They do? Funny, I think I remember hearing that the home console had killed the video arcade. I smell desperation in the XBox division...
I get the feeling there's not going to be an XBox 2. Either someone at Microsoft will see the light, or a group of shareholders will, and they'll raise a stink...
My personal favorite was PowerOrgasm, the system extension that worked with powerbooks...if you were running on battery and plugged in a power adapter, you'd hear Meg Ryan's fake orgasm from "When Harry Met Sally"... Quite clever, actually.
Looks like I should contact Apple, Nissan, and Seven about improving my lifestyle. I already sing the praises of my iBook and XTerra...and a custom built Axiom Titanium would round out my stable quite nicely.
It's January. It's Minnesota. It's fucking cold, snowy, and icy. I'm walking across campus to my campus job, with my Powerbook 520c in my backpack.
I am 6'2" and 185 lbs. I slip on the ice, go completely horizontal and land flat on my back with a teeth-rattling thud.
With a sick feeling in my stomach, I get up and walk the rest of the way to work, sit down in my cube, pull the thing out of my bag, expecting the worst.
It boots. Not only does it boot, there's nary a blown pixel, the floppy drive checks out okay, the hard drive works. The only damage is a cosmetic chip in the monitor frame.
You knew Apple made slick laptops, but tough? This thing also got knocked off my desk twice (once during some great sex), and had a Mt. Dew spilled into the keyboard.
I sold the thing on eBay in late 1998 and got $600 for it. I still miss that little bastard.
It seems to me, in looking from the outside, that a large majority of successful SF writers have degrees in the sciences, but not in the writing. In college, I bailed from the hard sciences and majored in English (creative writing concentration). Some might argue that this gives me a leg up, but I don't really see it. Generally speaking, the writing in SF, which I read extensively, seems to be more prosaic/utilitarian than "literary" fiction, and I guess I can see the need for that, given the materials covered. I guess my question is this: do I rely on my not-as-vast scientific knowledge that I maintain by reading the science journals and rely on the strength of my writing to carry me through to publication? Or do I focus away from writing science fiction?
(A subset question of this is: is it easy to get pigeonholed in a particular genre? I am putting the finishing touches on a pair of SF short stories that I am going to be sending out, but I'm writing "literary"/mainstream fiction novels that I'd like to see in print. Am I going to face discrimination working in two blatantly different genres if I try and publish in both under the same name?)
...waitaminute. Isn't this supposed to be a site for news? How is this news? We've known for a long time M$ would pull something like this, it's f**king par-for-the-course for Gates and Company, and it's getting posted like it's some sort of interesting new development?
Water's wet, the sky's blue, and Microsoft's a monopoly that doesn't give a shit about the rights of the end-user. None of this is news.
...I was reading about this exact same subject, as it related to bicycle racing at least 5 years ago, if not more. And it's for the same reasons -- two competitors will need to take turns drafting off one another to get to the finish line before the peleton.
To make matters more complex, those two racers have to have enough guile to draft longer than they pull...so that they have more energy for the sprint against each other for the win.
Still...that racing where drafting is involved (motorsports, cycling, whatever) is extremely complex from a game theory perspective is nothing new...
How much suckitude can George Lucas cram into a 2-3 short? There's only so much bad dialogue and plot loopholes you could cram into that amount of time...
You make an excellent point about modern traffic being an unmitigated disaster...and you're dead right. If you haven't read The Immortal Class by Travis Hughley, I suggest you do. It's a book that starts off as the bio of a bike messenger, but it quickly builds into something important -- an examination of modern cities and what's wrong with them.
He's right, too -- modern cities in America had their roads laid out before the advent of the automobile, and as such aren't able to maintain the large amounts of traffic that pass through them.
I think there's more to it, though -- I think that the suburbs are a key issue...you have this little insular enclaves where it's safe for the breeders to raise their progeny away from the "harsh reality" of the city. We've created a situation where for people to get where their jobs are, they need either private transportation or good public transportation...and most cities in the U.S. are SEVERELY lacking in the latter. So cars it is.
I can't believe Kamen (and Jobs and all the other investors) thought that the Segway was a good idea. No protection from the elements (let's see anyone use one in Minneapolis in February), big, clunky, a target for theft, you can't put blinged-out rims on it, no room for a subwoofer...shit sorry about that, hit the Eminem track in my iPod... Anyway, the things are totally impractical and priced well outside the means of most commuters. $5000? You can get a beautiful custom Seven Axiom Titanium for that, or you could buy a cheaper Trek and still have money left to pay off those pesky credit cards, get a gym membership and buy a stack of Playstation2 games.
I'd wager that they'd subside on the same nutrients from the bloodstream that everyone else does.
Thereby starving the brain of the nutrients IT needs? No thank you.
Furthermore, so they can build wires, etc., where does the leftovers (ie.: the "crap", or "waste", if you prefer) go? I'd prefer not to have bacteria in my brainpan, thanks.
"I also think if it would be possible to implant such bacteria for additional computational power in human brains -- just in case we have to upgrade them."
And just what exactly are these bacteria going to eat while they're inside your skull to build all these little computer parts? Brain tissue? Meninges? Cerebrospinal fluid? Do tell.
Yeah, and then they'll lose traffic and die because no one will bother wasting the time on their site.
What a lot of companies fail to realize is that the Social Contract (philosophy, not law) applies as much to the relationship between client and customer as it does between Joe and Jim Average. Play by the rules and be part of society, or doom yourself...that's basically it. No man is an island. No company is an island...well, maybe Microsoft, but that's it.
For starters, I'd like to see the X-33/VentureStar program get back on track. The Aerospike engine was a phenomenal success, IIRC, and the only problem they had was that of the composite fuel tanks. (If they go with standard aluminum tanks, they lose like 90% of their payload.) I'd like to see that program reactivated and the composite fuel tank problem solved.
Also, a "from orbit" escape system wouldn't be a bad idea. Set up a "mini" space station that orbits in the same general area as the new shuttle system. Said mini station would merely be a truss (similar to what they've been putting on the ISS), with two Apollo-style capsules attached, a solar panel system to keep the capsule systems warm and the batteries charged, and a small set of OMS thrusters to automatically maintain the station's orbit. This way, if an orbiter is ever damaged on the way up again, and it's uncertain whether or not it will survive re-entry, it can dock with this, the crew can return to Earth in capsules, and a later servicing flight can come up to repair the orbiter and replace the capsules.
I'm not sure we can cease shuttle flights altogether, and I also think it's important to remember that Columbia was the oldest in the fleet and on the verge of being retired. I think we have to keep flying Atlantis, Discovery, and Endeavour for the time being. Along those same lines, I'm also an advocate of "Big Can" construction projects in orbit. It's a clever hack.
I also think it would be dangerously stupid to build just a reusable launch system again. The Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs) are extraordinarily powerful and extremely reliable, and we're in need of a good heavy-lift booster system...especially if we're going to do what NASA needs to do in the near future -- the Moon and Mars. A system similar to what Robert Zubrin proposed in A Case for Mars would be great: basically, a space shuttle launch stack without the space shuttle, and the primary tank fueling four SSMEs. I believe this would allow you to throw ~200 tons into LEO, but I don't have the book in front of me.
Once a new reusable launch system and heavy-launch system are in place, I'd give the last three shuttles a final flight into orbit, with return capsules for the crews. Once in orbit, they ought to be stripped down and overhauled for use as orbital "tugboats"...
And lastly, start going somewhere again...first the Moon, then Mars and the asteroids...then...who knows?:-)
Find any site that has a webcam display that's been running prior to 1996. Then tell SBC to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut. Should be a piece of cake.
Let's clarify a few things: 1.) in most municipalities, it is ILLEGAL to ride a bicycle on the sidewalk, due in large part to the hazard to pedestrians. Rollerbladers move about as fast as a sprinting human, and as such represent a lower hazard.
A Segway, I'm guessing, weighs in the neighborhood of 75 pounds. At the low training speed of 12mph, it moves as fast as an Olympic sprinter. 75 pounds of Segway + ~200 pound rider = 275 pounds. Getting hit by one of these would be like getting hit by an NFL linebacker on a blitz.
Simple physics are enough to get it outlawed, and I'm hoping that my municipality -- Minneapolis -- will do the same thing.
Lately, I've really enjoyed Wil McCarthy's The Collapsium -- it has the grand-ideas of Clarke but it's somehow more riveting and more real. I'm working on reading Empire of Dreams and Miracles a collection of short stories edited by Orson Scott Card and Keith Olexa -- normally, I enjoy anthologies but skip a few stories...thus far, it's been one of the best I've come across. Haven't skipped a single story.
It's worth branching out if you've read that much sci-fi -- both because it's important to be well-rounded and because it'll make your reading of sci-fi that much more rich an experience. You'll understand more, you'll have things to compare it to outside of the genre. In the past couple of years, I've started venturing strongly outside the genre -- literary fiction, biographies, history, the sciences, etc. I find that doing this has not only enriched my reading of science fiction but it has re-started my "idea engine" for my own writing. (I hold a degree in English-Creative Writing.) And my ideas are my own, are more fresh than they once were, and I find that I'm much more satisfied with what I have produced.
Slashdot Mirror
They do? Funny, I think I remember hearing that the home console had killed the video arcade. I smell desperation in the XBox division...
I get the feeling there's not going to be an XBox 2. Either someone at Microsoft will see the light, or a group of shareholders will, and they'll raise a stink...
My personal favorite was PowerOrgasm, the system extension that worked with powerbooks...if you were running on battery and plugged in a power adapter, you'd hear Meg Ryan's fake orgasm from "When Harry Met Sally"... Quite clever, actually.
Looks like I should contact Apple, Nissan, and Seven about improving my lifestyle. I already sing the praises of my iBook and XTerra...and a custom built Axiom Titanium would round out my stable quite nicely.
Hey, we pulled out of the ABM Treaty, what's to stop China? Besides, this is a (veiled) good thing -- nothing like sparking a new Space Race.
Masturbating to pr0n counts as sex, right?
Right?
*grin*
It's January. It's Minnesota. It's fucking cold, snowy, and icy. I'm walking across campus to my campus job, with my Powerbook 520c in my backpack.
I am 6'2" and 185 lbs. I slip on the ice, go completely horizontal and land flat on my back with a teeth-rattling thud.
With a sick feeling in my stomach, I get up and walk the rest of the way to work, sit down in my cube, pull the thing out of my bag, expecting the worst.
It boots. Not only does it boot, there's nary a blown pixel, the floppy drive checks out okay, the hard drive works. The only damage is a cosmetic chip in the monitor frame.
You knew Apple made slick laptops, but tough? This thing also got knocked off my desk twice (once during some great sex), and had a Mt. Dew spilled into the keyboard.
I sold the thing on eBay in late 1998 and got $600 for it. I still miss that little bastard.
It seems to me, in looking from the outside, that a large majority of successful SF writers have degrees in the sciences, but not in the writing. In college, I bailed from the hard sciences and majored in English (creative writing concentration). Some might argue that this gives me a leg up, but I don't really see it. Generally speaking, the writing in SF, which I read extensively, seems to be more prosaic/utilitarian than "literary" fiction, and I guess I can see the need for that, given the materials covered. I guess my question is this: do I rely on my not-as-vast scientific knowledge that I maintain by reading the science journals and rely on the strength of my writing to carry me through to publication? Or do I focus away from writing science fiction?
(A subset question of this is: is it easy to get pigeonholed in a particular genre? I am putting the finishing touches on a pair of SF short stories that I am going to be sending out, but I'm writing "literary"/mainstream fiction novels that I'd like to see in print. Am I going to face discrimination working in two blatantly different genres if I try and publish in both under the same name?)
Um, yes. It is.
...waitaminute. Isn't this supposed to be a site for news? How is this news? We've known for a long time M$ would pull something like this, it's f**king par-for-the-course for Gates and Company, and it's getting posted like it's some sort of interesting new development?
Water's wet, the sky's blue, and Microsoft's a monopoly that doesn't give a shit about the rights of the end-user. None of this is news.
...I was reading about this exact same subject, as it related to bicycle racing at least 5 years ago, if not more. And it's for the same reasons -- two competitors will need to take turns drafting off one another to get to the finish line before the peleton.
To make matters more complex, those two racers have to have enough guile to draft longer than they pull...so that they have more energy for the sprint against each other for the win.
Still...that racing where drafting is involved (motorsports, cycling, whatever) is extremely complex from a game theory perspective is nothing new...
How much suckitude can George Lucas cram into a 2-3 short? There's only so much bad dialogue and plot loopholes you could cram into that amount of time...
You make an excellent point about modern traffic being an unmitigated disaster...and you're dead right. If you haven't read The Immortal Class by Travis Hughley, I suggest you do. It's a book that starts off as the bio of a bike messenger, but it quickly builds into something important -- an examination of modern cities and what's wrong with them.
He's right, too -- modern cities in America had their roads laid out before the advent of the automobile, and as such aren't able to maintain the large amounts of traffic that pass through them.
I think there's more to it, though -- I think that the suburbs are a key issue...you have this little insular enclaves where it's safe for the breeders to raise their progeny away from the "harsh reality" of the city. We've created a situation where for people to get where their jobs are, they need either private transportation or good public transportation...and most cities in the U.S. are SEVERELY lacking in the latter. So cars it is.
I can't believe Kamen (and Jobs and all the other investors) thought that the Segway was a good idea. No protection from the elements (let's see anyone use one in Minneapolis in February), big, clunky, a target for theft, you can't put blinged-out rims on it, no room for a subwoofer...shit sorry about that, hit the Eminem track in my iPod... Anyway, the things are totally impractical and priced well outside the means of most commuters. $5000? You can get a beautiful custom Seven Axiom Titanium for that, or you could buy a cheaper Trek and still have money left to pay off those pesky credit cards, get a gym membership and buy a stack of Playstation2 games.
And the dumb bastard would have lost more weight and saved more money by just going out and buying a bicycle!
Jesus, this thing reeks of being a marketing site paid for by the company...
I'd wager that they'd subside on the same nutrients from the bloodstream that everyone else does.
Thereby starving the brain of the nutrients IT needs? No thank you.
Furthermore, so they can build wires, etc., where does the leftovers (ie.: the "crap", or "waste", if you prefer) go? I'd prefer not to have bacteria in my brainpan, thanks.
"I also think if it would be possible to implant such bacteria for additional computational power in human brains -- just in case we have to upgrade them."
And just what exactly are these bacteria going to eat while they're inside your skull to build all these little computer parts? Brain tissue? Meninges? Cerebrospinal fluid? Do tell.
This is probably going to become the first time in history that a snail-mail box is going to feel the wrath of the Slashdot Effect.
And yes, I'll be applying. Heh.
Yeah, and then they'll lose traffic and die because no one will bother wasting the time on their site.
What a lot of companies fail to realize is that the Social Contract (philosophy, not law) applies as much to the relationship between client and customer as it does between Joe and Jim Average. Play by the rules and be part of society, or doom yourself...that's basically it. No man is an island. No company is an island...well, maybe Microsoft, but that's it.
The article could be summed up as follows:
Interviewer: blah blah blah
Valenti: I am a back-pedalling, hypocritical, full-of-shit weasel.
For starters, I'd like to see the X-33/VentureStar program get back on track. The Aerospike engine was a phenomenal success, IIRC, and the only problem they had was that of the composite fuel tanks. (If they go with standard aluminum tanks, they lose like 90% of their payload.) I'd like to see that program reactivated and the composite fuel tank problem solved.
:-)
Also, a "from orbit" escape system wouldn't be a bad idea. Set up a "mini" space station that orbits in the same general area as the new shuttle system. Said mini station would merely be a truss (similar to what they've been putting on the ISS), with two Apollo-style capsules attached, a solar panel system to keep the capsule systems warm and the batteries charged, and a small set of OMS thrusters to automatically maintain the station's orbit. This way, if an orbiter is ever damaged on the way up again, and it's uncertain whether or not it will survive re-entry, it can dock with this, the crew can return to Earth in capsules, and a later servicing flight can come up to repair the orbiter and replace the capsules.
I'm not sure we can cease shuttle flights altogether, and I also think it's important to remember that Columbia was the oldest in the fleet and on the verge of being retired. I think we have to keep flying Atlantis, Discovery, and Endeavour for the time being. Along those same lines, I'm also an advocate of "Big Can" construction projects in orbit. It's a clever hack.
I also think it would be dangerously stupid to build just a reusable launch system again. The Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs) are extraordinarily powerful and extremely reliable, and we're in need of a good heavy-lift booster system...especially if we're going to do what NASA needs to do in the near future -- the Moon and Mars. A system similar to what Robert Zubrin proposed in A Case for Mars would be great: basically, a space shuttle launch stack without the space shuttle, and the primary tank fueling four SSMEs. I believe this would allow you to throw ~200 tons into LEO, but I don't have the book in front of me.
Once a new reusable launch system and heavy-launch system are in place, I'd give the last three shuttles a final flight into orbit, with return capsules for the crews. Once in orbit, they ought to be stripped down and overhauled for use as orbital "tugboats"...
And lastly, start going somewhere again...first the Moon, then Mars and the asteroids...then...who knows?
Find any site that has a webcam display that's been running prior to 1996. Then tell SBC to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut. Should be a piece of cake.
Is it just me or does Shania Twain look like she's wearing a Star Wars costume? Is she Darth Slut?
Let's clarify a few things: 1.) in most municipalities, it is ILLEGAL to ride a bicycle on the sidewalk, due in large part to the hazard to pedestrians. Rollerbladers move about as fast as a sprinting human, and as such represent a lower hazard.
A Segway, I'm guessing, weighs in the neighborhood of 75 pounds. At the low training speed of 12mph, it moves as fast as an Olympic sprinter. 75 pounds of Segway + ~200 pound rider = 275 pounds. Getting hit by one of these would be like getting hit by an NFL linebacker on a blitz.
Simple physics are enough to get it outlawed, and I'm hoping that my municipality -- Minneapolis -- will do the same thing.
Lately, I've really enjoyed Wil McCarthy's The Collapsium -- it has the grand-ideas of Clarke but it's somehow more riveting and more real. I'm working on reading Empire of Dreams and Miracles a collection of short stories edited by Orson Scott Card and Keith Olexa -- normally, I enjoy anthologies but skip a few stories...thus far, it's been one of the best I've come across. Haven't skipped a single story.
It's worth branching out if you've read that much sci-fi -- both because it's important to be well-rounded and because it'll make your reading of sci-fi that much more rich an experience. You'll understand more, you'll have things to compare it to outside of the genre. In the past couple of years, I've started venturing strongly outside the genre -- literary fiction, biographies, history, the sciences, etc. I find that doing this has not only enriched my reading of science fiction but it has re-started my "idea engine" for my own writing. (I hold a degree in English-Creative Writing.) And my ideas are my own, are more fresh than they once were, and I find that I'm much more satisfied with what I have produced.
Shouldn't this be from the i'll-believe-it-when-i-fucking-see-it dept.?
I want to believe.
Hard to say: Rollerblade owns the patent on inline skates, but such things were first made back in the 1800's.