Gods! Its been years since I've seen Blake's 7. It used to be on when I was in middle school, but public televison couldn't get the money to show it, Dr. Who, and Red Dwarf all in the same year, so they dumped Blake's 7. I really liked the show, though I have a feeling I missed quite a bit of it, due to the fact that it didn't come on until 1:00 am, Friday night.
At any rate, the comparison between Blake's 7 and Farscape is rather striking, now that you mention it. Strong, hero type leader (Blake/Chriton); manipulative, greedy sneak (Avon/Rygel); there seem to be similarities between Pilot and the Liberator's computer (and the computer the picked up later... what was that called?... damn! its been a while!). And the constant pursuit by the authorities. Really, Farscape seems to be Blake's 7 with a budget and American accents. How interesting...
Basically, there is a great deal of fear among archaeologists (myself included) that sites with well published locations will become victim to looting or "pot hunting." This all relates to the National Historic Preservation Act and the Archaeological Resource Protection Act. It was deemed more important to protect such resources than to diclose to potential criminals where they might be able to dig up a few artifacts and make a quick buck.
However, just because archaeologist don't need to disclose such information doesn't mean that such information is not ever released. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is currently working of a project to mark and interperate many of the sites along the Pony Express Trail (yes, these are considered archaeological sites: they are older than 50 years and of great significance to US history). The Park Service was organized in large part to disseminate such information, take Chaco Canyon, Hovenweep or Mesa Verdi for examples.
Interestingly enough, this represents about a 270 degree turn around in the last 100 years. Oringinally, federally employed archaeologists were budgeted as "recreation." Their purpose was to hand out maps to tourists so that they could find the best places to collect projectile points (arrow heads). Through the 1950s and 1960s, conservation and an empirical approach to archaeology, rather than excavating for shiny objects, became much more important and the emphasis began to shift to the conservations of archaeological resources. In the early 1970s, Nixon (yes, Nixon) handed down an executive order that eventually became the basis for the National Historic Preservation Act.
From that time until very recently, most federally employed archaeologists have been very reluctant to give out any information at all, and that has been fine. However, some are now begining to realize that the only way to make people care about our shared heratige is to make that information available to the public, thus bringing us back to a point where more information is available, though still no maps showing the best places to loot:)
I hope that goes some way toward answering your question, though no doubt I have given you way more information than you really wanted.
The name of the port director responsible should be available under the
Freedom of Information Act. Very few government documents cannot be acessed, basically only military secrets and archaeological site reports.
Rather, architects were executed if their buildings collapsed and killed the owner. If the owner's son was killed, then the architects son was executed. Lex talionis.
I have one of the first Blue and White G3s, 300 MHz. I ran the OSX public beta for a while, but ultimatly went back to a dual booting Linux/OS 8 (now 9) box for several reasons (some that don't really apply to the new iMacs, but I am going to list them anyway. HA!)
It was slower than mud. I am told that the final version is faster, but I still don't think that OSX was really made to support a low end G3.
I detest Aqua. Perhaps I could learn to love it, but it is far to bright, with to many primary colors, funky visual effects, etc. I like simple greys, dark blues, and green text on a black background. I don't like all of the brightly colored windows and widgets.
Other window managers run poorly (or not at all, ie. KDE) under OSX, thus it is difficult to make Aqua better.
And, most importantly, I am far more comfortable with Linux. Of course, with time I would become comfortable with OSX as well, but like most people, I am resistant to change. Read Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolution . I'm not saying that this is a good atitude to have, just that it is a common atitude.
For me (at least) it has nothing to do with ego. It is more a matter of aesthetics.
So the goddess conceived an image in her mind, and it was of the stuff of Anu of the firmament. She dipped her hands in water and pinched off clay, she let it fall in the wilderness, and noble Enkidu was created.
Sorry, just curious about the user name... Don't mind my meaningless ranting.
The other nice thing about Bolo is how simple the game is. Tank, pillbox, supply depots. Tank attacks pillbox, tank dies. Yet, there is a great deal of effort and thought that can be expended in order to take a pillbox with out getting hit. It is also important where you put that pillbox. Such a simple concept, yet it becomes so complex, especially when you get more than four of five people playing...
The other great thing is the ability to easily create levels. Triggers are nice, and can make the game more interesting, but have you ever gotten the chance in any other game to drive a tank around your campus and blow stuff up? your home town? Shellbyville? There are some great maps of Harvey Mudd out there... wish I could find a link.
True enough, though my original point was not that it would not be able to analyze the poetry, but that it would have no ability to relate to a person how the poetry made it feel, as it would be devoid of emotion.
In hindsight, I realize that this point is also lost, as a clever algorithm could be written to recognize poetry or other art and create some kind of emotional reaction (rhymes imply poetry, I have been programed to respond to poetry by saying 'That makes me happy.')
And, despite the Vulcan like appearance that most/.'s would like to maintain, they are all affected by the world around them. Just see how upset they become when some social outcast shoots up a school, or how excited they are when some great piece of technology is revealed to the world.
Part of being human is having a culturally defined knowledge of what emotions are, how to react to situations, and to understand when others are expressing an emotion. Some are just better at it than others, by no means implying that there are people without that capacity.
I think the latter two seem reasonable, but it seems to me that passing the Turing Test is the most difficult of the three. Taking your example of the computer on Star Trek, it could parse speech, and it could probably maintain a conversation for a while, but it had no understanding of emotion, poetry, or art in general. It would be forced to answer a question about such topics with "I don't know what you mean" (or "Does not compute"). After getting the same (or similar responses) several times, I would begin to suspect that I was not talking to a human. I think we will have good voice recognition and generation a good bit before we have an AI that can pass the Turing Test.
Oh, I don't know. It seems that, given the proper facial and expression recognizing software, a computer could be taught to recongnize when a person is bluffing. With realistic artificial speach, bluffing could be acheived by the computer. Remember, 40 years ago, computers took up entire rooms and buildings. No one imagined, in their wildest dreams, that a computer could ever fit on a desk. Twenty five years ago, no one could possibly envision a computer with a 100 Gb hard drive (hell, hard drives weren't around either!)
The point is, the future is an unknown. Maybe true A.I. will come to pass, maybe it won't. But it seems silly to make assumptions about what future computers will and will not be able to do based upon the limitations of modern computers.
1) So far as I know, Gundam came later. Robotech is more than twwnty years old, and I am not sure how much earlier the original Japanese serieses are. I am willing to believe that there are other populare Japanese catoons that came earlier, and that there are other mech shows that came earlier; just name one...
2) I do realize that Robotech is a purely American phenonmenon, but it was still one of the first Japanese cartoons to become popular in the US, however butchered it might be.
Assuming you have not entirely dismissed the medium (I have no real problem with that either -- to each his own), some of the movies that I have most enjoyed are:
Anything by Miyazaki, i.e. Princess Mononoke (I prefer to watch things subtitled, but Mirimax did a good job with the dubbing on this one), Kiki'e Delivery Service, or My Neighbor Totoro. Princess Mononoke is about a PG-13 (i.e. people over the age of 13 ought to be able to enjoy it, younger people may not get it), but the other two are both children's films -- MAD entertaining, but if you don't like American cartoons for children, you probably won't like these.
Anything from Studio Gainex. Neon Genesis Evangelion is a pretty good series, though many people don't like various aspects, including the dubbing, story, and the ending. I have no problems with any of those things, but I've heard a lot of complaining. The Wings of Honneamase (sorry to butcher the spelling) is a very pretty movie about mans first venture into space, though it takes place in an alternate world. VERY well animated and written.
There are others, but I won't go into them now
Dragon Half. Two episodes of pure crack. It is hilarious. There is no real plot, the animation is best described as schizophrenic, and there are gratuitious breasts, but it is amazingly funny.
Macross Plus. Robotech is based on three serieses that showed in Japan. They were butchered together and badly dubbed to produce Robotech. Robotech is entertaining, and has its place (8-12 year olds), but is nothing compared to Macross Plus. Macross Plus is set in the same universe as Robotech, but far in the future. It can be found in either movie form or as a 6 ep. OAV; either dubbed or subbed. I would recommend the 6 ep. OAV, subbed. There is some truely remarkable music and animation, as well as really nice integration of CG and animation (none of this Titan A.E. b*llsh*t.
Grave of the Fireflies. This was produced by Studio Ghibli, which is where Miyazaki (mentioned above) works. It takes place at the end of WWII and is told from a Japanese perspective. It is one of the most depressing films I have ever seen, but it tells a story that is impossible to tell from an American point of view. If you can find it, watch it.
There are other things I could recommend, but if none of these are entertaining to you, then I don't think I could come up with anything else to convince you. If you are still willing to give the medium a chance, try to find genres that appeal to you and watch what you can within those. It does you no good to watch Star Wars when you like Gone with the Wind; likewise it does you no good to see Macross Plus (a sci-fi mech show) when you prefer Kiki's Delivery Service (a cute coming of age story about a 13 year old witch).
Think of good anime not as "exceptions," but as part of any medium.
Don't expect something to be good just because it is anime. Like any other medium (books, photographs, paintings), the majority of anime is crap, and of what is not crap, there is little common ground as to what is good. Do you go to American movies thinking that they are all good, or do you go thinking that it might be somewhat entertaining? There are good American movies and there are a whole lot more bad ones. Same goes for Japanese movies; and American cartoons; and (heaven forbid) Japanese cartoons.
What you are saying makes a lot of sense, but I don't think that it would be possible to like all anime any more than it would be possible to like all novels. Anime is a medium defined by (1) being animeted and (2) from Japan. This medium includes many genres, including sci-fi and romance; much of it is utter crap and some of it is incredibly good. This is true of any medium -- there are good films and bad films, good books and bad books, etc.
It is also important to remember that different people have different taste. I, for instance, really love both EVA and Cowboy Bebop. I agree that Cowboy Bebop would make a wonderful Saterday morning cartoon, I don't see why that is a bad thing. I agree that EVA is wonderfully animated and I found the story to be captivating... but I also like the movie 2001 a lot, and many people don't. It is simply a matter of taste.
What I find irksome is when people say "The only anime I like is..." or "I don't like anime because it is [violent | full o' sex | etc.]." That is like saying "The only movie I like is..." or "I don't like movies becaue they are [violent | full o' sex | etc.]."
Using the term "proto" makes perfect sense -- it was one of the defining pieces of the medium (note: anime is not a genre, it is a medium; several genres contained within the medium of anime might include: Mecha, Shojo, Hentai, and Fantasy); Robotech was also one of the first shows to incorporate giant mecha and the first that became popular in the US. To call it "proto-anime" implies that it is one of the early foundations of the medium, which (esspessially in the US) is what it is.
Escaflowne (features mecha, but that is not the point)
Kare Kano
Kiki's Delivery Service
Child's Toy
Tenchi
There is pleny of good anime that does not fit into the American stereotype of hentai, giant robots and martial arts, it just seems that these things sell in the US, so that's all we see.
I think that it is also easily possible to turn "zero sum" games into cooporative endevors, or to ignore the win/loose asspect and just play the game.
For example, chess and Monopoly. Chess does have a clear winner and looser, but I rarely play chess to win -- to beat the other person. In fact, if I did, I would quickly become very bitter from constantly getting my butt kicked. Chess is a game of great beauty to me... there are a nearly infinite number of outcomes; pieces move in millions of combinations to make nearly every game unique. To play chess against someone with great skill is a thrill; you are allowed to peek into the processes that shape their mind. Good chess is an artform.
Still, there is a winner and a looser... Monopoly does not have to be that way. Hell, you could make it much more like the real world by bringing the values of the last row or two of proporties down a bit. Even then, most people I know get bored with Monopoly after the first hour or two, and the game ends without a winner. Even if people don't get bored, it is possible to create a complicated real estate market within the game, with no winners or loosers, just two or three really rich players.
I'm sure that there are better examples that one could use, but ultimatly, if one wishes to play a "non-zero sum" game for fun, then any game they play can be made into a non-zero sum game with no trouble at all. If one is always striving to prove superiority over others, then any game played with them will be zero sum.
Jim Carey?!
It might work... but I am going to have to say no on generally principle... But there's no accounting for [my] taste, and I don't really like the man (or the actor).
Do you -- or does someone you know -- have a PS2? If you can get your hands on one, try Armored Core II. You are given a basic mech, but can upgrade it with all kinds of cool sh-t -- better guns, legs, arms, heads etc. You can use all sorts of color scemes, and do just about anything you want with you mech. The game has an arena where you can play two player split screen or two player/two PS2/two tv; the missions are challenging and all require just the right mech; and the ais in the arena go from pushovers to riduculously hard. It is a great game!
Yay for Nausicaa!!!! One of the best films in the world, though DANM hard to get in the US in a watchable form... I had to get fansub from Canada of all places. One can only hope that *shudder* Disney will release it on DVD with the Japaneese soundtrack in the next couple of years (they have the rights to it, but look at how they fscked around w/ Mononoke Hime... I just hope my DVD gets here sometime in this millenium...).
I have to agree that Akira is a bit overrated. It is slow and plodding and perhaps not the best thing for a newbie. Yes, it is a visually stunning film, and I like it very much, but if you want the story, I am told that the Manga (Japaneese comic book) on whick Akira is based is much better. There was another thread up a ways that mentions some really good anime for beginers...
Slashdot Mirror
Gods! Its been years since I've seen Blake's 7. It used to be on when I was in middle school, but public televison couldn't get the money to show it, Dr. Who, and Red Dwarf all in the same year, so they dumped Blake's 7. I really liked the show, though I have a feeling I missed quite a bit of it, due to the fact that it didn't come on until 1:00 am, Friday night.
At any rate, the comparison between Blake's 7 and Farscape is rather striking, now that you mention it. Strong, hero type leader (Blake/Chriton); manipulative, greedy sneak (Avon/Rygel); there seem to be similarities between Pilot and the Liberator's computer (and the computer the picked up later... what was that called?... damn! its been a while!). And the constant pursuit by the authorities. Really, Farscape seems to be Blake's 7 with a budget and American accents. How interesting...
I am glad to see that someone else has read Bored of the Rings.
-1 Offtopic
Of course... my bad. And I only use this information every day. Damn. Thought I had almost everything covered. Oh well.
Basically, there is a great deal of fear among archaeologists (myself included) that sites with well published locations will become victim to looting or "pot hunting." This all relates to the National Historic Preservation Act and the Archaeological Resource Protection Act. It was deemed more important to protect such resources than to diclose to potential criminals where they might be able to dig up a few artifacts and make a quick buck.
:)
However, just because archaeologist don't need to disclose such information doesn't mean that such information is not ever released. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is currently working of a project to mark and interperate many of the sites along the Pony Express Trail (yes, these are considered archaeological sites: they are older than 50 years and of great significance to US history). The Park Service was organized in large part to disseminate such information, take Chaco Canyon, Hovenweep or Mesa Verdi for examples.
Interestingly enough, this represents about a 270 degree turn around in the last 100 years. Oringinally, federally employed archaeologists were budgeted as "recreation." Their purpose was to hand out maps to tourists so that they could find the best places to collect projectile points (arrow heads). Through the 1950s and 1960s, conservation and an empirical approach to archaeology, rather than excavating for shiny objects, became much more important and the emphasis began to shift to the conservations of archaeological resources. In the early 1970s, Nixon (yes, Nixon) handed down an executive order that eventually became the basis for the National Historic Preservation Act.
From that time until very recently, most federally employed archaeologists have been very reluctant to give out any information at all, and that has been fine. However, some are now begining to realize that the only way to make people care about our shared heratige is to make that information available to the public, thus bringing us back to a point where more information is available, though still no maps showing the best places to loot
I hope that goes some way toward answering your question, though no doubt I have given you way more information than you really wanted.
Cheers.
The name of the port director responsible should be available under the Freedom of Information Act. Very few government documents cannot be acessed, basically only military secrets and archaeological site reports.
Congratulations to you both, and good luck and happiness for many years to come.
Rather, architects were executed if their buildings collapsed and killed the owner. If the owner's son was killed, then the architects son was executed. Lex talionis.
But I'm WAY offtopic.
It was slower than mud. I am told that the final version is faster, but I still don't think that OSX was really made to support a low end G3.
I detest Aqua. Perhaps I could learn to love it, but it is far to bright, with to many primary colors, funky visual effects, etc. I like simple greys, dark blues, and green text on a black background. I don't like all of the brightly colored windows and widgets.
Other window managers run poorly (or not at all, ie. KDE) under OSX, thus it is difficult to make Aqua better.
And, most importantly, I am far more comfortable with Linux. Of course, with time I would become comfortable with OSX as well, but like most people, I am resistant to change. Read Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolution . I'm not saying that this is a good atitude to have, just that it is a common atitude.
For me (at least) it has nothing to do with ego. It is more a matter of aesthetics.
Sorry, just curious about the user name... Don't mind my meaningless ranting.
The other great thing is the ability to easily create levels. Triggers are nice, and can make the game more interesting, but have you ever gotten the chance in any other game to drive a tank around your campus and blow stuff up? your home town? Shellbyville? There are some great maps of Harvey Mudd out there... wish I could find a link.
You may now groan at will.
In hindsight, I realize that this point is also lost, as a clever algorithm could be written to recognize poetry or other art and create some kind of emotional reaction (rhymes imply poetry, I have been programed to respond to poetry by saying 'That makes me happy.')
And, despite the Vulcan like appearance that most
Part of being human is having a culturally defined knowledge of what emotions are, how to react to situations, and to understand when others are expressing an emotion. Some are just better at it than others, by no means implying that there are people without that capacity.
I think the latter two seem reasonable, but it seems to me that passing the Turing Test is the most difficult of the three. Taking your example of the computer on Star Trek, it could parse speech, and it could probably maintain a conversation for a while, but it had no understanding of emotion, poetry, or art in general. It would be forced to answer a question about such topics with "I don't know what you mean" (or "Does not compute"). After getting the same (or similar responses) several times, I would begin to suspect that I was not talking to a human. I think we will have good voice recognition and generation a good bit before we have an AI that can pass the Turing Test.
The point is, the future is an unknown. Maybe true A.I. will come to pass, maybe it won't. But it seems silly to make assumptions about what future computers will and will not be able to do based upon the limitations of modern computers.
1) So far as I know, Gundam came later. Robotech is more than twwnty years old, and I am not sure how much earlier the original Japanese serieses are. I am willing to believe that there are other populare Japanese catoons that came earlier, and that there are other mech shows that came earlier; just name one...
2) I do realize that Robotech is a purely American phenonmenon, but it was still one of the first Japanese cartoons to become popular in the US, however butchered it might be.
----------
There are other things I could recommend, but if none of these are entertaining to you, then I don't think I could come up with anything else to convince you. If you are still willing to give the medium a chance, try to find genres that appeal to you and watch what you can within those. It does you no good to watch Star Wars when you like Gone with the Wind; likewise it does you no good to see Macross Plus (a sci-fi mech show) when you prefer Kiki's Delivery Service (a cute coming of age story about a 13 year old witch).
Well, good luck.
----------
Think of good anime not as "exceptions," but as part of any medium.
Don't expect something to be good just because it is anime. Like any other medium (books, photographs, paintings), the majority of anime is crap, and of what is not crap, there is little common ground as to what is good. Do you go to American movies thinking that they are all good, or do you go thinking that it might be somewhat entertaining? There are good American movies and there are a whole lot more bad ones. Same goes for Japanese movies; and American cartoons; and (heaven forbid) Japanese cartoons.
----------
What you are saying makes a lot of sense, but I don't think that it would be possible to like all anime any more than it would be possible to like all novels. Anime is a medium defined by (1) being animeted and (2) from Japan. This medium includes many genres, including sci-fi and romance; much of it is utter crap and some of it is incredibly good. This is true of any medium -- there are good films and bad films, good books and bad books, etc.
It is also important to remember that different people have different taste. I, for instance, really love both EVA and Cowboy Bebop. I agree that Cowboy Bebop would make a wonderful Saterday morning cartoon, I don't see why that is a bad thing. I agree that EVA is wonderfully animated and I found the story to be captivating... but I also like the movie 2001 a lot, and many people don't. It is simply a matter of taste.
What I find irksome is when people say "The only anime I like is..." or "I don't like anime because it is [violent | full o' sex | etc.]." That is like saying "The only movie I like is..." or "I don't like movies becaue they are [violent | full o' sex | etc.]."
----------
Using the term "proto" makes perfect sense -- it was one of the defining pieces of the medium (note: anime is not a genre, it is a medium; several genres contained within the medium of anime might include: Mecha, Shojo, Hentai, and Fantasy); Robotech was also one of the first shows to incorporate giant mecha and the first that became popular in the US. To call it "proto-anime" implies that it is one of the early foundations of the medium, which (esspessially in the US) is what it is.
----------
-
Kaze no tani no Nausicaa
-
Mononoke Hime
-
Escaflowne (features mecha, but that is not the point)
-
Kare Kano
-
Kiki's Delivery Service
-
Child's Toy
-
Tenchi
There is pleny of good anime that does not fit into the American stereotype of hentai, giant robots and martial arts, it just seems that these things sell in the US, so that's all we see.----------
I think that it is also easily possible to turn "zero sum" games into cooporative endevors, or to ignore the win/loose asspect and just play the game.
For example, chess and Monopoly. Chess does have a clear winner and looser, but I rarely play chess to win -- to beat the other person. In fact, if I did, I would quickly become very bitter from constantly getting my butt kicked. Chess is a game of great beauty to me... there are a nearly infinite number of outcomes; pieces move in millions of combinations to make nearly every game unique. To play chess against someone with great skill is a thrill; you are allowed to peek into the processes that shape their mind. Good chess is an artform.
Still, there is a winner and a looser... Monopoly does not have to be that way. Hell, you could make it much more like the real world by bringing the values of the last row or two of proporties down a bit. Even then, most people I know get bored with Monopoly after the first hour or two, and the game ends without a winner. Even if people don't get bored, it is possible to create a complicated real estate market within the game, with no winners or loosers, just two or three really rich players.
I'm sure that there are better examples that one could use, but ultimatly, if one wishes to play a "non-zero sum" game for fun, then any game they play can be made into a non-zero sum game with no trouble at all. If one is always striving to prove superiority over others, then any game played with them will be zero sum.
----------
Jim Carey?!
It might work... but I am going to have to say no on generally principle... But there's no accounting for [my] taste, and I don't really like the man (or the actor).
----------
Do you -- or does someone you know -- have a PS2? If you can get your hands on one, try Armored Core II. You are given a basic mech, but can upgrade it with all kinds of cool sh-t -- better guns, legs, arms, heads etc. You can use all sorts of color scemes, and do just about anything you want with you mech. The game has an arena where you can play two player split screen or two player/two PS2/two tv; the missions are challenging and all require just the right mech; and the ais in the arena go from pushovers to riduculously hard. It is a great game!
----------
Yay for Nausicaa!!!! One of the best films in the world, though DANM hard to get in the US in a watchable form... I had to get fansub from Canada of all places. One can only hope that *shudder* Disney will release it on DVD with the Japaneese soundtrack in the next couple of years (they have the rights to it, but look at how they fscked around w/ Mononoke Hime... I just hope my DVD gets here sometime in this millenium...).
----------
I have to agree that Akira is a bit overrated. It is slow and plodding and perhaps not the best thing for a newbie. Yes, it is a visually stunning film, and I like it very much, but if you want the story, I am told that the Manga (Japaneese comic book) on whick Akira is based is much better. There was another thread up a ways that mentions some really good anime for beginers...
----------