Oh dear lord, those are painful. Especially since there doesn't seem to be any way I've found yet to prevent them from at least trying to play. Once they start, you can skip past them, but they're not a usual scene... So you can't jump past them by starting at the "Start of Movie" scene instead of "Oh, I'm such an amazing artist, taking the work of a great man and raping it, aren't I such a fucking moron" scene.
No, the Republicans TOLD you they would love for Dean to get nominated. I watched them do so. For two weeks before Iowa, every Republican talking head on TV was going on about how they'd love for Dean to get nominated and how scared they were of Kerry. Dean was, in fact, their worst nightmare. He's a centrist with broad appeal among both the left and right wing. Kerry is a Massachusets liberal, and an incredibly corrupt one at that. He'll be annihilated in a GE, and if by some miracle he gets elected, he'll be no better than Bush.
Edwards, of course, is just as electable as Dean. But he'll also never get nominated. Why? Because the DNC doesn't want to win. They want to lose big so Bush gets even more brazen and the general public is desperate enough to accept Hillary in 2008.
Hate to break it to you, but that doesn't help. Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Dragon Warrior were all NES games. A Game Boy emulator does nothing to help you play those.
You aren't voting for Edwards or Dean (both of whom would actually have a chance of winning) because the Republicans told you not to. They told you Kerry was winning, and that you should vote for him because of that, and you believed him.
Guess Democrats are just as stupid as the rest of the sheep, eh?
*stares* You think they were dry? Of all words, dry? Startide Rising and The Uplift War were full of... emotion, description, action... they were fucking organic. Sundiver was far plainer and drier than those 2. I thought the characters and plots were thoroughly engrossing.
Yeah, I did. Sundiver at least had an interesting mystery and some nifty characters behind it. SR and TUW basically had the same re-hashed "sci-fi" stereotype characters. I also got tired of all the hinting about all this massive stuff that was going to change the universe and never actually SEEING any of it. Those two books were basically Brin treading water and trying to play out the story a little before his next trilogy started.
I will concur that Brin lacks the "oh, look at how scentific I am" self-importance of authors like Egan or Bear's more blatantly commercial stuff. Unfortunately, this isn't quite enough to save him. He's got interesting technology, sure, and the setting for SR was interesting... But I found that the plots and characters of both books just felt flat.
Plus, this puts him in the same category of "science fiction" as Hamilton and McCarthy. (Specifically, borderline space opera) And while Hamilton's "Neutronium Alchemist", etc. books did tend to drag on (thanks to "Robert Jordan syndrome" - he has too many separate groups of characters running around, most of which are unrelated to the main plot about Joshua until the very end), Fallen Dragon was incredible. McCarthy's Bloom and The Wellstone were so-so, but The Collapsium was awesome.
Ah, point. Though I'd think the two-ended-ribbon would be more useful in general, as you don't just have a lift platform but an interplanetary launch platform. However, I can see building single-ended designs first...
Another interesting idea are skyhooks, which are basically beanstalks that don't touch the ground and don't have to be in geosynch orbit. Instead, their lower end's moving through the atmosphere at a reasonable clip at the right altitude and speed for well-designed and still fairly cheap aircraft to be able to dock.
Large companies are also usually desperate to keep the balance sheet looking good, and so shed jobs at the slightest provocation. Every economic study I've seen shows them as being unhealthy for the economy - they're just one big, massive drain on the wealth created by small and medium-sized businesses. Ditto for the incredibly rich - the modestly rich have a desire to use their money. The incredibly rich just want to blow it on buying $50 billion a bottle alcohol, yaughts, houses, and parties from other incredibly rich people.
In short, Reagan proved trickle-down economics don't work. Unfortunately, many neo-conservatives and Randroids either haven't gotten the message yet or are among the tiny fraction of a percent that benefits from them.
Having watched it, I must agree. Sen was a little less annoying, but everyone else just felt flat. Especially Komaji and Haku, who really made the movie for me the first time I watched it. (With the real audio track, of course)
Yeah, I'm aware of this. Thank God Ghibli had the muscle and brains to push that into their contract (though after Warriors of the Wind, I'd have been surprised if they hadn't) and Disney was desperate enough for new blood that they let it in. Otherwise, we'd NEVER see uncut versions of Ghibli movies over here - they'd all be changed to star Mickey Mouse or something.
Exactly. Sun's got nothing here, but they always trot out that tired old horse whenever someone suggests they open their Java code. And of course, most OSS types, being absolutely terrified of Microsoft, go along with it.
Re:why knock down others in a "Review"?
on
Singularity Sky
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· Score: 1
That seems to be obligatory for any "sci-fi" book review here on Slashdot. Every one I can think of that I spared more than a cursory look at in the past six months has been nothing more than picking a space opera author and bitching about them.
Fine, I'll look you in the eye and tell you that I can't stand reading David Brin. His characters are flat and lifeless, altered however necessary to get across whatever "insightful" political or philosophical point he wants to emphasize this paragraph. Sundiver was okay, but Startide Rising and the Uplift War were absolutely hideously dry. Not only can he not do characters, he can't do plots or interesting situations either. I had to struggle to finish both of the above.
I'll look you in the eye and tell you that 90% of Greg Bear's stuff is written to capitalize on "market trends". How? You can tell when he's writing something because he WANTS to - then you get masterpieces like "Moving Mars" or "Songs of Earth and Power", and not tripe like Eon, or Anvil of Stars, or Slant.
I'll look yo in the eye and tell you Gregory Benford is a hack. His Galactic Center series was muddled and poorly-written.
All of the above are why sci-fi sucks. They're excellent examples of the "Plot? Characterization? Who needs those! We've got SCIENCE!" school of thought. They're so wrapped up in how scientifically accurate they are that they totally forget that scientific accuracy is not and has never been an element of an engaging story. Especially since their "accurate" predictions usually get disproven or debunked by scientists within six months of publication anyway.
And don't try telling me that they're pondering about the human condition, or how things might turn out, because that's crap. To do that, you need characterization and plot, and they don't give a damn about that. They just want to coerce little geeks like you into thinking you're so smart and so sophisticated, reading a book that's so scientifically accurate and nodding your head and going "yeah, that's so true".
Why should these scientists be any less prone to political bias than anyone else?
Because on one side, there's 20 Nobel laureates from a number of disciplines and both sides of the political fence stepping up and saying "Using science in this way is wrong!". And on the other, there's a professional lying snake saying "those people are doodie-heads!"
Yeah... Vote third party. Because it looks like the Democritans are going to nominate George W. Kerry, while the Republicrats are going with John Bush. Or was that John Kerry and George W. Bush? I can never tell, their positions on everything under the sun are so similar.
In short: elect Kerry, four more years of Bush. Elect Bush, four more years of Kerry.
- Microsoft had already done this... And, in fact, still IS. That's ALL.Net is, no matter what the MS zealots try to claim. Sun's keeping things closed hasn't helped them there at all.
- Mr. Schwartz was muddying the waters by confusing trademarks and code. Sun could still open the code but retain a trademark on Java in the appropriate domain. So if Microsoft tried this, they could be sued under TRADEMARK law and forced to re-label their product.
Disown them? What the heck are you talking about? Just because they're the fathers of the movement and contributed a great deal to its development doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean they speak for the whole movement, or even that they are in any way characteristic of it. Using this logic, one could try to reason about George W. Bush based on the actions of George Washington, an exercise doomed to failure.
Spirited Away wasn't Disney either, TYVM. It was written, animated, and directed by Studio Ghibli, possibly the best animation company on the planet. Disney just took it, attached a half-hearted dub, dutifully shoved it in theaters for a few days to honor their contractual obligations, and then crossed their fingers and hoped it wouldn't overshadow their carefully-chosen "hit" movies.
Unfortunately for them, it did.
Looks like Disney hasn't had any hits in years. They've just been selling other people's. Guess all those copyright extensions they pushed for haven't helped their creative output much at all, have they?
Right... So the US gets all the cheap, sweatshop manufacturing jobs and India gets all the high-paying knowledge jobs... And we're supposed to be glad about this?
I believe that this is, in fact, incorrect. The Satellite reels out cable in BOTH directions at once, to keep itself balanced. This also gives you a rather convenient way of launching interplanetary spacecraft - run them out to the end of the cable and then let go.
Actually, Bush has been increasing funding, and shows no sign of stopping. Tax cuts are an excuse to cut public funding - medicare, education, social security, NASA, intelligence, and the like - while boosting corporate welfare and payoffs to the richest 1% (which compose 99% of the Bush White House - big surprise!).
Good question, and one no-one seems to want to answer. Most will handwave and make vague comments about "expanding economy" or "dealing with people" or "management", but that's bull. This is the start of an offensive to eliminate the American middle class, and replace it with a permanent base of slave labour in "developing countries".
So if service jobs, creative jobs, research jobs, and development jobs all get outsourced... What's left and why, exactly, will the economy survive? Oh, right, we'll all get jobs dealing with people face-to-face, selling things to people with no money. Or we'll all wind up being managers.
Excuse me while I look skeptical and write this off as one more piece to make executives feel more comfortable about destroying their country and killing the population.
Also note that the speach they lifted that information from apparently dates back to March 2002. Back when we were all hoping Bush would put together a sensible response to the 9/11 attacks. Instead, we got Iraq II: Mine's Bigger!, the PATRIOT act, PATRIOT II, Total Information Awareness, and other such things.
And that Digitally Restricted Medium won't be legally protected. So they wouldn't be able to go after people for saying "Oh, by the way, if you flip this bit, you can copy just fine."
I dunno... The guy who directed Samurai Jack and Powerpuff Girls is doing a pretty decent job with the Clone Wars shorts. If he offs Lucas and assumes his identity, than Episode III might not be a suckfest.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh dear lord, those are painful. Especially since there doesn't seem to be any way I've found yet to prevent them from at least trying to play. Once they start, you can skip past them, but they're not a usual scene... So you can't jump past them by starting at the "Start of Movie" scene instead of "Oh, I'm such an amazing artist, taking the work of a great man and raping it, aren't I such a fucking moron" scene.
No, the Republicans TOLD you they would love for Dean to get nominated. I watched them do so. For two weeks before Iowa, every Republican talking head on TV was going on about how they'd love for Dean to get nominated and how scared they were of Kerry. Dean was, in fact, their worst nightmare. He's a centrist with broad appeal among both the left and right wing. Kerry is a Massachusets liberal, and an incredibly corrupt one at that. He'll be annihilated in a GE, and if by some miracle he gets elected, he'll be no better than Bush.
Edwards, of course, is just as electable as Dean. But he'll also never get nominated. Why? Because the DNC doesn't want to win. They want to lose big so Bush gets even more brazen and the general public is desperate enough to accept Hillary in 2008.
Hate to break it to you, but that doesn't help. Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Dragon Warrior were all NES games. A Game Boy emulator does nothing to help you play those.
You aren't voting for Edwards or Dean (both of whom would actually have a chance of winning) because the Republicans told you not to. They told you Kerry was winning, and that you should vote for him because of that, and you believed him.
Guess Democrats are just as stupid as the rest of the sheep, eh?
*stares* You think they were dry? Of all words, dry? Startide Rising and The Uplift War were full of... emotion, description, action... they were fucking organic. Sundiver was far plainer and drier than those 2. I thought the characters and plots were thoroughly engrossing.
Yeah, I did. Sundiver at least had an interesting mystery and some nifty characters behind it. SR and TUW basically had the same re-hashed "sci-fi" stereotype characters. I also got tired of all the hinting about all this massive stuff that was going to change the universe and never actually SEEING any of it. Those two books were basically Brin treading water and trying to play out the story a little before his next trilogy started.
I will concur that Brin lacks the "oh, look at how scentific I am" self-importance of authors like Egan or Bear's more blatantly commercial stuff. Unfortunately, this isn't quite enough to save him. He's got interesting technology, sure, and the setting for SR was interesting... But I found that the plots and characters of both books just felt flat.
Plus, this puts him in the same category of "science fiction" as Hamilton and McCarthy. (Specifically, borderline space opera) And while Hamilton's "Neutronium Alchemist", etc. books did tend to drag on (thanks to "Robert Jordan syndrome" - he has too many separate groups of characters running around, most of which are unrelated to the main plot about Joshua until the very end), Fallen Dragon was incredible. McCarthy's Bloom and The Wellstone were so-so, but The Collapsium was awesome.
Ah, point. Though I'd think the two-ended-ribbon would be more useful in general, as you don't just have a lift platform but an interplanetary launch platform. However, I can see building single-ended designs first...
Another interesting idea are skyhooks, which are basically beanstalks that don't touch the ground and don't have to be in geosynch orbit. Instead, their lower end's moving through the atmosphere at a reasonable clip at the right altitude and speed for well-designed and still fairly cheap aircraft to be able to dock.
Large companies are also usually desperate to keep the balance sheet looking good, and so shed jobs at the slightest provocation. Every economic study I've seen shows them as being unhealthy for the economy - they're just one big, massive drain on the wealth created by small and medium-sized businesses. Ditto for the incredibly rich - the modestly rich have a desire to use their money. The incredibly rich just want to blow it on buying $50 billion a bottle alcohol, yaughts, houses, and parties from other incredibly rich people.
In short, Reagan proved trickle-down economics don't work. Unfortunately, many neo-conservatives and Randroids either haven't gotten the message yet or are among the tiny fraction of a percent that benefits from them.
Having watched it, I must agree. Sen was a little less annoying, but everyone else just felt flat. Especially Komaji and Haku, who really made the movie for me the first time I watched it. (With the real audio track, of course)
Yeah, I'm aware of this. Thank God Ghibli had the muscle and brains to push that into their contract (though after Warriors of the Wind, I'd have been surprised if they hadn't) and Disney was desperate enough for new blood that they let it in. Otherwise, we'd NEVER see uncut versions of Ghibli movies over here - they'd all be changed to star Mickey Mouse or something.
Exactly. Sun's got nothing here, but they always trot out that tired old horse whenever someone suggests they open their Java code. And of course, most OSS types, being absolutely terrified of Microsoft, go along with it.
That seems to be obligatory for any "sci-fi" book review here on Slashdot. Every one I can think of that I spared more than a cursory look at in the past six months has been nothing more than picking a space opera author and bitching about them.
Fine, I'll look you in the eye and tell you that I can't stand reading David Brin. His characters are flat and lifeless, altered however necessary to get across whatever "insightful" political or philosophical point he wants to emphasize this paragraph. Sundiver was okay, but Startide Rising and the Uplift War were absolutely hideously dry. Not only can he not do characters, he can't do plots or interesting situations either. I had to struggle to finish both of the above.
I'll look you in the eye and tell you that 90% of Greg Bear's stuff is written to capitalize on "market trends". How? You can tell when he's writing something because he WANTS to - then you get masterpieces like "Moving Mars" or "Songs of Earth and Power", and not tripe like Eon, or Anvil of Stars, or Slant.
I'll look yo in the eye and tell you Gregory Benford is a hack. His Galactic Center series was muddled and poorly-written.
All of the above are why sci-fi sucks. They're excellent examples of the "Plot? Characterization? Who needs those! We've got SCIENCE!" school of thought. They're so wrapped up in how scientifically accurate they are that they totally forget that scientific accuracy is not and has never been an element of an engaging story. Especially since their "accurate" predictions usually get disproven or debunked by scientists within six months of publication anyway.
And don't try telling me that they're pondering about the human condition, or how things might turn out, because that's crap. To do that, you need characterization and plot, and they don't give a damn about that. They just want to coerce little geeks like you into thinking you're so smart and so sophisticated, reading a book that's so scientifically accurate and nodding your head and going "yeah, that's so true".
Why should these scientists be any less prone to political bias than anyone else?
Because on one side, there's 20 Nobel laureates from a number of disciplines and both sides of the political fence stepping up and saying "Using science in this way is wrong!". And on the other, there's a professional lying snake saying "those people are doodie-heads!"
Who do YOU think I'm going to believe?
Yeah... Vote third party. Because it looks like the Democritans are going to nominate George W. Kerry, while the Republicrats are going with John Bush. Or was that John Kerry and George W. Bush? I can never tell, their positions on everything under the sun are so similar.
In short: elect Kerry, four more years of Bush. Elect Bush, four more years of Kerry.
Except:
- Microsoft had already done this... And, in fact, still IS. That's ALL .Net is, no matter what the MS zealots try to claim. Sun's keeping things closed hasn't helped them there at all.
- Mr. Schwartz was muddying the waters by confusing trademarks and code. Sun could still open the code but retain a trademark on Java in the appropriate domain. So if Microsoft tried this, they could be sued under TRADEMARK law and forced to re-label their product.
Disown them? What the heck are you talking about? Just because they're the fathers of the movement and contributed a great deal to its development doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean they speak for the whole movement, or even that they are in any way characteristic of it. Using this logic, one could try to reason about George W. Bush based on the actions of George Washington, an exercise doomed to failure.
Spirited Away wasn't Disney either, TYVM. It was written, animated, and directed by Studio Ghibli, possibly the best animation company on the planet. Disney just took it, attached a half-hearted dub, dutifully shoved it in theaters for a few days to honor their contractual obligations, and then crossed their fingers and hoped it wouldn't overshadow their carefully-chosen "hit" movies.
Unfortunately for them, it did.
Looks like Disney hasn't had any hits in years. They've just been selling other people's. Guess all those copyright extensions they pushed for haven't helped their creative output much at all, have they?
Right... So the US gets all the cheap, sweatshop manufacturing jobs and India gets all the high-paying knowledge jobs... And we're supposed to be glad about this?
I believe that this is, in fact, incorrect. The Satellite reels out cable in BOTH directions at once, to keep itself balanced. This also gives you a rather convenient way of launching interplanetary spacecraft - run them out to the end of the cable and then let go.
Actually, Bush has been increasing funding, and shows no sign of stopping. Tax cuts are an excuse to cut public funding - medicare, education, social security, NASA, intelligence, and the like - while boosting corporate welfare and payoffs to the richest 1% (which compose 99% of the Bush White House - big surprise!).
Good question, and one no-one seems to want to answer. Most will handwave and make vague comments about "expanding economy" or "dealing with people" or "management", but that's bull. This is the start of an offensive to eliminate the American middle class, and replace it with a permanent base of slave labour in "developing countries".
So if service jobs, creative jobs, research jobs, and development jobs all get outsourced... What's left and why, exactly, will the economy survive? Oh, right, we'll all get jobs dealing with people face-to-face, selling things to people with no money. Or we'll all wind up being managers.
Excuse me while I look skeptical and write this off as one more piece to make executives feel more comfortable about destroying their country and killing the population.
Also note that the speach they lifted that information from apparently dates back to March 2002. Back when we were all hoping Bush would put together a sensible response to the 9/11 attacks. Instead, we got Iraq II: Mine's Bigger!, the PATRIOT act, PATRIOT II, Total Information Awareness, and other such things.
And that Digitally Restricted Medium won't be legally protected. So they wouldn't be able to go after people for saying "Oh, by the way, if you flip this bit, you can copy just fine."
I dunno... The guy who directed Samurai Jack and Powerpuff Girls is doing a pretty decent job with the Clone Wars shorts. If he offs Lucas and assumes his identity, than Episode III might not be a suckfest.