Thank you Timothy, for rolling out the red carpet for all the batshit crazy
commenters by promoting a foxnews fabrication on Slashdot. I've been
lurking for years but you got me mad enough to post now.
Check your F-ing sources. Get a second and a third source. Foxnews does not get the benefit of the doubt, not on Slashdot.
I stopped watching after season 8. What they should've done a long time ago is have the show reveal the Stargate program and deal with society afterwards. Bring on the outrage, the political manoeuvring, etc. Just don't use any groups of young boyscouts who inexplicably develop superhuman strength.
This survey should be held against the last survey that proclaimed that anyone spending more than 4 hours online per day is addicted to Internet. Considering an addiction is essentially abnormal behaviour, at what point can you no longer say a group of people is displaying abnormal behaviour - when that group is 40% of your population? 60%? 80%?
Take a new director, a new cast, a new script writer and base it on Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire trilogy. The only thing you'd need from Lucas is a license.
Zahn gives us
interesting characters: Talon Karrde, Mara Jade, Jedi C'Baoth, hell even the cat-like bodyguard race was damned interesting.
parallel storylines that are all interesting so you don't need to skip to the next interesting bit
the best Star Wars villain ever: Grand Admiral Thrawn. No throat-gurgling of recruits for deliver an undesirable message. Thrawn knows loyalty often produces better results than fear.
new ways to interact with the Force (think: ysalamiri). Lucas would never have come up with that.
Perhaps we're better off that Heir to the Empire exists only as a book. Hollywood would only screw it up.
The effect of drinking from the grail only had effect within the borders of the temple. Once past the seal on the floor, you were no longer immortal.
How do you then explain that the stomach wounds of Indy's dad didn't return when they left the Temple? I myself thought the drinking of the Grail tied in nicely with Young Indy adventures: the stories were told from Indiana as a spry 80-year old. Clearly he was meant to live a long, long time.
> For instance, book origin of species will turn up the full text > of Charles Darwin's controversial treatise.
Excellent framing, AC. We are now acknowledging that there is a "controversy" regarding "Origin of Species" - much in the same way that there is a "large number of complaints" about indecency on TV directed at the FCC (which turned out to be 8 people with a stencil machine).
> Pretend that my watch had a remote control that > let me turn it off. If you stole my watch, using > the remote control to turn off my watch would be > well within my rights. Thats all Valve is doing, > making the time and effort you went to to warez > their game meaningless.
A better analogy would be:
If you bought my watch, turning off the watch remotely would be within my rights. (or would it?)
What happens if you need to reinstall the game but the Steam servers can no longer be reached because Valve is out of business.
Will you say: a) screw Valve, I'll install a crack, or b) I will respect the intellectual property that was previously owned by Valve but is now bought up by some IP hoarding firm who can't be arsed to put up some servers. I will go back to playing Tetris.
And before you think this Steam business is HL2 only: if Steam goes down then so does the playing over the Internet for: Counterstrike, Day of Defeat and Team Fortress Classic.
Irritating when I upgrade the browser I have to start all over again with installing the Adblock extension and lost my huge list of blockable iframes and images...
Paul Waldman of Gadflyer has a good (I hesitate to call it uplifting) article called
Where Do We Go From Here?. A telling quote of his:
"We can now say with some assurance that there is virtually nothing in the world of politics - not organizing, not message development, not long-term planning, not discipline - at which Republicans are not more skillful than Democrats."
"Sigh. I really didn't want to have to write this."
and examines how Bush could possibly win.
What kills me is the fact that I'll be almost 40 before I see another president in the White House.
I'm not even American, but I felt (and still feel) sick to my stomach when I saw the election results.
I can only imagine how some of you, who actually voted, are feeling.
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
It's essentially built like a normal computer motherboard, but who in their right mind is using a low power embedded solution like this for a desktop?
I believe this is a meme whose time has not yet come.
Consider a modest homenetwork with a games PC, a mailserver/webserver and a firewall. With the exception of the games PC the other systems have to be on 24/7 to be really useful. Run a PC with a 300 watts PSU for one year and it costs you here, in the Netherlands, approx. 150 euros. I would want to change these always-on systems to low power boxes, think EPIA or a Soekris. A Soekris system runs normally on 10 watts. My TranquilPC uses about 25 to 30 watts. Its fanless, it looks cool and I play modest games on it - obviously not FPS games but it runs Linux just fine and functions as firewall.
I'm waiting for the industry to play catchup to my power concerns. Someday I'll be able to play those FPS games on a lowpower system.
Sure, and fusion power, solar power satellites, or artificial photosynthesis could make the whole discussion moot in a couple of decades.
I suppose from a terrorist point of view that blowing up one fusion reactor is a hell of a lot easier than blowing up hundreds of wind towers in a wind mill park.
In other news today: Dutch minister is considering an end to a moratorium on off-shore windmill parks. Goal would be 20 percent dependency on wind energy in 2020.
My translation of the Dutch Attorney General's website posting:
Large-scale investigation of Internet piracy
As a result of information provided by the US Department of Justice, Criminal Division, Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section, on April 21st 2004 raids took place in eight countries, among which the Netherlands.
The information pertains to international criminal organisations who - by using computers and the Internet - deal large-scale and worldwide exchange of illegal copies of digital files, which is against the laws of copyright. Such organisations are known in the internetworld (sic) as "Warez-groups".
A group known as "Fairlight" is one of the oldest and most wellknown groups in the warez-scene. This group exists since the mid-nineties and has the reputation to be responsible for cracking copy-protection of popular and high-grade entertainment sortware (sic), such as computer games. Fairlight is also known as one of the few Warez-groups out for financial gain.
Investigation officers of the FBI have investigated Fairlight's activities. The IP addresses of Fairlight's used computers have been determined, which yielded the physical locations of those computers. In a number of cases they appeared to be FTP servers located in the Netherlands which seemed to be used to storage and transport of illegal software.
Based on the information obtained from the American authorities there is the suspicion that a number of suspects who live the Netherlands, working together with persons living abroad, form an organisation which deals in copying or distributing works protected by copyright. There is the suspicion that this organisation has been active in the Netherlands for some years now. The persons and locations related to the known IP addresses have been further investigated.
On Wednesday April 21st 2004 at 3pm 14 apartments were searched by the FIOD-ECD led by the Functional Court (?) and with the support of the National Court (?). In addition several universities have been requested to submit storaged data which are related to the known IP addresses. The investigation took place in all cooperating countries simultaneously.
There will be no further announcements pending the investigation.
> Federal agents in Phoenix and elsewhere in the
> country raided schools and other targets in
> a national crackdown on pirated music CDs and movies.
Dutch news site NU.NL reports that the FIOD-ECD (Economic Crime Unit of the Dutch IRS) raided twenty locations on Wednesday, mostly campus locations in Groningen, Utrecht, etc in search of illegal software. This was done at the request of United States Customs Service (emphasis mine).
Dutch news sites often confuse one Federal service with another. Could this be related to the raids in Arizona and the "national crackdown"?
> The writers wasted no time updating/uprating Enterprises' systems and accoutrements ("phase pistols" anyone?) so now the ship is nearly indistinguishable from its descendants. The exploration oriented format is too similar to the preceding shows.
What I missed in Enterprise was an explanation of how they obtained all the technology - other than the warp drive:
replication. I would say that this is pretty society-wrecking technology and warrants a short storyline explaining how people "got over" replicating everything.
inertial damping. Pretty revolutionary yet no word about it how it was invented. The implication seems to be that this tech is so obvious that someone invented and perfected it on a Saturday afternoon. But imagine an episode where they show a few gruesome experiments of warp flight without the inertial damping!
shielding / hull polarization. Same tech, different label. But can't we have at least a few lines of dialogue about advances in metallurgy? Wouldn't the hull of a starship be made of buckyballs or something?
And my no.1 pet peeve tech:
scanning of lifeforms. How do you detect a lifeform and correctly identify it? A few lines of dialogue about it being an offshoot of military technology during the Eugenic Wars would be nice.
All of the above is technology that is taken for granted. In ST:First Contact we are presented with a wartorn earth where its a minor miracle that the warp ship would even be launched! Yet all of those other technologies earth had already developed. It is insulting to the audience - you're not supposed to wonder about anything else other than you're told in the 42 minutes. Bleh.
I usually carry a pencil and notebook around for the loose thoughts that enter my head, interesting names, even odd or archaic words, plot threads. But when it's time to seriously write down the story I turn to vim. Big font, colored grey, on a black background xterm.
I think that any writer of fiction who feels the compulsion to use italics or bold style in his writings isn't trying hard enough. I have no use for a wordprocessor, vim does everything I need it to do.
We ceremoniously claim the planet Mars for mankind (or the US), find out whether the bunny hop we used to do on the Moon still works, go dragracing with the dune buggies, shoot enough footage for 6 Discovery documentaries and then return home.
But we won't establish any Mars colony. It's not sexy. Planting the first flag on Mars is.
Let's hope they won't drive their truck exactly like "daddy", because "daddy" is busy running the truck into the ground. There are too many people yanking the steeringwheel.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you Timothy, for rolling out the red carpet for all the batshit crazy
commenters by promoting a foxnews fabrication on Slashdot. I've been
lurking for years but you got me mad enough to post now.
Check your F-ing sources. Get a second and a third source. Foxnews
does not get the benefit of the doubt, not on Slashdot.
What were you THINKING??
I stopped watching after season 8. What they should've done a long time ago is have the show reveal the Stargate program and deal with society afterwards. Bring on the outrage, the political manoeuvring, etc. Just don't use any groups of young boyscouts who inexplicably develop superhuman strength.
Zarn
Zahn gives us
Perhaps we're better off that Heir to the Empire exists only as a book. Hollywood would only screw it up.
Zarn
I feel silly explaining this, but I really meant "Shady Acres", the resthome that advertises over one of the radio stations in Vice City. ...
You probably mean Shady Acres :-)
The effect of drinking from the grail only had effect within the borders of the temple. Once past the seal on the floor, you were no longer immortal.
How do you then explain that the stomach wounds of Indy's dad didn't return when they left the Temple?
I myself thought the drinking of the Grail tied in nicely with Young Indy adventures: the stories were told from Indiana as a spry 80-year old. Clearly he was meant to live a long, long time.
> For instance, book origin of species will turn up the full text
> of Charles Darwin's controversial treatise.
Excellent framing, AC. We are now acknowledging that there is a "controversy" regarding "Origin of Species" - much in the same way that there is a "large number of complaints" about indecency on TV directed at the FCC (which turned out to be 8 people with a stencil machine).
Un-believable.
You are absolutely right. And Valve believes it's absolutely right in denying these people access to their servers.
So: perfectly legal, perfectly useless copies.
> Pretend that my watch had a remote control that
> let me turn it off. If you stole my watch, using
> the remote control to turn off my watch would be
> well within my rights. Thats all Valve is doing,
> making the time and effort you went to to warez
> their game meaningless.
A better analogy would be:
If you bought my watch, turning off the watch
remotely would be within my rights. (or would it?)
What happens if you need to reinstall the game
but the Steam servers can no longer be reached
because Valve is out of business.
Will you say:
a) screw Valve, I'll install a crack, or
b) I will respect the intellectual property that
was previously owned by Valve but is now bought
up by some IP hoarding firm who can't be arsed
to put up some servers. I will go back to playing
Tetris.
And before you think this Steam business is HL2
only: if Steam goes down then so does the playing
over the Internet for: Counterstrike, Day of
Defeat and Team Fortress Classic.
Irritating when I upgrade the browser I have to start all over again with installing the Adblock extension and lost my huge list of blockable iframes and images...
Disclaimer: I am not an American.
"We can now say with some assurance that there is virtually nothing in the world of politics - not organizing, not message development, not long-term planning, not discipline - at which Republicans are not more skillful than Democrats."
Has the Democratic Party become obsolete? It sure looks like it from this end.
Perhaps. William Saletan of Slate writes in Simple but Effective - Why you keep losing to this idiot.:
"Sigh. I really didn't want to have to write this."
and examines how Bush could possibly win.
What kills me is the fact that I'll be almost 40 before I see another president in the White House.
I'm not even American, but I felt (and still feel) sick to my stomach when I saw the election results.
I can only imagine how some of you, who actually voted, are feeling.
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
I believe this is a meme whose time has not yet come.
Consider a modest homenetwork with a games PC, a mailserver/webserver and a firewall. With the exception of the games PC the other systems have to be on 24/7 to be really useful. Run a PC with a 300 watts PSU for one year and it costs you here, in the Netherlands, approx. 150 euros. I would want to change these always-on systems to low power boxes, think EPIA or a Soekris. A Soekris system runs normally on 10 watts. My TranquilPC uses about 25 to 30 watts. Its fanless, it looks cool and I play modest games on it - obviously not FPS games but it runs Linux just fine and functions as firewall.
I'm waiting for the industry to play catchup to my power concerns. Someday I'll be able to play those FPS games on a lowpower system.
Zarn
I suppose from a terrorist point of view that blowing up one fusion reactor is a hell of a lot easier than blowing up hundreds of wind towers in a wind mill park.
In other news today: Dutch minister is considering an end to a moratorium on off-shore windmill parks. Goal would be 20 percent dependency on wind energy in 2020.
If only somebody would base a seventh, eighth and ninth movie on Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire trilogy...
Well, one can dream.
Large-scale investigation of Internet piracy
As a result of information provided by the US Department of Justice,
Criminal Division, Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section,
on April 21st 2004 raids took place in eight countries, among which
the Netherlands.
The information pertains to international criminal organisations who
- by using computers and the Internet - deal large-scale and worldwide
exchange of illegal copies of digital files, which is against the laws
of copyright. Such organisations are known in the internetworld (sic)
as "Warez-groups".
A group known as "Fairlight" is one of the oldest and most wellknown groups
in the warez-scene. This group exists since the mid-nineties and has the
reputation to be responsible for cracking copy-protection of popular and
high-grade entertainment sortware (sic), such as computer games. Fairlight
is also known as one of the few Warez-groups out for financial gain.
Investigation officers of the FBI have investigated Fairlight's activities.
The IP addresses of Fairlight's used computers have been determined, which
yielded the physical locations of those computers. In a number of cases
they appeared to be FTP servers located in the Netherlands which seemed to
be used to storage and transport of illegal software.
Based on the information obtained from the American authorities there is
the suspicion that a number of suspects who live the Netherlands, working
together with persons living abroad, form an organisation which deals in
copying or distributing works protected by copyright. There is the suspicion
that this organisation has been active in the Netherlands for some years
now. The persons and locations related to the known IP addresses have been
further investigated.
On Wednesday April 21st 2004 at 3pm 14 apartments were searched by the FIOD-ECD
led by the Functional Court (?) and with the support of the National Court (?).
In addition several universities have been requested to submit storaged data
which are related to the known IP addresses. The investigation took place in
all cooperating countries simultaneously.
There will be no further announcements pending the investigation.
> country raided schools and other targets in
> a national crackdown on pirated music CDs and movies.
Dutch news site NU.NL reports that the FIOD-ECD (Economic Crime Unit of the Dutch IRS) raided twenty locations on Wednesday, mostly campus locations in Groningen, Utrecht, etc in search of illegal software. This was done at the request of United States Customs Service (emphasis mine).
Dutch news sites often confuse one Federal service with another. Could this be related to the raids in Arizona and the "national crackdown"?
I wonder if the CRIA would accept a several Terabytes large tcpdump.
What I missed in Enterprise was an explanation of how they obtained all the technology - other than the warp drive:
replication.
I would say that this is pretty society-wrecking technology and warrants a short storyline explaining how people "got over" replicating everything.
inertial damping.
Pretty revolutionary yet no word about it how it was invented. The implication seems to be that this tech is so obvious that someone invented and perfected it on a Saturday afternoon. But imagine an episode where they show a few gruesome experiments of warp flight without the inertial damping!
shielding / hull polarization.
Same tech, different label. But can't we have at least a few lines of dialogue about advances in metallurgy? Wouldn't the hull of a starship be made of buckyballs or something? And my no.1 pet peeve tech:
scanning of lifeforms.
How do you detect a lifeform and correctly identify it? A few lines of dialogue about it being an offshoot of military technology during the Eugenic Wars would be nice.
All of the above is technology that is taken for granted. In ST:First Contact we are presented with a wartorn earth where its a minor miracle that the warp ship would even be launched! Yet all of those other technologies earth had already developed. It is insulting to the audience - you're not supposed to wonder about anything else other than you're told in the 42 minutes. Bleh.
Remmelt
You enforce the law.
You can't be sued.
How is this different from being a three-letter agency?
I usually carry a pencil and notebook around for the loose thoughts that enter my head, interesting names, even odd or archaic words, plot threads. But when it's time to seriously write down the story I turn to vim. Big font, colored grey, on a black background xterm.
I think that any writer of fiction who feels the compulsion to use italics or bold style in his writings isn't trying hard enough. I have no use for a wordprocessor, vim does everything I need it to do.
Zarn
But we won't establish any Mars colony. It's not sexy. Planting the first flag on Mars is.
--Zarn
--Zarn