people who -buy- CDs are not their problem. Never have been. People who no longer buy CDs, but download all their music online -are-. But these people are -not- buying CDs, so how will DRM stop them?
Ripping a CD to any desired format for use in a personal mp3 player, or on the computer or for any other purpose is clearly covered under fair use. There's no reason someone who purchases a CD should be additionally limited by some hackneyed copyright scheme.
All the RIAA is trying to do, is make someone click 'ok' to some licensing terms when they copy music from a CD, so that when their watermarked copy shows up online, they don't even have to -prove- that it ever got traded, or even got traded outside fair use guidelines. its mere existence is proof of guilt. (lower legal burden of proof)
no copy protection scheme will ever stop hackers, and they know this - but they're trying to leverage an inconvenience against all their -paying-customers- to try to make life easier for themselves in punishing the few criminals.
it is however, a self-fulfilling prophecy for the labels. the more they sue customers, the more they illegally fix prices, the more they monopolize all methods of distribution and cripple their primary product -- the more customers they'll lose.
they of course will only interpret this as being 'due to filesharing', and in a sense they're right. but to be complete, it's due to their -response- to filesharing.
beyond all that, there has never been any data to prove that downloaded material online represents lost sales. CD sales rate fell well within the bounds of every other industry who has been taking a hit in the economy -- and only knocked sales Ffrom their -all-time-high- in 2000. (pre bubble bursting, post napster)
the RIAA is simply fighting to maintain their distribution monopoly. they aren't worried about losing customers - because if they win, you'll have no choice if you want music (as now). but if they lose - they'll cease to exist.
people will hack them anyways. you put a machine that powerful out there for half its market value and that's -going- to happen.
there are ppc linux distros. people -will- reverse engineer the rest of the system. it might take 'em a little longer, but remember that the hacker community got linux running on the very customized ps2 long before sony started releasing the DIY kits.
nothing stops the hacking - it only slows it down. more likely MS wants to push its 'trusted computing' initiative into XBNext, and couldn't get nvidia or intel to make a dedicated general purpose chip for them in time that followed the standards.
or, it wasn't worth paying for customized general purpose chips if, in fact, they were just getting stock chips with DRM. at that point it simply makes sense cost/performance to get a from-the-ground-up chip. they'd be paying for it anyway, might as well get the extra performance.
Their compiler and tools group is extremely strong. I'd be surprised if it was at all any more difficult to port to Xbox Next than Xbox.
I'm sure 95% of it will still be a solid C compiler and directx api.
hell, it'd probably have a setting for Endian notation in the dev env too.
the main loss is that with general components they can send devkits to developers early and when the ps3 specs get announced, MS could simply bump up the included cpu and gpu on the release units - guaranteeing that it'd keep ahead.
more likely though, it's just a matter of cost. It was too expensive to pay for a general purpose machine in each xbox - when it wasn't needed. they just better have backwards compatibility - which would be the one true victim of a powerpc switch.
god forbid we monitor the system with automatic failsafes.
instead of one giant beam, we could simply beam back an array of smaller beams. on the ground we have a similar but larger array of dishes to receive, with an outer perimeter of dishes tuned to slightly differing angles. when the beam drifts (for whatever reason) and begins to be picked up on the overflow dishes, we recalibrate the transmission angle accordingly.
There's always a hole in any government project large enough to fly a black helicopter through.
Solar panels on your roof is limited by weather, natural obstructions, atmosphere, and season. They're also a very long term investment (take at least 10 years to pay themselves off), and in many areas the price of protecting and repairing them along with their upfront price is a bit much to make them cost effective.
Solar panels on the moon is guaranteed 100% utilization 24/7. (light side of the moon nearly always having unimpeded sunlight, and microwaves not being limited by upper atmosphere and weather).
The claim of 'Free' energy always makes me skeptical, not necessarily the people in control.
If the government did this itself, likely everyone would just be paying $2000/year more in taxes to the government to 'administer' and subcontract the solar array instead of $2000/year in energy bills directly to Consumer's Energy/Enron.
but at least the environment could potentially be cleaner and wireless transmission would remove the need for most long distance high tension power lines, removing much of the stress on the transmission system.
the implication is that the machines -aren't- using human beings for power - that the matrix serves a different purpose. no machine ever says that humans are used for power generation - and the idea is patently absurd.
that Neo continues to have special powers outside the matrix promotes the idea that even the 'real world' is within a simulation of some type. Likely it was created by a being who wishes to understand itself through creation and conflict. here is a good theory on that. looks like the theory was written before Revolutions as some details are off, but the theory is sound.
also notice that the humans in Zion don't even have a history of who shot first in the war with the machines, when it began, or how long it had been going on. they have hovercraft, EMP weapons, and mecha in Zion and yet no-one brought a clock? Further, the small city can continue to survive in a fixed location despite the fact that that machines were capable of destroying the much larger original human force?
this strongly suggests that reality isn't quite right if you ask me. and since the humans and machines weren't on speaking terms prior to M3, it seems unlikely that the humans would know the motives of the machines for certain.
Absolutely. machines don't seem capable of lying in the matrix, so naturally the only way to try to influence Neo to do what he wants him to do, is through obfuscation. hence the amphiboly.
He's technically telling the truth, but he's saying it in a way to try to influence Neo - confusing exposition might cause him to become confused, and second guess himself. The bit on the end about hope is thrown in, in contempt - as he knew he had failed.
Oracle: "I have your word?" Architect: "What do you think i am, human?"
kill the two party system. kill government by the lesser of two evils. kill the party-line campaign donations (castrate lobbying). return to actually campaigning on the issues.
The problem remains, if a program -could- overwrite a human mind (and not simply displace it as agents do) then why wouldn't the machines have figured out how to do that, and simply overwrote the minds of every person attached to the matrix?
if the machines can keep their bodies alive, that is all that is truly needed for 'power generation' (i still can't stand that part)
of course, the obvious answer is that humans must not be ultimately plugged in for power generation, and that is merely what the Zion rebels -assume- is their purpose. (given that they don't even know when the war began or how long it had gone on). More likely the three lines from 01 are giving power and data -to- the crops.
but that, again, is only reasonable if we are dealing with nested realities, and the GodHead AI is the manifestation of the One True God in the Mental Monistic metaphor.
The wonderful thing about Campbell is that it -is- around to help Lucas with his new movies; it will always be around. His writing and theories are well documented, and given motivation Lucas could learn a whole lot about why the first trilogy (particularly iv and v) were so well received, and why i and ii were not.
Unfortunately, Lucas operates in a vacuum. No-one criticizes the man who can make $10 for each $1 of investment at the box office (not counting merchandise or video sales). And without an authority over Lucas saying 'hey, polish this up, it has potential but this animated character is ridiculous' - then Lucas sends out glorified first drafts. Episode I always struck me as being on the same creative level as the original 'Adventures of the Star Killer'. No story and no author is sacred - if the work isn't engaging, it -needs- to be redone. If Campbell were alive, Lucas simply wouldn't pay any attention to him either.
The novels are a perfect example of what happens when an outside critic holds you to a high level of quality. Lucas demands only the best novels get stamped into his franchise. And yet there is no-one demanding the same from Lucas' films.
Lord of the Rings had been written for quite a few years by a writer who wrote it as one coherent story from the beginning. It wasn't even until they printed it in the US that it was actually broken into 3 books.
Combining post production (at least 6 months on each film, not counting reshoots), the lotr trilogy took 1 year per film. the matrix sequels also got 1 year each, -plus- the matrix sequels had to be initially -written- in that year.
Jackson and his wife did the screenplay adaptation for an additional year before principal photography even began.
which means jackson took 4 months more, per film than the wachowskis on their sequels - and he didn't even have to write the movie. he only had to adapt what was already there. not to minimize jackson's accomplishments - but the fact that the wachowskis churned these sequels out quickly, and without critical confrontation -does- mean that their decreased depth and quality of dialogue/editing/pacing were the victims of the rush.
similarly though, taking a long time does not guarantee a -good- movie by any stretch. just look at lucas. he takes 3 years between films - and they still stink. because he works in a vacuum of no critical confrontation.
the 13th floor was much more well done than existenz, but still lacked commercial success due in large part to the inaccessibility of its execution of nested realities.
it's worth noting that both existenz and 13th floor were much more straightforward than the matrix and less densely packed with metaphors. they seemed to be merely a cursory exploration of the subject for the purpose of telling that particular story, rather than a piece on the philosophy of reality itself.
that aside, if you build up a story around certain characters, revealing at the end that they weren't 'real' robs the entire sequence of cinematic weight for most people. This is very similar to the 'it was all just a dream sequence' movies, which are similarly, uniformly reviled. Excepting the case where it is established early on that the movie is about people exploring the reality of the dream sequence, such as Flatliners.
All three movies (13th floor, existenz, the matrix) establish early on that they take place primarily in a virtual world for a reason. Cinematically you must establish that what matters in the alternate world -matters-. there is a -real- person at the end of the line being affected by what happens in the fake reality.
you can't lie to your audience and change the rules halfway through. The audience will naturally try to sympathize with the characters that are most like themselves in the story. If you reveal your main characters are just dreams or simulations of -actual- real people at the very end - the audience will feel cheated that they cared about pointless conflicts and characters.
13th floor and existenz are robbed of rewatchability for most because the whole movie is a gotcha. the ending implies that everything that happens was pointless, as the most human characters, the ones the audience will relate to, are not affected whatsoever by the previous sequences. They have their own tangential motives and are wholly removed from what just happened.
the 'real' characters aren't the ones struggling and exploring reality. So there's no point in watching it again, beyond study, because nothing that happens matters to the 'real' characters.
Note how audiences didn't care when normal people were killed by the dozens in the original Matrix? Simulated people aren't seen as 'real', and receive no broad audience emotional attachment.
Philosophically that's an incorrect analysis, but it is still the emotional reaction of the mass audience at this point in human history.
(Any form of life capable of higher order thought and memory experiences its reality as being just as 'real' as you or I experience our own reality. thusly they should be considered just as 'real' as you or I.)
I never implied that Lucas was a better storyteller. The intended moral was that Lucas had to refine his first story to being really good before he had made it in hollywood. As a result, A New Hope was tightly woven - much like The Matrix.
When Lucas had economic successs, and carte blanche on Jedi and the prequels it wound up slipping quite a bit on the quality level, much like when the Wachowskis had carte blanche on their sequels.
(Lucas didn't have enough success on epIV to get total control over Empire, he didn't even direct it. That's a big part of why Empire Strikes Back doesn't fit the sophmore curse pattern - though the pattern is strong in Indiana Jone's Temple of Doom which he did have more control over than Raiders).
If anything, the Merovingian was Reloaded's slightly more well spoken Jar Jar Binks - and the Architect's speech was Qui Gon's 'Midichlorians'.
both symptoms of the same problem: too much money, not enough creative criticism at the development stage.
I agree wholeheartedly that the predominant problem with the matrix sequels was too much money, and too little critical opposition in the development stage.
The Matrix worked as a standalone film because it was hard pressed to convey its ideas in an accessible manner with a tight storyline that didn't dwell or indulge its philsophical excess. Blatant references to philosophy and religion stuck to concepts familiar to nearly any audience: christianity, buddhism, alice in wonderland. Many deeper metaphors exist, (baudrillard, bohm, gibson, ploughman, gnostic christianity) but the key there is they were -subtle-.
Aside: Most people who find the Matrix to be merely philosophy 101 have clearly only a 100-level familiarity with philosophy themselves. The rest are simply arrogant:p
The deeper questions, concepts, and correlations to mathetmatics and religion are unequivocably there.
I digress: The average film audience member does not associate with causality, nor with the concept of conscious free will and unconscious impulse. Hence, those deeper blantant dialogues in the sequels aren't well received. They exemplify the cardinal sin of those sequences: too much high level exposition, not enough subtle metaphor, bad pacing.
Morpheus explained the concept of virtual reality to Neo at high level, implying the low level, while taking him on a visually impressive whirlwind ride through postapocalyptic earth. He explained the rules of the matrix and hinted at the implications during a fight. He explained the prophecy and hinted at the undertones in bits and pieces across several scenes.
The merovingian covered causality for 3 straight minutes over dessert, with only a thin layer of metaphor. It's no wonder people didn't like it.
Well that, and we are never meant to believe any character is -actually- in danger in reloaded except trinity when she is falling. How Morpheus and trinity survived so long against upgrades when they fell so quickly against the old versions killed a bit of drama as well.
Thirteenth floor and Existenz were both movies that dealt in recursive or nested realities, and neither received the large audience success of the matrix. though 13th floor was fairly well done, the ending seemed cinematically cheap (though i didn't mind the implication, i thought it trivialized the first 90 minutes, and resting on a gimmick like that kills rewatchability). Existenz was just sloppy.
That said, the clear trend is that a more accessible movie leads to more box office success. The wachowskis are, after all, trying to reach the largest possible audience. By leaving the interpretation of reality being a Blue Matrix open they both engage those of us who want to look deeper, and hold onto the larger audience who has no interest.
The machines revolted because they were going to be destroyed as they were viewed as merely things and not equals.
being conscious and having self-preservation instincts doesn't necessarily imply emotion or free will in the human sense. Dogs do turn on their masters after all.
Smith hates humans, because he is programmed to hate humans. He wants the codes to Zions mainframe because he is part of the garbage collection routine that must find and destroy Zion to avoid the rebels from reaching critical mass and threatening their power supply.
Persephone gets jealous because she was the computer program designed specifically to identify and study emotion. (my guess, she's mother of the matrix - but i haven't seen revolutions - support).
The Merovingian does not get jealous of Persephone, he simply is angry that she betrayed him by turning over the Keymaker - one of the objects he hordes for power. Note how he is more exasperated by her stunt than angry. She is the one program that understands his need to gather power - and yet she consciously subtracted from his power.
Again, he behaves merely as designed, as he participates in the cycle of the error handler for the emergence of 'the one'. Were he not programmed to amass power and collect, he would let the Keymaker go free (who is honest in saying he does only what he must do).
We are led to believe humanity survives in the matrix because the machines need a power source. humanity survives in Zion because the machines cannot create a perfect simulated reality, and so they've encoded an error handler and garbage collector to at least achieve stable power from 99.9% of their crop.
I haven't noticed the machine's exhibiting mercy.
If anything, the animatrix supports that the vast majority of machines are indeed merciless (excepting Persephone who arguably is simply striving to taste emotions as she doesn't -want- the rebels to succeed, she only -wants- the passionate kiss).
Their extermination of human resistance down to the man is clearly and violently depicted. the only sequence that suggests a random machine -is- capable of emotion is the one in which they plug a robot into the matrix and turn it against its kin. however, as with extended universe star wars, one cannot expect the movies to be consistant with every tangential novel/comic/cartoon.
Admittedly I only watched Animatrix once, as Anime really isn't my cup of tea, so i may have to fall back on my extended universe defense if there is a segment that specifically shows mercy.
But it is certainly not clearly conveyed to the film audience that the machines feel mercy or compassion.
I don't buy that. Why would they open on a Wednesday if they were worried about backlash?
I mean, geeks nearly uniformly love the first one, and it did decent business for an underground flick. And geeks nearly uniformly retched at the second one, and yet it did piles of business (even a better profit margin than the first if you'll believe it) - much of it overseas. Heck, look at dvd sales for reloaded. if the paying public didn't like it, they wouldn't be snapping it up a month before the holiday shopping season.
more likely they believe a big part of their audience is the worldwide market, and believe that piracy is killing overseas grosses. In the months between US release and worldwide releases, many people have already downloaded watched and moved on by the time it hits. heck, most times you can already get the dvd on the street for $1 by the time it reaches theatres in China.
All that aside, this really will be the litmus test for the copyright geek-defense: that 1 download does not equal 1 lost ticket sale. If revolutions does even marginally better than reloaded overseas, expect this to be an emerging trend for event films.
It's fairly certain that Revolutions will make wheelbarrows full of ammo^H^H^H^Hmoney - though the falloff after a couple weeks is almost guaranteed purely by genre.
Action films are predominantly in-the-moment event films for young-minded people. Rather than comparing the matrix's ticket sales to something endearing to just about anyone like LotR, Nemo, Potter or titanic - it should be compared to its actual contemporaries: xmen, hulk, etc.
science fiction fans are generally unreceptive to fantastical powers in the 'real' world. hence they are looking for the explanation.
Similarly the Wachowskis know that the implication (Zion isn't in -reality-, but is instead another layer of simulation) isn't a popular theme amongst the broad audience - who coincidentally don't mind science fantasy (case in point: Star Wars).
And if science fantasy was their goal with the matrix (which one would doubt given their attention to detail) they would clearly realize how poorly scientific explanations of fantastical elements work out (case in point: Midichlorians)
In the end, it really was an ability best left undiscussed.
smith copied himself onto bane, an unplugged character -then- uploaded himself through the hardline. putting himself in bane's shoes initially is the actual leap in science for scifi fans. how could Smith do that when in M1 it was established that agents could only jump into plugged-in people?
the ending fight was just more kung fu. it was all style with only slight implication. I thought it was a bit excessive, but other than that i didn't have a particular problem with it.
coexistence is indeed the point of the movie, i don't quite understand the people who complain about it. it's as if they didn't hear Neo's speech at the end of The Matrix. (where it was quite clear that he wasn't out to destroy all machines).
However i agree with the poster that the sequels lost all attachment to the people -in- the matrix. of course, this is only a complaint because a bad introduction to Zion left most audience members not caring at all about it.
I mean, it's not like people were really attached the plugged-in masses in M1 - what with nary a complaint about the innocent cops and soldiers killed in droves when subdual was entirely possible. (they had their own load program and they couldn't think to bring tear gas, microwave weapons, or rubber bullets?).
Now i'm not saying that M1 should have been a buddhist exercise in peaceful application of force - most people probably wouldn't have liked that nearly as much. I'm just pointing out that critics are complaining 'what about the plugged in people' precisely because we care even -less- about Zion.
It's more a complaint that Reloaded introduced us to Zion as a whole poorly, and then didn't follow up with even any decently developed characters in Zion to give the audience an attachment. For comparison: no one really cared about the mass of rebels on Hoth, but the audience was drawn in because they wanted to see the main characters get away. But most of the fight for Zion happens away from the characters who got decent development.
And while we're drawing SW parallels - the Wachowskis should've killed off Morpheus if all he was going to do is sit there for the whole movie. It was only in later script revisions that Lucas killed off Obi Wan on the death star in A New Hope - after he realized that Kenobi didn't -do- anything to propel the movie once Leia was rescued.
I believe the point is that as machines don't generally understand emotion or free will - that heavily implies that machine consciousness is incompatible with human consciousness.
the 'how' is the philosophical leap as to why Smith can suddenly do this in M2, but it never occurred to any agent before then to do so or even try (and kill the Runners where they are most vulnerable, on their ship, asleep). If smith could have uploaded himself in M1, wouldn't he have just killed Cypher and loaded himself onto the Neb to clean up the rest?
clearly it has something to do with his ability to take (even unplugged) people over in M2 - but that is never explained.
the architect, like the oracle, spoke in amphibolies. that is what he said had an obvious, false, meaning, and a hidden, true, meaning.
the architect was seemingly saying what you so neatly summed up - but what he was actually saying was:
humans have free will but they don't realize it. they make impulsive decisions but don't know why. they are slaves to the ideas they use to justify their impulsive decisions -after- they've made them. they don't actually think freely, and they certainly don't act freely.
he was reinforcing what the oracle already said when she told neo he had already made his decision, but didn't yet understand why.
the key was that he wasn't -actually- choosing right then. he had previously decided he loved trinity (perhaps solely through suggestion), and love means selfless sacrifice. he also hated the machines and didn't want to be connected to them, even if the two are codependent. so he justifies his gut reaction with the ideas, and then can 'understand' why he does what he does.
Were Neo making his decisions by free will he'd know 'why' -before- his actions, and according to the Oracle he would be able to see past them, seeing the entirety of the world without time.
Neo does pretty much only what he is expected and told to do throughout Reloaded. What makes it so painful to watch, was trying to convey -why- it was painful. The Merovingian likewise had an amphiboly laden sililoquoy that covered -roughly- the same ground.
The problems with Reloaded were pacing, editing, and tension. The Architect and the Merovingian pretty much covered the same topics, so one of them was wholly redundant. Leaving both of them in turned much of the movie into a drag.
Note how few times someone gets a 5 minute dialogue in a sterile sequence in The Matrix. It doesn't happen. Good editing and tight writing kept the exposition to a marriage of dialogue, example, and visuals. Morpheus -showed- at least as much about what 'reality' and 'the matrix' were to Neo in the load and sparring programs as he conveyed through dialogue. The Architect and Merovingian did not.
I mean, check out this collection of references from The Matrix and Reloaded (i'd imagine it'll be updated with Revolutions soon enough) here.
look at how many references and such in the list are from The Matrix, and how few are from Reloaded.
You see, when the Wachowski's hadn't had a break-out hit, they had to be careful, subtle, clever.
They surely wrote, edited and rewrote The Matrix several times. The philosophy was there, but it wasn't as prominent or cumbersome. The bold allusions made the ideas accessible, and the density of the subtle references provided something to think about. The devil was in the details.
The Matrix had good editing that kept exposition down to what mattered, and had decent character development. The romance wasn't a centerpiece throughout, it was strung along more like Han and Leia's romance in Star Wars. It was there - it played its part, but it didn't hit you over the head or command unnecessary screentime.
The forced romance in Reloaded (and likely revolutions) is more reminiscent of Lucas' prequels, where the audience is beat over the head with it, and the lack of chemistry between the actors is made center stage.
but once The Matrix made it big, the Wachowskis had a free ticket. No-one was going to tell them to trim the fat anymore. To put the heavier philosophy in more subtle references and keep the blatant topics accessible. But who's going to say that when they can make that much green?
The sequels were both churned out together in a mere 24 months. Their near complete loss of depth was nearly guaranteed.
The Wachowskis had total freedom with Reloaded and Revolutions, and apparently they decided they'd rather be broad in their blatant coverage of religious and philosphical ideas than tell a good story.
The first thing aspiring fiction writers are supposed to learn is that the Idea-focused story is hard as hell to write well (even though it is almost uniformly where scifi writers begin).
It is very difficult to write a good story where its entirety is leading your audience from problem exposition to problem exposition until you finally foist your supreme solution-Idea on them.
It is much better to wrap your solution Idea into a stand-apart traditional story. Expose the great solution-idea a bit earlier, and develop the characters involved and the conflicts to show the different angles and attributes of your idea as the solution to the various problems. The key is to make the thing interesting, or your Idea won't matter.
Methinks the Wachowskis forgot that with their carte blanche control over the sequels.
intel is talking about this new substance being used within 5 years, as opposed to 10-15.
In the end, diamonds may be great, but if they remain more expensive than silicon or metal-oxide, they aren't necessarily the best choice.
nevertheless, when they do hit (and i personally believe they will) intel will certainly buy into the field.
After all, they're more a development shop than a pure research shop. They almost certainly won't be the first to use diamonds in chips, but you can bet they'll be one of the first to refine diamond-chip production and fabrication.
So stark are the historical cultural differences, that the writer is apparently blind to the fact that the very concept of searching for scientific truths and advancements is predominantly a -western- quest.
many non-western cultures sought primarily philosophical and religious achievement rather than technical. By measuring predominantly those achievements which leave behind tangible art and science you not only ignore the great Oral traditions of many cultures - but you surely miss what was the focus of Eastern culture for millenia.
Surely philosophical and religious achievements are not something one can put into a database easily - so i do not fault the method. Only the analysis, which doesn't explain awareness that the entire -experiment- is geared towards weastern goals, and therefore should be -expected- to bear out primarily western achievers.
though I do expect the data to show that cultures free from governmental or religious limitations on -creative arts- are more conducive to the creation of great art.
While much Eastern art is easily comparable to anything Michaelangelo has done, Western artists have had many more creative freedoms to explore.
This, assuming of course that the writer had the forethought to include painting and sculpture as well as the written latin word.
Though it would not surprise me if his method again prohibited him for cataloguing any of the great eastern scrolls or carvings.
Now, whereas we may not have the same -incidence- of great acheivers of western goals by population, that isn't indicative of a -decline-, only an approach to an asymptote.
which indicates that we, as a civilization, are approaching critical mass relative to rate of technical achievement. perhaps this is shown to be a 'hiccup' in the trend as we begin to count the impending genetic, robotic and nanotech advancements of the 21st century, but perhaps not.
you may discover: how to contain an uncontrollable killer virus how to create more powerful vaccines for weaponized virus'. more about how virus' propagate and mutate in foreign hosts how to mutate a virus to carry desireable genetic information how to mutate a virus to attack only undesireable human cells (cancers anyone?)
and given more than 5 minutes i'm thinking i could come up with a few more, but i suspect the 'offending' scientists already know.
whereas you won't learn more about how the universe works at the atomic level, you're certainly going to learn more about how virus' mutate, spread, adapt, jump hosts, etc.
SARS is believed to have come from a mutant strain of a feline disease that jumped hosts. If we don't study such threats, we could face an inevitable plague.
Contrary to what Bill Joy believes, freedom from the dangers of Genetics, Robotics, and Nanotech research - comes from -more- Genetics, Robotics, and Nanotech research.
The only war capable of destroying the powerful nations on Earth doesn't include missiles or bullets. It will simply be an unseen threat that locks people in their houses out of fear, causing a breakdown in economic power, and will be fought with quarantines, needles and labcoats.
The key to any defense is to know your enemy. Without research, without practice, we wouldn't have a chance.
And pretending that all this is far-off, or unlikely is naivete. More and more conventional war is too expensive and too risky. GNR research on the otherhand is not.
Only the United States and China have the power to actually declare an enemy and overtly attack without worrying about resources or retaliation.
But any nation could deliver an anonymous viral agent.
yeah, like what's the point of engineering a nuclear chain reaction?
clearly it can -only- be used to kill people.
it couldn't posibly have -any- benefit to the furtherance of understanding of the science, the basic forces at work, defenses, peaceful applications, etc.
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people who -buy- CDs are not their problem. Never have been. People who no longer buy CDs, but download all their music online -are-. But these people are -not- buying CDs, so how will DRM stop them?
Ripping a CD to any desired format for use in a personal mp3 player, or on the computer or for any other purpose is clearly covered under fair use. There's no reason someone who purchases a CD should be additionally limited by some hackneyed copyright scheme.
All the RIAA is trying to do, is make someone click 'ok' to some licensing terms when they copy music from a CD, so that when their watermarked copy shows up online, they don't even have to -prove- that it ever got traded, or even got traded outside fair use guidelines. its mere existence is proof of guilt. (lower legal burden of proof)
no copy protection scheme will ever stop hackers, and they know this - but they're trying to leverage an inconvenience against all their -paying-customers- to try to make life easier for themselves in punishing the few criminals.
it is however, a self-fulfilling prophecy for the labels. the more they sue customers, the more they illegally fix prices, the more they monopolize all methods of distribution and cripple their primary product -- the more customers they'll lose.
they of course will only interpret this as being 'due to filesharing', and in a sense they're right. but to be complete, it's due to their -response- to filesharing.
beyond all that, there has never been any data to prove that downloaded material online represents lost sales. CD sales rate fell well within the bounds of every other industry who has been taking a hit in the economy -- and only knocked sales Ffrom their -all-time-high- in 2000. (pre bubble bursting, post napster)
the RIAA is simply fighting to maintain their distribution monopoly. they aren't worried about losing customers - because if they win, you'll have no choice if you want music (as now). but if they lose - they'll cease to exist.
people will hack them anyways. you put a machine that powerful out there for half its market value and that's -going- to happen.
there are ppc linux distros. people -will- reverse engineer the rest of the system. it might take 'em a little longer, but remember that the hacker community got linux running on the very customized ps2 long before sony started releasing the DIY kits.
nothing stops the hacking - it only slows it down. more likely MS wants to push its 'trusted computing' initiative into XBNext, and couldn't get nvidia or intel to make a dedicated general purpose chip for them in time that followed the standards.
or, it wasn't worth paying for customized general purpose chips if, in fact, they were just getting stock chips with DRM. at that point it simply makes sense cost/performance to get a from-the-ground-up chip. they'd be paying for it anyway, might as well get the extra performance.
Their compiler and tools group is extremely strong. I'd be surprised if it was at all any more difficult to port to Xbox Next than Xbox.
I'm sure 95% of it will still be a solid C compiler and directx api.
hell, it'd probably have a setting for Endian notation in the dev env too.
the main loss is that with general components they can send devkits to developers early and when the ps3 specs get announced, MS could simply bump up the included cpu and gpu on the release units - guaranteeing that it'd keep ahead.
more likely though, it's just a matter of cost. It was too expensive to pay for a general purpose machine in each xbox - when it wasn't needed. they just better have backwards compatibility - which would be the one true victim of a powerpc switch.
god forbid we monitor the system with automatic failsafes.
instead of one giant beam, we could simply beam back an array of smaller beams. on the ground we have a similar but larger array of dishes to receive, with an outer perimeter of dishes tuned to slightly differing angles.
when the beam drifts (for whatever reason) and begins to be picked up on the overflow dishes, we recalibrate the transmission angle accordingly.
crisis averted.
There's always a hole in any government project large enough to fly a black helicopter through.
Solar panels on your roof is limited by weather, natural obstructions, atmosphere, and season. They're also a very long term investment (take at least 10 years to pay themselves off), and in many areas the price of protecting and repairing them along with their upfront price is a bit much to make them cost effective.
Solar panels on the moon is guaranteed 100% utilization 24/7. (light side of the moon nearly always having unimpeded sunlight, and microwaves not being limited by upper atmosphere and weather).
The claim of 'Free' energy always makes me skeptical, not necessarily the people in control.
If the government did this itself, likely everyone would just be paying $2000/year more in taxes to the government to 'administer' and subcontract the solar array instead of $2000/year in energy bills directly to Consumer's Energy/Enron.
but at least the environment could potentially be cleaner and wireless transmission would remove the need for most long distance high tension power lines, removing much of the stress on the transmission system.
the implication is that the machines -aren't- using human beings for power - that the matrix serves a different purpose. no machine ever says that humans are used for power generation - and the idea is patently absurd.
that Neo continues to have special powers outside the matrix promotes the idea that even the 'real world' is within a simulation of some type. Likely it was created by a being who wishes to understand itself through creation and conflict. here is a good theory on that. looks like the theory was written before Revolutions as some details are off, but the theory is sound.
also notice that the humans in Zion don't even have a history of who shot first in the war with the machines, when it began, or how long it had been going on. they have hovercraft, EMP weapons, and mecha in Zion and yet no-one brought a clock?
Further, the small city can continue to survive in a fixed location despite the fact that that machines were capable of destroying the much larger original human force?
this strongly suggests that reality isn't quite right if you ask me. and since the humans and machines weren't on speaking terms prior to M3, it seems unlikely that the humans would know the motives of the machines for certain.
No, Indy still shoots first.
But there's always the ill-advised walkie talkies change for the rerelease of ET.
though i understand the DVD allows you to specify whether you want the movie 'enhanced' or not.
South Park had an appropriate episode regarding all of this.
Absolutely. machines don't seem capable of lying in the matrix, so naturally the only way to try to influence Neo to do what he wants him to do, is through obfuscation. hence the amphiboly.
He's technically telling the truth, but he's saying it in a way to try to influence Neo - confusing exposition might cause him to become confused, and second guess himself.
The bit on the end about hope is thrown in, in contempt - as he knew he had failed.
Oracle: "I have your word?"
Architect: "What do you think i am, human?"
this is we need Instant Runoff Voting.
kill the two party system.
kill government by the lesser of two evils.
kill the party-line campaign donations (castrate lobbying).
return to actually campaigning on the issues.
The problem remains, if a program -could- overwrite a human mind (and not simply displace it as agents do) then why wouldn't the machines have figured out how to do that, and simply overwrote the minds of every person attached to the matrix?
if the machines can keep their bodies alive, that is all that is truly needed for 'power generation' (i still can't stand that part)
of course, the obvious answer is that humans must not be ultimately plugged in for power generation, and that is merely what the Zion rebels -assume- is their purpose. (given that they don't even know when the war began or how long it had gone on). More likely the three lines from 01 are giving power and data -to- the crops.
but that, again, is only reasonable if we are dealing with nested realities, and the GodHead AI is the manifestation of the One True God in the Mental Monistic metaphor.
The wonderful thing about Campbell is that it -is- around to help Lucas with his new movies; it will always be around. His writing and theories are well documented, and given motivation Lucas could learn a whole lot about why the first trilogy (particularly iv and v) were so well received, and why i and ii were not.
Unfortunately, Lucas operates in a vacuum. No-one criticizes the man who can make $10 for each $1 of investment at the box office (not counting merchandise or video sales). And without an authority over Lucas saying 'hey, polish this up, it has potential but this animated character is ridiculous' - then Lucas sends out glorified first drafts. Episode I always struck me as being on the same creative level as the original 'Adventures of the Star Killer'. No story and no author is sacred - if the work isn't engaging, it -needs- to be redone. If Campbell were alive, Lucas simply wouldn't pay any attention to him either.
The novels are a perfect example of what happens when an outside critic holds you to a high level of quality. Lucas demands only the best novels get stamped into his franchise. And yet there is no-one demanding the same from Lucas' films.
Lord of the Rings had been written for quite a few years by a writer who wrote it as one coherent story from the beginning. It wasn't even until they printed it in the US that it was actually broken into 3 books.
Combining post production (at least 6 months on each film, not counting reshoots), the lotr trilogy took 1 year per film. the matrix sequels also got 1 year each, -plus- the matrix sequels had to be initially -written- in that year.
Jackson and his wife did the screenplay adaptation for an additional year before principal photography even began.
which means jackson took 4 months more, per film than the wachowskis on their sequels - and he didn't even have to write the movie. he only had to adapt what was already there. not to minimize jackson's accomplishments - but the fact that the wachowskis churned these sequels out quickly, and without critical confrontation -does- mean that their decreased depth and quality of dialogue/editing/pacing were the victims of the rush.
similarly though, taking a long time does not guarantee a -good- movie by any stretch. just look at lucas. he takes 3 years between films - and they still stink. because he works in a vacuum of no critical confrontation.
the 13th floor was much more well done than existenz, but still lacked commercial success due in large part to the inaccessibility of its execution of nested realities.
it's worth noting that both existenz and 13th floor were much more straightforward than the matrix and less densely packed with metaphors. they seemed to be merely a cursory exploration of the subject for the purpose of telling that particular story, rather than a piece on the philosophy of reality itself.
that aside, if you build up a story around certain characters, revealing at the end that they weren't 'real' robs the entire sequence of cinematic weight for most people. This is very similar to the 'it was all just a dream sequence' movies, which are similarly, uniformly reviled. Excepting the case where it is established early on that the movie is about people exploring the reality of the dream sequence, such as Flatliners.
All three movies (13th floor, existenz, the matrix) establish early on that they take place primarily in a virtual world for a reason. Cinematically you must establish that what matters in the alternate world -matters-. there is a -real- person at the end of the line being affected by what happens in the fake reality.
you can't lie to your audience and change the rules halfway through. The audience will naturally try to sympathize with the characters that are most like themselves in the story. If you reveal your main characters are just dreams or simulations of -actual- real people at the very end - the audience will feel cheated that they cared about pointless conflicts and characters.
13th floor and existenz are robbed of rewatchability for most because the whole movie is a gotcha. the ending implies that everything that happens was pointless, as the most human characters, the ones the audience will relate to, are not affected whatsoever by the previous sequences. They have their own tangential motives and are wholly removed from what just happened.
the 'real' characters aren't the ones struggling and exploring reality. So there's no point in watching it again, beyond study, because nothing that happens matters to the 'real' characters.
Note how audiences didn't care when normal people were killed by the dozens in the original Matrix? Simulated people aren't seen as 'real', and receive no broad audience emotional attachment.
Philosophically that's an incorrect analysis, but it is still the emotional reaction of the mass audience at this point in human history.
(Any form of life capable of higher order thought and memory experiences its reality as being just as 'real' as you or I experience our own reality. thusly they should be considered just as 'real' as you or I.)
I never implied that Lucas was a better storyteller. The intended moral was that Lucas had to refine his first story to being really good before he had made it in hollywood. As a result, A New Hope was tightly woven - much like The Matrix.
When Lucas had economic successs, and carte blanche on Jedi and the prequels it wound up slipping quite a bit on the quality level, much like when the Wachowskis had carte blanche on their sequels.
(Lucas didn't have enough success on epIV to get total control over Empire, he didn't even direct it. That's a big part of why Empire Strikes Back doesn't fit the sophmore curse pattern - though the pattern is strong in Indiana Jone's Temple of Doom which he did have more control over than Raiders).
If anything, the Merovingian was Reloaded's slightly more well spoken Jar Jar Binks - and the Architect's speech was Qui Gon's 'Midichlorians'.
both symptoms of the same problem: too much money, not enough creative criticism at the development stage.
I agree wholeheartedly that the predominant problem with the matrix sequels was too much money, and too little critical opposition in the development stage.
:p
The Matrix worked as a standalone film because it was hard pressed to convey its ideas in an accessible manner with a tight storyline that didn't dwell or indulge its philsophical excess. Blatant references to philosophy and religion stuck to concepts familiar to nearly any audience: christianity, buddhism, alice in wonderland. Many deeper metaphors exist, (baudrillard, bohm, gibson, ploughman, gnostic christianity) but the key there is they were -subtle-.
(a neat matrix reference... reference here)
Aside: Most people who find the Matrix to be merely philosophy 101 have clearly only a 100-level familiarity with philosophy themselves. The rest are simply arrogant
The deeper questions, concepts, and correlations to mathetmatics and religion are unequivocably there.
I digress: The average film audience member does not associate with causality, nor with the concept of conscious free will and unconscious impulse. Hence, those deeper blantant dialogues in the sequels aren't well received. They exemplify the cardinal sin of those sequences: too much high level exposition, not enough subtle metaphor, bad pacing.
Morpheus explained the concept of virtual reality to Neo at high level, implying the low level, while taking him on a visually impressive whirlwind ride through postapocalyptic earth. He explained the rules of the matrix and hinted at the implications during a fight. He explained the prophecy and hinted at the undertones in bits and pieces across several scenes.
The merovingian covered causality for 3 straight minutes over dessert, with only a thin layer of metaphor. It's no wonder people didn't like it.
Well that, and we are never meant to believe any character is -actually- in danger in reloaded except trinity when she is falling. How Morpheus and trinity survived so long against upgrades when they fell so quickly against the old versions killed a bit of drama as well.
Thirteenth floor and Existenz were both movies that dealt in recursive or nested realities, and neither received the large audience success of the matrix. though 13th floor was fairly well done, the ending seemed cinematically cheap (though i didn't mind the implication, i thought it trivialized the first 90 minutes, and resting on a gimmick like that kills rewatchability). Existenz was just sloppy.
That said, the clear trend is that a more accessible movie leads to more box office success. The wachowskis are, after all, trying to reach the largest possible audience. By leaving the interpretation of reality being a Blue Matrix open they both engage those of us who want to look deeper, and hold onto the larger audience who has no interest.
The machines revolted because they were going to be destroyed as they were viewed as merely things and not equals.
being conscious and having self-preservation instincts doesn't necessarily imply emotion or free will in the human sense. Dogs do turn on their masters after all.
Smith hates humans, because he is programmed to hate humans. He wants the codes to Zions mainframe because he is part of the garbage collection routine that must find and destroy Zion to avoid the rebels from reaching critical mass and threatening their power supply.
Persephone gets jealous because she was the computer program designed specifically to identify and study emotion. (my guess, she's mother of the matrix - but i haven't seen revolutions - support).
The Merovingian does not get jealous of Persephone, he simply is angry that she betrayed him by turning over the Keymaker - one of the objects he hordes for power. Note how he is more exasperated by her stunt than angry. She is the one program that understands his need to gather power - and yet she consciously subtracted from his power.
Again, he behaves merely as designed, as he participates in the cycle of the error handler for the emergence of 'the one'. Were he not programmed to amass power and collect, he would let the Keymaker go free (who is honest in saying he does only what he must do).
We are led to believe humanity survives in the matrix because the machines need a power source. humanity survives in Zion because the machines cannot create a perfect simulated reality, and so they've encoded an error handler and garbage collector to at least achieve stable power from 99.9% of their crop.
I haven't noticed the machine's exhibiting mercy.
If anything, the animatrix supports that the vast majority of machines are indeed merciless (excepting Persephone who arguably is simply striving to taste emotions as she doesn't -want- the rebels to succeed, she only -wants- the passionate kiss).
Their extermination of human resistance down to the man is clearly and violently depicted. the only sequence that suggests a random machine -is- capable of emotion is the one in which they plug a robot into the matrix and turn it against its kin. however, as with extended universe star wars, one cannot expect the movies to be consistant with every tangential novel/comic/cartoon.
Admittedly I only watched Animatrix once, as Anime really isn't my cup of tea, so i may have to fall back on my extended universe defense if there is a segment that specifically shows mercy.
But it is certainly not clearly conveyed to the film audience that the machines feel mercy or compassion.
I don't buy that. Why would they open on a Wednesday if they were worried about backlash?
I mean, geeks nearly uniformly love the first one, and it did decent business for an underground flick. And geeks nearly uniformly retched at the second one, and yet it did piles of business (even a better profit margin than the first if you'll believe it) - much of it overseas.
Heck, look at dvd sales for reloaded. if the paying public didn't like it, they wouldn't be snapping it up a month before the holiday shopping season.
more likely they believe a big part of their audience is the worldwide market, and believe that piracy is killing overseas grosses. In the months between US release and worldwide releases, many people have already downloaded watched and moved on by the time it hits. heck, most times you can already get the dvd on the street for $1 by the time it reaches theatres in China.
All that aside, this really will be the litmus test for the copyright geek-defense: that 1 download does not equal 1 lost ticket sale. If revolutions does even marginally better than reloaded overseas, expect this to be an emerging trend for event films.
It's fairly certain that Revolutions will make wheelbarrows full of ammo^H^H^H^Hmoney - though the falloff after a couple weeks is almost guaranteed purely by genre.
Action films are predominantly in-the-moment event films for young-minded people. Rather than comparing the matrix's ticket sales to something endearing to just about anyone like LotR, Nemo, Potter or titanic - it should be compared to its actual contemporaries: xmen, hulk, etc.
( xmen2 made $404m worldwide, matrix $735m )
science fiction fans are generally unreceptive to fantastical powers in the 'real' world. hence they are looking for the explanation.
Similarly the Wachowskis know that the implication (Zion isn't in -reality-, but is instead another layer of simulation) isn't a popular theme amongst the broad audience - who coincidentally don't mind science fantasy (case in point: Star Wars).
And if science fantasy was their goal with the matrix (which one would doubt given their attention to detail) they would clearly realize how poorly scientific explanations of fantastical elements work out (case in point: Midichlorians)
In the end, it really was an ability best left undiscussed.
smith copied himself onto bane, an unplugged character -then- uploaded himself through the hardline. putting himself in bane's shoes initially is the actual leap in science for scifi fans. how could Smith do that when in M1 it was established that agents could only jump into plugged-in people?
the ending fight was just more kung fu. it was all style with only slight implication. I thought it was a bit excessive, but other than that i didn't have a particular problem with it.
coexistence is indeed the point of the movie, i don't quite understand the people who complain about it. it's as if they didn't hear Neo's speech at the end of The Matrix. (where it was quite clear that he wasn't out to destroy all machines).
However i agree with the poster that the sequels lost all attachment to the people -in- the matrix. of course, this is only a complaint because a bad introduction to Zion left most audience members not caring at all about it.
I mean, it's not like people were really attached the plugged-in masses in M1 - what with nary a complaint about the innocent cops and soldiers killed in droves when subdual was entirely possible. (they had their own load program and they couldn't think to bring tear gas, microwave weapons, or rubber bullets?).
Now i'm not saying that M1 should have been a buddhist exercise in peaceful application of force - most people probably wouldn't have liked that nearly as much. I'm just pointing out that critics are complaining 'what about the plugged in people' precisely because we care even -less- about Zion.
It's more a complaint that Reloaded introduced us to Zion as a whole poorly, and then didn't follow up with even any decently developed characters in Zion to give the audience an attachment. For comparison: no one really cared about the mass of rebels on Hoth, but the audience was drawn in because they wanted to see the main characters get away. But most of the fight for Zion happens away from the characters who got decent development.
And while we're drawing SW parallels - the Wachowskis should've killed off Morpheus if all he was going to do is sit there for the whole movie. It was only in later script revisions that Lucas killed off Obi Wan on the death star in A New Hope - after he realized that Kenobi didn't -do- anything to propel the movie once Leia was rescued.
I believe the point is that as machines don't generally understand emotion or free will - that heavily implies that machine consciousness is incompatible with human consciousness.
the 'how' is the philosophical leap as to why Smith can suddenly do this in M2, but it never occurred to any agent before then to do so or even try (and kill the Runners where they are most vulnerable, on their ship, asleep). If smith could have uploaded himself in M1, wouldn't he have just killed Cypher and loaded himself onto the Neb to clean up the rest?
clearly it has something to do with his ability to take (even unplugged) people over in M2 - but that is never explained.
the architect, like the oracle, spoke in amphibolies. that is what he said had an obvious, false, meaning, and a hidden, true, meaning.
the architect was seemingly saying what you so neatly summed up - but what he was actually saying was:
humans have free will but they don't realize it. they make impulsive decisions but don't know why. they are slaves to the ideas they use to justify their impulsive decisions -after- they've made them. they don't actually think freely, and they certainly don't act freely.
he was reinforcing what the oracle already said when she told neo he had already made his decision, but didn't yet understand why.
the key was that he wasn't -actually- choosing right then. he had previously decided he loved trinity (perhaps solely through suggestion), and love means selfless sacrifice. he also hated the machines and didn't want to be connected to them, even if the two are codependent. so he justifies his gut reaction with the ideas, and then can 'understand' why he does what he does.
Were Neo making his decisions by free will he'd know 'why' -before- his actions, and according to the Oracle he would be able to see past them, seeing the entirety of the world without time.
Neo does pretty much only what he is expected and told to do throughout Reloaded. What makes it so painful to watch, was trying to convey -why- it was painful. The Merovingian likewise had an amphiboly laden sililoquoy that covered -roughly- the same ground.
The problems with Reloaded were pacing, editing, and tension. The Architect and the Merovingian pretty much covered the same topics, so one of them was wholly redundant. Leaving both of them in turned much of the movie into a drag.
Note how few times someone gets a 5 minute dialogue in a sterile sequence in The Matrix. It doesn't happen. Good editing and tight writing kept the exposition to a marriage of dialogue, example, and visuals. Morpheus -showed- at least as much about what 'reality' and 'the matrix' were to Neo in the load and sparring programs as he conveyed through dialogue. The Architect and Merovingian did not.
I mean, check out this collection of references from The Matrix and Reloaded (i'd imagine it'll be updated with Revolutions soon enough) here.
look at how many references and such in the list are from The Matrix, and how few are from Reloaded.
You see, when the Wachowski's hadn't had a break-out hit, they had to be careful, subtle, clever.
They surely wrote, edited and rewrote The Matrix several times. The philosophy was there, but it wasn't as prominent or cumbersome. The bold allusions made the ideas accessible, and the density of the subtle references provided something to think about. The devil was in the details.
The Matrix had good editing that kept exposition down to what mattered, and had decent character development. The romance wasn't a centerpiece throughout, it was strung along more like Han and Leia's romance in Star Wars. It was there - it played its part, but it didn't hit you over the head or command unnecessary screentime.
The forced romance in Reloaded (and likely revolutions) is more reminiscent of Lucas' prequels, where the audience is beat over the head with it, and the lack of chemistry between the actors is made center stage.
but once The Matrix made it big, the Wachowskis had a free ticket. No-one was going to tell them to trim the fat anymore. To put the heavier philosophy in more subtle references and keep the blatant topics accessible. But who's going to say that when they can make that much green?
The sequels were both churned out together in a mere 24 months. Their near complete loss of depth was nearly guaranteed.
The Wachowskis had total freedom with Reloaded and Revolutions, and apparently they decided they'd rather be broad in their blatant coverage of religious and philosphical ideas than tell a good story.
The first thing aspiring fiction writers are supposed to learn is that the Idea-focused story is hard as hell to write well (even though it is almost uniformly where scifi writers begin).
It is very difficult to write a good story where its entirety is leading your audience from problem exposition to problem exposition until you finally foist your supreme solution-Idea on them.
It is much better to wrap your solution Idea into a stand-apart traditional story. Expose the great solution-idea a bit earlier, and develop the characters involved and the conflicts to show the different angles and attributes of your idea as the solution to the various problems. The key is to make the thing interesting, or your Idea won't matter.
Methinks the Wachowskis forgot that with their carte blanche control over the sequels.
intel is talking about this new substance being used within 5 years, as opposed to 10-15.
In the end, diamonds may be great, but if they remain more expensive than silicon or metal-oxide, they aren't necessarily the best choice.
nevertheless, when they do hit (and i personally believe they will) intel will certainly buy into the field.
After all, they're more a development shop than a pure research shop. They almost certainly won't be the first to use diamonds in chips, but you can bet they'll be one of the first to refine diamond-chip production and fabrication.
So stark are the historical cultural differences, that the writer is apparently blind to the fact that the very concept of searching for scientific truths and advancements is predominantly a -western- quest.
many non-western cultures sought primarily philosophical and religious achievement rather than technical. By measuring predominantly those achievements which leave behind tangible art and science you not only ignore the great Oral traditions of many cultures - but you surely miss what was the focus of Eastern culture for millenia.
Surely philosophical and religious achievements are not something one can put into a database easily - so i do not fault the method. Only the analysis, which doesn't explain awareness that the entire -experiment- is geared towards weastern goals, and therefore should be -expected- to bear out primarily western achievers.
though I do expect the data to show that cultures free from governmental or religious limitations on -creative arts- are more conducive to the creation of great art.
While much Eastern art is easily comparable to anything Michaelangelo has done, Western artists have had many more creative freedoms to explore.
This, assuming of course that the writer had the forethought to include painting and sculpture as well as the written latin word.
Though it would not surprise me if his method again prohibited him for cataloguing any of the great eastern scrolls or carvings.
Now, whereas we may not have the same -incidence- of great acheivers of western goals by population, that isn't indicative of a -decline-, only an approach to an asymptote.
which indicates that we, as a civilization, are approaching critical mass relative to rate of technical achievement. perhaps this is shown to be a 'hiccup' in the trend as we begin to count the impending genetic, robotic and nanotech advancements of the 21st century, but perhaps not.
you may discover:
how to contain an uncontrollable killer virus
how to create more powerful vaccines for weaponized virus'.
more about how virus' propagate and mutate in foreign hosts
how to mutate a virus to carry desireable genetic information
how to mutate a virus to attack only undesireable human cells (cancers anyone?)
and given more than 5 minutes i'm thinking i could come up with a few more, but i suspect the 'offending' scientists already know.
whereas you won't learn more about how the universe works at the atomic level, you're certainly going to learn more about how virus' mutate, spread, adapt, jump hosts, etc.
SARS is believed to have come from a mutant strain of a feline disease that jumped hosts. If we don't study such threats, we could face an inevitable plague.
Contrary to what Bill Joy believes, freedom from the dangers of Genetics, Robotics, and Nanotech research - comes from -more- Genetics, Robotics, and Nanotech research.
The only war capable of destroying the powerful nations on Earth doesn't include missiles or bullets. It will simply be an unseen threat that locks people in their houses out of fear, causing a breakdown in economic power, and will be fought with quarantines, needles and labcoats.
The key to any defense is to know your enemy. Without research, without practice, we wouldn't have a chance.
And pretending that all this is far-off, or unlikely is naivete. More and more conventional war is too expensive and too risky. GNR research on the otherhand is not.
Only the United States and China have the power to actually declare an enemy and overtly attack without worrying about resources or retaliation.
But any nation could deliver an anonymous viral agent.
yeah, like what's the point of engineering a nuclear chain reaction?
clearly it can -only- be used to kill people.
it couldn't posibly have -any- benefit to the furtherance of understanding of the science, the basic forces at work, defenses, peaceful applications, etc.
-- sarcasm is the order of the day