doesn't have a lot of the same liveliness. And no, it's certainly not DW.
I've lost track of how many times I've reread Strata, but it took me a look through the Annotated Pratchett File to confirm that yes, it was a Ringworld parody of sorts.
It's got some cute stuff, like the Reman empire and the ships disappearing off the edge of the world. But the grander concept of fossils and history and past civilizations screwing with our minds was definitely food for thought. It's like time travel; think about it enough and your head starts to hurt.
Have ye read The Carpet People? That was definitely... an experience.
-J
Hehehe... that's entirely possible. He does that occasionally.
One instance comes to mind... I believe he was mocking the shorthand phrase "IMHO." Some Ankh-Morporkian aristocrats are having a discussion, and Lord Rust "reflects on the fact that there is really no such thing a humble opinion."
That Pratchett. What a guy.
-J
Well...for geeks... 8-P
-Ravagin
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is NPR! And that means....it's time for a drum solo!"
Oh gods...I remember some time ago reading, online, a prototype (is beta better word?) script for a film version of Ender's Game...it began with some military officers who clearly didn't get out enough getting ready to launch some attack from/on asteroid Eros...and they spent somthing like ten minutes chuckling over how everyone would call it "the erotic war" and such forth.
-Ravagin
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is NPR! And that means....it's time for a drum solo!"
Not only serious and pointed, but downright dark. Carpe Jugulum, in particular, startled me with its darkness. Fifth Elephant was a bit better, but again, there was a sense of impending doom, almost what one might expect to feel when being chsed by wolves.
I certianly agree that this is growth. He has matured, and his writing has become more effective on more levels, so that it conveys a point and entertains.
-J
Are you talking about Strata? That one is of course a prototype of the Disc concept, but I don't know if he went any further. I don't think so.... (you know, it took me three readings to figure out that those people were our ancestors. I don't pay close enough attention 8) )
;)
If you're referring to Dark Side of the Sun, I can't recall. It very well may have. That was a zany book. Even though "only redheads in 50s sitcoms are zany."
Or was that wacky? It's been a while since Equal Rites...
-J
Yes, exactly. And while that can theoretically be done in cinema or TV.... It's somehow not the same. But other elements that are best read include things like, in that same book, the gollum joke. Of course you can do it with a visual gag, but it's the way he writes.
Also pretty strong are his metaphors, which are sooo outlandish.... none come to mind, but they're usually pretty good.
Finally, the footnotes are cute. The play adaptations have a guy dressed as asterisk reading those bits, but I think the effect is different.
-J
I'm a big Pratchett fan (my summer trip to London finally let me complete my book collection), and eagerly awaiting the Thief of Time (April 2001). However, what worries me is concepts like cartoons and movies of DW.
OK, Pratchett's got the British humor and slapstick thing down pat, and he's really funny, but the "low humor" elements are NOT what make the writing. For me, the best part of Pratchett is his masterful command of the English lanugage, his clever wordplay and creative methods. All stuff that translates poorly into theatre and worse into a cartoon.
Pratchett is not just about things like "The Hedgehog can Never be Buggered at All." You can amek a cartoon with that, a cartoon with pahllus jokes, with all sorts of visual gags and one-liners. But that's not what his work is about. It's about ideas (Small Gods is brilliant), it's about society (Soul Music, The Truth, etc.), and it's about the writing. Espiecally intersting his ability to make his own unique style mimic, chameleon-style, a genre like the cop thriller or th travelogue.
Well, I had been working on a review of The Truth for my school online paper (silverchips.mbhs.edu), but other stuff had gotten in the way. I guess I'd bvetter get back to it.
PS. Quick review of non-DW books: Having read and enjoyed Niven's Ringworld, I found Pratchett's Strata to be quite fun. The Dark Side of the Sun is sort of a Foundation parody, and not as engaging as DW, but still fun. The Carpet People is VERY early Pratchett, and astute readers of his work will notice many prototype ideas and jokes. Finally, Good Omens (co-written with Neil Gaiman) is a very enjoyable book about the apocalypse. A bit more of the "low-humor" there, but that's not a bad thing. The former three are out of print in the US, but you never know....
-J
A rather good piece, if I may be allowed to say so. However...
I strongly disagree with Mr. Katz's statements about geeks "obsessing over pop culture." No. No. I proudly consider myself a geek, and for me one of the greatest things about it is not being like everyone else. I can't stand most of pop culture. In terms of music, I listen to Celtic, Blues, "classic" rock like Clapton, and classical, venturing into "pop" only for They Might Be Giants. The only TV I watch is Star Trek, when I can. I find pop culture repellant.
So either I am unique for a geek (oooh, rhyme), or else this is yet another generalization which cannot be made about geeks.
In fact, that's quite interesting. Maybe one of the great things about geeks is that you can't generalize them too much. Hmmm...
-Ravagin
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is NPR! And that means....it's time for a drum solo!"
I seem to recall that our depth-perception abilities result from the fact that we have two eyes. So you can prettily render something all you wan,t but to be able to recosntruct the 3D image truly, you need two different shots. Mind you, if taken at the same time, action will be preserved, which could be very cool for sports and suchlike.
===
-Ravagin
To what extent would you be willing to comply with 'them'(ie, the MPAA, the gov't...)? Is there anything(code- or principle-wise) that you would be absolutely unwilling to compromise?
===
-Ravagin
Er. I didn't watch it, but only because I was alternately playing NetHack, playing Rogue, and checking my e-mail...a friend of mine kept me up to date on the last couple of minutes, though...
===
-Ravagin
Exactly. All I'm saying is that from their point of view, the player is probably nearly as important as the player. I certainly don't agree with them!
===
-Ravagin
Anyone else notice that he didn't actually link to the sites in question? Perhaps it is because his quotes from them seem to be propoganda by selective quotation? Or maybe he just doesn't want anyone getting any ideas...
===
-Ravagin
He does have a point. The encryption is there to ensure a profit for liscensed DVD player manufacturers. By busting it, someone can potentially create their own, unliscensed player, taking profit from the manufacturer.
My response to this, however, is that anyone who cares enough can go out, buy all the parts, and build their own VHS player. It seems to me that distributing DeCSS is akin to distributing the plans and circuitry diagrams to a basic VHS player: It tells you how to make a player, if you want to make the effort.
===
-Ravagin
...is in-orbit construction. You save a whole lot of fuel if you don't have to bust out of earth's atmosphere and gravity. With the ISS, we can bring modular parts of a Marsship from Earth's surface with surface-to-orbit craft(hereafter referred to as SOC), then construct it in orbit, and send it on its merry way, like in Clarke's writing. :)
Then, upon arrival at Mars, we can construct another, simple station for fueling and suchlike. We bring on the Marsship a couple of SOCs, and with these we land on Mars.
The only problem, of course, is that if the SOCs are lost, the {cosmo|astro}nauts are lost. So maybe the interplanetary ship should be able to land and takeoff just once, for emergency rescue.
Or, we could just build an orbital elevator....
===
-Ravagin
...is definitely Timothy Zahn.
No, he is not just a Star Wars author! Some of his best work has been non-Star Wars. *ahem* My picks:
+ The Conquerors trilogy: Conquerors' Pride, Conquerors' Heritage, Conquerors' Legacy.......First contact has gone horribly wrong. Mathematics are supposed to be universal, right? So why do the aliens - dubbed the Conquerors by a slimy race called the Mrachani - open fire seconds after the First Contact vessels begin transmitting the FC Package? In the first book, Zahn constructs a picture of a human civilization attacked in cold blood by an indestructible alien force. In book #2, he builds the picture again...of a sophisticated, complex alien civilization attacked in cold blood by a powerful human force. In book #3, we find out why both pictures are accurate. It's a bit weak on characterization, and lacking in romance where any author would have put some, but it's a very powerful saga with a rich universe and one that I personally feel everyone should read.
+ Triplet.......There's that old saying - Clarke's Second rule? - that sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic. And this book proves it. Swords that shoot lighting, flying carpets, demons...The world of Triplet is actually three worlds, literally right on top of each other, linke dby mysterious 'Gateways': Threshold, a barrren wasteland just emerged from nuclear winter, Shamsheer, a medieval world of hidden high technology, and Karyx, where everyone can summon spirits to do their bidding. But the spirits don't have to like it...
+ Cobra.......I laugh every time I read this book, and its sequels (Cobra Strike, Cobra Bargain). Zahn let me down here: There are these soldiers who have lasers impanted in their limbs, servos in their muscles, and armor over every bone. They are....Cobras!....hee hee hee....it reads like a comic book...and yet raises some good points. If you can track down a copy, read it. Please.
+ The Icarus Hunt......Zahn's latest work. Marvelous! I can't tell you anything beyond the premise (a down-on-his-luck smuggler gets hired to carry a mysterious cargo, which every person in the galaxy is after), 'cause it'll ruin the book and its ending, which is borderline deus ex machina. But prods some serious buttock, as Terry Pratchett says.
Well, enough melodramatic reviews out of me. Enjoy!
===
-Ravagin
The Guide is an excellent book for an aspiring sci-fi fan, especially because she can go back and read it again. But it gets better: /.er who has not read Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's hilarious and magical book about the Apocalypse, Good Omens. It's marvelous.
The Guide is not hard sci-fi. It is an excellent way to get readers interested in other grandmasters who blur the line between sci-fi and fantasy, like Terry Pratchett, whom I strongly recommend.
Pratchett is well-known in some circles for his marvelous Discworld Chronicles (see above). Premise: The world is flat and disc-shaped, and sits ont he backs of four giant elephants, who ride on Great A'Tuin, a gargantuan interstellar turtle (gender unkown). In the begnining, it made of fun of conventional 'trash' fantasy (hack-and-slash, wizards and swords, you the style). But now the fantasy is in the background, and it only serves as a vehicle for some of the greatest wisdom and insight of nay science fiction book.
Pratchett has also written some marvelous sc-fi, which is unfrotunately a wee bit hard to find, at least in the US. Strata, an unrelated precursor to Discworld is a wonderful book about a 200-year-old woman who creates planets and who discovers a disc-shaped world. It's like a comedic, sexless version of Ringworld. Intentionally, though. Niven apparently loved it.
Shame on any
I am still in the process of tracking down Pratchett's other, older sci-f books, such as The Dark Side of the Sun and The Carpet People. If you live in the UK, this might be a bit easier. *deep breath*
Lerry Niven is very good too, though possibly for someone just a bit older. Certainly one of his greatest books, Ringworld has a bit too much sexual content. But Protector is excellent as well.
I would highly recommend Arthur C. Clarke, especially the Rama books. But only the first one, Rendezvous With Rama. They go completely downhill after that (my theory: Clarke writes an excellent sci-fi book. He gives it to Gentry Lee, who takes out the best parts and puts in a lot of silly sex.)
That's all for this post...
===
-Ravagin
the patch creates a new problem with Windows 2000 news server service.
That's what you get when you rush a patch. They probably really didn't know about this hole until it was discovered. So they cobbled together a patch in a rush job. Probably self-conscious about public image.
===
-Ravagin
I was not aware of this(obviously). Interesting. Still, it's not 'docked,' is it?
===
-Ravagin
That was a great article. I read the whole thing, and loved it all.
One thing that he didn't address was the title bar. One of the most useful funcitons of the title bar is to provide a "grabable" section of the window which I can click on to activate the window, without risking any other action to the window.
The problem is that it's only at the top of the window. When I have numerous windows on the desktop, it can be a real pain to move some windows aside to find the title bar of another. The is especially true in the current MacOS GUI, which has no funcitonal equivalent of the Task Bar. It is also apparent in Windows, when I am using child windows of an application, which normally do not have a Task Bar.
So wouldn't it be great to stretch the title bar around to the left side of the window, too? Maybe have the window icon at the vertex, and some more window functions at the bottom...
Thoughts?
===
-Ravagin
Ah-ha!
This is a good use for the technology. We can download the minds of the greatest theologians of our time, then when we need answers to questions like this, we can just open up the program...
Dear gods, I can see it now: Microsoft Theology Assistant...it's a little paperclip...NOOOO!!!!!
===
-Ravagin
Where are the theologians when we need them? ;)
Not reading Slashdot, apparently.
===
-Ravagin
BTW, this is addressed in Tad Williams' excellent four-book saga Otherland.
What would be the point of uploading your brain to a computer? It wouldn't be you. Or would it?
It would think that it's you. Is that all that matters?
In Otherland, the problem is solved by terminating the "real" brain at the same time as the computerized mind is activated. Hmmm...
===
-Ravagin
If you warp enough of them properly, you can set a matrix of parabolic mirrors. Not sure what that's good for; bound to be something...
Centerpiece
Menorah (with a little work)
Really Big Sequins
Hats
Bike Reflectors
Hubcaps
===
-Ravagin