I was at a class recently run by Tim Powers (Anubis Gates, Earthquake Weather, Declare, and others) and he emphasized his bias against "Message" SF. Specifically, he cited Stuff in Galaxy in the 70's: wonderfully written but everything was a metaphor for Vietnam, LSD, or hippies.
For every rule, there's at least one exception: The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman.
Yeah, it's a pity Road to Moscow died in the ass. But there have been previous attempts to do something similar, eg SSG's classic Battlefront series of operational level wargames, as well as their epic War in Russia. Of course, these games came out in the 80s, so they weren't exactly purty, but they sure were fun. Maybe I'm lazy, but I liked the idea of telling my commanders I wanted such and such a city captured, and letting them figure out how to do it:) You could also choose to play one of the subordinate commands, and obey the orders coming from above... good games.
Of course, SSG also made Reach for the Stars and Warlords... not a bad track record!
Well, it's not JUST a marketing ploy - the Zeppelin NT was contructed by the Zeppelin company... ie the same Zeppelin company which made the original Zeppelins, founded by Graf von Zeppelin. They've always been around; they just haven't been making Zeppelins since the late 1930s...
While I agree with your general point, airships have been touted as the "airplane killer" since
before there were airplanes - Zeppelin's first flight was in 1900 if memory serves.
Until 1909 or so, airships were usually seen as the future of powered flight; in fact, the
first edition of Jane's Aircraft, published in that year, was called Jane's All the World's Air-ships, even though it actually listed more airplanes than airships.
Well... now that you mention this idea, how do you know they aren't doing this already?
Sounds like it could be causing half the win and macos problems I have to troubleshoot every week! --
Well, it's not the first time, actually - rockets
were launched from the Woomera test range way back when, and Australia even designed, built and launched a satellite (WRESAT 1) back in 1967. Of course, this makes your comment even more ironic, since Woomera has more recently become infamous as a refugee detention centre! --
Not quite, we Australians allowed the British to test
nukes there. I don't think the Americans ever
tested bombs here, why would they need to? They had Nevada and lots of small Pacific islands. --
Oh yeah, Beach Head II! Loved that game. My favourite bit was during the prison break phase,
if you shot the escapee he would say "hey, don't shoot *me*!" That and the GIs landing on the beach who would shout "Medic!" when they were shot...
And yeah, it was "Impossible Mission"... never
did finish that game. That fact doesn't quite seem so important now as it once was:) --
IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that Microsoft isn't legally bound to obey the terms of its own license... you know, it is *their* software, they can do what they like with it. --
But University of Melbourne geochronologist Richard Roberts and
colleagues used advanced new techniques to get the answer. They found
that the mass extinction occurred around 46,400 years ago, give or take
3,000 years.
Hey! I'm the IT guy at the department where Richard (Bert) Roberts works. Woohoo!
Pity he's just resigned. Doh!
Tim Flannery (also mentioned in the linked article) wrote a very interesting book a few years back called The Future Eaters. It was an eye-opener for me on fire-stick farming and megafaunal extinctions due to humans in Australian prehistory. Very cool book, although the guy in the office next to me snorts in derision every time I mention it (Well, he did discover Mungo Man in 1974, the oldest known human remains in Australia - so I guess he's entitled to his opinion:) Flannery has a new book out on the ecological history of North America, The Eternal Frontier, which also looks interesting. --
Sir Arthur's The Fountains of Paradise? Pretty sure that was the first story (he claimed it was, anyway) but... damn my feeble memory, I reread it a few months ago but I can't remember if there was a terrorist attack of any kind. I don't think so... --
Surely that was just a CB radio-type thing, rather
than anything like as sophisticated as a cell phone. I doubt it was even connected to the phone network in any way - why bother? As you say, it was for talking to his generals, it didn't need to be able to hook up with anyone else. --
Here's another recent one: the British Library
resurrected Nelson Mandela's speech given at his
trial in 1964. It was recorded on a (non-digital)
vinyl system, called "dictabelt". Heat was
involved here too, to enable the stylus to track
the grooves properly; the BL's surviving player had to be rebuilt to get any sound at all. Top stuff.
This is probably as good a place as any to mention the Dead Media Project... --
Oddly (or not) enough, there's already a bestiality-themed parody of "Tie me kangaroo down, sport", entitled "Bestiality's Best (Fuck a Wallaby)". Best sung on your way to a drunken a stupor... the chorus refering to the toad always cracked me up for some reason:) --
Oh, and your "neighbours" analogy is flawed
as well as offensive: your clean-cut business man
would also be murdering other families in
their sleep. --
None of the official Star Trek documentation lists anything of a ship called "Enterprise" prior to NCC-1701, and after the Barbados Patrol Craft
commisioned in 1981. They're trying to come off as saying that this new series is Pre-TOS, but it doesn't fit.
Now, I'm no Trekkie, but I remember when I was a kid reading the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology (early 80s sometime), which did have an Enterprise preceding the one in TOS. This was an interstellar passenger liner, which was shaped like a rod through two large rings. It may not be canon, but in the first ST movie, when they showed the previous ships of that name, the passenger liner Enterprise was shown. I doubt it's the one in this new series (if it's not a hoax) - it's a civilian ship for a start - but sheesh, you'd think an anal star trek nerd could get these details right!;)
(And you're telling me canon ST literature lists
freaking Barbados patrol boats?? I'm sorry, you guys are just nuts.)
PS Here's a link which mentions the passenger liner and the Barbados patrol boat for good measure: --
You do not RC. Solaris 2.x is pretty much System V through
and through. Solaris 1 (AKA SunOS 4.x) was
BSD (Solaris and SunOS have very little
in common - Solaris is a completely new OS, with some backwards compatibility). Linux is just bleh. Personally, I like the consistency of
Solaris in this respect. --
In this age of RTS games I think we need new, good turn based strategy game. Something I haven't seen since
Alpha Centauri.
Amen to that! I get so sick of RTS games... the
'instant reaction' aspect of RTS isn't really
appropriate for a galaxy-spanning conquest game,
anyway. ("Admiral Gawerfasd, I want you to launch... no wait, Udfaf IV is under attack! I must take command there. Now... oops, I forgot to order the construction of those new dreadnoughts. Great Ga-LAX-y! Just how is one person supposed to run an Empire all by themselves anyway??")
Has anyone tried the new version of Reach For The Stars from SSG? The 80s
version was a classic, and one of the original 4X games... I haven't tried the new version, wondered if it was any good. --
Slashdot Mirror
For every rule, there's at least one exception: The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman.
Of course, SSG also made Reach for the Stars and Warlords ... not a bad track record!
Well, it's not JUST a marketing ploy - the Zeppelin NT was contructed by the Zeppelin company ... ie the same Zeppelin company which made the original Zeppelins, founded by Graf von Zeppelin. They've always been around; they just haven't been making Zeppelins since the late 1930s ...
While I agree with your general point, airships have been touted as the "airplane killer" since before there were airplanes - Zeppelin's first flight was in 1900 if memory serves. Until 1909 or so, airships were usually seen as the future of powered flight; in fact, the first edition of Jane's Aircraft, published in that year, was called Jane's All the World's Air-ships, even though it actually listed more airplanes than airships.
Well ... now that you mention this idea, how do you know they aren't doing this already?
Sounds like it could be causing half the win and macos problems I have to troubleshoot every week!
--
ummmmm, I thought he meant that Trelane was the first Q to appear in Star Trek ... not that he was the first Q to exist in the Star Trek universe.
--
Well, it's not the first time, actually - rockets were launched from the Woomera test range way back when, and Australia even designed, built and launched a satellite (WRESAT 1) back in 1967. Of course, this makes your comment even more ironic, since Woomera has more recently become infamous as a refugee detention centre!
--
Not quite, we Australians allowed the British to test nukes there. I don't think the Americans ever tested bombs here, why would they need to? They had Nevada and lots of small Pacific islands.
--
And yeah, it was "Impossible Mission" ... never
did finish that game. That fact doesn't quite seem so important now as it once was :)
--
IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that Microsoft isn't legally bound to obey the terms of its own license ... you know, it is *their* software, they can do what they like with it.
--
Hey! I'm the IT guy at the department where Richard (Bert) Roberts works. Woohoo!
Pity he's just resigned. Doh!
Tim Flannery (also mentioned in the linked article) wrote a very interesting book a few years back called The Future Eaters . It was an eye-opener for me on fire-stick farming and megafaunal extinctions due to humans in Australian prehistory. Very cool book, although the guy in the office next to me snorts in derision every time I mention it (Well, he did discover Mungo Man in 1974, the oldest known human remains in Australia - so I guess he's entitled to his opinion :) Flannery has a new book out on the ecological history of North America, The Eternal Frontier , which also looks interesting.
--
I've never found out if their tails came off though :)
--
Well, Heinlein may as well have died in the early seventies for all the decent writing he did thereafter. There was Job, and that's about it.
--
Sir Arthur's The Fountains of Paradise? Pretty sure that was the first story (he claimed it was, anyway) but ... damn my feeble memory, I reread it a few months ago but I can't remember if there was a terrorist attack of any kind. I don't think so ...
--
Surely that was just a CB radio-type thing, rather than anything like as sophisticated as a cell phone. I doubt it was even connected to the phone network in any way - why bother? As you say, it was for talking to his generals, it didn't need to be able to hook up with anyone else.
--
This is probably as good a place as any to mention the Dead Media Project ...
--
Oddly (or not) enough, there's already a bestiality-themed parody of "Tie me kangaroo down, sport", entitled "Bestiality's Best (Fuck a Wallaby)". Best sung on your way to a drunken a stupor ... the chorus refering to the toad always cracked me up for some reason :)
--
Oh, and your "neighbours" analogy is flawed as well as offensive: your clean-cut business man would also be murdering other families in their sleep.
--
The Volksempfänger. Yeah, I can see that award taking off :) You could call them the "Volkies", I guess!
--
30 nautical miles is one friggin' huge transistor!
--
Now, I'm no Trekkie, but I remember when I was a kid reading the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology (early 80s sometime), which did have an Enterprise preceding the one in TOS. This was an interstellar passenger liner, which was shaped like a rod through two large rings. It may not be canon, but in the first ST movie, when they showed the previous ships of that name, the passenger liner Enterprise was shown. I doubt it's the one in this new series (if it's not a hoax) - it's a civilian ship for a start - but sheesh, you'd think an anal star trek nerd could get these details right! ;)
(And you're telling me canon ST literature lists freaking Barbados patrol boats?? I'm sorry, you guys are just nuts.)
PS Here's a link which mentions the passenger liner and the Barbados patrol boat for good measure:
--
You do not RC. Solaris 2.x is pretty much System V through and through. Solaris 1 (AKA SunOS 4.x) was BSD (Solaris and SunOS have very little in common - Solaris is a completely new OS, with some backwards compatibility). Linux is just bleh. Personally, I like the consistency of Solaris in this respect.
--
It's just a web page, you know?
--
Mate, you should come to Australia ;)
--
Amen to that! I get so sick of RTS games ... the
'instant reaction' aspect of RTS isn't really
appropriate for a galaxy-spanning conquest game,
anyway. ("Admiral Gawerfasd, I want you to launch ... no wait, Udfaf IV is under attack! I must take command there. Now ... oops, I forgot to order the construction of those new dreadnoughts. Great Ga-LAX-y! Just how is one person supposed to run an Empire all by themselves anyway??")
Has anyone tried the new version of Reach For The Stars from SSG? The 80s version was a classic, and one of the original 4X games ... I haven't tried the new version, wondered if it was any good.
--