Re:A shame it's hard to find...
on
Hackers
·
· Score: 1
It is a real shame that "Copyright Law" allows great books like this to become rare historical artifacts after so few years. What would the downside be of having old, out of print books migrate in their entirety to the net much much sooner than is currently allowed?
If you just bung it on the net without asking, then that's wrong. It's impolite and breaks the law.
If something could be set up where permission is granted by the author, or the author's family (if deceased), to make an out of print, but not out of copyright book freely available, then that would be a good idea.
It has to be by consent of the people who hold the copyright. I'm sure the authors, or the families of authors, of books long out of print would rather see people enjoying their work, provided they don't lose earnings - which they don't on books not in print.
Possibly a clause could be made in the contract to remove consent should the book be reprinted in bulk for a re-release. Printing one or two copies wouldn't count as a reprint, it would have to be a proper re-release of x thousand books or the like.
It's a job for the lawyers. Does Project Gutenberg have lawyers?
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
Re:Another good, old book, Soul of a New Machine
on
Hackers
·
· Score: 1
also thought that Slashdotters, at the very least, would be a bit more enlightened these days
Slashdotters.
Enlightened.
Mmm. Maybe if you only read at +2 or more?
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
One thing I know. Predictions of what life will be like n years in the future are always wrong and get more wrong the larger the values of n.
They're all bollocks!
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
I always used to like text adventures. I even wrote some of my own (see my previous comment).
Graphical adventures I never really got into. They were too limiting, and the graphics never lived up to the pictures in my head. The graphics got better, but my imagination is better still. Sadly games makers don't credit people with having an imagination these days.
I never got on with Tomb Raider. After all, it's basically Donkey Kong in 3D with tits.
That said, I liked Wolfenstein 3D, played Doom and Doom II, Quake and Quake II. Sometimes you just need to fire up a game and have a quick blast. And I think this can be cathartic.
BLAM!!! Take that, boss!
BLAM!!! Take that, yuppie bastard who almost knocked me downstairs!
BLAMMO!!! Eat flaming death, fascist scum!
and so on. Work out that aggression in a safe way.
And some FPSes are very good. I've often found Half-Life to be quite scary. When you're creeping through a dark air-vent and something leaps out at you as you hit a junction, I've been known to really jump off my seat (whilst yelling "Fuuuucck!" and convulsing on the fire button)!
Yeah, it's sad that the text adventure is a thing of the past - but at least there are places keeping them available and serving the same purpose for classic text adventures as MAME does for classic arcade games. And if I had the time, I'd dust off my adventure game stories folder and write some more.
Bloody hell!
That Interactive Fiction Archive has three of my old text adventures on it!
That came as something of a shock, I've not had a copy of those for yonks!
Not any more it doesn't...
I mean, do you still use "Gay" as a simile for "Happy"?
Words change. Get used to it. Stop moaning when people say "Hacker" to mean someone who breaks into computer systems. That is now what it means, as "gay" now is a simile for "homosexual"
Jon "God-Botherer" Erikson wrote:
But what it does cover are the important things - the Creation and the Lord's teachings. Science can only verfiy these indisputable facts, and all of these pie in the sky theories will fail to show any different, and are thus a waste of time and effort.
Bollocks!
What Science can do is show God's Alleged "Truths" up for the fiction they are. Consign the Bible in to the "Historical Fiction" section of the bookshelves where it belongs.
Science has already shown so much to be complete hogwash. The more we learn about the universe the better.
I think Ash is the best thing Mary Gentle has done since the excellent Rats and Gargoyles (Not got info on me - look it up).
Curiously, though I'm British, I've been buying it in the US format set of four normal-sized paperbacks rather than the incredibly large UK single edition. (You may think Cryptonomicon was a large book. Ash dwarfs it!) I have to wait longer to get to the end - but the smaller books are more manageable to carry around. And the US saw parts 1 and 2 months before the UK edition was announced.
When it comes to medieval battle, Mary Gentle knows her stuff - and she used to put on displays of swordfighting at SF cons which were excellent. (None of your poncy rapiers - big swords, and even though these were blunted, they'd still hurt if you hit someone with them...)
This is an excellent book, and I think is probably the best thing Mary Gentle has ever written.
We've not rebooted our NT file server for about six months - and that was because of a power failure! Our NT Mail server has been up for about as long.
Internet Explorer is coming to deliver a GOOD web browser for Linux!
Sorry, but I've always found Internet Explorer to deliver a much better browsing experience, with far more reliability than Netscape.
Netscape on Linux, and Mozilla, I've always found to be a huge steaming pile of crap
the airbag landing is the only one that has worked for them.
Not true. The Viking probes in the 70's landed conventionally. I suspect that in real terms, (i.e. adjusted for inflation over the last 20-30 years) they cost more than the last Mars probes did.
"Better, Faster, Cheaper" is all very well when it works - Pathfinder was a great success, which is presumably why they're returning to the bounce method of landing - but when the probe fails because it's been rushed to save time and money, then it's neither better nor cheaper.
NASA seem to have been going backwards since the 70s, really.
Still reeling from the absence of the Ten Commandments in public schools, How would the posting of the Ten Commandments in government schools not be a state endorsement of Christianity?
Well, could be a state endorsement of judaism... The Ten Commandments being in the OLD Testament an' all.
Hey, it was an unacceptably high risk for Columbus too, I mean, he could have sailed off the edge of the world...
I love the quote from Stephen Baxter's Voyage. "If we'd been grown up about the risks we could be orbiting Jupiter by now"
Baxter's close to NASA guys and it wouldn't surprise me if that's a sentiment which has been expressed for real.
Oh yes, that bitch Mother Teresa - how good she was.
She was virulently anti-birth control, encouraging poor mothers to give birth to more and more babies for jesus that they couldn't afford to feed, causing serious health risks for the mothers and their children!
If there's a hell, I hope she's in it.
Microsoft probably got fed up of being blamed for it, and that's why they put it in their tech support database!| After all, some people round here probably blame Bill Gates if it rains...
Slashdot Mirror
It is a real shame that "Copyright Law" allows great books like this to become rare historical artifacts after so few years. What would the downside be of having old, out of print books migrate in their entirety to the net much much sooner than is currently allowed?
If you just bung it on the net without asking, then that's wrong. It's impolite and breaks the law. If something could be set up where permission is granted by the author, or the author's family (if deceased), to make an out of print, but not out of copyright book freely available, then that would be a good idea.
It has to be by consent of the people who hold the copyright. I'm sure the authors, or the families of authors, of books long out of print would rather see people enjoying their work, provided they don't lose earnings - which they don't on books not in print.
Possibly a clause could be made in the contract to remove consent should the book be reprinted in bulk for a re-release. Printing one or two copies wouldn't count as a reprint, it would have to be a proper re-release of x thousand books or the like.
It's a job for the lawyers. Does Project Gutenberg have lawyers?
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
also thought that Slashdotters, at the very least, would be a bit more enlightened these days
Slashdotters.
Enlightened.
Mmm. Maybe if you only read at +2 or more?
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
One thing I know. Predictions of what life will be like n years in the future are always wrong and get more wrong the larger the values of n.
They're all bollocks!
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
That's two words...
I always used to like text adventures. I even wrote some of my own (see my previous comment).
Graphical adventures I never really got into. They were too limiting, and the graphics never lived up to the pictures in my head. The graphics got better, but my imagination is better still. Sadly games makers don't credit people with having an imagination these days.
I never got on with Tomb Raider. After all, it's basically Donkey Kong in 3D with tits.
That said, I liked Wolfenstein 3D, played Doom and Doom II, Quake and Quake II. Sometimes you just need to fire up a game and have a quick blast. And I think this can be cathartic.
BLAM!!! Take that, boss!
BLAM!!! Take that, yuppie bastard who almost knocked me downstairs!
BLAMMO!!! Eat flaming death, fascist scum!
and so on. Work out that aggression in a safe way. And some FPSes are very good. I've often found Half-Life to be quite scary. When you're creeping through a dark air-vent and something leaps out at you as you hit a junction, I've been known to really jump off my seat (whilst yelling "Fuuuucck!" and convulsing on the fire button)! Yeah, it's sad that the text adventure is a thing of the past - but at least there are places keeping them available and serving the same purpose for classic text adventures as MAME does for classic arcade games. And if I had the time, I'd dust off my adventure game stories folder and write some more.
Bloody hell!
That Interactive Fiction Archive has three of my old text adventures on it!
That came as something of a shock, I've not had a copy of those for yonks!
Not any more it doesn't...
I mean, do you still use "Gay" as a simile for "Happy"?
Words change. Get used to it. Stop moaning when people say "Hacker" to mean someone who breaks into computer systems. That is now what it means, as "gay" now is a simile for "homosexual"
It was probably one of those cheap self-assembly websites you can get.
Though they should have been warned when they saw the name.
HÅXØR
Been there, done that, bought the T-Shirt.
It's an old story (Aug 15) and I'm sure it's all been said on here before.
Jon "God-Botherer" Erikson wrote: But what it does cover are the important things - the Creation and the Lord's teachings. Science can only verfiy these indisputable facts, and all of these pie in the sky theories will fail to show any different, and are thus a waste of time and effort.
Bollocks!
What Science can do is show God's Alleged "Truths" up for the fiction they are. Consign the Bible in to the "Historical Fiction" section of the bookshelves where it belongs.
Science has already shown so much to be complete hogwash. The more we learn about the universe the better.
The Jon we were talking about...
I didn't think you were writing to say you'd finally lost it!
Should have made that clearer.
What do you mean, finally...?
the alienation of the geek
But alienation's for the Rich
And I'm getting poorer every day....
Hey hey.
They're just GAMES Jon. They're not linked to anything but power fantasises....
Actually, far more interesting, entertaining, and thrilling than some unixsy bollocks.
Get a life, you sad man.
I think Ash is the best thing Mary Gentle has done since the excellent Rats and Gargoyles (Not got info on me - look it up).
Curiously, though I'm British, I've been buying it in the US format set of four normal-sized paperbacks rather than the incredibly large UK single edition. (You may think Cryptonomicon was a large book. Ash dwarfs it!) I have to wait longer to get to the end - but the smaller books are more manageable to carry around. And the US saw parts 1 and 2 months before the UK edition was announced.
When it comes to medieval battle, Mary Gentle knows her stuff - and she used to put on displays of swordfighting at SF cons which were excellent. (None of your poncy rapiers - big swords, and even though these were blunted, they'd still hurt if you hit someone with them...)
This is an excellent book, and I think is probably the best thing Mary Gentle has ever written.
We've not rebooted our NT file server for about six months - and that was because of a power failure! Our NT Mail server has been up for about as long.
Internet Explorer is coming to deliver a GOOD web browser for Linux!
Sorry, but I've always found Internet Explorer to deliver a much better browsing experience, with far more reliability than Netscape.
Netscape on Linux, and Mozilla, I've always found to be a huge steaming pile of crap
the airbag landing is the only one that has worked for them.
Not true. The Viking probes in the 70's landed conventionally. I suspect that in real terms, (i.e. adjusted for inflation over the last 20-30 years) they cost more than the last Mars probes did.
"Better, Faster, Cheaper" is all very well when it works - Pathfinder was a great success, which is presumably why they're returning to the bounce method of landing - but when the probe fails because it's been rushed to save time and money, then it's neither better nor cheaper.
NASA seem to have been going backwards since the 70s, really.
I bought a watch with a lifetime guarantee...
When the mainspring goes, it slashes your wrist!
ObJelloBiafra:
If evolution is outlawed, only outlaws will evolve
Still reeling from the absence of the Ten Commandments in public schools,
How would the posting of the Ten Commandments in government schools not be a state endorsement of Christianity?
Well, could be a state endorsement of judaism... The Ten Commandments being in the OLD Testament an' all.
Hey, it was an unacceptably high risk for Columbus too, I mean, he could have sailed off the edge of the world...
I love the quote from Stephen Baxter's Voyage. "If we'd been grown up about the risks we could be orbiting Jupiter by now"
Baxter's close to NASA guys and it wouldn't surprise me if that's a sentiment which has been expressed for real.
Oh yes, that bitch Mother Teresa - how good she was.
She was virulently anti-birth control, encouraging poor mothers to give birth to more and more babies for jesus that they couldn't afford to feed, causing serious health risks for the mothers and their children!
If there's a hell, I hope she's in it.
A Sadness of Geeks
Stake through the heart and chop its head off, that's the only way...
Microsoft probably got fed up of being blamed for it, and that's why they put it in their tech support database!|
After all, some people round here probably blame Bill Gates if it rains...