Re:Some of the changes (possible spoilers)
on
Star Wars on DVD
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Lucas's revisionist history really does bother me as a geek.
Here's an interesting question for you. Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937. When he was writing The Lord of the Rings, he realised that the 'Riddles in the Dark' chapter that he had originally written didn't really fit in with the whole ring mythos of LotR (basically, in the original, Gollum simply gives Bilbo the ring after the riddle contest is won - but of course, we know that there's no way that the ring-consumed Smeagol would have simply handed it over because he couldn't guess a riddle). My question to you is, is that ok? Is that any more or less wrong than Lucas' revisionism?
I think it's a tricky issue. Tolkien alludes to his re-write in the LotR (Bilbo occassionally mentions how he changed his story - cf. 'The Council of Elrond'), whereas Lucas tends to simply re-write the story and erase the previous versions.
Still, I think it asks interesting questions as to whether authorial control can ever be retained once the original text is out in the wilderness.
Whilst this is a fair question (although not specifically targetted at Greeenblatt), there are numerous reasons why old software can't be simply opened up. A lot of software contains licensed 3rd-party code, and to be able to open up your source would require a thorough audit to head off any SCO-style shitfest.
I can assure you that when Satan sends messages, he sends them ASN.1-encoded. Especially the BER encoding, which doesn't even have one canonical means of encoding.
It's so much fun that it causes buffer overflows all over the place (Microsoft OSes, OpenSSL...)
Yes, but it even mentions the SCO DDoS in that article. Here's the text of it (emphasis added): There is a new virus out by the name of Novarg which can infect all Windows versions from 95 to XP. It has two interesting features - first, in addition to mass mailing, it also distributes itself via the P2P network Kazaa. Second, it can perform a denial-of-service against www.sco.com.
Others too have written about the (im)possibility of creating a map on a 1:1 scale.
Borges did so in "Of Exactitude in Science" in A Universal History of Infamy":
In that Empire, the craft of Cartography attained such Perfection that the Map of a Single province covered the space of an entire City, and the Map of the Empire itself an entire Province. In the course of Time, these Extensive maps were found somehow wanting, and so the College of Cartographers evolved a Map of the Empire that was of the same Scale as the Empire and that coincided with it point for point. Less attentive to the Study of Cartography, succeeding Generations came to judge a map of such Magnitude cumbersome, and, not without Irreverence, they abandoned it to the Rigours of sun and Rain. In the western Deserts, tattered Fragments of the Map are still to be found, Sheltering an occasional Beast or beggar; in the whole Nation, no other relic is left of the Discipline of Geography.
Umberto Eco then took up the challenge in "On the Impossibility of Drawing a Map of the Empire on a Scale of 1 to 1" in How to Travel with a Salmon:
When the map is installed over all the territory (whether suspended or not), the territory of the empire has the characteristic of being a territory entirely covered by a map. The map does not take into account this characteristic, which would have to be presented on another map that depicted the territory plus the lower map. But such a process would be infinite
No, the official release date hasn't slipped to 2009. Gartner is reporting that there's an 'outside chance' that it could slip to then, but they're still of the belief that it's most likely to ship in 2006. Yes, a slippage, but you are pushing a worst-case scenario as the most probable.
Yes, but strcmp can say two strings are identical, yet they can convey different information. Big-endian vs. little-endian, anyone?
Binary identity does not imply semantic equivalence. It all depends on how the data is interpreted.
Re:RT Jones' Oblique All Wing SST
on
Son of Concorde
·
· Score: 1
The oblique all wing is a very wide craft at takeoff and landing so you need some reengineering of the runways but you don't need to do much if you use 2 adjacent runways
And therein lies the problem. Widening runways isn't always a problem. Whilst space isn't necessarily a premium at US airports, it is at European ones. For example, there's wholesale resistance to another runway at Heathrow - which is the most important international hub in the world. If Heathrow has difficulties in getting an additional runway, what hope for other European airports?
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe and the biran fguiers it out aynawy.
Daniel, Jack, and Eliza will traverse a landscape populated by mad alchemists, Barbary pirates, and bawdy courtiers, as well as historical figures including Samuel Pepys, Ben Franklin, and other great minds of the age. Traveling from the infant American colonies to the Tower of London to the glittering courts of Louis XIV, and all manner of places in between, this magnificent historical epic brings to vivid life a time like no other, and establishes its author as one of the preeminent talents of our own age.
It doesn't sound too good, does it? 'Magnificent historical epic'? I hope it doesn't end up like the literary equivalent of a Kevin Costner movie.
Re:JDO vs EJB Entity Beans?
on
Java Data Objects
·
· Score: 4, Informative
There's an interesting thread over at TheServerSide which discusses JDO vs. Entity beans.
As a follow-up question, I'd be interested in knowing how it compared to something more enterprise-oriented, such as Marinescu's EJB Design Patterns. For those who haven't read this, it provides a good description of about 20 J2EE patterns, such as SessionFacade, BusinessDelegate and others, with (limited) examples of Java code. Is PoEAA more, or less, theoretical than EJB Design Patterns?
Slashdot Mirror
Lucas's revisionist history really does bother me as a geek.
Here's an interesting question for you. Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937. When he was writing The Lord of the Rings, he realised that the 'Riddles in the Dark' chapter that he had originally written didn't really fit in with the whole ring mythos of LotR (basically, in the original, Gollum simply gives Bilbo the ring after the riddle contest is won - but of course, we know that there's no way that the ring-consumed Smeagol would have simply handed it over because he couldn't guess a riddle). My question to you is, is that ok? Is that any more or less wrong than Lucas' revisionism?
I think it's a tricky issue. Tolkien alludes to his re-write in the LotR (Bilbo occassionally mentions how he changed his story - cf. 'The Council of Elrond'), whereas Lucas tends to simply re-write the story and erase the previous versions.
Still, I think it asks interesting questions as to whether authorial control can ever be retained once the original text is out in the wilderness.
Whilst this is a fair question (although not specifically targetted at Greeenblatt), there are numerous reasons why old software can't be simply opened up. A lot of software contains licensed 3rd-party code, and to be able to open up your source would require a thorough audit to head off any SCO-style shitfest.
they can't do anything about analog copying
Couldn't they encrypt the analog sound as it leaves the speakers, and give the user a DRM-enabled BabelFish?
Mod parent up!
;)
Mod teenager up, surely?
Enrapture the customers
Shouldn't that be shrink-wrapture the customers?!
Shouldn't that be:
Step 3: Prophet!
I can assure you that when Satan sends messages, he sends them ASN.1-encoded. Especially the BER encoding, which doesn't even have one canonical means of encoding.
It's so much fun that it causes buffer overflows all over the place (Microsoft OSes, OpenSSL...)
Not just Borges. Lewis Carroll and Umberto Eco have also written about a map of the world on a 1:1 scale.
I discussed this with folk a little while ago, here
Yes, but it even mentions the SCO DDoS in that article. Here's the text of it (emphasis added):
There is a new virus out by the name of Novarg which can infect all Windows versions from 95 to XP. It has two interesting features - first, in addition to mass mailing, it also distributes itself via the P2P network Kazaa. Second, it can perform a denial-of-service against www.sco.com.
Borges did so in "Of Exactitude in Science" in A Universal History of Infamy":
Umberto Eco then took up the challenge in "On the Impossibility of Drawing a Map of the Empire on a Scale of 1 to 1" in How to Travel with a Salmon:
A nice summary of the three can be found here
You may not know this, but The Big U was re-released in 2001 and still in print. Amazon.co.uk has it, as will your favorite bookstore.
No, the official release date hasn't slipped to 2009. Gartner is reporting that there's an 'outside chance' that it could slip to then, but they're still of the belief that it's most likely to ship in 2006. Yes, a slippage, but you are pushing a worst-case scenario as the most probable.
You are a bright spark aren't you! I found your post to be most illuminating.
Yes, but strcmp can say two strings are identical, yet they can convey different information. Big-endian vs. little-endian, anyone?
Binary identity does not imply semantic equivalence. It all depends on how the data is interpreted.
The oblique all wing is a very wide craft at takeoff and landing so you need some reengineering of the runways but you don't need to do much if you use 2 adjacent runways
And therein lies the problem. Widening runways isn't always a problem. Whilst space isn't necessarily a premium at US airports, it is at European ones. For example, there's wholesale resistance to another runway at Heathrow - which is the most important international hub in the world. If Heathrow has difficulties in getting an additional runway, what hope for other European airports?
I agree. We need to know about the velocity of an unladen swallow like we need to know about the midichlorian origins of the Force.
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe and the biran fguiers it out aynawy.
TARDIS = Time and Relative Dimensions in Space.
So the Tardis was a time machine. Time has a relative dimension in space. Hence "flying machine" would work.
But, yeah, they got it wrong.
"Professional terrorist"? You mean as opposed to those amateur or weekend terrorists? ;)
blogs.google.com?
I'd have chosen bloogle.com, myself, but it's taken.
However, all you cybersquatting opportunists can still have bloogol.com, as it's currently available.
It doesn't sound too good, does it? 'Magnificent historical epic'? I hope it doesn't end up like the literary equivalent of a Kevin Costner movie.
There's an interesting thread over at TheServerSide which discusses JDO vs. Entity beans.
As far as I can tell, Dunwoody's paper is still undergoing peer review.
Here's his (potential) proof.
Living Robot Escapes
As a follow-up question, I'd be interested in knowing how it compared to something more enterprise-oriented, such as Marinescu's EJB Design Patterns. For those who haven't read this, it provides a good description of about 20 J2EE patterns, such as SessionFacade, BusinessDelegate and others, with (limited) examples of Java code. Is PoEAA more, or less, theoretical than EJB Design Patterns?