Scientists have finally deciphered the genetic code in chromosome 22, discovering the following fragment buried in what was heretofore considered "junk" DNA:
...ulation. Instantiation of this code without permission from the author will result in prosecution under applicable galactic laws. This organism is not to be released into the wild except under the supervision of duly appointed and authorized zoological wardens. Consequences of uncontrolled release may include defoliation of local environment, mineral resource depletion, climatic disruption, and unpredictable emergent properties possibly including artistic expression, spontaneous organization, and Monday Night Football. Recommended diet includes a variety of choices from among the following species: 84472626819, 84471836247, 84472464755, 84472...
The only quotes that MSNBC used from slashdot comments seemed to be ones that wouldn't get moderated up. There were no examples of the "informative" and "insightful" content that I come to Slashdot for. Heck, this was the first place I came to learn about the FoF; I knew that the commentary and opinons here would be more informed and more well-thought-out than the media's.
The one quoted Slashdot comment (something to the effect of "Slap them sanctions on now") sounded just as frivolous and poorly-considered as the ones from AOL and MSNBC message areas. There was no representation of the depth and insight that Slashdot can rightfully pride itself on.
Like, that was majorly schwag, d00d. I wuz p1553d.
So what does this mean for the DVD format in general. I'm not clear on the details of the standard, but it sounds to me that this crack leaves the DVD standard open to nearly-indiscriminate copying, even if you don't have DeCSS. It's a known crack, now...
But I'm specifically curious if the same keys are used from title to title, or does each title have its own key?
And can the standard be "upgraded?" To a 128-bit key, for instance?
I dunno. I've always been skeptical of the lack of certainty atmospheric scientists seem to exhibit with respect to their claims of global warming... first it's getting warmer, then it's getting colder. The only thing we know for certain is that we don't seem to know much for certain. (Besides, would global warming be all that bad? Ask a Canadian.)
Take a gander at John Daily's page, Waiting for Global Warming, from where you can follow links to NOAA and NASA evidence suggesting that the global warming phenomenon is really systematic error in the climate record.
But by all means, if you don't want to look for ET reruns of "I Love Lucy" analogues, then pitch in on a decent atmospheric model. If we're actually headed for an Ice Age, it'd be nice to know in advance.
Gregory Benford's Cosm is an interesting look at this concept: A UCSD physicist goes to Brookhaven and slams a few uranium nuclei together using the RHIC, and creates a big bang. Since Benford is a physicist himself, he surely got the idea from early discussions of the possibilities in egghead literature.
In Benford's vision, the universe created was seperate from ours, joined only by a "window" that exhibited itself as a mysterious black sphere about the size of a bowling ball, but massive. Most of the novel deals with the scientists solving the mystery of "what the hell is this thing?" Fun, hard, witty SF, with lots of scenes taking place in La Jolla, Pasadena, and Brookhaven.
Overall, very similar to Timescape, also by Benford. Also set at UCSD. Also about scientists. Also a great read.
How serendipitous... I just started reading Antarctica on Monday. Already I can tell that it's very similar to Red Mars, etc., which I predicted from reading the paperback's blurbs. I'm hooked.
I finished Red Mars with effort. Long stretches of it read like a travelogue or an ebullient geography (oops, areography) text. While it was fascinating technically, it quickly became tedious. Nevertheless, I liked the concept, and after finishing it, started Green Mars... but never finished that second book. It simply failed to grab me; I put it down one evening, and there it laid until I put it on the bookshelf three weeks later. I found Greg Bear's Moving Mars much more riveting and equally well thought out.
Antarctica so far is noticeably tighter than KSR's "areology," with equally good character development (which I happen to relish), and only short passages of geographic pedantry. It's exceptionally well researched, and I enjoy the accounts of the first Antarctic explorers (madmen, indeed). KSR's vision of the future of megacapitalism strikes me as astute, and more than just plausible. So far, the plot is developing well, and the first chapter really grabs you...
... and I use it frequently. When I know exactly which terms to search on, the page(s) I need almost always shows up first. And I also really like their minimalist style. (I use an ad filter, and don't see most banner ads.)
However, when I'm unsure of the exact terms to use for a search, or have to experiment to find the right search terms, I still get better results using a ranked metasearch - the best I've found is MetaCrawler.
Well gee, if you're gonna have cameras everywhere, then you've gotta have something to display their pictures on...
Imagine a camera and a display on each cereal box: the cartoon mascot could interact with the image of the shopper. Would work great on kids.
How about disposable dataspecs: wearable display terminals, stereo-optic of course, so cheap that you wouldn't have to worry about sitting on them... and you know you will.
I encountered my first live iMac only about a month ago during a Starcraft marathon at a friend's office. His cow-orker had just acquired a tangerine one... ugly as sin. Looked like a traffic cone on its side (and I'm generally fond of Macs).
But to the point: We got down to hunting Zerg, and halfway thru the evening I began to smell that distinct odor of overheated components: plastic, epoxy resin, and solder outgassing at a temperature of close to 100C, I'm sure...
That's when I realized there was no fan in the unit, and the l^Huser had a week's worth of junk mail stacked on top of the thing, obstructing any convective flow that might have arisen.
Fortunately, my Starcraft CD was immune to idiocy...
Bruce's novel "Islands in the Net" was one of the first not-so-punk cyberpunk novels I encountered. Although the conflict casts a shadow on the setting, and that future has its own social and technological problems, it did not strike me as the "dark and scary place" that CNET Central host Richard Hart recently complained about. I especially liked the concept of the democratically/meritocratically organized corporation, although it now seems implausible given the plutocracy we currently appear to live in.
My question for Bruce is:
Beyond the obvious overworked subjects like global warming and nuclear winter, what social, political and/or technological hurdles must we overcome in order to avoid the "dark and scary" future? Or, alternately, which hurdles are unavoidable, and how will they darken our future?
Several comments have taken shots at the elf height issue, as if that were going to make or break the film. But just to be AR, here's the dope on elf altitude:
Elf stature is based on the setting, not the game system. Therefore you find elves of different heights depending on which fantasy world you, ahem, "visit."
Elves from Tolkein's Middle Earth are tall and wiry, and never need sleep.
Elves from TSR's Greyhawk (the orignal setting) and Forgotten Realms are short, about 4-1/2 to 5 feet.
The setting for the movie doesn't appear to be established, although it's TSR's policy that if you use the rules and don't explicitly declare otherwise, then you're playing in Greyhawk.
... try Greg Bear's Queen of Angels and even better, its sequel, Slant.
Queen of Angels is set mostly in a near future LA, similar to Stephenson's Snow Crash. This novel isn't so heavy on the nanotech, but does introduce some concepts on alternate modes of networking. There's also a strong Voudon element, which you'll either adore or loathe.
The sequel, Slant, is one of those rare novels that's better than its predecessor. But it's essential you read Queen of Angels for its development of the main characters. Here, Bear introduces some ingenious ideas on massively parallel computing, nanotechnology, and AI, making them jump to life. I also got the feeling that Bear either was inspired by The Diamond Age, or else had exchanged memes with Stephenson at some point. If you didn't like the slow pace of The Diamond Age, then Slant is more your speed.
These novels represent some of Greg Bear's best work (which definitely does not include his recent Foundation novel). He's got an easily plausible view of where infotech and nanotech will take us in 20 or 30 years...
I can play the speculation game, too. Spooks may not choose the obvious paths of least resistance, because they're too obvious. When it comes to rogue bureaucracies, you can't take anything for granted.
What's most interesting about the whole story is that in a LA Times "Innovation" column a few years back (which I can't locate), AT&T was accused of being unable to do anything well other than provide long distance telephone service.
This rang somewhat true, and in the years since, I watched AT&T live up to this accusation. Until now...
I'm wondering if I was a bit too eager to write them off. Maybe AT&T actually does have a future...
I'm an ex-employee of American Rocket Company (AMROC), which advanced the state of the art of hybrid engine design in the late 80s and early 90s, and I'm glad that more than one Slashdotter remembers us.
The loss of George Koopman was a tremendous blow, but the failure of their Single Engine Test vehicle on 10/5/89 was not a consequence of his accident. Decisions and circumstances unrelated to the engine technology pretty much doomed the proof of concept vehicle. Of course, we didn't recognize that until after the thing burned up like a stack of tires on the pad and sent a thick cloud of black smoke over Santa Maria, CA. (At least we proved the safety of hybrids - a solid or liquid rocket would have exploded spectacularly.)
AMROC spent a lot of effort optimizing their 75,000-lb thrust hybrid engine. I'm still bound by an NDA, but I can tell you that instabilities and resonances in the combustion flow occupied most of their attention. (The early ones would sputter and rumble and drone and even pop the casing or spew chunks of flaming rubber - it wasn't pretty.) I'm curious as to how this is affecting the current development of the 250,000lbf engine (the press releases mention nothing). Interestingly, SpaceDev of San Diego acquired AMROC's intellectual property last year, and they are not a member of the Hybrid Propulsion Demonstration Program consortium. Some of the AMROC principals helped establish the hybrid division at HMX, and they aren't involved, either. (It's hard not to jump to the conclusion that Lockheed and co. didn't intentionally ignore AMROC's legacy.)
But yes, AMROC went out of business just a few years ago. It was an amazing company to work for: the President, George A. Koopman, was ex-CIA, ex-Hollywood, and co-author of Neuropolitique with Timothy Leary. James Bennet, VP and later president, penned seminal commercial space policy, and acquired for AMROC one of the first commercial launch licenses. Investors in AMROC in the late 80's included the Belushi family, Robby Kreiger, the Leary estate, and many other counterculture and fringe culture venture capitalists.
Oh, yeah - and once Koopman once gave me the most awesome buds I have ever tasted in my life! George was extremely charismatic, terrific at drumming up investment money, and an inspiration to everyone who worked for him. Aside from demolishing our morale, his death effectively marked the end of investment money for AMROC...
Most of the officers and technical gurus at AMROC came from Bennet's and Koopman's earlier hybrid company: Starstruck. Starstruck, based in the SF Bay Area, launched a hybrid demonstrator in 1984, called the Dolphin. It was a sea launch concept, implemented >10 years before Boeing's Sea Launch. The vehicle was towed out to sea, buoyed only by collars of balloons. Before launch, the aft balloons were purged, the vehicle righted itself, the torch was lit, and it leapt out of the ocean. Regrettably, there's very little info available on the web regarding Starstruck.
What we citizens really oughta be afraid of is Covert Law Enforcement. This is the scariest part of the whole issue.
Sure, nobody wants the gub'mint peeking into their email, but all this talk of "covert" and "black bag" operations by local police has me really concerned. It ought to have all of us concerned. We live in enough of a police state already, and if local police start operating like Oliver North, I'm leaving. I'm serious. Few other Americans seem to be at all concerned about it, and they won't be until it's too late.
We should be opposed to any effort to licence local law enforcement to engage in covert operations. Kee-rist, there's been enough scandals involving abuse of power this decade, and we want to give them more?
That's what we get for electing DAs to office en masse in the past 15 years.
I've noticed a strong correlation between anti-Cassini sentiment and, well, to be blunt, ignorance, but I didn't expect to find so much of it on/. The anti-Cassini FUDmongers are *counting* on your ignorance. Fight it! Talk of toxicity, birth defects, dosages for every man woman and child on Earth, and even expressing any appreciable risk of collision from a gravity assist whatsoever, all reveal that the person doesn't know what he or she is talking about. Plutonium *can* cause lung cancer, but the real facts are *no one knows* how risky it is, quantitatively. Public reaction has prevented any serious research into Pt toxicity since the early '60s. Anyone who quotes toxicity or fatality numbers as a result of a Cassini crash scenario is pulling them straight outta their ass. RTGs were chosen as the electrical power source after consideration of *all* the relevant costs and risks: economic, technical, AND environmental. This is SOP. Every option is identified, and evaluated by performance vs. cost and risk. The winner of this contest (in the case of Cassini) was RTGs. If there were any real risk to human health or life, they would have chosen some other energy source. (Note that "real" risk is not the same as "conceivable" risk. You have to stop somewhere.) Now compare that approach to the one used by the FUDmongers. Just like many other reactionary groups, they start with the assumption that "plutonium = bad." Period. No arguments. No challenging the assumption. There are, by their definition, no acceptable ways to make it safe to use - don't even try. Any attempt to reform the object of their FUDmongering is met with instant, vicious, irrational fusillades of vitriol and flying spittle. Causes like this are only popular with the ignorant... Please, fellow/.ers, before you take sides on the next technical issue like this, recognize when you are under-informed, and study it first. *Then* choose your side. Real socially responsible people aren't afraid to say "Gee - I don't know. Let me look into that."
Indeed, AOL is one of the few companies that has pissed me off more than MS. I speak from several years of experience using AOL for customer service at my last job. I can easily see how AOL could claim to be the next MS. See if any of the following sounds familiar:
Their software quality is consistently poor. Awkward design, misfeatures, and bugs are too numerous to count, and the client is hopelessly bloated.
"Improvements" are made for marketing purposes only.
AOL programmers seem never to consult prior art; new features always seem to be designed without thought or consideration to the user experience.
Once an "improvement" is made, any bugs or faults in the code or design are permanent. Code is never fixed unless it is fatally broken.
Despite the above, AOL execs are somehow able to convice themselves that they are superior to the rest of the world, and this hubris colors everything they say.
You can imagine how I cringed when I heard AOL bought Netscape last year. Now AOL is claiming to be the next MS, and one can only hope that they'll both bring each other down...
I'm surprised no one else has posted a link to the incredibly well-done Matrix Comic Strips on the movie's website. There's about a dozen short "illustrated stories" and a couple of prose short stories that are a must read for anyone who is looking forward to the sequels/prequels.
At the very least, they show how many possibilities there are for good sequels to the first movie, even ones that don't involve the same characters. Who knows, one of these strips could inspire a whole screenplay.
Slashdot Mirror
- Surveillance,
- Collapsed Building Rescue,
- Minimally Invasive Surgery,
- Toys (the 'r'Us kind),
- Toys (the He Who Dies With The Most kind),
- Toys (the Sex kind)
Sorry, had to go there. It was obligatory.and...
The one quoted Slashdot comment (something to the effect of "Slap them sanctions on now") sounded just as frivolous and poorly-considered as the ones from AOL and MSNBC message areas. There was no representation of the depth and insight that Slashdot can rightfully pride itself on.
Like, that was majorly schwag, d00d. I wuz p1553d.
But I'm specifically curious if the same keys are used from title to title, or does each title have its own key?
And can the standard be "upgraded?" To a 128-bit key, for instance?
Actually, that's a degenerate case, since many of us aren't looking at her lips anyway.
Take a gander at John Daily's page, Waiting for Global Warming, from where you can follow links to NOAA and NASA evidence suggesting that the global warming phenomenon is really systematic error in the climate record.
But by all means, if you don't want to look for ET reruns of "I Love Lucy" analogues, then pitch in on a decent atmospheric model. If we're actually headed for an Ice Age, it'd be nice to know in advance.
In Benford's vision, the universe created was seperate from ours, joined only by a "window" that exhibited itself as a mysterious black sphere about the size of a bowling ball, but massive. Most of the novel deals with the scientists solving the mystery of "what the hell is this thing?" Fun, hard, witty SF, with lots of scenes taking place in La Jolla, Pasadena, and Brookhaven.
Overall, very similar to Timescape, also by Benford. Also set at UCSD. Also about scientists. Also a great read.
I finished Red Mars with effort. Long stretches of it read like a travelogue or an ebullient geography (oops, areography) text. While it was fascinating technically, it quickly became tedious. Nevertheless, I liked the concept, and after finishing it, started Green Mars... but never finished that second book. It simply failed to grab me; I put it down one evening, and there it laid until I put it on the bookshelf three weeks later. I found Greg Bear's Moving Mars much more riveting and equally well thought out.
Antarctica so far is noticeably tighter than KSR's "areology," with equally good character development (which I happen to relish), and only short passages of geographic pedantry. It's exceptionally well researched, and I enjoy the accounts of the first Antarctic explorers (madmen, indeed). KSR's vision of the future of megacapitalism strikes me as astute, and more than just plausible. So far, the plot is developing well, and the first chapter really grabs you...
However, when I'm unsure of the exact terms to use for a search, or have to experiment to find the right search terms, I still get better results using a ranked metasearch - the best I've found is MetaCrawler.
Imagine a camera and a display on each cereal box: the cartoon mascot could interact with the image of the shopper. Would work great on kids.
How about disposable dataspecs: wearable display terminals, stereo-optic of course, so cheap that you wouldn't have to worry about sitting on them... and you know you will.
But to the point: We got down to hunting Zerg, and halfway thru the evening I began to smell that distinct odor of overheated components: plastic, epoxy resin, and solder outgassing at a temperature of close to 100C, I'm sure...
That's when I realized there was no fan in the unit, and the l^Huser had a week's worth of junk mail stacked on top of the thing, obstructing any convective flow that might have arisen.
Fortunately, my Starcraft CD was immune to idiocy...
My question for Bruce is:
Beyond the obvious overworked subjects like global warming and nuclear winter, what social, political and/or technological hurdles must we overcome in order to avoid the "dark and scary" future? Or, alternately, which hurdles are unavoidable, and how will they darken our future?
Elf stature is based on the setting, not the game system. Therefore you find elves of different heights depending on which fantasy world you, ahem, "visit."
Elves from Tolkein's Middle Earth are tall and wiry, and never need sleep.
Elves from TSR's Greyhawk (the orignal setting) and Forgotten Realms are short, about 4-1/2 to 5 feet.
The setting for the movie doesn't appear to be established, although it's TSR's policy that if you use the rules and don't explicitly declare otherwise, then you're playing in Greyhawk.
Queen of Angels is set mostly in a near future LA, similar to Stephenson's Snow Crash. This novel isn't so heavy on the nanotech, but does introduce some concepts on alternate modes of networking. There's also a strong Voudon element, which you'll either adore or loathe.
The sequel, Slant, is one of those rare novels that's better than its predecessor. But it's essential you read Queen of Angels for its development of the main characters. Here, Bear introduces some ingenious ideas on massively parallel computing, nanotechnology, and AI, making them jump to life. I also got the feeling that Bear either was inspired by The Diamond Age, or else had exchanged memes with Stephenson at some point. If you didn't like the slow pace of The Diamond Age, then Slant is more your speed.
These novels represent some of Greg Bear's best work (which definitely does not include his recent Foundation novel). He's got an easily plausible view of where infotech and nanotech will take us in 20 or 30 years...
I can play the speculation game, too. Spooks may not choose the obvious paths of least resistance, because they're too obvious. When it comes to rogue bureaucracies, you can't take anything for granted.
Look, guys, rumors surround Apple like flies surround $h!+. And the Macintosh community thrives on circulating them.
Does rumormongering really belong on Slashdot?
I vote NO.
20th Anniversary Macintosh?
At least this beast's rumored price isn't suicidal. But the whole story is hard to swallow. Rumors surround Apple like flies surround...
Oh My God... they slashdotted NASA. YOU BASTARDS!
This rang somewhat true, and in the years since, I watched AT&T live up to this accusation. Until now...
I'm wondering if I was a bit too eager to write them off. Maybe AT&T actually does have a future...
He'll be begging for his Altair back within a week.
The loss of George Koopman was a tremendous blow, but the failure of their Single Engine Test vehicle on 10/5/89 was not a consequence of his accident. Decisions and circumstances unrelated to the engine technology pretty much doomed the proof of concept vehicle. Of course, we didn't recognize that until after the thing burned up like a stack of tires on the pad and sent a thick cloud of black smoke over Santa Maria, CA. (At least we proved the safety of hybrids - a solid or liquid rocket would have exploded spectacularly.)
AMROC spent a lot of effort optimizing their 75,000-lb thrust hybrid engine. I'm still bound by an NDA, but I can tell you that instabilities and resonances in the combustion flow occupied most of their attention. (The early ones would sputter and rumble and drone and even pop the casing or spew chunks of flaming rubber - it wasn't pretty.) I'm curious as to how this is affecting the current development of the 250,000lbf engine (the press releases mention nothing). Interestingly, SpaceDev of San Diego acquired AMROC's intellectual property last year, and they are not a member of the Hybrid Propulsion Demonstration Program consortium. Some of the AMROC principals helped establish the hybrid division at HMX, and they aren't involved, either. (It's hard not to jump to the conclusion that Lockheed and co. didn't intentionally ignore AMROC's legacy.)
But yes, AMROC went out of business just a few years ago. It was an amazing company to work for: the President, George A. Koopman, was ex-CIA, ex-Hollywood, and co-author of Neuropolitique with Timothy Leary. James Bennet, VP and later president, penned seminal commercial space policy, and acquired for AMROC one of the first commercial launch licenses. Investors in AMROC in the late 80's included the Belushi family, Robby Kreiger, the Leary estate, and many other counterculture and fringe culture venture capitalists.
Oh, yeah - and once Koopman once gave me the most awesome buds I have ever tasted in my life! George was extremely charismatic, terrific at drumming up investment money, and an inspiration to everyone who worked for him. Aside from demolishing our morale, his death effectively marked the end of investment money for AMROC...
Most of the officers and technical gurus at AMROC came from Bennet's and Koopman's earlier hybrid company: Starstruck. Starstruck, based in the SF Bay Area, launched a hybrid demonstrator in 1984, called the Dolphin. It was a sea launch concept, implemented >10 years before Boeing's Sea Launch. The vehicle was towed out to sea, buoyed only by collars of balloons. Before launch, the aft balloons were purged, the vehicle righted itself, the torch was lit, and it leapt out of the ocean. Regrettably, there's very little info available on the web regarding Starstruck.
Sure, nobody wants the gub'mint peeking into their email, but all this talk of "covert" and "black bag" operations by local police has me really concerned. It ought to have all of us concerned. We live in enough of a police state already, and if local police start operating like Oliver North, I'm leaving. I'm serious. Few other Americans seem to be at all concerned about it, and they won't be until it's too late.
We should be opposed to any effort to licence local law enforcement to engage in covert operations. Kee-rist, there's been enough scandals involving abuse of power this decade, and we want to give them more?
That's what we get for electing DAs to office en masse in the past 15 years.
I've noticed a strong correlation between anti-Cassini sentiment and, well, to be blunt, ignorance, but I didn't expect to find so much of it on /. The anti-Cassini FUDmongers are *counting* on your ignorance. Fight it! Talk of toxicity, birth defects, dosages for every man woman and child on Earth, and even expressing any appreciable risk of collision from a gravity assist whatsoever, all reveal that the person doesn't know what he or she is talking about. Plutonium *can* cause lung cancer, but the real facts are *no one knows* how risky it is, quantitatively. Public reaction has prevented any serious research into Pt toxicity since the early '60s. Anyone who quotes toxicity or fatality numbers as a result of a Cassini crash scenario is pulling them straight outta their ass. RTGs were chosen as the electrical power source after consideration of *all* the relevant costs and risks: economic, technical, AND environmental. This is SOP. Every option is identified, and evaluated by performance vs. cost and risk. The winner of this contest (in the case of Cassini) was RTGs. If there were any real risk to human health or life, they would have chosen some other energy source. (Note that "real" risk is not the same as "conceivable" risk. You have to stop somewhere.) Now compare that approach to the one used by the FUDmongers. Just like many other reactionary groups, they start with the assumption that "plutonium = bad." Period. No arguments. No challenging the assumption. There are, by their definition, no acceptable ways to make it safe to use - don't even try. Any attempt to reform the object of their FUDmongering is met with instant, vicious, irrational fusillades of vitriol and flying spittle. Causes like this are only popular with the ignorant... Please, fellow /.ers, before you take sides on the next technical issue like this, recognize when you are under-informed, and study it first. *Then* choose your side. Real socially responsible people aren't afraid to say "Gee - I don't know. Let me look into that."
Indeed, AOL is one of the few companies that has pissed me off more than MS. I speak from several years of experience using AOL for customer service at my last job. I can easily see how AOL could claim to be the next MS. See if any of the following sounds familiar:
- Their software quality is consistently poor. Awkward design, misfeatures, and bugs are too numerous to count, and the client is hopelessly bloated.
- "Improvements" are made for marketing purposes only.
- AOL programmers seem never to consult prior art; new features always seem to be designed without thought or consideration to the user experience.
- Once an "improvement" is made, any bugs or faults in the code or design are permanent. Code is never fixed unless it is fatally broken.
- Despite the above, AOL execs are somehow able to convice themselves that they are superior to the rest of the world, and this hubris colors everything they say.
You can imagine how I cringed when I heard AOL bought Netscape last year. Now AOL is claiming to be the next MS, and one can only hope that they'll both bring each other down...At the very least, they show how many possibilities there are for good sequels to the first movie, even ones that don't involve the same characters. Who knows, one of these strips could inspire a whole screenplay.