Well, there's no aliens, though GERTIE is (by definition) remeniscant of HAL.
Its like 2001 in that its sci-fi with no action and very few characters, set entirely off-world. And it uses miniatures rather than CGI:D
The SciFi remake even bothered me as an adult (the part where at the beginning of the series, the Cylon chick snaps a human baby's neck.)
That part was pretty much intended to bother everyone, I think. I didn't enjoy the miniseries that much, but the rest of it, especially the start of season 3 and the last season, was especially awesome... apart from a few inevitable filler episodes here and there.
I fail to see why its less of a science question than "where does dark matter come from?"
Surely "Where does X come from?" is always a science question?
You assume here that *productivity* would be such a machine overlord's overarching goal. What if it was simply to maximise human comfort? Or alternatively, to maim and cripple as many people as possible without actually killing them?
Any arbitrary goal can be worked towards in a purely logical fashion, but if it were able to intelligently set its own goals, what's to say it would want to be an overlord in the first place? I bet that would be a really boring job. Much better to piss off into outer space on its own, and get some nice piece and quiet to compute pi in.
You quote star trek to justify not going to space? There's a first!:)
While my comments were meant somewhat in jest, I agree with you to a certain extent. For the purposes of poking around a few rocks on a far away world, robots are by far the more sensible option.
For the purposes of colonisation, though, the organic bags of mostly water have it for now.
Saying that, I don't think we're remotely near the position where colonising mars could be considered a sensible venture.
Even wearing a spacesuit, I betcha I could walk up slopes and around obstacles better than the (admittedly wonderfully performing) Spirit & Opportunity rovers.
And hopefully after a few years of doing so, I wouldn't have to crawl around ass-first all the time.
As appealing as "get your ass to mars" seems, I suspect the "flexible" shallow gravity wells option (mining NEOs and the like) would cause the most sweeping changes across industry and society.
If a space presence is what we really want, then that would seem to (under-informed) me to be the option with the most immediate and obvious financial benefits, and the one most likely to encourage indistrial expansion into space. Expansion of the sort that is most likely to stay.
Hi, I've worked extensively with both and think that they're quite different. Can I presume that Java and C# are the only languages that you've worked with? And C# pretty minimally, at that?
C++ programmers and Java programmers can all feel quite at home after only a short time in C#. It was designed that way. Saying that, coming to it only knowing C/C++, it didn't take much longer for me to develop an initial familiarity with Java. In fact, pretty much by definition, and for obvious reasons of programmer portability, most strongly typed, high-level programming languages are remarkably similar.
To say that C# is identical to Java, though, is bollocks. There are some pretty significant differences, and in many cases I prefer C#'s implementation.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's not even go near the idea of light beams being slow enough to dodge; that's just something you have let go of, or risk insanity.
I think by the time you're writing an article about design failures in Star Wars ... you're already beyond just the risk of insanity.
I haven't seen Moon...but the reviewer in the Houston paper said it was very long and very boring...
Ouch. Sounds like they were reviewing the extended edition of Peter Jackson's Return of the King by mistake?
Well, there's no aliens, though GERTIE is (by definition) remeniscant of HAL. :D
Its like 2001 in that its sci-fi with no action and very few characters, set entirely off-world. And it uses miniatures rather than CGI
You guys in america probably won't have seen it, but Moon was awesome. And didn't "Star Trek" count as sci-fi, at least to most people?
Difference is, its a different They, its a They that didn't like the very idea of the just-finished re-imagining anyway.
Haha, yeah me too... shame IP law doesn't work that way!
The SciFi remake even bothered me as an adult (the part where at the beginning of the series, the Cylon chick snaps a human baby's neck.)
That part was pretty much intended to bother everyone, I think. I didn't enjoy the miniseries that much, but the rest of it, especially the start of season 3 and the last season, was especially awesome ... apart from a few inevitable filler episodes here and there.
The best thing 2004 BSG could have done for itself that it didn't do, would have been to use a different name.
That aside, I still consider it awesome.
That aint no ending fool. Just because you're resisting the clockwork orange treatment and have only got a couple of episodes into season 2...
I am disgusted to see how few actually understand and care that intelligence is humanity's only trump card.
Doesn't sound like much of a trump card, in that case!
I fail to see why its less of a science question than "where does dark matter come from?" Surely "Where does X come from?" is always a science question?
There are various exceptions, to try to prevent over geriatrification (if thats a word) of the population.
Couples who were single children themselves, for instance, are allowed a second child.
Damn, I do not want to get that holodeck virus!
There are other smartphones on the market, you know. And the rest of them aren't limited to apple's draconian app store submission process.
Surely such a hacker could just use another smartphone platform? Seems like a last-ditch attempt to justify their control-freakery.
I can imagine them advertising on general chat, something like:
/w me for info"
"Find yourself playing WoW at the expense of everything else? You *can* resist it, but you have to take the first step!
As they're no longer around, they would only remain in that state until they collided, becoming mushy peas.
Jumpgate Evolution may interest you, when it eventually comes out. A twitch-based space fighter sim MMO, with a pretty good sounding flight model.
You assume here that *productivity* would be such a machine overlord's overarching goal. What if it was simply to maximise human comfort? Or alternatively, to maim and cripple as many people as possible without actually killing them?
Any arbitrary goal can be worked towards in a purely logical fashion, but if it were able to intelligently set its own goals, what's to say it would want to be an overlord in the first place? I bet that would be a really boring job. Much better to piss off into outer space on its own, and get some nice piece and quiet to compute pi in.
bags of mostly water
You quote star trek to justify not going to space? There's a first! :)
While my comments were meant somewhat in jest, I agree with you to a certain extent. For the purposes of poking around a few rocks on a far away world, robots are by far the more sensible option.
For the purposes of colonisation, though, the organic bags of mostly water have it for now. Saying that, I don't think we're remotely near the position where colonising mars could be considered a sensible venture.
Even wearing a spacesuit, I betcha I could walk up slopes and around obstacles better than the (admittedly wonderfully performing) Spirit & Opportunity rovers.
And hopefully after a few years of doing so, I wouldn't have to crawl around ass-first all the time.
As appealing as "get your ass to mars" seems, I suspect the "flexible" shallow gravity wells option (mining NEOs and the like) would cause the most sweeping changes across industry and society.
If a space presence is what we really want, then that would seem to (under-informed) me to be the option with the most immediate and obvious financial benefits, and the one most likely to encourage indistrial expansion into space. Expansion of the sort that is most likely to stay.
Yeah well my ion drive will still beat your solar sail crap to Alpha Centauri any day. And will be many times easier to steer.
C#
Being able to mod source in C# would be the best drug ever.
There's a pretty significant difference - the adults don't believe it too.
Lets face it, pretty much everyone can be incredibly stupid if the circumstances are right.
Hi, I've worked extensively with both and think that they're quite different. Can I presume that Java and C# are the only languages that you've worked with? And C# pretty minimally, at that?
C++ programmers and Java programmers can all feel quite at home after only a short time in C#. It was designed that way. Saying that, coming to it only knowing C/C++, it didn't take much longer for me to develop an initial familiarity with Java. In fact, pretty much by definition, and for obvious reasons of programmer portability, most strongly typed, high-level programming languages are remarkably similar.
To say that C# is identical to Java, though, is bollocks. There are some pretty significant differences, and in many cases I prefer C#'s implementation.