Lots of good suggestions here. Certainly agree that Lain is outstanding -- and that if you liked Lain, you should see Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Re. Bubblegum Crisis : The original is outstanding, and I think the new TV version is at least as good. Since it's a TV series rather than OVA, the writers/director has had more time to develop the story more subtly and more cleverly.
Re. Ranma 1/2: the first season is a must-see. After that, it goes down hill fast.
I don't think anyone has mentioned Devil Hunter Yoko. I've only seen the first couple of eps, but it's a goofy, funny take on the magical-girl-versus-supernatural-baddies formula.
Gunbuster, while dated, is worth a look. At first it may seem like another Studio Gianax jiggle-fest, but it turns out to be an interesting look at the effect of relativity and time-dilation on those who live and work on high-speed spaceships.
I could ramble for another hour, but I'll stop now.
Speaking of anime: a no-prize goes to the first person to identify where my username comes from.
Shameless plug: Once it's actually on line, in about a week, TETSUJIN.ORG will be a fine place to talk about anime, or anything else having to do with Japan.
When I was a kid, all we had was LOGO and BASIC... I learned some of my worst habits in Apple BASIC. Could be worse though; my father started working on computers in the late 60's, so he can get away with the "When I was your age, we coded in 1's and 0's and sometimes didn't even have 1's..." Punch tape; ick.
I'm not that old, but I at college (in the late 80s) I was in my school's last assembly language class to use punch cards.
I think this was a great benefit. Having to punch out those cards, using one card per instruction, really gave me a deep intuitive understanding of how a computer Reads. One. Instruction. At. A. Time. And. Has. Only. The. Information. You. Have. Already. Given. It.
Fifty years ago, a computer with less computational power than a modern spamfilter implant filled a whole matchbox -- no, it's true, it's hard to imagine: people used to "wear" computers in their clothing back when they wore clothing -- and ran programs consisting of something less than a few hundred million instructions.
Student from 2050: What's a matchbox? Wasn't that some 20th-century drug thing?
The God == Slashdot concept supports my theory that the song God Save the Queen was begun as a DDoS against God and his prayer-server. Millions of identical prayers, thousands of times a day...
Then I suppose every radio station that plays music that isn't "live in the studio" is breaking the law in the same way.
Radio stations pay money to the copyright owner's representative (usually ASCAP) for permission (license) to broadcast copyright music. my.mp3.com didn't.
Worst case scenario, let's say that courts judge mp3 as being an illegal file format and it must cease to exist. Can they really make that happen?
I don't see any way at all that this could happen, under US law. There are clearly many legitimate uses for the mp3 file format, so it can't simply be declared illegal because it can be used to violate copyright. There are many cases on this point; the first one that springs to mind right now is the Sony Betamax case.
Thank goodness the Feds have taken this step. I mean, who knows what nefarious deeds such a SuperHacker could perpetrate while speaking to a room full of computer people? I bet he could reprogram all of their Palm Pilots with his Infrared Hacker Vision!
I have no need to have absolutely the fastest processor possible, but I'm probably going to replace my old Pentium 150 soon. The only reason it even occured to me to look at AMD chips instead of a PIII is the issue of the serial number/identification number built into the PIII.
I gather that Athlons present no such concern? Any thought or advice on this?
For too many people "Information wants to be free" simply means that 733t g33kz like them should get whatever they want for no charge.
Yeah, let's make fun of Metallica for wanting to control how their music is distributed, but then bash Katz et al. for getting an important message out where it might make a difference.
Best science fiction I've seen in years was Space: Above and Beyond. So much better because it had real military, real politics, real characters with real relationships and problems, and an actual background that made sense. The AI wars, the Invitros, etc. Very interesting stuff.
Ah, Space: Above and Beyond -- where they spend several million dollars a pop training people as pilots, then use them as grunts/security guards. Where they go out of their way to point out that they're on a low-gravity asteroid, so sombody can throw football really far, but then completely ignore the low gravity in the gun battle which follows ten minutes later.
I never forget it - it's right there in my mind whenever I'm discussing travel with friends - it's the reason I'll never set foot in America.
Refusing to set foot in America for fear of getting shot makes about as much sense as refusing to set foot in Australia for fear of getting eaten by a crocodile.
But that leads to other, less obvious consequences. With large transactions, business to business, it is worthwhile to have lawyers on both sides review contracts. There will be an understanding. The contract will specify the remedies if there are disputes. Those will be spelled out in detail at least as great as the contracts for similar transactions that don't cross borders and mix languages.
For large numbers of smaller transactions, the cost of individually reviewing each contract in a number of languages would be prohibitive.
But the Net may also help solve this problem. It can allow a large number of clients to connect with those who have the required skills -- in this case, legal training and multilingualism. This, in turn, could provide those specialized legal professionals with a large enough client base that their services could be made affordable.
This assumes, of course, that today's geography-based attorney licensing regimes can somehow be made to keep up with the times...
Point one: if the advantages of bipeds were offset by the complexity, then bipeds would not have evolved. The fact is that bipedal locomotion is a very useful thing, and it allows your hands to hold a nice big weapon
This advantage of bipedalism holds only when you are arbitrarily limited in the number of limbs available -- such as when four-limbed mammals were evolving to have two feet and two hands. Robot designers don't face this limitation. Why not a robot with four (or more) legs/feet PLUS two (or more) arms/hands?
This is such a clear violation of First Amendment rights. Their product is deliberately preventing you and me from voicing our opinions, concerns and criticisms to people who would otherwise want to hear them.
The First Amendment, being a provision of the U.S. Constitution, is a limitation on the power of government. It has no bearing here.
Accusing a private company of violating the First Amendment is like citing the rules of baseball in a hockey game. There are plenty of reasons why Mattel's actions as reported here are wrong and awful, but the First Amendment isn't one of them.
Re:What if it went off while you were on a date?
on
Date Pagers
·
· Score: 1
We'd wind up with the dating equivalent of fast-paced, high-turnover day trading.
Re:50k ways to say 'lets bump uglies'
on
Date Pagers
·
· Score: 1
And the car battery thing is genius.. i'd love some kinda thingy that i could use to inform people in the area that i could use a jump, need some phone change, or have locked my keys in my car and need a coathanger.
With all these ideas for basic be-nice-to-one-another applications, this is starting to feel more and more like Bruce Sterling's "Maneki Neko." Which I consider a Good Thing -- that story presents a near-future I wouldn't mind living in.
("Maneki Neko" is a must-read for anyone who thinks technology can make for a better society. And for anyone why denies this. It appears in Sterling's collection A Good Old-Fashioned Future.)
Legally, this may translate to an admittance of guilt on Nintendo's part.
A basic Rule of Evidence in every jurisdiction I've studied is that evidence of "remedial measures" cannot be introduced to show a party's guilt. This is so because the courts don't want to discourage peoople from making dangerous conditions safer. There are exceptions, but I can't think of how they would apply here.
It suspect that at least one of Nintendo's reasons for doing this is for the publicity. "Man, this must be a great game -- I hear it's so addictive that y ou need special safety equipment!"
Harsh? Harsh?! WTF?!? The OpenSSH people have done, what? They've issued an advisory that essentially says, "Hey, it ain't us, so if you want to see or talk to us, don't visit or send email there!" In what way is this harsh?
If that is what the advisory said, I'd agree with you. But that's not what it says. Instead, the advisory says don't send mail or visit there at all, because something evil might be afoot:
The OpenSSH.ORG Web site currently is a blank page with a link to the official site. Please do not visit the.ORG site, nor send e-mail to anybody at the.ORG address. This is more than just a request to boycott: there could be privacy issues, possibly data mining or building a mailing list of security conscious users. We simply don't know Mr. de Joode's motives, and we recommend caution.
Wonder what he meant by that. Did he mean unemployment? Accidental deaths? Failed corporations?
More likely he meant two World Wars, the Russian Revolution, and numerous other conflicts. The industrial revolution shifted around tons of political power, and gave suddenly-powerful factions lots of new technology with which to Do Things.
"Card Captors" on Saturday mornings here, is that a watered-down version of something that's really
cool in original Japanese, or is it the first in a line of 'let's make some crap anime to sell to Americans' shows?
It is indeed a watered-down version of a much cooler Japanese show.
When I first saw Card Captor Sakura in Japanese at Nan Desu Kan two years ago, I thought it would be a great show for someone to import to the USA. Great CLAMP visuals, a strong young female in the lead, and a story premise with a lot of potential.
So I was pretty disappointed to see Cardcaptors, the Americanized version being show in WB Kids on Saturday morning. They've diminished Sakura's central role (the title change is a good giveaway there) and in the process messed with the continuity, starting the series somewhere in the middle.
Slashdot Mirror
Lots of good suggestions here. Certainly agree that Lain is outstanding -- and that if you liked Lain, you should see Neon Genesis Evangelion .
Re. Bubblegum Crisis : The original is outstanding, and I think the new TV version is at least as good. Since it's a TV series rather than OVA, the writers/director has had more time to develop the story more subtly and more cleverly.
Re. Ranma 1/2 : the first season is a must-see. After that, it goes down hill fast.
I don't think anyone has mentioned Devil Hunter Yoko . I've only seen the first couple of eps, but it's a goofy, funny take on the magical-girl-versus-supernatural-baddies formula.
Gunbuster , while dated, is worth a look. At first it may seem like another Studio Gianax jiggle-fest, but it turns out to be an interesting look at the effect of relativity and time-dilation on those who live and work on high-speed spaceships.
I could ramble for another hour, but I'll stop now.
Speaking of anime: a no-prize goes to the first person to identify where my username comes from.
Shameless plug: Once it's actually on line, in about a week, TETSUJIN.ORG will be a fine place to talk about anime, or anything else having to do with Japan.
"It's that guy!"
I'm not that old, but I at college (in the late 80s) I was in my school's last assembly language class to use punch cards.
I think this was a great benefit. Having to punch out those cards, using one card per instruction, really gave me a deep intuitive understanding of how a computer Reads. One. Instruction. At. A. Time. And. Has. Only. The. Information. You. Have. Already. Given. It.
"It's that guy!"
Fifty years ago, a computer with less computational power than a modern spamfilter implant filled a whole matchbox -- no, it's true, it's hard to imagine: people used to "wear" computers in their clothing back when they wore clothing -- and ran programs consisting of something less than a few hundred million instructions.
Student from 2050: What's a matchbox? Wasn't that some 20th-century drug thing?
"It's that guy!"
The God == Slashdot concept supports my theory that the song God Save the Queen was begun as a DDoS against God and his prayer-server. Millions of identical prayers, thousands of times a day...
"It's that guy!"
[How does this differ] from radio broadcasts?
Then I suppose every radio station that plays music that isn't "live in the studio" is breaking the law in the same way.
Radio stations pay money to the copyright owner's representative (usually ASCAP) for permission (license) to broadcast copyright music. my.mp3.com didn't.
"It's that guy!"
Worst case scenario, let's say that courts judge mp3 as being an illegal file format and it must cease to exist. Can they really make that happen?
I don't see any way at all that this could happen, under US law. There are clearly many legitimate uses for the mp3 file format, so it can't simply be declared illegal because it can be used to violate copyright. There are many cases on this point; the first one that springs to mind right now is the Sony Betamax case.
"It's that guy!"
Thank goodness the Feds have taken this step. I mean, who knows what nefarious deeds such a SuperHacker could perpetrate while speaking to a room full of computer people? I bet he could reprogram all of their Palm Pilots with his Infrared Hacker Vision!
"It's that guy!"
I have no need to have absolutely the fastest processor possible, but I'm probably going to replace my old Pentium 150 soon. The only reason it even occured to me to look at AMD chips instead of a PIII is the issue of the serial number/identification number built into the PIII.
I gather that Athlons present no such concern? Any thought or advice on this?
Hear, hear.
For too many people "Information wants to be free" simply means that 733t g33kz like them should get whatever they want for no charge.
Yeah, let's make fun of Metallica for wanting to control how their music is distributed, but then bash Katz et al. for getting an important message out where it might make a difference.
How long until this "individualization" gets tied into W.A.V.E ?
After all, someone's going to fill this market need; might as well be Pinkertons...
It will take up where First Contact left off and continue until the time period of the original '60s series.
>Isn't this roughly a 200-year time span?
Yes, it is. Which leads me to think that this would make a great miniseries, but a lousy weekly series.
Best science fiction I've seen in years was Space: Above and Beyond. So much better because it had real military, real politics, real characters with real relationships and problems, and an actual background that made sense. The AI wars, the Invitros, etc. Very interesting stuff.
Ah, Space: Above and Beyond -- where they spend several million dollars a pop training people as pilots, then use them as grunts/security guards. Where they go out of their way to point out that they're on a low-gravity asteroid, so sombody can throw football really far, but then completely ignore the low gravity in the gun battle which follows ten minutes later.
Didn't take me long to give up on that series.
I never forget it - it's right there in my mind whenever I'm discussing travel with friends - it's the reason I'll never set foot in America.
Refusing to set foot in America for fear of getting shot makes about as much sense as refusing to set foot in Australia for fear of getting eaten by a crocodile.
But that leads to other, less obvious consequences. With large transactions, business to business, it is worthwhile to have lawyers on both sides review contracts. There will be an understanding. The contract will specify the remedies if there are disputes. Those will be spelled out in detail at least as great as the contracts for similar transactions that don't cross borders and mix languages.
For large numbers of smaller transactions, the cost of individually reviewing each contract in a number of languages would be prohibitive.
But the Net may also help solve this problem. It can allow a large number of clients to connect with those who have the required skills -- in this case, legal training and multilingualism. This, in turn, could provide those specialized legal professionals with a large enough client base that their services could be made affordable.
This assumes, of course, that today's geography-based attorney licensing regimes can somehow be made to keep up with the times...
Point one: if the advantages of bipeds were offset by the complexity, then bipeds would not have evolved. The fact is that bipedal locomotion is a very useful thing, and it allows your hands to hold a nice big weapon
This advantage of bipedalism holds only when you are arbitrarily limited in the number of limbs available -- such as when four-limbed mammals were evolving to have two feet and two hands. Robot designers don't face this limitation. Why not a robot with four (or more) legs/feet PLUS two (or more) arms/hands?
I heard Stephenson speak on his book tour for Cryptonomicon last year. He started out responding to some FAQs, including (quoted from memory):
Q: Are any of your books being made into movies?
A: No significant work is being done on any movie projects at this time.
That at least was the gist...
This is such a clear violation of First Amendment rights. Their product is deliberately preventing you and me from voicing our opinions, concerns and criticisms to people who would otherwise want to hear them.
The First Amendment, being a provision of the U.S. Constitution, is a limitation on the power of government. It has no bearing here.
Accusing a private company of violating the First Amendment is like citing the rules of baseball in a hockey game. There are plenty of reasons why Mattel's actions as reported here are wrong and awful, but the First Amendment isn't one of them.
We'd wind up with the dating equivalent of fast-paced, high-turnover day trading.
And the car battery thing is genius.. i'd love some kinda thingy that i could use to inform people in the area that i could use a jump, need some phone change, or have locked my keys in my car and need a coathanger.
With all these ideas for basic be-nice-to-one-another applications, this is starting to feel more and more like Bruce Sterling's "Maneki Neko." Which I consider a Good Thing -- that story presents a near-future I wouldn't mind living in.
("Maneki Neko" is a must-read for anyone who thinks technology can make for a better society. And for anyone why denies this. It appears in Sterling's collection A Good Old-Fashioned Future.)
Addendum to my post above: I'm thinking civil suits here, and torts; don't know if it might be different for products liability, but I don't think so.
Legally, this may translate to an admittance of guilt on Nintendo's part.
A basic Rule of Evidence in every jurisdiction I've studied is that evidence of "remedial measures" cannot be introduced to show a party's guilt. This is so because the courts don't want to discourage peoople from making dangerous conditions safer. There are exceptions, but I can't think of how they would apply here.
It suspect that at least one of Nintendo's reasons for doing this is for the publicity. "Man, this must be a great game -- I hear it's so addictive that y ou need special safety equipment!"
Harsh? Harsh?! WTF?!? The OpenSSH people have done, what? They've issued an advisory that essentially says, "Hey, it ain't us, so if you want to see or talk to us, don't visit or send email there!" In what way is this harsh?
.ORG site, nor send e-mail to anybody at the .ORG address. This is more than just a request to boycott: there could be privacy issues, possibly data mining or building a mailing list of security conscious users. We simply don't know Mr. de Joode's motives, and we recommend caution.
If that is what the advisory said, I'd agree with you. But that's not what it says. Instead, the advisory says don't send mail or visit there at all, because something evil might be afoot:
The OpenSSH.ORG Web site currently is a blank page with a link to the official site. Please do not visit the
Wonder what he meant by that. Did he mean unemployment? Accidental deaths? Failed corporations?
More likely he meant two World Wars, the Russian Revolution, and numerous other conflicts. The industrial revolution shifted around tons of political power, and gave suddenly-powerful factions lots of new technology with which to Do Things.
"Card Captors" on Saturday mornings here, is that a watered-down version of something that's really cool in original Japanese, or is it the first in a line of 'let's make some crap anime to sell to Americans' shows?
It is indeed a watered-down version of a much cooler Japanese show.
When I first saw Card Captor Sakura in Japanese at Nan Desu Kan two years ago, I thought it would be a great show for someone to import to the USA. Great CLAMP visuals, a strong young female in the lead, and a story premise with a lot of potential.
So I was pretty disappointed to see Cardcaptors, the Americanized version being show in WB Kids on Saturday morning. They've diminished Sakura's central role (the title change is a good giveaway there) and in the process messed with the continuity, starting the series somewhere in the middle.
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