Another thing is that neither the Chinese, nor the Vikings, nor anyone else who may have done it initiated a genocide campaign on such a scale as Columbus' (and freends) against the native inhabitants of the continent. Guess that's the way to get famous, then. When we find life on another planet, will we have to kill most of it, too, for the discovery to be significant?
Yes, I concur, but hold on a sec... I haven't shaved in several weeks, so I guess you could say I have a beard. Will the evil version of me then be clean-shaven? If I shave, will he grow a beard? Are good-evil facial hair configurations inversely related? Am I in serious need of sleep?
With significant respect to mr. carmack... no. He's welcome to design supsersexy fps or whatever interface, but I (and I think a lot of nh players share the sentiment) like nethack just the way it is. The current interface really can't be beat for straightforwardness. Besides, we all know that it's not appearances that matter.
And the devteam does a damn fine job on their own.
:) Excuse me. I'm... easily excitable... about these things.
Gosh, thanks. Probably the combined result of too much science fiction and too little sleep (with a play opening this week and the inexorable approach of the end of the semester).
I can see it now. There's going to be some horrible accident, and the genetic alterations will get out of control, and then we'll have eight-limbed goats clambering all over our metropolisesisesesises. Massive got-webs woven from one building to another! Enormous throbbing goat egg-sacks, from whence come countless tiny goat-spiders which will invade everything and everywhere!
There will be all kinds, just like with spiders! We'll have daedly black-widow goats, which kill with a single bite! Wolf-goats (there's an irony!) that stalk about on their massive hairy legs! Jumping goats! Goats that, you know, dig those little holes with the fake top thingies and jumpout at their prey... maybe they'll use sewers.
The web-spinning goats will feast on large birds - the raptor population will be decimated. Mexico and Canada would dig massive moats to keep them in the States, and Britain will patrol our waters and airspace to preserve the quarantine, but the goats will weave parachute thingies and fly across the waters on the winds.
The goatspiders will soon cover the entire planet. They will adapt to every environment, forcing humanity into underground fortresses. The goatspiders will improve upon our technology and colonize the solar system, being contacted by the Culture, who don't even notice humanity. Soon our kind will be nothing more than few highly isolated communities deep beneath the planet's surface. At that point, it's only a matter of time before humanity's flame is exitnguished entirely.
But we'll have lots of really comfortable lingerie!
What's scarier than that is legislation designed to target and punish terrorists (or "suspected terrorists" - remember, kids, a trial is for deciding punishment, not guilt!). The more people who get classified as terrorists, the more people potentially deprived of civil liberties.
This is a delightfully holodeck system, but I find it hard to believe it can convinve you you aren't standing in a box. If I recall, the holodecks also used force field treadmills or some such to control your movement. That's still a ways away, I bet.
Illustrated or not; as long as it's not kirby.... (he's good, but i don't like his discworld art at all)
See, what I love about Pratchett's work, Discworld and otherwise, is his masterful command of language. Sure, the slapstick is fun, and the ideas are amusing, but he wields the English language with such skill that that is what I love about Pratchett.
This is why I object so strongly to other-media conversions, like movies and plays. They capture the plot, the ideas, the goofy basic humor, but he has so many other layers and such a talented writing ability that is totally missed by these media.
As for this new one, it's on my hanukkah list. The illustrations, to me, will be an added delight. But I won't be looking at the pictures as much as I will be reading the words.
StarOffice 6beta rocks my world (at least, those parts of it that deal with office productivity).
I've been throwing off the Microsoft yoke in stages - my mail client is eudora lite, my office suite is staroffice, and my browser is k-meleon. Hooray, I guess.
Don't tell anyone, but I actually save all my wordprocessing docs in RTF. So the program I use doesn't matter all that much, to some extent.
Well, the screen is those photos is clearly the usual photoshopped image, but the device still looks extremely sexy. Keyboard, CF slot... mm.
Mind you, my Palm is still all I need (IIIxe forever! whoo! etc!), but I can respect the extreme coolness of this device. Looks vaguely like one of the tricorders on Enterprise....
Someone has already mentioned Pratchett, and I hope that Clarke, Jordan, Niven, and others will also "stand the test of time" as talented writers.
However, it would pain me to see some of this work be declared "Classic," for I find this a segregatory (is that a word?) and unfair label for works. It is one of the things that has bothered me the most about my public education - the venerated pantheon of elderly literature labelled "classics," whose members are taught to be the only things really worth reading. This is a distrubingly static literary world that has left, in my experience, no tolerance or room for less well-known and/or more modern work of equally masterful quality.
I have liked many "classics" and disliked as many. I see that such a label may be the inevitable result of "standing the test of time." But when incorporated into curricula, it becomes (in my far from humble opinion) a dangerous and unfortunate thing.
Yea, verily; I think and hope he will someday be recognized as the highly perceptive and talented satirist and writer that he is. Perhaps, at some point, his works will reach the "Classic" status, not unlike Shakespeare's. Wouldn't that be interesting....
Slashdot Mirror
My thoughts exactly, comrade.
Another thing is that neither the Chinese, nor the Vikings, nor anyone else who may have done it initiated a genocide campaign on such a scale as Columbus' (and freends) against the native inhabitants of the continent. Guess that's the way to get famous, then. When we find life on another planet, will we have to kill most of it, too, for the discovery to be significant?
Yes. And I feel pretty bad about it. But it had to be done.
I'm working on a bread pun. I'd better stop.
*sigh* I was afraid of that. I guess I'll have to have you fed to my piranhas now.
Mmm... electrocution. :)
Yes, I concur, but hold on a sec... I haven't shaved in several weeks, so I guess you could say I have a beard. Will the evil version of me then be clean-shaven? If I shave, will he grow a beard? Are good-evil facial hair configurations inversely related? Am I in serious need of sleep?
Yes! Exactly!
develop the next version of Nethack? :)
With significant respect to mr. carmack... no. He's welcome to design supsersexy fps or whatever interface, but I (and I think a lot of nh players share the sentiment) like nethack just the way it is. The current interface really can't be beat for straightforwardness. Besides, we all know that it's not appearances that matter.
And the devteam does a damn fine job on their own.
:) Excuse me. I'm... easily excitable... about these things.
Gosh, thanks. Probably the combined result of too much science fiction and too little sleep (with a play opening this week and the inexorable approach of the end of the semester).
I can see it now. There's going to be some horrible accident, and the genetic alterations will get out of control, and then we'll have eight-limbed goats clambering all over our metropolisesisesesises. Massive got-webs woven from one building to another! Enormous throbbing goat egg-sacks, from whence come countless tiny goat-spiders which will invade everything and everywhere!
There will be all kinds, just like with spiders! We'll have daedly black-widow goats, which kill with a single bite! Wolf-goats (there's an irony!) that stalk about on their massive hairy legs! Jumping goats! Goats that, you know, dig those little holes with the fake top thingies and jumpout at their prey... maybe they'll use sewers.
The web-spinning goats will feast on large birds - the raptor population will be decimated. Mexico and Canada would dig massive moats to keep them in the States, and Britain will patrol our waters and airspace to preserve the quarantine, but the goats will weave parachute thingies and fly across the waters on the winds.
The goatspiders will soon cover the entire planet. They will adapt to every environment, forcing humanity into underground fortresses. The goatspiders will improve upon our technology and colonize the solar system, being contacted by the Culture, who don't even notice humanity. Soon our kind will be nothing more than few highly isolated communities deep beneath the planet's surface. At that point, it's only a matter of time before humanity's flame is exitnguished entirely.
But we'll have lots of really comfortable lingerie!
What's scarier than that is legislation designed to target and punish terrorists (or "suspected terrorists" - remember, kids, a trial is for deciding punishment, not guilt!). The more people who get classified as terrorists, the more people potentially deprived of civil liberties.
Gah.
Well you know how to totally destroy a person. Thanks a lot.
This is a delightfully holodeck system, but I find it hard to believe it can convinve you you aren't standing in a box. If I recall, the holodecks also used force field treadmills or some such to control your movement. That's still a ways away, I bet.
Is this, like, transcendentalist VR? Far out!
Or maybe it has something to do with emery; but how a powder generally used for grinding and polishing fits into VR, I don't know.
Now I'm going to read the article.
It looks like Dmitri might be home for Christmas
Does he celebrate Christmas?
I'm not trying to be a smartass, honestly....
Hm. Wouldn't the cat just explode? Given how much power you'd be beaming....
The cat might explode or it might not. We won't be certain until we check....
Illustrated or not; as long as it's not kirby.... (he's good, but i don't like his discworld art at all)
See, what I love about Pratchett's work, Discworld and otherwise, is his masterful command of language. Sure, the slapstick is fun, and the ideas are amusing, but he wields the English language with such skill that that is what I love about Pratchett.
This is why I object so strongly to other-media conversions, like movies and plays. They capture the plot, the ideas, the goofy basic humor, but he has so many other layers and such a talented writing ability that is totally missed by these media.
As for this new one, it's on my hanukkah list. The illustrations, to me, will be an added delight. But I won't be looking at the pictures as much as I will be reading the words.
Okay, American, French, Italian, and... Asian. Three countries and an entire freakin' continent.
"Iron Chef Asian." How... American. Makes me proud to be a citizen. Gods bless the empire.
Serial murder? But that's soooo slow.
I'd go with USB murder, myself.
*ducks*
Sorry, i'm running Win2k. Can't help you. 8)
StarOffice 6beta rocks my world (at least, those parts of it that deal with office productivity).
I've been throwing off the Microsoft yoke in stages - my mail client is eudora lite, my office suite is staroffice, and my browser is k-meleon. Hooray, I guess.
Don't tell anyone, but I actually save all my wordprocessing docs in RTF. So the program I use doesn't matter all that much, to some extent.
Well, the screen is those photos is clearly the usual photoshopped image, but the device still looks extremely sexy. Keyboard, CF slot... mm.
Mind you, my Palm is still all I need (IIIxe forever! whoo! etc!), but I can respect the extreme coolness of this device. Looks vaguely like one of the tricorders on Enterprise....
I'm reasonably confident that the whole eating children thing was a joke.
Pratchett may be a barrell of monkeys to read (may - I don't actually know), but is it an important body of literature? Hardly.
Maybe you should give his work a try, then. It's a pity that he's just known as a funny man, because there's much more to it than that.
Someone has already mentioned Pratchett, and I hope that Clarke, Jordan, Niven, and others will also "stand the test of time" as talented writers.
However, it would pain me to see some of this work be declared "Classic," for I find this a segregatory (is that a word?) and unfair label for works. It is one of the things that has bothered me the most about my public education - the venerated pantheon of elderly literature labelled "classics," whose members are taught to be the only things really worth reading. This is a distrubingly static literary world that has left, in my experience, no tolerance or room for less well-known and/or more modern work of equally masterful quality.
I have liked many "classics" and disliked as many. I see that such a label may be the inevitable result of "standing the test of time." But when incorporated into curricula, it becomes (in my far from humble opinion) a dangerous and unfortunate thing.
Yea, verily; I think and hope he will someday be recognized as the highly perceptive and talented satirist and writer that he is. Perhaps, at some point, his works will reach the "Classic" status, not unlike Shakespeare's. Wouldn't that be interesting....