Plenty of other books have been adapted into movies without the assistance of their authors, with varying degrees of success... it all depends on who is doing the work.
Studies found that when some people turned their head in a VR system but the visuals couldn't keep up, they vomited...
Yeah, but surely the Super Whiz-Bang Mega-GPU Graphics Cards of 2005 can keep up?
Actually, what I recall of VR helmets from back in the day is that they gave me a headache from having the screens so close to my eyeballs. Or perhaps it was because the 3D perspective wasn't quite right and my eyes tried to compensate by refocusing, and the headache came from the resulting eyestrain. In any case, I couldn't use the 3D goggles for more than 15-20 minutes at a time.
If we understood how all the wiring of the brain works, and understood all the inputs the output could be predicted.
Are you sure? If quantum mechanics are involved in any meaningful way, then some of the events may be literally random (i.e. not a function of any observable input). In that case, even perfect knowledge of the inputs and the wiring would be insufficient.
You'd be better off choosing a dimension where somebody else shot hitler and has yourself cast as a young millionaire or something.
So, everybody with a time machine immediately sets out to find and move to the Best of All Possible Worlds, and you know what that means -- gentrification! Pretty soon that once-paradise is overcrowded with time-travel immigrants and a lousy one-bedroom apartment costs $2 billion a month.
They didn't expect a roadblock on such a dangerous highway which goes to the airport? WHA?
I'm probably just naive, but couldn't this sort of unfortunate event be prevented if the roadblocks had a non-lethal means of getting cars to stop? I'm thinking of something like the mechanical arms that swing down in front of railroad crossings. Having a white-and-orange-striped barrier appear in front of your car is a pretty unmistakable sign that you need to stop -- anyone who crashes through that is almost certainly doing so 100% on purpose.
but these IANA acronyms are getting out of hand, if you're only going to use it once, explain it, then throw it away it's a waste of time
Obviously you don't understand, it's all part of the vast nerd-wing conspiracy to gradually increase the number of generally recognized acronyms, until every possible sentence can be Reduced To A Single Word (RTASW). This will cut down on discussion bandwidth by 80%, and the resulting efficiency advantage will allow Slashdot to Dominate The Internet Forever (DTIF).
While I think it is every radical muslim extremist's right to practice their religion, I would very much like it if we didn't encourage them so damn much in the USA. How about a little enforcement there?
What sort of enforcement did you have in mind? Shutting down the muslim churches that the government is uncomfortable with? Perhaps you'd better go read the 1st Amendment again.
Yup, by using run-length encoding to replace the redundant 'G' with a repeat-count token, they've decreased the number of characters needed by an amazing 0%.
Functions should be short and sweet, and do just one thing.
I'd tweak this rule a bit -- it's not as important that the function body be short and sweet as it is that function's header-declaration comment be short and sweet. That is to say, what the function does should be easily describable in one or two simple sentences. That is because most people won't need to look at the function body (looking at the header file should suffice), but they will need to call the function properly from their code (or at least understand why and how it is used in other code).
Or to put it another way: complexity in the implementation of your function, while undesirable, can at least be "hidden" from the rest of the code universe and safely ignored (as long as your function works as documented in the header). Complexity in your function's API, on the otherhand, is much worse, because it will lead to complexity, confusion, frustration, and bugs in all the other code that uses it. Not to mention that you can always rewrite your function's implementation later if you feel the need to, but changing the interface can be much harder (or even impossible) because of all the other code that has come to depend on its previous behaviour.
But if you write code you're getting paid for, or code for an organization, anything but personal stuff, write good comments.
What, and make it easy for my employer to replace me with someone else? No thanks -- as long as I'm the only one who can possibly understand the code their business depends on, they are at my mercy...
Does anybody else immediately write another IT person off as a bumbling, stupid idiot if he runs the default Luna theme on his desktop? I honestly don't see how anybody can do any serious work with that theme on.
Around here we are encouraged to use the default settings and customize as little as possible, so that we are more likely to run into the same problems that the "common user" will run into in the course of using our software. That way the problems are more likely to be found and fixed by us before they inconvenience any users.
Who do you think the people will vote for--the wrong but predictable slightly-crooked guy with the smile, or the block of lead that turns orange every time he visits the east coast?
Given the choice between an experienced, competent war veteran and the slow-motion-train-wreck that is the W administration, I would have (and did) choose the former.
Why so much of the rest of the nation can overlook so much corruption and incompetence and vote solely based on meaningless style points is beyond me -- but maybe I'm not watching enough Fox.
On the Internet, it's a lot easier to see what you want and avoid what you dislike. The Mormons get their wholesome family crud, and I get my skin flicks and pot jokes. Everybody's happy!
I like your solution, and I think it will happen eventually, but it's much more politically charged than you realize. If you think that everyone will be happy when it's possible for anyone to get "shit sex videos" on demand (even if they themselves never see them), you've got another think coming -- there are many, many people who think that there are some things that should not be available to anyone. Kiddie porn would be one obvious example.
What if Mr. Goat-Se or something even worse gets a hold of a video camera!!!
A good search engine will reliably steer people towards what they are looking for... so if they are looking for Mr. Goat-Se, they'll get him, and if they aren't looking for him, they won't.
If people who aren't looking for Mr. Goat-Se end up seeing him "on accident", that's a sign that the search engine sucks.
Slashdot Mirror
Plenty of other books have been adapted into movies without the assistance of their authors, with varying degrees of success... it all depends on who is doing the work.
I always picture Jack Black. Oh, and they'd better be sure to use the proper late-1980's-era Macintoshes...
Btw, while you're waiting for the movie, try the comic...
It is profound -- to the newbies. Not everyone is as knowledgable as you are.
Initially they tried to make it a utopia, but after Al Gore won the election, no one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost.
Yeah, but surely the Super Whiz-Bang Mega-GPU Graphics Cards of 2005 can keep up?
Actually, what I recall of VR helmets from back in the day is that they gave me a headache from having the screens so close to my eyeballs. Or perhaps it was because the 3D perspective wasn't quite right and my eyes tried to compensate by refocusing, and the headache came from the resulting eyestrain. In any case, I couldn't use the 3D goggles for more than 15-20 minutes at a time.
Are you sure? If quantum mechanics are involved in any meaningful way, then some of the events may be literally random (i.e. not a function of any observable input). In that case, even perfect knowledge of the inputs and the wiring would be insufficient.
So, everybody with a time machine immediately sets out to find and move to the Best of All Possible Worlds, and you know what that means -- gentrification! Pretty soon that once-paradise is overcrowded with time-travel immigrants and a lousy one-bedroom apartment costs $2 billion a month.
I'm probably just naive, but couldn't this sort of unfortunate event be prevented if the roadblocks had a non-lethal means of getting cars to stop? I'm thinking of something like the mechanical arms that swing down in front of railroad crossings. Having a white-and-orange-striped barrier appear in front of your car is a pretty unmistakable sign that you need to stop -- anyone who crashes through that is almost certainly doing so 100% on purpose.
Obviously you don't understand, it's all part of the vast nerd-wing conspiracy to gradually increase the number of generally recognized acronyms, until every possible sentence can be Reduced To A Single Word (RTASW). This will cut down on discussion bandwidth by 80%, and the resulting efficiency advantage will allow Slashdot to Dominate The Internet Forever (DTIF).
More likely, you would be strongly, er, "encouraged" to say that.
What sort of enforcement did you have in mind? Shutting down the muslim churches that the government is uncomfortable with? Perhaps you'd better go read the 1st Amendment again.
Yup, by using run-length encoding to replace the redundant 'G' with a repeat-count token, they've decreased the number of characters needed by an amazing 0%.
Stupid gits.
Jersey Girl, on the other hand, is a crime against humanity. If you haven't seen it, count yourself very lucky.
The day after they put their separate library on line, googlebot will index and assimilate it anyway...
I'd tweak this rule a bit -- it's not as important that the function body be short and sweet as it is that function's header-declaration comment be short and sweet. That is to say, what the function does should be easily describable in one or two simple sentences. That is because most people won't need to look at the function body (looking at the header file should suffice), but they will need to call the function properly from their code (or at least understand why and how it is used in other code).
Or to put it another way: complexity in the implementation of your function, while undesirable, can at least be "hidden" from the rest of the code universe and safely ignored (as long as your function works as documented in the header). Complexity in your function's API, on the otherhand, is much worse, because it will lead to complexity, confusion, frustration, and bugs in all the other code that uses it. Not to mention that you can always rewrite your function's implementation later if you feel the need to, but changing the interface can be much harder (or even impossible) because of all the other code that has come to depend on its previous behaviour.
What, and make it easy for my employer to replace me with someone else? No thanks -- as long as I'm the only one who can possibly understand the code their business depends on, they are at my mercy...
is obviously not useful
Not only is the comment not useful, it's factually incorrect... the behaviour of that line of code is undefined.
Like an ankle-biter, only a little taller.
Oh sure, it sounds good at first, but beware of the Curse of the Fast Snails!
Around here we are encouraged to use the default settings and customize as little as possible, so that we are more likely to run into the same problems that the "common user" will run into in the course of using our software. That way the problems are more likely to be found and fixed by us before they inconvenience any users.
Given the choice between an experienced, competent war veteran and the slow-motion-train-wreck that is the W administration, I would have (and did) choose the former.
Why so much of the rest of the nation can overlook so much corruption and incompetence and vote solely based on meaningless style points is beyond me -- but maybe I'm not watching enough Fox.
I like your solution, and I think it will happen eventually, but it's much more politically charged than you realize. If you think that everyone will be happy when it's possible for anyone to get "shit sex videos" on demand (even if they themselves never see them), you've got another think coming -- there are many, many people who think that there are some things that should not be available to anyone. Kiddie porn would be one obvious example.
A good search engine will reliably steer people towards what they are looking for
If people who aren't looking for Mr. Goat-Se end up seeing him "on accident", that's a sign that the search engine sucks.
So why is Microsoft putzing around writing software when the time machine technology they are sitting on would be a much bigger cash cow?
Very true. Most likely you would be in the emergency room, awaiting a skin graft.