This is a fair point, but it still doesn't detract from the simple fact that Lucas's first Star Wars movie was the best by any measure and for any age group, and that the sequels or prequels or whatever they were got progressively more leaden and boring. To the point where I really find all of those follow-ups unwatchable.
That would be so cool. Imagine a vastly powerful, intergalactic race, tracing the origins of the only extraterrestrial contact they've ever had, these probes. Imagine they find their path circling back around, to originate from their very own home planet, from so far in the past as to be lost beyond memory.
The only real reason for life to organize into multi cellular structures that I can think of is to build radio telescopes and look for other clusters of cells that have done the same on other worlds.
I doubt that very much. There must be a thermodynamic motivation for the development of multicellular organisms despite the fact they are negentropic (trap information) - living organisms metabolize energy to maintain structure and information (and so don't decay).
Your explanation means assuming a mystical anthropocentric driving force to evolution otherwise it's nonsensical - maybe there is one but can it be proved? How can the existence of multi cellular organisms on other planets exert selection pressure here (unless they invade)?
The problem is: sex tends to be emotionally bonding. This is true for some more than others, sure. This is why some people, even for non-moral reasons, say it is better to wait before f*ck*ng a woman rather than become attached to someone very inappropriate.
But being a geek I tend to want to strike while my iron is hot ie in case she goes off me.
Afterthought concerning my other replies here (if you can be bothered finding them):
[anecdote]An old friend of mine was regarded by females as the best looking male in the universe - think young John Travolta. He lost his virginity at 13yo to a 19yo model. He was (is) also a very charming and charismatic guy. He left school early and worked in a very sexy industry and was literally buried in beautiful girls. He f*ck*d and dumped all of them, sometimes having sex with 2 or more per day (this was pre-AIDS too). I was so jealous you would not believe it.
He did live with some women for extended times in relationships and eventually settled down quite a lot. He was hurt once while very young as I recall. But he did not marry until quite late, to a younger woman with her own career. They split up because "she" did not want to settle down and placed her career first.
So, despite his 10+ attractiveness rating, we both have ended up alone, though he has had a lot more sex along the way.[/anecodote]
how do you POSSIBLY apply a statistical analysis on something as subjective as a womans physical attractiveness?
Very easily and it's been done quite a lot - because physical attractiveness is not very subjective. Certain facial geometries and physical attractiveness correlate very strongly and this is proven and consistent across cultures.
Sexual biology is the ultimate fascist. Haven't you noticed how much easier it is for very good looking people to attract the opposite sex, even if they're a complete asshole/nerd? "Nice personality" rates a long way down if you're a 10 on the Uglymeter.
Very pretty Geeks usually have girls. As the old saying goes: beauty may be only skin deep, but ugly goes way down, layer after layer...
Plastic surgery could in fact be a very good investment.
This is way cool, yes. But I miss the obfuscated C contest which was also way cool eg in terms of discovering legal features of the language that probably should never get used LOL. What happened to it?
And isn't it correct that women still aren't allowed on the front line? Inequitable!
I fully support the right of women to be shot full of holes and tortured to death by the enemy. Why should men have all the fun?
Yeah, well, it's the same stupid government there with the same stupid think-of-the-children -or terrorists-so-we-can-implement-more-oppressive-shit agenda as the dangerous morons in the UK. Unfortunately the opposition don't look any better.
So you are in favor of state-allowed murder in prison then? Isn't that hypercritical? Why should we tolerate murder anywhere?
Murder is murder, whether the victim is Jeffrey Dahmer or an innocent child. I'm not saying there can't be mitigating circumstances, but it still is a crime.
Sentencing should be honest and transparent in a fair society. If someone is sentenced to X years in prison, then that is their punishment - not tacitly being sentenced to being raped/killed/tortured by inmates or guards because of the general public's lust for vengeance.
Gee - this is one of the dumbest and most redneck/. threads I've seen for a while: "string 'em up y'all it's cheaper and besides it gives me a hard on!"
Execution in the US is *FAR* more expensive than life imprisonment. Google on it.
An appeal is mandatory for a death sentence and appeals are expensive. By the time all appeals are exhausted, the convict has been on death row for many years and has been subjected to the psychological torture of knowing they will be executed for all those years.
The US is the last Western country to not view the death sentence as hypocritical, cruel, and not infrequently unjust. In my view, it's more than that also - it's giving the State one power it should never have.
Genetic evidence has shown that the wrong people have been executed in the US many times in the past. "Whoops, sorry 'bout that guy, looks like we goofed and you're dead."
You're still executing the mentally handicapped. Didn't you off a few minors in the South not that long ago?
Yep. No recognizable words in any common language and a character space including alphanumeric, punctuation and weird chars - plus say the perp uses 30 characters in the passphrase....
And then they have no way of knowing what char types the passphrase might span, other than a guess, so they'd have to assume the worst for brute force.
How many lifetimes of the present universe did you say they've got to crack that thing?
Unbelievable - it's actually close to anonymous? Watch them close this up just as fast as you can say Tor.
Is this the case in other countries as well?
Now I'm going to have nightmares thinking about that elephant's sock puppet master. Will I ever get out of the cheese log cabin?
Look, it's clear that you're influenced by the French symbolists but can we please have less terrifying poetry?
Historically when the "guys on the ships" meet the "guys on the shore", the guys on the shore don't do very well.
Stephen Hawking famously made this point and advised against mindlessly blasting messages at stars. We just never know what is listening and how they might perceive us to be a threat. Their technology and science might be much more advanced than ours and we have no way of knowing what they might be able to do.
Arguments that an advanced civilization must have learned how to survive peacefully and therefore, if they exist, are all touchy-feely sweethearts may not hold water. We could be sending messages at the galactic equivalent of Hitler or Genghis Khan.
And yes, I saw "Contact" too and used to watch Dr Who.
Exactly. Chrichton was no great stylist but he did outstanding background research and usually had a point about society in mind.
George Lucas is a huge disappointment. He started out making great films (eg American Graffiti) then went down the tube with the moronic Star Bores endless sequels which are space opera not SF.
*Really* was rhetorical. I was saying that a new language has to prove its worth in the field before I put several hundred hours into learning it.
I'm not against experimentation and exploration in the academy. But I want to know that a language already has proved itself. I'll leave farting around with experimental languages to those who enjoy farting around with experimental languages.
Slashdot Mirror
This is a fair point, but it still doesn't detract from the simple fact that Lucas's first Star Wars movie was the best by any measure and for any age group, and that the sequels or prequels or whatever they were got progressively more leaden and boring. To the point where I really find all of those follow-ups unwatchable.
That would be so cool. Imagine a vastly powerful, intergalactic race, tracing the origins of the only extraterrestrial contact they've ever had, these probes. Imagine they find their path circling back around, to originate from their very own home planet, from so far in the past as to be lost beyond memory.
Awesome.
Which trilogy was that again?
I rather liked "Contact". Read the Carl Sagan book, too.
The only real reason for life to organize into multi cellular structures that I can think of is to build radio telescopes and look for other clusters of cells that have done the same on other worlds.
I doubt that very much. There must be a thermodynamic motivation for the development of multicellular organisms despite the fact they are negentropic (trap information) - living organisms metabolize energy to maintain structure and information (and so don't decay). Your explanation means assuming a mystical anthropocentric driving force to evolution otherwise it's nonsensical - maybe there is one but can it be proved? How can the existence of multi cellular organisms on other planets exert selection pressure here (unless they invade)?
Cunts, on slashdot...?
You must be from Mars or something... Welcome, lifeform!!
I, for one, welcome our new c*nt overlords.
But being a geek I tend to want to strike while my iron is hot ie in case she goes off me.
I've also realized that all girls are soul-sucking bitches...
Lol! Love that - one to quote!
[anecdote]An old friend of mine was regarded by females as the best looking male in the universe - think young John Travolta. He lost his virginity at 13yo to a 19yo model. He was (is) also a very charming and charismatic guy. He left school early and worked in a very sexy industry and was literally buried in beautiful girls. He f*ck*d and dumped all of them, sometimes having sex with 2 or more per day (this was pre-AIDS too). I was so jealous you would not believe it.
He did live with some women for extended times in relationships and eventually settled down quite a lot. He was hurt once while very young as I recall. But he did not marry until quite late, to a younger woman with her own career. They split up because "she" did not want to settle down and placed her career first.
So, despite his 10+ attractiveness rating, we both have ended up alone, though he has had a lot more sex along the way.[/anecodote]
The people who need to be worried are the outliers.
"Outlier" = "Geek"
how do you POSSIBLY apply a statistical analysis on something as subjective as a womans physical attractiveness?
Very easily and it's been done quite a lot - because physical attractiveness is not very subjective. Certain facial geometries and physical attractiveness correlate very strongly and this is proven and consistent across cultures.
Sexual biology is the ultimate fascist. Haven't you noticed how much easier it is for very good looking people to attract the opposite sex, even if they're a complete asshole/nerd? "Nice personality" rates a long way down if you're a 10 on the Uglymeter.
Very pretty Geeks usually have girls. As the old saying goes: beauty may be only skin deep, but ugly goes way down, layer after layer ...
Plastic surgery could in fact be a very good investment.
My ex-girlfriend *was* an alien. Or looked like one anyway. Now what are the chances of that Dr Drake?
This is way cool, yes. But I miss the obfuscated C contest which was also way cool eg in terms of discovering legal features of the language that probably should never get used LOL. What happened to it?
And isn't it correct that women still aren't allowed on the front line? Inequitable! I fully support the right of women to be shot full of holes and tortured to death by the enemy. Why should men have all the fun?
Yeah, well, it's the same stupid government there with the same stupid think-of-the-children -or terrorists-so-we-can-implement-more-oppressive-shit agenda as the dangerous morons in the UK. Unfortunately the opposition don't look any better.
Of these, it can only be proven effective at accomplishing the 3rd purpose.
No rehabilitation? That is an absolute lie.
typo: s/hypercritical/hypocritical/
So you are in favor of state-allowed murder in prison then? Isn't that hypercritical? Why should we tolerate murder anywhere? Murder is murder, whether the victim is Jeffrey Dahmer or an innocent child. I'm not saying there can't be mitigating circumstances, but it still is a crime. Sentencing should be honest and transparent in a fair society. If someone is sentenced to X years in prison, then that is their punishment - not tacitly being sentenced to being raped/killed/tortured by inmates or guards because of the general public's lust for vengeance.
Gee - this is one of the dumbest and most redneck /. threads I've seen for a while: "string 'em up y'all it's cheaper and besides it gives me a hard on!"
Execution in the US is *FAR* more expensive than life imprisonment. Google on it.
An appeal is mandatory for a death sentence and appeals are expensive. By the time all appeals are exhausted, the convict has been on death row for many years and has been subjected to the psychological torture of knowing they will be executed for all those years.
The US is the last Western country to not view the death sentence as hypocritical, cruel, and not infrequently unjust. In my view, it's more than that also - it's giving the State one power it should never have.
Genetic evidence has shown that the wrong people have been executed in the US many times in the past. "Whoops, sorry 'bout that guy, looks like we goofed and you're dead."
You're still executing the mentally handicapped. Didn't you off a few minors in the South not that long ago?
Yep. No recognizable words in any common language and a character space including alphanumeric, punctuation and weird chars - plus say the perp uses 30 characters in the passphrase ....
And then they have no way of knowing what char types the passphrase might span, other than a guess, so they'd have to assume the worst for brute force.
How many lifetimes of the present universe did you say they've got to crack that thing?
Unbelievable - it's actually close to anonymous? Watch them close this up just as fast as you can say Tor. Is this the case in other countries as well?
Now I'm going to have nightmares thinking about that elephant's sock puppet master. Will I ever get out of the cheese log cabin? Look, it's clear that you're influenced by the French symbolists but can we please have less terrifying poetry?
Historically when the "guys on the ships" meet the "guys on the shore", the guys on the shore don't do very well.
Stephen Hawking famously made this point and advised against mindlessly blasting messages at stars. We just never know what is listening and how they might perceive us to be a threat. Their technology and science might be much more advanced than ours and we have no way of knowing what they might be able to do.
Arguments that an advanced civilization must have learned how to survive peacefully and therefore, if they exist, are all touchy-feely sweethearts may not hold water. We could be sending messages at the galactic equivalent of Hitler or Genghis Khan.
And yes, I saw "Contact" too and used to watch Dr Who.
... which in the eyes of any advanced culture should make earth look like it's populated with some crazy monkeys flinging shit at each other.
Sounds like an accurate description. You must have watched UK Parliament broadcasts, right?
George Lucas is a huge disappointment. He started out making great films (eg American Graffiti) then went down the tube with the moronic Star Bores endless sequels which are space opera not SF.
*Really* was rhetorical. I was saying that a new language has to prove its worth in the field before I put several hundred hours into learning it. I'm not against experimentation and exploration in the academy. But I want to know that a language already has proved itself. I'll leave farting around with experimental languages to those who enjoy farting around with experimental languages.