I don't think Mr Buffett nor Mr Gates are particularly moral, they seem to be really just doing this to "pad" their future historical biography
Eh, I don't like this argument. If you go looking for it, you can find a potential ulterior motive for just about anything anyone does, and a reason to belittle anyone's efforts. But most people I know who choose to live their life from that perspective -- everyone is corrupt and in it for themselves; nothing is genuinely altruistic; everyone has a damning skeleton in their closet that proves they're really a worthless piece of crap; etc. -- wind up bitter and miserable at best.
Everything we do in life is inevitably flawed and ridiculous; every effort we make to help is compromised by our own shortsightedness and humanity. But all that is still better than being so fixated on being "perfect" and unimpeachable that you never do anything positive at all, and turn into Waldorf & Statler instead.
(I'm not being a wiseass BTW. Just wondering how that experience has changed your behavior since then -- mainly, how you've protected yourself from having the same thing happen again, while still doing first-rate work in an efficient manner.)
To me, his description doesn't sound like happiness, or even contentment, but more like someone who's adjusted to a kind of anethestized, depressed state, in which life is all rather grey and solitary.
In some ways that's still a better life than the majority of humanity has -- but IMHO, it still sounds like he-e-e-e-e-e has become comfortably numb.
Absolutely. Speaking from my own experience, one of the things I knew was a potential issue before I started seeing my current girlfriend was that she was pretty dead-set against having kids. I wasn't (and am not) in a rush to have them, and would rather wait until my life, career, and finances are more settled than they are now -- but I certainly lean much more towards "yes" than "no" on the subject, and the thought of potentially never having kids was a downer. But I was super-attracted to her on multiple levels, so it wasn't a dealbreaker.
As it happens, she's gotten more open to it over the past few years, not through any attempt on my part to "convince" her but just through organic changes in perspective. We'll see what happens. Having a kid would be terrifying and life-changing, but it could also be incredibly profound and enriching. (Or the kid could turn out to be a cruel, ugly, stupid jerk, and then that'd be pretty terrible.)
Meanwhile, I know some married men who are older and childless, and are brokenhearted that they never had kids. But everyone's different, and if you know you're not cut out to be a dad, or don't want to ever be one, then you definitely shouldn't be.
Either way I wouldn't assume that other guys are bullshitting when they say they want kids; it's uncomfortably reminiscent of the way that sociopaths say that everyone else is like them, and don't actually have feelings or emotions, but are just pretending. (Not saying you're a sociopath since a sociopath would be indifferent to the "moral obligation" you mention, but...it's just not a good look.)
I don't care if 15 astronauts died in that disaster (the stoppage in space exploration in the other hand isn't, but that's another debate). You can all argue with me as much as you want, those astronaut live doesn't worth more in my eye as human being than the millions that die around the world each week. Sometime, I found it deeply immoral that we put so much value in people only because we see them in the news.
Strawman argument on multiple levels, the biggest of which is that "we" think that the dead astronauts are worth "more" than the people who die through famine, disease, war, and so on. Death is an abstraction to most people to begin with, and the human mind can't really comprehend tens of thousands of dead, especially when they're people about whom we know nothing and to whom we have no connection. Hence the quotation attributed to Stalin (which probably didn't originate with him, but it looks likely that he said a version of it): "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."
The counterpoint to that, though, comes from the Talmud: "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire." And what that acknowledges is the particularity of human compassion and cognition: we can't grasp what it means for ten thousand to die, but we can grasp saving one specific life -- and that when ten thousand lives are saved, then that experience isn't just a large number couched in abstraction, but represents the experience of saving one life, ten thousand times over.
In saying that you don't care about the dead astronauts, but do care about the tens of thousands, you're essentially saying that for you, caring is a political act, expressed not in terms of empathy but in terms of strategy. Fine, if that's your bag. But if there's no reason to care about 15, there's really no reason to care about ten thousand. It's just those same 15, multiplied by...heh, a rather devilish number.
As soon as death becomes a matter of indifference to you on the most human level -- the level where you can see their faces, hear their stories, know that they're generally accomplished and intelligent people who gave more to their societies than they took -- then it's hard to believe that your empathy suddenly kicks in when it's a sea of meaningless strangers who are doing the dying.
No, it's not an accident. Both you and I were distracted while we should have been focused on walking. Every failure can be traced back to a human at some point in the line.
Sounds like a variation on the just-world hypothesis, except instead of blaming the victim you're simply insisting that blame can always be assigned. It reminds of me of a line in Nietzsche: "Every suffering sheep says 'I suffer: it must be somebody's fault.'"
Every character ever played by Richard Dean Anderson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone or Chuck Norris was actually based on Jim Kong Il.
Yes, quite a media-friendly family. One of his brothers had a movie franchise, and another got a real sweetheart deal with Nintendo. Ever since he married that Korean woman, though, he's been keeping a low profile.
(But at least you didn't throw in "sheeple", a word that's inevitably shorthand for "I think I'm smarter than X group of people whom I consider mindless follower types, but I'm actually dumber than most of them AND a damn sight more pompous.")
BTW, grad school was pretty goddamned good at getting me and my peers to "think, for ourselves, beyond the confines of chosen orthodoxies". I had some fantastic professors whose critical thinking skills went beyond anything I've seen before or since, and whose minds were matched by generous spirits. The best of them did everything they could to help their students find viable careers and happy, fulfilling lives. I don't appreciate your slandering them as participants in some sort of deeply cynical Ponzi scheme.
The political systems have degenerated to the point that revolution is required to make real changes.
Oh, don't worry. If you live out your fantasy and manage to get rioting in the streets and start an armed insurrection going, the powers that be will figure out a way to make that, too, work to their benefit.
Mayhem and chaos almost always benefit the bad guys, because just about everyone will agree to anything, no matter how evil or damaging, if they feel unsafe. It's fun to talk about "revolution", but not so fun to see a shattered mass of meat that used to be your wife, or kid, or best friends, writhing in agony on the ground and begging for death.
Don't thirst for war. Don't speak gleefully of revolution. War is hell, armed conflict is horrible, and if we've gotten to the point that we need those things, then it means our worst nightmares are upon us. Your sig craves the guillotine; so did Robespierre, and then his neck.
Distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December
on
Is Overclocking Over?
·
· Score: 2
Checking the usernames on this subthread, it would appear there is a conspiracy of Ravens in here!
Yes, I've been keeping count too. This is a real statistical outlier, even for December.
(Mind you, I've seen fewer ravens on one thread -- but never more.)
Most speed limits are BS and/or illegally set in the first place, so that's a pointless reference to go by.
Awesome, so you're offering to pay for everyone's speeding tickets? And the spike in insurance rates when we accrue "points" on our licenses?
What you think about speed limits is totally irrelevant. For that matter, what I think of them -- and I do agree that they're often BS -- is totally irrelevant too. As long as they exist, people have the right to follow them and not take crap for it, because you're not the one paying for it if a cop pulls them over for doing 50 MPH in a 35 MPH zone.
In my experience, most tailgaters seem to want to go 15+ MPH over the speed limit, whereas I prefer to go no more than 10 MPH over the speed limit so that I don't get pulled over (and aren't completely fucked if I am pulled over). That's their prerogative, but especially on a two-lane road, the rest of us aren't obligated to pull off to the side of the road en masse so they can drive the way they want to.
The rules of the road don't say "the people who drive the fastest have the most rights, and everyone else should accommodate them".
Isn't it strange?
Way over there?
Me here inside the soil-bed,
You with no air.
Send in the worms.
Isn't it cold?
Don't you get blue?
One who's by oxygen fed,
One CO2.
Where are the worms?
Send in the worms.
Just when I'd stopped
Chewing through gore,
Finally knowing
The spicule I wanted was yours,
Making my wormhole again
In my usual place,
Ready for eggs...
You're off in space.
Don't you love Mars?
It's your abode.
I thought that you'd want what I want --
Alas, nematode.
But where are the worms?
There ought to be worms.
Quick, send in the worms.
What a surprise.
Who could foresee
I'd yearn for dioecious love
When you're in zero-g?
Why only now when you're off
To see Olympus Mons?
What a surprise.
How...elegans.
Isn't it sad?
Quite a heartbreaker?
You're off in space -- like the space
In my cloaca?
And where are the worms?
Quick, send in the worms.
Don't bother - they're here.
Perhaps the US vs. EU perspective is relevant here. Unless they come from a rich family, most US residents need to take out loans to pay for college. Similarly, most people also need financing for their cars, a mortgage for any real estate they might buy, and so on. If you start a business with a physical presence, you'll almost certainly need a loan to cover startup costs and acquire capital. Remember, I said "going into long-term debt and repaying it in a timely manner" is a sign of good character. These are all legitimate reasons to do that.
There are damn good reasons to have a credit card other than living beyond one's means. They're safer than debit cards for many situations (better fraud protection), and they offer decent incentives to people who can pay their bills on time every month. Here, again, they provide evidence of a person's ability to manage his/her money. People also lose their jobs, have unexpected medical bills, or go through messy divorces, and credit cards can be a lifesaver in those situations.
Obviously age is a factor and I wouldn't judge a 20-year-old by the same standards as a 40-year-old. But certainly if you reach middle adulthood (30-45) and have never had any of the experiences I describe above, I'd be suspicious and expect that either
(a) you were a Dale Gribble-esque figure with a paranoid, black-helicopters political ideology and a habit of pontificating about it, or
(b) you were unable to accept the idea that being an adult means owing debts to other people -- financial debts, professional obligations, personal relationships -- and sticking around, no matter what, to repay the people who trust and depend on you.
The perfect is the enemy of the good, as the famous aphorism says. People who try to be perfect -- who refuse to accept that life is complicated, and that you can't do anything worthwhile without making compromises and incurring debts -- are generally unambitious at best, and toxic at worst.
If you have NO credit history whatsoever, then yes, I think it's a fair bet that you're the kind of person who's too attached to his fantasies of perfect autonomy, and who uses words like "sheeple". Such a person is someone I'd rather not hire, if an equally (or more) competent candidate is available; they're generally tiresome, pedantic, and childish, and see themselves as enlightened figures in a world of fools.
It's a serious hassle to do without credit in this society, and you have to have some serious ideological baggage to make a lifelong point of doing so. More to the point, credit represents a willingness to take on obligations to other people and fulfill them over the long term. Going into long-term debt and repaying it in a timely manner is a sign (not 100% reliable, but still a sign) good judgment, fiscal discipline, and personal integrity.
If someone isn't willing to do that -- if they go to great lengths to retain the fantasy that they can give it all up at any time and head off into the wilderness, perfectly autonomous and beholden to no one -- then it seems to me that they probably haven't come to terms with adulthood.
If you never used credit, then you simply won't have a credit history. Your potential employer will ask why. You will say that you don't believe one should rely on debt. Any employer that refuses someone because they don't have a credit history is foolish.
There are, however, plenty of employers who will refuse to hire someone because their views and habits demonstrate that they're likely to be a total pain in the ass, lack a sense of proportion, and/or are fixated on being "purer than thou".
No one wants to hire Dale Gribble -- at least if an equally competent and less self-righteous person is available. If you're damn good, they might put up with you, but you'd better be damn good.
Huh, I completely disagree. I watched the original three movies on TV recently, for the first time in ages, and I was impressed by how well they hold up. They're not perfect, and some of the aura around them is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e. we're measuring them against their own yardstick so of course they come out well. Still, there's a sense of momentum and verisimilitude and spontaneity ("I know.") that's totally absent from the prequels.
Then again I find that almost all 20th-century SF movies are more satisfying than their 21st-century equivalents, including the ones I hadn't seen when I was a kid (so it's not just nostalgia talking). Most recent SF movies feel like someone shouting "Fuck you!" in my ear while force-feeding me an energy drink. For two hours.
The main problem with going on the first journey is that you are bound to picked up on the way there by a faster ship sent years later, crewed by people more advanced than yourself.
This is the premise of A.E. Van Vogt's story "Far Centaurus", which I learned about via Barnard’s Star and the ‘Wait Equation’, an article/blogpost on the same topic on the Tau Zero Foundation site.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think Mr Buffett nor Mr Gates are particularly moral, they seem to be really just doing this to "pad" their future historical biography
Eh, I don't like this argument. If you go looking for it, you can find a potential ulterior motive for just about anything anyone does, and a reason to belittle anyone's efforts. But most people I know who choose to live their life from that perspective -- everyone is corrupt and in it for themselves; nothing is genuinely altruistic; everyone has a damning skeleton in their closet that proves they're really a worthless piece of crap; etc. -- wind up bitter and miserable at best.
Everything we do in life is inevitably flawed and ridiculous; every effort we make to help is compromised by our own shortsightedness and humanity. But all that is still better than being so fixated on being "perfect" and unimpeachable that you never do anything positive at all, and turn into Waldorf & Statler instead.
The paper ignores other sci-fi contructs like wormholes and hyperspace, which are considered Bantha poodoo.
By whom? Many of the top minds in astrophysics consider those areas of research to be entirely valid.
"We have top minds working on it now."
"Who?"
"Top. Minds."
Lesson learned, for sure.
Out of curiosity, what was the lesson?
(I'm not being a wiseass BTW. Just wondering how that experience has changed your behavior since then -- mainly, how you've protected yourself from having the same thing happen again, while still doing first-rate work in an efficient manner.)
To me, his description doesn't sound like happiness, or even contentment, but more like someone who's adjusted to a kind of anethestized, depressed state, in which life is all rather grey and solitary.
In some ways that's still a better life than the majority of humanity has -- but IMHO, it still sounds like he-e-e-e-e-e has become comfortably numb.
Seriously? Are there guys who actually want kids?
Absolutely. Speaking from my own experience, one of the things I knew was a potential issue before I started seeing my current girlfriend was that she was pretty dead-set against having kids. I wasn't (and am not) in a rush to have them, and would rather wait until my life, career, and finances are more settled than they are now -- but I certainly lean much more towards "yes" than "no" on the subject, and the thought of potentially never having kids was a downer. But I was super-attracted to her on multiple levels, so it wasn't a dealbreaker.
As it happens, she's gotten more open to it over the past few years, not through any attempt on my part to "convince" her but just through organic changes in perspective. We'll see what happens. Having a kid would be terrifying and life-changing, but it could also be incredibly profound and enriching. (Or the kid could turn out to be a cruel, ugly, stupid jerk, and then that'd be pretty terrible.)
Meanwhile, I know some married men who are older and childless, and are brokenhearted that they never had kids. But everyone's different, and if you know you're not cut out to be a dad, or don't want to ever be one, then you definitely shouldn't be.
Either way I wouldn't assume that other guys are bullshitting when they say they want kids; it's uncomfortably reminiscent of the way that sociopaths say that everyone else is like them, and don't actually have feelings or emotions, but are just pretending. (Not saying you're a sociopath since a sociopath would be indifferent to the "moral obligation" you mention, but...it's just not a good look.)
Human life is overrated.
Is yours, or does that only apply to other people's human lives?
I don't care if 15 astronauts died in that disaster (the stoppage in space exploration in the other hand isn't, but that's another debate). You can all argue with me as much as you want, those astronaut live doesn't worth more in my eye as human being than the millions that die around the world each week. Sometime, I found it deeply immoral that we put so much value in people only because we see them in the news.
Strawman argument on multiple levels, the biggest of which is that "we" think that the dead astronauts are worth "more" than the people who die through famine, disease, war, and so on. Death is an abstraction to most people to begin with, and the human mind can't really comprehend tens of thousands of dead, especially when they're people about whom we know nothing and to whom we have no connection. Hence the quotation attributed to Stalin (which probably didn't originate with him, but it looks likely that he said a version of it): "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."
The counterpoint to that, though, comes from the Talmud: "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire." And what that acknowledges is the particularity of human compassion and cognition: we can't grasp what it means for ten thousand to die, but we can grasp saving one specific life -- and that when ten thousand lives are saved, then that experience isn't just a large number couched in abstraction, but represents the experience of saving one life, ten thousand times over.
In saying that you don't care about the dead astronauts, but do care about the tens of thousands, you're essentially saying that for you, caring is a political act, expressed not in terms of empathy but in terms of strategy. Fine, if that's your bag. But if there's no reason to care about 15, there's really no reason to care about ten thousand. It's just those same 15, multiplied by...heh, a rather devilish number.
As soon as death becomes a matter of indifference to you on the most human level -- the level where you can see their faces, hear their stories, know that they're generally accomplished and intelligent people who gave more to their societies than they took -- then it's hard to believe that your empathy suddenly kicks in when it's a sea of meaningless strangers who are doing the dying.
No, it's not an accident. Both you and I were distracted while we should have been focused on walking. Every failure can be traced back to a human at some point in the line.
Sounds like a variation on the just-world hypothesis, except instead of blaming the victim you're simply insisting that blame can always be assigned. It reminds of me of a line in Nietzsche: "Every suffering sheep says 'I suffer: it must be somebody's fault.'"
Every character ever played by Richard Dean Anderson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone or Chuck Norris was actually based on Jim Kong Il.
Yes, quite a media-friendly family. One of his brothers had a movie franchise, and another got a real sweetheart deal with Nintendo. Ever since he married that Korean woman, though, he's been keeping a low profile.
Graham Chapman died about a dozen years ago.
Remind me never to ask you to change a $20. (Or buy eggs, for that matter.)
You measure Quanta with Koala Bears*, not Guine Pigs.
No, no, no -- you measure Qantas with koala bears. Sheesh, what are they teaching the kids these days...
If you'd get your head out of the sand, you'd know that it's widely used in a metaphorical way.
That made me LOL, I'll admit. Very clever.
All these highly trained minds that continue their mindless group-think like so many lemmings going to the sea cliff.
Talking this way seriously undermines your point -- all the more so since lemmings don't actually throw themselves off cliffs.
(But at least you didn't throw in "sheeple", a word that's inevitably shorthand for "I think I'm smarter than X group of people whom I consider mindless follower types, but I'm actually dumber than most of them AND a damn sight more pompous.")
BTW, grad school was pretty goddamned good at getting me and my peers to "think, for ourselves, beyond the confines of chosen orthodoxies". I had some fantastic professors whose critical thinking skills went beyond anything I've seen before or since, and whose minds were matched by generous spirits. The best of them did everything they could to help their students find viable careers and happy, fulfilling lives. I don't appreciate your slandering them as participants in some sort of deeply cynical Ponzi scheme.
The political systems have degenerated to the point that revolution is required to make real changes.
Oh, don't worry. If you live out your fantasy and manage to get rioting in the streets and start an armed insurrection going, the powers that be will figure out a way to make that, too, work to their benefit.
Mayhem and chaos almost always benefit the bad guys, because just about everyone will agree to anything, no matter how evil or damaging, if they feel unsafe. It's fun to talk about "revolution", but not so fun to see a shattered mass of meat that used to be your wife, or kid, or best friends, writhing in agony on the ground and begging for death.
Don't thirst for war. Don't speak gleefully of revolution. War is hell, armed conflict is horrible, and if we've gotten to the point that we need those things, then it means our worst nightmares are upon us. Your sig craves the guillotine; so did Robespierre, and then his neck.
Checking the usernames on this subthread, it would appear there is a conspiracy of Ravens in here!
Yes, I've been keeping count too. This is a real statistical outlier, even for December.
(Mind you, I've seen fewer ravens on one thread -- but never more.)
Most speed limits are BS and/or illegally set in the first place, so that's a pointless reference to go by.
Awesome, so you're offering to pay for everyone's speeding tickets? And the spike in insurance rates when we accrue "points" on our licenses?
What you think about speed limits is totally irrelevant. For that matter, what I think of them -- and I do agree that they're often BS -- is totally irrelevant too. As long as they exist, people have the right to follow them and not take crap for it, because you're not the one paying for it if a cop pulls them over for doing 50 MPH in a 35 MPH zone.
In my experience, most tailgaters seem to want to go 15+ MPH over the speed limit, whereas I prefer to go no more than 10 MPH over the speed limit so that I don't get pulled over (and aren't completely fucked if I am pulled over). That's their prerogative, but especially on a two-lane road, the rest of us aren't obligated to pull off to the side of the road en masse so they can drive the way they want to.
The rules of the road don't say "the people who drive the fastest have the most rights, and everyone else should accommodate them".
Isn't it strange?
Way over there?
Me here inside the soil-bed,
You with no air.
Send in the worms.
Isn't it cold?
Don't you get blue?
One who's by oxygen fed,
One CO2.
Where are the worms?
Send in the worms.
Just when I'd stopped
Chewing through gore,
Finally knowing
The spicule I wanted was yours,
Making my wormhole again
In my usual place,
Ready for eggs...
You're off in space.
Don't you love Mars?
It's your abode.
I thought that you'd want what I want --
Alas, nematode.
But where are the worms?
There ought to be worms.
Quick, send in the worms.
What a surprise.
Who could foresee
I'd yearn for dioecious love
When you're in zero-g?
Why only now when you're off
To see Olympus Mons?
What a surprise.
How...elegans.
Isn't it sad?
Quite a heartbreaker?
You're off in space -- like the space
In my cloaca?
And where are the worms?
Quick, send in the worms.
Don't bother - they're here.
Perhaps the US vs. EU perspective is relevant here. Unless they come from a rich family, most US residents need to take out loans to pay for college. Similarly, most people also need financing for their cars, a mortgage for any real estate they might buy, and so on. If you start a business with a physical presence, you'll almost certainly need a loan to cover startup costs and acquire capital. Remember, I said "going into long-term debt and repaying it in a timely manner" is a sign of good character. These are all legitimate reasons to do that.
There are damn good reasons to have a credit card other than living beyond one's means. They're safer than debit cards for many situations (better fraud protection), and they offer decent incentives to people who can pay their bills on time every month. Here, again, they provide evidence of a person's ability to manage his/her money. People also lose their jobs, have unexpected medical bills, or go through messy divorces, and credit cards can be a lifesaver in those situations.
Obviously age is a factor and I wouldn't judge a 20-year-old by the same standards as a 40-year-old. But certainly if you reach middle adulthood (30-45) and have never had any of the experiences I describe above, I'd be suspicious and expect that either
(a) you were a Dale Gribble-esque figure with a paranoid, black-helicopters political ideology and a habit of pontificating about it, or
(b) you were unable to accept the idea that being an adult means owing debts to other people -- financial debts, professional obligations, personal relationships -- and sticking around, no matter what, to repay the people who trust and depend on you.
The perfect is the enemy of the good, as the famous aphorism says. People who try to be perfect -- who refuse to accept that life is complicated, and that you can't do anything worthwhile without making compromises and incurring debts -- are generally unambitious at best, and toxic at worst.
If you have NO credit history whatsoever, then yes, I think it's a fair bet that you're the kind of person who's too attached to his fantasies of perfect autonomy, and who uses words like "sheeple". Such a person is someone I'd rather not hire, if an equally (or more) competent candidate is available; they're generally tiresome, pedantic, and childish, and see themselves as enlightened figures in a world of fools.
It's a serious hassle to do without credit in this society, and you have to have some serious ideological baggage to make a lifelong point of doing so. More to the point, credit represents a willingness to take on obligations to other people and fulfill them over the long term. Going into long-term debt and repaying it in a timely manner is a sign (not 100% reliable, but still a sign) good judgment, fiscal discipline, and personal integrity.
If someone isn't willing to do that -- if they go to great lengths to retain the fantasy that they can give it all up at any time and head off into the wilderness, perfectly autonomous and beholden to no one -- then it seems to me that they probably haven't come to terms with adulthood.
If you never used credit, then you simply won't have a credit history. Your potential employer will ask why. You will say that you don't believe one should rely on debt. Any employer that refuses someone because they don't have a credit history is foolish.
There are, however, plenty of employers who will refuse to hire someone because their views and habits demonstrate that they're likely to be a total pain in the ass, lack a sense of proportion, and/or are fixated on being "purer than thou".
No one wants to hire Dale Gribble -- at least if an equally competent and less self-righteous person is available. If you're damn good, they might put up with you, but you'd better be damn good.
If we do see one, the best course of action depends on how big it is, and how much time we have. If time is short before impact (like
Like...? Like what, Mr. Plait?
Phil, are you there? Phil, answer me! Phil!!
Oh no, a NEO got him!!! The bastards, they finally got him! Aww, he didn't even have time to close his parentheses... ):
(P.S. I blame Keanu Reeves)
Huh, I completely disagree. I watched the original three movies on TV recently, for the first time in ages, and I was impressed by how well they hold up. They're not perfect, and some of the aura around them is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e. we're measuring them against their own yardstick so of course they come out well. Still, there's a sense of momentum and verisimilitude and spontaneity ("I know.") that's totally absent from the prequels. Then again I find that almost all 20th-century SF movies are more satisfying than their 21st-century equivalents, including the ones I hadn't seen when I was a kid (so it's not just nostalgia talking). Most recent SF movies feel like someone shouting "Fuck you!" in my ear while force-feeding me an energy drink. For two hours.
Pfft, noobs! The best book is Impractical Cryptography by #5fgj@!53!@. You can't even read it without breaking the cypher (key sold separately).
Ah, but there are two keys. Solved one way, you get the Jailbreaker edition, which is nicely formatted for iPhones.
The other key, however, gives you the Proletariat version. I've almost got this one cracked, given that the text is very short:
"!N $@V!3+ R%$$!&, C@Dx BR3&K$ ¥@%"
Just a little more CPU time, and I think I'll have it...
The main problem with going on the first journey is that you are bound to picked up on the way there by a faster ship sent years later, crewed by people more advanced than yourself.
This is the premise of A.E. Van Vogt's story "Far Centaurus", which I learned about via Barnard’s Star and the ‘Wait Equation’, an article/blogpost on the same topic on the Tau Zero Foundation site.
I think a couple of thermonuclear warheads might break the ice a little.
You must be great at parties. (Not to mention blind dates.)