I forgot about the natural disaster survivalability of the Compaq and Dell servers...tee hee...
No, smartass. Put down your pole, Mr. Boatman. 41,000 units, say they are spread wide geographically, seem to offer less chance that they ALL go down in one event.
My point---when not evaded by witless tittering---is which setup offers more advantages:
A score of large-scale servers A twin-set or trio or quad of mainframes with dedicated mirror/backup routing.
Seems like there are three comps on the Shuttle, and they DO run the risk of "major malfunction."
Multiple internal redundancy of componentry is great. Explain that to a shattered mainframe after a tornado (Fort Forth, anyone...?) or a Richter 8 quake (where's that Silicon Place again...?) I'm not talking about chip burnout...I'm talking about force of nature. And I won't even bring up military strikes or EMP. So...debate with me.
That was the thing that made me doubletake as well. One casualty......END OF LINE. So what about large scale mirroring? What's the feasibilty of running one mainframe as the corridor to the Outside...then mirroring all that activity to another mainframe at a remote location? I really would appreciate any answers. I'm still a wannabe engineer. The fact that they run Linux is cool, it just seems that mass concentration at a single point is....well....dumb. Will this no longer be an issue when hardware equal to a mainframe comes in a 0.5m * 0.5m * 0.5m cube? This kind of sectionalizable (?) power in nodes small enough to afford more than one? But I am really interested in that mirror / backup issue. Someone please explain if I am full of crap.
Mr....ahem.. Dick's analysis is, in my opinion, brilliant and precisely correct. The only question remains is if the United States government has the balls to do anything about it.
-By breaking this stuff down...you have the growth of industry and cheaper prices for all.
My post, without trying to be vociferous hyperbole-filled yammer, was an advocation OF BREAKING UP MICROSOFT. BREAK THEM UP. NOW. I suggest: -OS Company -Browser Company -MSN Company -PC Peripherals Company (sticks, mice, SidewinderWazooExtrmerTurboSnarfers, etc.) I would let the OS Company maintain control of the X-Box development. I would force the game development houses into the Browser Company. Gates is a damnable malcontent of the worst order. I don't give a good gahoot how much he endows to charity. His ultimate goal is to be the arbiter of content and the distrubutor of access to all dataflow on this planet. ALL OF IT. Yes he realizes he cannot maintain absolute grip, but at what percent exceeding 90 do we as a global culture realize how we are dominated by this corporation? You totally mistook the meaning of my post.
In reference to Microsoft being an American corporation, my comment only meant to convey that I would rather see the software market dominated by American firms. Idiotic patriotism? Damn me for being so. Not one single Euro / Asian firm has ever demonstrated to me to be somehow more committed to the welfare of its workers, the welfare of the global populace, or to the spirit of innovation and free thought than American firms in general. This is not some parrotting of MS "right to innovate" crap. Euro / Asian firms act in total collusion (even more than their NorAm counterparts) with national governments to fix prices, form cartels and consortia, and generally screw around with peoples' lives.
whew... And FINALLY... I meant that X-Box might bring the old Atari age back to the United States. I would be overjoyed if people were employed in North America in the fabrication, manufacture and assembly process of X-Box hardware. Not to mention game development work. Probably never happen, since MS is more interested in paying $2 a day to Singaporeans to punch circuit boards. Sony is a dangerous monolith. MS is a dangerous monolith. I want them figting each other on as many fronts as possible...since national governments are now a joke totally incapable of reigning in corporate power.
Perhaps this has been explained, but what exactly is the goverment's motivation (cowardice?) for making a deal?
How is the MS situation any different from Standard Oil or AT&T? Is the market simply supposed to take MS at their word that they will now "behave"?
I am encouraged that the dominant software firm in the world is a U.S. company. I would be even more encouraged if that entity became two or three vigorous entities rather than one monolith.
By the way...am I alone in hoping against hope that the X-Box might return Bushnellesque days back to America? Is Sony not a similar monolith worthy of a challenge and opposition?
Wouldn't it be great if they actually assembled X-Boxii in the U.S.? Or hell, even in Mexico...
I mean c'mon guys...powering the alien civilization with electrochemical brainwave energy? Really? They can create hyperrealistic virtual environments, but they can't figure out how to get hydrogen nuclei to fuse?
It all depends on the initial boundaries you ask me to believe at the outset: staying within the introduced level of ridiculousness.
-Star Wars: Spacecraft that maneuver like a P-51; spacecraft that make ZOOOOOM noises. ESP, levitation, magic. Faster than light travel, death rays, energy weapons. -Conclusion: No rules. Fantasy. Show me a flux capacitor to explain it away, or recycle some Zen to explain superhuman powers. I'll believe it. Saturday afternoon reality vacation.
-Star Trek: See above. Add time travel, unbelievably pretentious fake techno-jargon, all humanoid sentients, shake well. -Conclusion: Wednesday night reality vacation. I'll still believe it. Its still BS, and yet I want to see the green-skinned chicks and hyperintelligent blondes with rude attitudes.
-2001/2010 (Film Versions): Centripedal gravity, theoretically based propulsion, artificial intelligence as a rare and unstable commodity. Those Others can do some pretty interesting things, like turning Jupiter into a star. -Conclusion: Pretty well rooted in common sense. Extrapolation of the real to the level of the believable. Assumes the viewer understands the physics. (Waiting for flames concerning 2010)
-The Matrix: Absolutely the worst actor possible to portray the protagonist. Maybe DiCaprio would have been a worse choice...but only maybe. Green. Everything green. So are the Borg behind it all...is that the Big Message I missed? Everybody is wearing black leather. So PETA has been forced underground by wraparound sunglasses manufacturers? Is that the Big Message? The distinction between the Real and the Virtual is pretty neato. Oh...that was the Big Message. Oh...thanks...whew...sheesh... I was worried there. Carpenter's "They Live" did a better job at portraying There's A Whole World You Don't Know About And Its Pretty Sinister. And Carpenter didn't sit on the set with a triple mocha gunning Marlboros while furiously assaulting a dog-eared copy of Neuromancer with a highlighter. Well, okay he was chaining Marlboros...but that's it. And They Live had Roddy Piper for god sake.
Sentences new to the English language: There is at least one actor who is worse than Roddy Piper.
Now are they not actually using the energy of the brain activity? In other words, instead of feeding off of amps and volts are they feeding on Pain, Joy, Love, Hate? Was that another Big Message I missed? Does that explain why everything is green? Because of all the Envy?
Let's see....one flick portrays the Boy Messiah as the savior to return balance to the Force. The other flick portrays the Boy Messiah as the One who will liberate us from the Bad Guys. One flick is a fairy tale. The other flick has a Big GenX Angst Filled Message. And don't accuse me of assaulting the young...I look toward my thirtieth birthday with dread. C'mon gang, put down your Bret Easton Ellis novels, walk out of the Cafe Pretensioso, put on some socks, and get a clue.
Neato bullet tracks, jiggly helicopter crashes...and that's about it.
Phantom Menace? Giant toy commercial? Ok, granted. But you know what, it made me feel seven years old again. Sure, most of the dialogue was written BY a seven year old, but I did recaptur some of that Summer of '77 magic. Was Phantom Menace Best Picture? Ah...no. Did it have all the Han Solo adventure magic. No...but it was a load of fun. I took my 11 year-old brother-in-law. To see his bouncing, enthusiastic reaction was classic. To hear his recitation of every move in the lightsaber battle was awesome. A little magic was passed on.
So Lucas drew inspiration from WWII battle flicks, Japanese epics, and Westerns. The result is a synthesis: Star Wars movies. Fun, bubblegum, Saturday afternoon at the movies. Good versus evil.
The Matrix. Awesome, technical achievement. Really, really cool effects. On purely technical merits, did it have superior visual effects than Menace? Toss-up. Hollywood gave it to the young guns. Just like they lauded Lucas and Spielberg for being young guns in the 70's and early 80's.
Technical achievement. Grumbling admiration from a huge Star Wars geek. But cinematography? A GREEN FILTER? Story? Uh...everything written by Sterling, Gibson, Dick, and Brunner---cut out all the big words for Keanu---run everything through a green filter, take some notes from the TRON script---BANG! There's your story.
The Matrix. No One Can Stay Awake Through The Matrix. Larry Fishburne---cool actor. The scrawny leather chick---cool to look at. The bullet effects and the antigrav ninja fighting---cool to look at. The funny guy from Risky Business and Running Scared---funny guy. Filter---very green. The bad guy---only interesting character in the whole film. I wish to god he had just spent the first five minutes disemboweling Keanu. The rest of the film could have then involved the Bad Guy allying himself with Darth Maul for a final battle against Laurence Fishburne and Samuel L. Jackson. Now that would have been cool.
"Which one is your lightsaber?" "Its the one that says, 'BAD MOTHERFUCKER'."
Now that would have been entertaining. Not for eleven year olds, though.
Yeah, I thought they got bought up in an acquisition by Germany?
Ah, nope, wait, that merger was nixed by silly stupid non-trilingual Americans (TM, We're Not Just a Continent Anymore)
THAAAAAAAAAAAAT'S RIGHT FOLKS! ITS TIME TO PLAY PICK YOUR GLOBAL HEGEMON!
(applause)
MC: Well tonight folks, we've got quite a game for you! Five past and present globally influential powers! Hey! Teeeeeeeeellll us a little about yourselves!
NG: Well, Bob, we're basically a nihilistic gang of racially obsessed criminals hoping to subjugate Europe, murder everyone with the wrong colored eyes or hair. Then we're planning on expanding into Africa and Asia, where we really hope to grow our business of enslavement and murder.
MC: Gee...that's...interesting. How 'bout our next contestant?
SU: Uh...ahem...well we're interested in planning. Confident, structured planning. Ah...ahem...we don't plan on allowing anyone to disagree with us...or plan on letting anybody do what they want. Or pay them for doing it. Even if it is what we want. That's it. Oh...and we're for mass murder too...uh...but we don't like to advertise it.
MC: I see. Uh...well..another...intriguing proposal. And how about you sir?
UK: Now all this bloody mess has been because of letting the bloody Navy slip. Can't run things without a damn good Navy. Well, can you? No, quite right. And administration. Proper administration. A place for every man you know. Well, whites anyway. Always need good labor from everyone else though. We don't need rebellious behavior, though. Can't stomach the thought of it. Ah...what did I do with my tea...ahem...er?
MC: Right. Moving on then.
CH: We are the oldest. We will survive. You will adapt to our way of thinking. Eventually. Oh...and buy these radios.
MC: I don't need a radio right now, thanks.
CH: BUY ONE! Not buying a radio is counterrevolutionary. It wasn't assembled in a slave factory....really.
MC: Ah...yeah...now our final contestant.
US: Well, ah, we're trying to get past two centuries of killing or enslaving anyone who had the wrong color skin. We are trying. Not doing a great job, but trying. Ah...we also have this fundamental idea of just letting people think and do whatever the hell they want. Again, sometimes it works better in principle than reality, but we are working on it.
MC: That's it? Just think and do what you want?
US: That's it. But...occassionally the tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots. But we need more patriots, not just from here, but everywhere. Everyone willing to defend the right to think. The right to do. The right to be. We really need you all.
MC: Gee, thanks. Nice to know. WELL GGGGGGGGGGGGOOOOOODDDNIGGGGHTTT EVERYONE! Join us again next century for.... PICK YOUR GLOBAL HEGEMON!
I hate to fall on the side of jingosim here...but...
Free society + capitalism = 99 % of all innovation in the 20thC by Americans and naturalized immigrants.
WE DO IDEAS THE OLD FASHIONED WAY. WE ALLOW THEM.
Now as for all this MPAA, DMCA, UCITA, richies buying off the Roman Imperial Senate--ahem--err--lobbyists influencing Congress, you can take that particular piece of American Pie and shove it into the nearest subduction zone.
Everybody better wake the hell up. Congress and the Executive have exactly this much interest in the people: ZERO. Republicans: negative (symbol for infinity negative?) Democrats: 0.0000321 DOJ: Zero. Already rolling over to take it in the heinie from the Notorious Byll G. ATF: Would you come out of your house if they knocked? FBI: Bwahaahaaha! Let's see, their best catches have been due to: A: A grieving brother, shamed into action B: An alert Oklahoma cop. Can't seem to find one little prick in a North Carolina Forest though... The Supreme Court: the only surviving hope. A Republican admin...one appointment...forget Miranda, forget Roe v Wade, FORGET EVERYTHING.
DROP YOUR FREAKING STARBUCKS, TURN OFF ZDTV, AND FIGHT THIS TREND!
jeez.
And I don't want to hear some whiny punk in France bitch either. "Oh, America, all zee websites in zee Anglish, non non non..." Probably be too busy enjoying 8 weeks paid vacation and a 35 hr work week to get off your ass and INNOVATE.
HACK IT. COPY IT. PASS IT ON. If the state fades away...we live as animals. BECOME THE STATE. L'etat c'est moi. And you know how much I hate to use French...
To the everlasting glory of the infantry shines the name shines the name of Rodger Young!
I swear to god I served under Sgt. Jelal's alter-ego in Okinawa. Little mustang-gunny lieutenant---apparently raised on the Sauron homeworld.
I sure as hell would have liked the powered armor at ANY time. My little stub legs sucked when I was humping machine guns.
I participated in a US / Westerners evac from a beach in Freetown, Sierra Leone, summer of '97. We took that beach without so much as harsh language: LAVs and aamtraks from the water (don't remember if there were LCACs), helos dropped the rifle and weapon companies, Cobras circling menacingly in the distance. I remember seeing fully armed Harriers just before we left the flight deck.
That day I distinctly remember thinking about the first battle scene in Starship Troopers. Mismatch. Latter in the day, a truck full of teenagers in ragged Hawaiian shirts carrying rifles and RPGs rolled up near our perimeter. They saw what they faced and quickly retreated. They still nearly got annihilated by pointing their weapons in our general direction.
Here's my longwinded point: I don't care how much we have to spend, I want every American serviceman to have that advantage. The adversary should be totally cowed by the technological advantage. And when facing a more formidable adversary, I want that advantage to translate into the elimination of opposing force as quickly as possible.
American democracy is the worst form of government.
joneshenry has crystallized my opinion far better than I did in either of my posts on this topic.
The sinister quality of Joy's opinions was so much more apparent during the NPR interview. Joy is no advocate of the "human". He is an advocate of the statist-corporate. Hell, leave out the state. He just wants corporate.
Heck, with all these technos just running around loose, they might just find ways of making themselves self-sufficient and independent from corporate control. My gosh, if nanotech made personal material poverty and hunger impossible...by god...we'd have no way to charge for stuff! If all these people had free access to information, they might by god think for themselves!
Don't worry, Joy, I'm no technoutopian. Give people instant material wealth, food, clean fusion power, nanoeradicate disease, all this...and the vast majority would bitch that they actually have to turn the "on" switches themselves.
If humanity is so stupid as to be replaced by self-replicating machines---it will validate every misanthropic tendency I have ever had. And if Joy is the trumpet herald to save fair humanity---I'm freakin' Santa Claus.
Ted K. at least had the excuse that he was insane. He was an evil, murderous, cowardly bastard...but I believe Ted K. truly believed that SkyNet was out to get him. Not a rational mind. He had reason to fear the machines...
"From all this, I trust it is clear that I am not a Luddite. I have always, rather, had a strong belief in the value of the scientific search for truth and in the ability of great engineering to bring material progress." --Joy
A statement from a rational mind. But no, Joy, it is not clear that you are not a luddite. "Bring material progress"--like for instance bringing Bill Joy personal wealth and pop-media hype that will make Bill Joy "Mr. Expert-of-the-Day"?
And don't take the above as some statement of criticism of the capitalist ideal. Material reward has a direct correlation toward performance and innovation. We all get carried off in the nirvana of exploration and pure science for its own sake, but for all but the most dedicated of us this is a sadly fleeting sensation.
Here's my bottom line: ever since the first surveyor figured out that a plumb-bob could help re-designate flood boundaries along the Nile, 90% of the human population has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into every single damn technical innovation. And don't give me the bull about unchecked scientific discoveries. Every single thing from iron tools to printing presses to integrated circuits either gets co-opted by some bureaucracy of incompetents or torn apart by gangs of illiterate peasantry. And if you don't think 20th century American Jerry Springer viewership qualifies as peasantry---you need to re-appraise the situation.
Let the machines come. Anyone with any shred of technical savvy, self-confidence, or the slightest tendency for independent creative thought will survive...or evolve. Either as coordinators or members of this new humanity. The rest of the squalling mass will be in the same place they always have been: either gutting each other for the prettiest new simstim player or bawling that everyone should be dragged down to blind mediocrity to make things fair.
Adapt or overcome. If you don't feel like going through all that horrible trouble then line up for your bowl of protokelp, collect your check, and shut the hell up.
My one criticism of Joy's anaylsis was his disregard toward writer's of speculative / science fiction. Listening to Joy's interview last week on NPR, he basically stated that he had come to his doubt and uncertainty after "real" writers like Kurzweil had commented on the possible dangers of nanotech and runaway AI. So "fake" writers like Bear, Gibson, Benford and Brin---and I count at least three hard science PHDs there---they must lack the vision to make "real" speculative commentary on the future of emergent and possible technologies. They join the "fake" ranks of unreliables and nuts like Clarke and his silly comsat idea or Wells and his bizarre ideas concerning the proliferation of advanced tech weapons. And let's not mention that buffoon Jules Verne. I don't question Joy's own technical credentials. Nor do I necessarily disagree with his analysis. I simply found his discounting of spec.fic. writers as condescending and typical of the mundane society that can only catch up with a concept when its featured on Entertainment Tonight.
Bingo. Absolutely correct. Concise commentary cutting through heaps of veiled psychobabble. I played the female character in Deathtrap Dungeon to enhance the fantasy of interacting with other female characters or villains. Lara Croft invokes in me the same gender-transference narcissism. Geez, talk about psycobabble. Whenever the opportunity to play as attractive females arises, I take it. There was even one race in Master of Orion II that was depicted as a sort of female dark-Elven space grrrl. Played that race almost exclusively. The fanstasy of instant transference from male to female form and back again, at will, to interact with females, is hugely compelling.
Slashdot Mirror
Leia: You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!
Han: Nice.
Astronaut: You DOCKED with that thing? You're braver than I thought!
Cosmonaut: Spasiba!
I don't know about within an hour...but...point taken.
Holy cats! An interesting and articulate response.
Thanks for the info, delevant.
See Mr. Boatman, you could do it too!
I forgot about the natural disaster survivalability of the Compaq and Dell servers ...tee hee...
No, smartass. Put down your pole, Mr. Boatman. 41,000 units, say they are spread wide geographically, seem to offer less chance that they ALL go down in one event.
My point---when not evaded by witless tittering---is which setup offers more advantages:
A score of large-scale servers
A twin-set or trio or quad of mainframes with dedicated mirror/backup routing.
Seems like there are three comps on the Shuttle, and they DO run the risk of "major malfunction."
Multiple internal redundancy of componentry is great. Explain that to a shattered mainframe after a tornado (Fort Forth, anyone...?) or a Richter 8 quake (where's that Silicon Place again...?) I'm not talking about chip burnout...I'm talking about force of nature. And I won't even bring up military strikes or EMP. So...debate with me.
That was the thing that made me doubletake as well. One casualty......END OF LINE. So what about large scale mirroring? What's the feasibilty of running one mainframe as the corridor to the Outside...then mirroring all that activity to another mainframe at a remote location? I really would appreciate any answers. I'm still a wannabe engineer. The fact that they run Linux is cool, it just seems that mass concentration at a single point is....well....dumb. Will this no longer be an issue when hardware equal to a mainframe comes in a 0.5m * 0.5m * 0.5m cube? This kind of sectionalizable (?) power in nodes small enough to afford more than one? But I am really interested in that mirror / backup issue. Someone please explain if I am full of crap.
Mr. ...ahem.. Dick's analysis is, in my opinion, brilliant and precisely correct. The only question remains is if the United States government has the balls to do anything about it.
...and as she might say... "To sashay!"
-By breaking this stuff down...you have the growth of industry and cheaper prices for all.
My post, without trying to be vociferous hyperbole-filled yammer, was an advocation OF BREAKING UP MICROSOFT. BREAK THEM UP. NOW.
I suggest:
-OS Company
-Browser Company
-MSN Company
-PC Peripherals Company (sticks, mice, SidewinderWazooExtrmerTurboSnarfers, etc.)
I would let the OS Company maintain control of the X-Box development. I would force the game development houses into the Browser Company.
Gates is a damnable malcontent of the worst order. I don't give a good gahoot how much he endows to charity. His ultimate goal is to be the arbiter of content and the distrubutor of access to all dataflow on this planet. ALL OF IT. Yes he realizes he cannot maintain absolute grip, but at what percent exceeding 90 do we as a global culture realize how we are dominated by this corporation? You totally mistook the meaning of my post.
In reference to Microsoft being an American corporation, my comment only meant to convey that I would rather see the software market dominated by American firms. Idiotic patriotism? Damn me for being so. Not one single Euro / Asian firm has ever demonstrated to me to be somehow more committed to the welfare of its workers, the welfare of the global populace, or to the spirit of innovation and free thought than American firms in general. This is not some parrotting of MS "right to innovate" crap. Euro / Asian firms act in total collusion (even more than their NorAm counterparts) with national governments to fix prices, form cartels and consortia, and generally screw around with peoples' lives.
whew...
And FINALLY...
I meant that X-Box might bring the old Atari age back to the United States. I would be overjoyed if
people were employed in North America in the fabrication, manufacture and assembly process of X-Box hardware. Not to mention game development work. Probably never happen, since MS is more interested in paying $2 a day to Singaporeans to punch circuit boards.
Sony is a dangerous monolith. MS is a dangerous monolith. I want them figting each other on as many fronts as possible...since national governments are now a joke totally incapable of reigning in corporate power.
...yeah...that's "prevaricate", Chuck.
Or is it Mel?
Mel A. Prop?
...and yes I know that spelling is wrong you weasels.
Not like any one of you has actually SEEN a production of The Rivals...
...sheesh.
A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ail, (G)rab Hammer?
cd (g)rab
-hammer
-bill
query?
-b
BILL
-shake
-throttle
query?
-t
(Bill Cosby voice)
BILL-EEE, BILLY, BILL-EEE!!!
(Wile E. Coyote clearing his head sound)
ddeeeYIIIDEEEEyiiideeeeYIIIII....!
Perhaps this has been explained, but what exactly is the goverment's motivation (cowardice?) for making a deal?
How is the MS situation any different from Standard Oil or AT&T? Is the market simply supposed to take MS at their word that they will now "behave"?
I am encouraged that the dominant software firm in the world is a U.S. company. I would be even more encouraged if that entity became two or three vigorous entities rather than one monolith.
By the way...am I alone in hoping against hope that the X-Box might return Bushnellesque days back to America? Is Sony not a similar monolith worthy of a challenge and opposition?
Wouldn't it be great if they actually assembled X-Boxii in the U.S.? Or hell, even in Mexico...
Ah...ranting...
I mean c'mon guys...powering the alien civilization with electrochemical brainwave energy? Really? They can create hyperrealistic virtual environments, but they can't figure out how to get hydrogen nuclei to fuse?
...and that's about it.
It all depends on the initial boundaries you ask me to believe at the outset: staying within the introduced level of ridiculousness.
-Star Wars: Spacecraft that maneuver like a P-51; spacecraft that make ZOOOOOM noises. ESP, levitation, magic. Faster than light travel, death rays, energy weapons.
-Conclusion: No rules. Fantasy. Show me a flux capacitor to explain it away, or recycle some Zen to explain superhuman powers. I'll believe it. Saturday afternoon reality vacation.
-Star Trek: See above. Add time travel, unbelievably pretentious fake techno-jargon, all humanoid sentients, shake well.
-Conclusion: Wednesday night reality vacation. I'll still believe it. Its still BS, and yet I want to see the green-skinned chicks and hyperintelligent blondes with rude attitudes.
-2001/2010 (Film Versions): Centripedal gravity, theoretically based propulsion, artificial intelligence as a rare and unstable commodity. Those Others can do some pretty interesting things, like turning Jupiter into a star.
-Conclusion: Pretty well rooted in common sense. Extrapolation of the real to the level of the believable. Assumes the viewer understands the physics. (Waiting for flames concerning 2010)
-The Matrix: Absolutely the worst actor possible to portray the protagonist. Maybe DiCaprio would have been a worse choice...but only maybe. Green. Everything green. So are the Borg behind it all...is that the Big Message I missed? Everybody is wearing black leather. So PETA has been forced underground by wraparound sunglasses manufacturers? Is that the Big Message? The distinction between the Real and the Virtual is pretty neato. Oh...that was the Big Message. Oh...thanks...whew...sheesh... I was worried there. Carpenter's "They Live" did a better job at portraying There's A Whole World You Don't Know About And Its Pretty Sinister. And Carpenter didn't sit on the set with a triple mocha gunning Marlboros while furiously assaulting a dog-eared copy of Neuromancer with a highlighter. Well, okay he was chaining Marlboros...but that's it. And They Live had Roddy Piper for god sake.
Sentences new to the English language:
There is at least one actor who is worse than Roddy Piper.
Now are they not actually using the energy of the brain activity? In other words, instead of feeding off of amps and volts are they feeding on Pain, Joy, Love, Hate? Was that another Big Message I missed? Does that explain why everything is green? Because of all the Envy?
Let's see....one flick portrays the Boy Messiah as the savior to return balance to the Force. The other flick portrays the Boy Messiah as the One who will liberate us from the Bad Guys. One flick is a fairy tale. The other flick has a Big GenX Angst Filled Message. And don't accuse me of assaulting the young...I look toward my thirtieth birthday with dread. C'mon gang, put down your Bret Easton Ellis novels, walk out of the Cafe Pretensioso, put on some socks, and get a clue.
Neato bullet tracks, jiggly helicopter crashes
Ah, well. Hurry back to your day trading. Bah.
Unabashed Star Wars Geekiness Begins....Now...
Phantom Menace? Giant toy commercial? Ok, granted.
But you know what, it made me feel seven years old again. Sure, most of the dialogue was written BY a seven year old, but I did recaptur some of that Summer of '77 magic. Was Phantom Menace Best Picture? Ah...no. Did it have all the Han Solo adventure magic. No...but it was a load of fun. I took my 11 year-old brother-in-law. To see his bouncing, enthusiastic reaction was classic. To hear his recitation of every move in the lightsaber battle was awesome. A little magic was passed on.
So Lucas drew inspiration from WWII battle flicks, Japanese epics, and Westerns. The result is a synthesis: Star Wars movies. Fun, bubblegum, Saturday afternoon at the movies. Good versus evil.
The Matrix. Awesome, technical achievement. Really, really cool effects. On purely technical merits, did it have superior visual effects than Menace? Toss-up. Hollywood gave it to the young guns. Just like they lauded Lucas and Spielberg for being young guns in the 70's and early 80's.
Technical achievement. Grumbling admiration from a
huge Star Wars geek. But cinematography? A GREEN FILTER? Story? Uh...everything written by Sterling, Gibson, Dick, and Brunner---cut out all the big words for Keanu---run everything through a green filter, take some notes from the TRON script---BANG! There's your story.
The Matrix. No One Can Stay Awake Through The Matrix. Larry Fishburne---cool actor. The scrawny leather chick---cool to look at. The bullet effects and the antigrav ninja fighting---cool to look at. The funny guy from Risky Business and Running Scared---funny guy. Filter---very green. The bad guy---only interesting character in the whole film. I wish to god he had just spent the first five minutes disemboweling Keanu. The rest of the film could have then involved the Bad Guy allying himself with Darth Maul for a final battle against Laurence Fishburne and Samuel L. Jackson.
Now that would have been cool.
"Which one is your lightsaber?"
"Its the one that says, 'BAD MOTHERFUCKER'."
Now that would have been entertaining. Not for eleven year olds, though.
The Matrix. Please.
2...insightful...to 1...troll...ouch... (cut...cut...cut) (sounds of shredded Constitution droppiing to the floor...) heh...heh...oh, well...
Yeah, I thought they got bought up in an acquisition by Germany?
....
Ah, nope, wait, that merger was nixed by silly stupid non-trilingual Americans (TM, We're Not Just a Continent Anymore)
THAAAAAAAAAAAAT'S RIGHT FOLKS! ITS TIME TO PLAY PICK YOUR GLOBAL HEGEMON!
(applause)
MC: Well tonight folks, we've got quite a game for you! Five past and present globally influential powers! Hey! Teeeeeeeeellll us a little about yourselves!
NG: Well, Bob, we're basically a nihilistic gang of racially obsessed criminals hoping to subjugate Europe, murder everyone with the wrong colored eyes or hair. Then we're planning on expanding into Africa and Asia, where we really hope to grow our business of enslavement and murder.
MC: Gee...that's...interesting. How 'bout our next contestant?
SU: Uh...ahem...well we're interested in planning. Confident, structured planning. Ah...ahem...we don't plan on allowing anyone to disagree with us...or plan on letting anybody do what they want. Or pay them for doing it. Even if it is what we want. That's it. Oh...and we're for mass murder too...uh...but we don't like to advertise it.
MC: I see. Uh...well..another...intriguing proposal. And how about you sir?
UK: Now all this bloody mess has been because of letting the bloody Navy slip. Can't run things without a damn good Navy. Well, can you? No, quite right. And administration. Proper administration. A place for every man you know. Well, whites anyway. Always need good labor from everyone else though. We don't need rebellious behavior, though.
Can't stomach the thought of it. Ah...what did I do with my tea...ahem...er?
MC: Right. Moving on then.
CH: We are the oldest. We will survive. You will adapt to our way of thinking. Eventually. Oh...and buy these radios.
MC: I don't need a radio right now, thanks.
CH: BUY ONE! Not buying a radio is counterrevolutionary. It wasn't assembled in a slave factory....really.
MC: Ah...yeah...now our final contestant.
US: Well, ah, we're trying to get past two centuries of killing or enslaving anyone who had the wrong color skin. We are trying. Not doing a great job, but trying. Ah...we also have this fundamental idea of just letting people think and do whatever the hell they want. Again, sometimes it works better in principle than reality, but we are working on it.
MC: That's it? Just think and do what you want?
US: That's it. But...occassionally the tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots. But we need more patriots, not just from here, but everywhere. Everyone willing to defend the right to think. The right to do. The right to be. We really need you all.
MC: Gee, thanks. Nice to know. WELL GGGGGGGGGGGGOOOOOODDDNIGGGGHTTT EVERYONE! Join us again next century for
PICK YOUR GLOBAL HEGEMON!
I hate to fall on the side of jingosim here...but...
Free society + capitalism = 99 % of all innovation in the 20thC by Americans and naturalized immigrants.
WE DO IDEAS THE OLD FASHIONED WAY.
WE ALLOW THEM.
Now as for all this MPAA, DMCA, UCITA, richies buying off the Roman Imperial Senate--ahem--err--lobbyists influencing Congress, you can take that particular piece of American Pie and shove it into the nearest subduction zone.
Everybody better wake the hell up. Congress and the Executive have exactly this much interest in the people: ZERO.
Republicans: negative (symbol for infinity negative?)
Democrats: 0.0000321
DOJ: Zero. Already rolling over to take it in the heinie from the Notorious Byll G.
ATF: Would you come out of your house if they knocked?
FBI: Bwahaahaaha! Let's see, their best catches have been due to:
A: A grieving brother, shamed into action
B: An alert Oklahoma cop.
Can't seem to find one little prick in a North Carolina Forest though...
The Supreme Court: the only surviving hope. A Republican admin...one appointment...forget Miranda, forget Roe v Wade, FORGET EVERYTHING.
DROP YOUR FREAKING STARBUCKS, TURN OFF ZDTV, AND FIGHT THIS TREND!
jeez.
And I don't want to hear some whiny punk in France bitch either. "Oh, America, all zee websites in zee Anglish, non non non..." Probably be too busy enjoying 8 weeks paid vacation and a 35 hr work week to get off your ass and INNOVATE.
HACK IT. COPY IT. PASS IT ON.
If the state fades away...we live as animals.
BECOME THE STATE.
L'etat c'est moi.
And you know how much I hate to use French...
To the everlasting glory of the infantry
shines the name
shines the name
of Rodger Young!
I swear to god I served under Sgt. Jelal's alter-ego in Okinawa. Little mustang-gunny lieutenant---apparently raised on the Sauron homeworld.
I sure as hell would have liked the powered armor at ANY time. My little stub legs sucked when I was humping machine guns.
I participated in a US / Westerners evac from a beach in Freetown, Sierra Leone, summer of '97. We took that beach without so much as harsh language: LAVs and aamtraks from the water (don't remember if there were LCACs), helos dropped the rifle and weapon companies, Cobras circling menacingly in the distance. I remember seeing fully armed Harriers just before we left the flight deck.
That day I distinctly remember thinking about the first battle scene in Starship Troopers. Mismatch.
Latter in the day, a truck full of teenagers in ragged Hawaiian shirts carrying rifles and RPGs rolled up near our perimeter. They saw what they faced and quickly retreated. They still nearly got annihilated by pointing their weapons in our general direction.
Here's my longwinded point: I don't care how much we have to spend, I want every American serviceman to have that advantage. The adversary should be totally cowed by the technological advantage. And when facing a more formidable adversary, I want that advantage to translate into the elimination of opposing force as quickly as possible.
American democracy is the worst form of government.
Except for all the others.
(Blatantly stolen from Churchill.)
This post should be moderated up!
joneshenry has crystallized my opinion far better than I did in either of my posts on this topic.
The sinister quality of Joy's opinions was so much more apparent during the NPR interview. Joy is no advocate of the "human". He is an advocate of the statist-corporate. Hell, leave out the state. He just wants corporate.
Heck, with all these technos just running around loose, they might just find ways of making themselves self-sufficient and independent from corporate control. My gosh, if nanotech made personal material poverty and hunger impossible...by god...we'd have no way to charge for stuff! If all these people had free access to information, they might by god think for themselves!
Don't worry, Joy, I'm no technoutopian. Give people instant material wealth, food, clean fusion power, nanoeradicate disease, all this...and the vast majority would bitch that they actually have to turn the "on" switches themselves.
If humanity is so stupid as to be replaced by self-replicating machines---it will validate every misanthropic tendency I have ever had. And if Joy is the trumpet herald to save fair humanity---I'm freakin' Santa Claus.
No, wait...sorry....that's not my only criticism.
Ted K. at least had the excuse that he was insane. He was an evil, murderous, cowardly bastard...but I believe Ted K. truly believed that SkyNet was out to get him. Not a rational mind. He had reason to fear the machines...
"From all this, I trust it is clear that I am not a Luddite. I have always, rather, had a strong belief in the value of the scientific search for truth and in the ability of great engineering to bring material progress." --Joy
A statement from a rational mind. But no, Joy, it is not clear that you are not a luddite. "Bring material progress"--like for instance bringing Bill Joy personal wealth and pop-media hype that will make Bill Joy "Mr. Expert-of-the-Day"?
And don't take the above as some statement of criticism of the capitalist ideal. Material reward has a direct correlation toward performance and innovation. We all get carried off in the nirvana of exploration and pure science for its own sake, but for all but the most dedicated of us this is a sadly fleeting sensation.
Here's my bottom line: ever since the first surveyor figured out that a plumb-bob could help re-designate flood boundaries along the Nile, 90% of the human population has had to be dragged kicking and screaming into every single damn technical innovation. And don't give me the bull about unchecked scientific discoveries. Every single thing from iron tools to printing presses to integrated circuits either gets co-opted by some bureaucracy of incompetents or torn apart by gangs of illiterate peasantry. And if you don't think 20th century American Jerry Springer viewership qualifies as peasantry---you need to re-appraise the situation.
Let the machines come. Anyone with any shred of technical savvy, self-confidence, or the slightest tendency for independent creative thought will survive...or evolve. Either as coordinators or members of this new humanity. The rest of the squalling mass will be in the same place they always have been: either gutting each other for the prettiest new simstim player or bawling that everyone should be dragged down to blind mediocrity to make things fair.
Adapt or overcome.
If you don't feel like going through all that horrible trouble then line up for your bowl of protokelp, collect your check, and shut the hell up.
My one criticism of Joy's anaylsis was his disregard toward writer's of speculative / science fiction. Listening to Joy's interview last week on NPR, he basically stated that he had come to his doubt and uncertainty after "real" writers like Kurzweil had commented on the possible dangers of nanotech and runaway AI. So "fake" writers like Bear, Gibson, Benford and Brin---and I count at least three hard science PHDs there---they must lack the vision to make "real" speculative commentary on the future of emergent and possible technologies. They join the "fake" ranks of unreliables and nuts like Clarke and his silly comsat idea or Wells and his bizarre ideas concerning the proliferation of advanced tech weapons. And let's not mention that buffoon Jules Verne. I don't question Joy's own technical credentials. Nor do I necessarily disagree with his analysis. I simply found his discounting of spec.fic. writers as condescending and typical of the mundane society that can only catch up with a concept when its featured on Entertainment Tonight.
"Any insufficiently advanced speller is indistinguishable from ignorant." -Hellburner "Specialization is for insects" -Robert Anson Heinlein
Bingo. Absolutely correct. Concise commentary cutting through heaps of veiled psychobabble. I played the female character in Deathtrap Dungeon to enhance the fantasy of interacting with other female characters or villains. Lara Croft invokes in me the same gender-transference narcissism. Geez, talk about psycobabble. Whenever the opportunity to play as attractive females arises, I take it. There was even one race in Master of Orion II that was depicted as a sort of female dark-Elven space grrrl. Played that race almost exclusively. The fanstasy of instant transference from male to female form and back again, at will, to interact with females, is hugely compelling.