Why I want to know is how can many of you people support GPL'd software, and disapprove of people redistrubiting it at will ("sharing" in RMS's terms), but be all for violating a music artist's license?
If an artist chooses non-redistribution as a license, it should be honored.
Or are many of you saying that we should ignore the GPL and companies can start redistributing binary version of gcc at will?
You realize that this has nothing to do with the issue, right? The central issue is whether artists have the right to decide what license they want to issue their music under. Most artists choose on a "non-redistribution" license.
Do you support GNU software being able to choose their own license, or do you support ignoring the GPL as well?/p
Just out of curiosity, exactly what does your comment have to do with the subject at hand, namely Napster? Exactly who is insisting that Napster go around deleting files from everyone's hard drive?
No doubt. The quicktime player has to be one of the worst pieces of software ever written. If the same guys are working on OS/X, I fear for Apple.
What genius decided to have the player "silently fail" if you launch a.mov that it doesn't know how to play? (it just brings up a bar -- and waits). But if you do a File->Open, then it will say that it doesn't have the CODEC.
Probably the same geniuses that have it scream at me to upgrade "now or later" everytime I run it.
Or possibly the same Einsteins that make wacky controls that are totally different from every other Windows application. Isn't it in the Apple style guide that, above all, everything should work consistently?
I really like how it dumps garbage in the first frame from whatever was previously in the video buffer. Hmmm; no other application does that, why does Quicktime player?
Of course, I could also bring up the icons that make absolutely no intuitive sense, but that's common to every Apple application, so that goes without saying.
Sometimes I really wonder what goes through some engineer's minds.
Photoshop and Illustrator still run better on the MacOS than they do on Windows.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!!!!
Oh, you are SOOOO wrong. First of all, try running on MacOS when you get low on memory. Crash city. Windows, on the other hand, has Virtual Memory that actually works (versus MacOS, which is so brain damaged that most people turn it off).
Yes, I've used them on both. There is NO comparison. I will say that I ran them on NT4, rather than Win95/98. If the latter, it's entirely possible that they crashed more often.
I will agree that the ports of the programs could've been better. Adobe didn't take advantage of a lot of the features of Windows that would've made them better, like right-click menus. They have them, but not nearly as completely as they should.
If you haven't yet, grab a copy of Hummingbird Exceed 6.1. It's a little pricey, but it's by far the best X server out there. You get the best of both worlds -- Apps under Win2k when you need them, and then a simple flip of the Alt-TAB into Unix. Honestly, I'm so used to it that I barely know that I'm using two computers. It might as well be a combined operating system.
I'm with you... I love Unix, but I just can't stand bad applications.
You know, when you make posts like this and use terms like "windoze", it makes you sound like a mindless zealot who refuses to see reality.
What's the ''killer app'' in Windoze for the desktop?
Oh, innumerable games, Photoshop, Illustrator, printing that works right for complex docs, IE (which is far superior to anything -- if you can't admit that, that's a sure sign that you aren't facing reality), Quicken, Quickbooks (or Peachtree, take your choice), Filemaker, Quark, Pagemaker, and yes, Office, which is far superior to any other suite on Linux (unless you're writing a letter to grandma, in which case StarOffice is fine). Do I really need to go on?
And as you admit, all the Gnu tools run fine on Win2K. I use them all the time, in fact.
Face it, when it comes to desktop productivity, you are not using Linux because it's better. You are using it because it's not Microsoft. That's fine if that's a good enough reason for you. But at least be honest about the reason.
Personally, I choose whatever tool works the best. Unix for the server (Linux is not even the best version of Unix, by the way), Win2K for the desktop apps. I have to say, it's nice to see clearly rather than waste time with inferior software (e.g., Netscape).
Dude, Shakespeare said it best: brevity is the soul of wit.
There is a reason that novels are not written in script format. It makes them tedious to read.
I've tried to read your stuff, but there is so much filler that I get bored and give up. Try using a denser format (but not too dense... the other troll who writes everything in one big paragraph has the opposite problem). It would make your trolls much more effective. You could say the same thing in half the space, and it would be much better reading. I would guess that a lot of people don't even read your stuff for this reason.
Sometimes one must do their part to try and improve the trolls on Slashdot.:)
due to the rush to ASP (application service providers) means that there will only be one application -- the browser.
Yeah, but at that point, there is no operating system, so who cares what you're running? Now, you could argue that this gives Linux the advantage because it's free. Still, there is a lot more to a development platform than just the kernel. If Microsoft continues to give excellent developer support (versus Linux where you're on your own), then the total costs will favor Microsoft.
In any case, I think we'll see some ASP-style business models have some success. But I don't think that it will replace the power of having native applications on a local machine.
On the desktop, people use applications, not operating systems, to get work done.
Until Linux gets some applications that are clearly superior to the ones in Windows, it will never get any significant penetration. People need a really good reason to switch, and there just isn't one when it comes to Linux -- but there are a whole slew of negatives.
I mean, what's the "killer app" in Linux for the desktop? There are no end-user apps that I can get that are better under Windows. With Win2K, Linux doesn't even have the stability advantage anymore.
This is not to say that Linux won't see more penetration in the server arena. I personally like Unix better when it comes to server apps. But for the desktop, there simply isn't an overwhelming reason to switch.
Actually, you don't need a fab plant in order to use the code morphing software. I believe the morphing software is downloaded on boot-up, or at least out of a flash ROM. So if you had the source code and could understand the hardware technology, you could do some very cool things with the chip. Want your own LISP machine? Code it up!
I've always thought it would be cool if Intel released the source and specs to their Microcode (yes, it's been software downloadable since either PPRO or P/II).
As someone else pointed out, IE5 does display PNG. Of course, there are still a lot of (yuck) Netscape browsers out there that still don't.
But, that's not the only reason it's not widely adopted. The reason is that PNGs are not a complete replacement for GIFs because they lack animation. Granted, they have alpha transparency which is mighty cool, but generally you need a really good reasons to get people to switch technologies and PNG is not enough. [and very, very few people care about the patent issue or even know what it is]
Sure, a web browser included with the operating system is a good thing, a web browser integrated into the operating system is a bad thing. You wouldn't want troff to be in the linux kernel would you? No. Why have IE in the Windows one?
Well, that's not quite accurate. The browser is not integrated into the kernel, it's integrated into the shell. Just like how KDE has a browser integrated into their shell, accessible through the file explorer.
I will grant you that it was stupid of Microsoft to claim that IE couldn't be removed from the operating system. That just confused the issue. The fact is that IE is an object that can be embedded in a lot of different applications. For example, Quicken uses the IE object to connect to various resources on the Quicken site.
And frankly, this is the way it should be! This is where the power of an object-oriented operating system comes from... being able to use reusable components such as a browser.
Now, one could argue that the browser object should have clearly defined protocols so that it can be replaced if the user wanted to. And those protocols may be documents, I don't even know.
But Microsoft did have the right idea, technically speaking. However, you can definitely argue that a lot of their other practices we're anticompetitive, I will admit.
I might be exaggerating a little bit, since HTML has gotten a lot more complex. But look at the KDE browser. That's come a lot further a lot faster than the Mozilla project.
I think what happened was that between Microsoft and Netscape, who both gave them away for free, no one really had a good incentive to write another one. Of course, Opera tried to fill that gap as well.
In the recent past I think everyone waited to see if the Mozilla project was going to bear some good fruit. Fortunately, the KDE guys had enough sense not to wait.:)
Frankly, I'm tempted to say that Mozilla's biggest problem is the connection to Netscape, and anything connected to Netscape has to suck.:)
But I think we shouldn't use Mozilla's so-far failure as evidence that a good browser cannot be written (and before you Mozilla guys start flaming me, this is not to say that Mozilla can't become better in the future). Yes, a browser is more complex than many programs, but certainly less complex than a LOT of programs such as KDE, Gnome, the Linux kernel, GIMP, etc.
It blows my mind that people care about a stupid browser. A browser is just not the most complex piece of software on the planet. Bottom line, it just displays files!
Good god, it's as if no one else will ever be able to write a browser if Microsoft is allowed to keep theirs.
I've always thought that was the stupidest thing for the justice department to focus on. Of course a browser should be included in an operating system, just like Linux, Be, the Mac, and just about every Unix nowadays does. It's just a utility like 'troff'. Take a file and format it.
There are lots of reasons to criticize Microsoft, but the browser obsession is the least of them.
The Kzin were exactly like I imagined them from Ringworld. That is, cartoons.
The books based on the series by Alan Dean Foster are better. Ironically, Foster is the opposite of Niven. His concepts are somewhat lame, but he tells a good story and his characters are interesting and reasonably believable. So a concept from one of Niven's books was wedged into the Star Trek universe with lame characters, and then re-extruded by Foster giving the characters a few more dimensions.:)
I think you really have to give Foster credit for turning pretty lame scripts into pretty entertaining books.
Louis Wu... uninteresting? Nessus... uninteresting? Speaker-to-Animals... uninteresting? You're kidding, right? Some of the others were mere window-dressing, but c'mon! How is a Kzinti ambassador who has trouble thinking of his compatriots as not-food uninteresting?:)
Well, I'll give him that his races where interesting, but the actual characters were all cliches of that particular race. They never seemed to have any differentiating qualities or any real personality. Compare that to Brin/Uplift books, for example, whose races had distinct attributes, but each individual showed uniqueness qualities and personalities within the race.
Even Wu was pretty dull. I mean, quick -- give me one personality attribute of Wu. Was he ingoing/outgoing? Loving or cold? Family oriented or distant? Good at business or poor? I guess we know he's adventurous, since he went to the ringworld, but what else? He's as shallow as a cardboard cutout.
Not all of Niven's character are totally one dimensional. I seem to recall that his Gil-the-arm books were pretty decent, as well as the magician in The Magic Goes Away was fairly interesting. [on the other hand, I haven't read those books since I was 18, and my standards where lower then:) ]
But you're right... when it comes to generating interesting ideas, Niven is first class.
Cyclone! I remember that one; it was very cool. I thought it was one of the creepier machines, too. It really had kind of a Stephen King-ish flavor to it, if that makes any sense.:)
I think one of the best of the really old ones was Fireball. It was one of the first (if not the first) multi-ball pinball machine. It had a spinning wheel in the middle, which would fling the ball in various directions. It was pretty advanced for being fully-mechanical. It was eventually remade as an electronic unit in the 80s.
You know what the other thing that's lame about modern pinball? Score inflation. Is it really more fun to score (literally!) 4 billion points than it was to score 100,000? Not to mention that 10 points (for the "match") or even 1000 points means nothing compared to a billion.
I'm not saying we have to go back to the old mechanical days of 4 digit scores, but what next? BONUS 1 QUADRILLION POINTS!
Something else that I always liked about Pinball was the artwork. A lot of the old machines had really cool artwork. It seems like video games never really had anything as cool.
Anyone know of any books of Pinball machine art? If not, someone should make one! It would be a shame if it all disintegrated in someone's garage without being preserved.
I'm 35 (it's not that old dammit!) and grew up just as the video game revolution was coming into full swing. Just before that, pinball machines and other games were fully mechanical (i.e., solonoid powered). I used to go down to the Balboa Fun Zone in Southern California, and loved playing them for hours. 3 games for a quarter, 5 balls / game!
When video games began to "invade" (pun intended), I started playing those a lot. But I still loved to play pinball. The thing about pinball is that it takes all the reflex talent of video games, but it has a mechanical unpredictability, and liveliness that a video game just never has. I never managed to hold a record in my local video arcade, but I held several pinball records (the typical arcade back then would keep the names of the local kids who held the records on the wall -- gotta encourage people to keep spending quarters!).
It's funny that this came up today... just yesterday, I played a pinball machine in a video store for the first time in a few years. Won a game the second time I played it. HA! I still got it.:)
I was thinking about this the other day. I think this is even somewhat inevitable, but I think it would be a good thing...
SF authors should start reusing ideas.
Now, stay with me here. I suggest that there are two things involved in a SF book. One is vital, the other is not, but both together brings greatness. 1) The concept. The ringworld; Uplift; Robots. Whatever, good SF has a concept that starts you thinking. 2) Good characterization. If you have this and a good concept you have a great novel. If you only have a good concept, you can still have an interesting novel.
What I would like to see is authors take a lot of the great concepts and make great novels out of them. For example: Let's face it... Ringworld was a book with a GREAT concept, but sucky, uninteresting characters. But the concept was so great that it carried the book. On the other hand, I thought the Uplift books had great characters AND a great concept, which makes it a great series of books.
There are an infinite number of stories that could be done with the concept of a Ringworld. Or pick your concept! There are whole slew of them out there that are begging for a fresh treatment.
I suspect that a lot of authors would love to do some books of this nature, but are held back by being thought "unoriginal". But heck, look at the success of Star Trek books or whatever. People like seeing new stories using the same concepts.
Or Shakespeare. How many stories have been redone using the same "concept" that Shakespeare originated? But a fresh look at an old concept can still make a great story.
As I stated before, I think this is somewhat inevitable. We've seen the flow of concepts drying up over the last 10-20 years, compared to the early day of Sci Fi. Now we see authors getting lazy and writing the same old Fantasy books with elves, unicorns, etc, blah blah. But this is what I'm talking about. Fantasy itself is a "concept", but one that is "acceptable" to plagurize. I hope that we get a few more concepts enter into the "acceptable" category.
Slashdot Mirror
Why I want to know is how can many of you people support GPL'd software, and disapprove of people redistrubiting it at will ("sharing" in RMS's terms), but be all for violating a music artist's license?
If an artist chooses non-redistribution as a license, it should be honored.
Or are many of you saying that we should ignore the GPL and companies can start redistributing binary version of gcc at will?
--
You realize that this has nothing to do with the issue, right? The central issue is whether artists have the right to decide what license they want to issue their music under. Most artists choose on a "non-redistribution" license.
Do you support GNU software being able to choose their own license, or do you support ignoring the GPL as well?/p
--
Just out of curiosity, exactly what does your comment have to do with the subject at hand, namely Napster? Exactly who is insisting that Napster go around deleting files from everyone's hard drive?
Or was this meant to be a non-sequitur?
--
once again, unduplicatible outside of your little Mac-bashing microview...
I was speaking of the Windows version. But heck, if you want me to start bashing the mac... nah, that's too easy of a target. :)
--
No doubt. The quicktime player has to be one of the worst pieces of software ever written. If the same guys are working on OS/X, I fear for Apple.
What genius decided to have the player "silently fail" if you launch a .mov that it doesn't know how to play? (it just brings up a bar -- and waits). But if you do a File->Open, then it will say that it doesn't have the CODEC.
Probably the same geniuses that have it scream at me to upgrade "now or later" everytime I run it.
Or possibly the same Einsteins that make wacky controls that are totally different from every other Windows application. Isn't it in the Apple style guide that, above all, everything should work consistently?
I really like how it dumps garbage in the first frame from whatever was previously in the video buffer. Hmmm; no other application does that, why does Quicktime player?
Of course, I could also bring up the icons that make absolutely no intuitive sense, but that's common to every Apple application, so that goes without saying.
Sometimes I really wonder what goes through some engineer's minds.
--
Photoshop and Illustrator still run better on the MacOS than they do on Windows.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!!!!
Oh, you are SOOOO wrong. First of all, try running on MacOS when you get low on memory. Crash city. Windows, on the other hand, has Virtual Memory that actually works (versus MacOS, which is so brain damaged that most people turn it off).
Yes, I've used them on both. There is NO comparison. I will say that I ran them on NT4, rather than Win95/98. If the latter, it's entirely possible that they crashed more often.
I will agree that the ports of the programs could've been better. Adobe didn't take advantage of a lot of the features of Windows that would've made them better, like right-click menus. They have them, but not nearly as completely as they should.
--
If you haven't yet, grab a copy of Hummingbird Exceed 6.1. It's a little pricey, but it's by far the best X server out there. You get the best of both worlds -- Apps under Win2k when you need them, and then a simple flip of the Alt-TAB into Unix. Honestly, I'm so used to it that I barely know that I'm using two computers. It might as well be a combined operating system.
I'm with you... I love Unix, but I just can't stand bad applications.
--
You know, when you make posts like this and use terms like "windoze", it makes you sound like a mindless zealot who refuses to see reality.
What's the ''killer app'' in Windoze for the desktop?
Oh, innumerable games, Photoshop, Illustrator, printing that works right for complex docs, IE (which is far superior to anything -- if you can't admit that, that's a sure sign that you aren't facing reality), Quicken, Quickbooks (or Peachtree, take your choice), Filemaker, Quark, Pagemaker, and yes, Office, which is far superior to any other suite on Linux (unless you're writing a letter to grandma, in which case StarOffice is fine). Do I really need to go on?
And as you admit, all the Gnu tools run fine on Win2K. I use them all the time, in fact.
Face it, when it comes to desktop productivity, you are not using Linux because it's better. You are using it because it's not Microsoft. That's fine if that's a good enough reason for you. But at least be honest about the reason.
Personally, I choose whatever tool works the best. Unix for the server (Linux is not even the best version of Unix, by the way), Win2K for the desktop apps. I have to say, it's nice to see clearly rather than waste time with inferior software (e.g., Netscape).
--
Dude, Shakespeare said it best: brevity is the soul of wit.
There is a reason that novels are not written in script format. It makes them tedious to read.
I've tried to read your stuff, but there is so much filler that I get bored and give up. Try using a denser format (but not too dense... the other troll who writes everything in one big paragraph has the opposite problem). It would make your trolls much more effective. You could say the same thing in half the space, and it would be much better reading. I would guess that a lot of people don't even read your stuff for this reason.
Sometimes one must do their part to try and improve the trolls on Slashdot. :)
--
due to the rush to ASP (application service providers) means that there will only be one application -- the browser.
Yeah, but at that point, there is no operating system, so who cares what you're running? Now, you could argue that this gives Linux the advantage because it's free. Still, there is a lot more to a development platform than just the kernel. If Microsoft continues to give excellent developer support (versus Linux where you're on your own), then the total costs will favor Microsoft.
In any case, I think we'll see some ASP-style business models have some success. But I don't think that it will replace the power of having native applications on a local machine.
--
On the desktop, people use applications, not operating systems, to get work done.
Until Linux gets some applications that are clearly superior to the ones in Windows, it will never get any significant penetration. People need a really good reason to switch, and there just isn't one when it comes to Linux -- but there are a whole slew of negatives.
I mean, what's the "killer app" in Linux for the desktop? There are no end-user apps that I can get that are better under Windows. With Win2K, Linux doesn't even have the stability advantage anymore.
This is not to say that Linux won't see more penetration in the server arena. I personally like Unix better when it comes to server apps. But for the desktop, there simply isn't an overwhelming reason to switch.
--
Actually, you don't need a fab plant in order to use the code morphing software. I believe the morphing software is downloaded on boot-up, or at least out of a flash ROM. So if you had the source code and could understand the hardware technology, you could do some very cool things with the chip. Want your own LISP machine? Code it up!
I've always thought it would be cool if Intel released the source and specs to their Microcode (yes, it's been software downloadable since either PPRO or P/II).
--
As someone else pointed out, IE5 does display PNG. Of course, there are still a lot of (yuck) Netscape browsers out there that still don't.
But, that's not the only reason it's not widely adopted. The reason is that PNGs are not a complete replacement for GIFs because they lack animation. Granted, they have alpha transparency which is mighty cool, but generally you need a really good reasons to get people to switch technologies and PNG is not enough. [and very, very few people care about the patent issue or even know what it is]
--
Sure, a web browser included with the operating system is a good thing, a web browser integrated into the operating system is a bad thing. You wouldn't want troff to be in the linux kernel would you? No. Why have IE in the Windows one?
Well, that's not quite accurate. The browser is not integrated into the kernel, it's integrated into the shell. Just like how KDE has a browser integrated into their shell, accessible through the file explorer.
I will grant you that it was stupid of Microsoft to claim that IE couldn't be removed from the operating system. That just confused the issue. The fact is that IE is an object that can be embedded in a lot of different applications. For example, Quicken uses the IE object to connect to various resources on the Quicken site.
And frankly, this is the way it should be! This is where the power of an object-oriented operating system comes from... being able to use reusable components such as a browser.
Now, one could argue that the browser object should have clearly defined protocols so that it can be replaced if the user wanted to. And those protocols may be documents, I don't even know.
But Microsoft did have the right idea, technically speaking. However, you can definitely argue that a lot of their other practices we're anticompetitive, I will admit.
--
I might be exaggerating a little bit, since HTML has gotten a lot more complex. But look at the KDE browser. That's come a lot further a lot faster than the Mozilla project.
I think what happened was that between Microsoft and Netscape, who both gave them away for free, no one really had a good incentive to write another one. Of course, Opera tried to fill that gap as well.
In the recent past I think everyone waited to see if the Mozilla project was going to bear some good fruit. Fortunately, the KDE guys had enough sense not to wait. :)
Frankly, I'm tempted to say that Mozilla's biggest problem is the connection to Netscape, and anything connected to Netscape has to suck. :)
But I think we shouldn't use Mozilla's so-far failure as evidence that a good browser cannot be written (and before you Mozilla guys start flaming me, this is not to say that Mozilla can't become better in the future). Yes, a browser is more complex than many programs, but certainly less complex than a LOT of programs such as KDE, Gnome, the Linux kernel, GIMP, etc.
--
It blows my mind that people care about a stupid browser. A browser is just not the most complex piece of software on the planet. Bottom line, it just displays files!
Good god, it's as if no one else will ever be able to write a browser if Microsoft is allowed to keep theirs.
I've always thought that was the stupidest thing for the justice department to focus on. Of course a browser should be included in an operating system, just like Linux, Be, the Mac, and just about every Unix nowadays does. It's just a utility like 'troff'. Take a file and format it.
There are lots of reasons to criticize Microsoft, but the browser obsession is the least of them.
--
The Kzin were exactly like I imagined them from Ringworld. That is, cartoons.
The books based on the series by Alan Dean Foster are better. Ironically, Foster is the opposite of Niven. His concepts are somewhat lame, but he tells a good story and his characters are interesting and reasonably believable. So a concept from one of Niven's books was wedged into the Star Trek universe with lame characters, and then re-extruded by Foster giving the characters a few more dimensions. :)
I think you really have to give Foster credit for turning pretty lame scripts into pretty entertaining books.
--
Louis Wu ... uninteresting? Nessus ... uninteresting? Speaker-to-Animals ... uninteresting? You're kidding, right? Some of the others were mere window-dressing, but c'mon! How is a Kzinti ambassador who has trouble thinking of his compatriots as not-food uninteresting? :)
Well, I'll give him that his races where interesting, but the actual characters were all cliches of that particular race. They never seemed to have any differentiating qualities or any real personality. Compare that to Brin/Uplift books, for example, whose races had distinct attributes, but each individual showed uniqueness qualities and personalities within the race.
Even Wu was pretty dull. I mean, quick -- give me one personality attribute of Wu. Was he ingoing/outgoing? Loving or cold? Family oriented or distant? Good at business or poor? I guess we know he's adventurous, since he went to the ringworld, but what else? He's as shallow as a cardboard cutout.
Not all of Niven's character are totally one dimensional. I seem to recall that his Gil-the-arm books were pretty decent, as well as the magician in The Magic Goes Away was fairly interesting. [on the other hand, I haven't read those books since I was 18, and my standards where lower then :) ]
But you're right... when it comes to generating interesting ideas, Niven is first class.
--
Cyclone! I remember that one; it was very cool. I thought it was one of the creepier machines, too. It really had kind of a Stephen King-ish flavor to it, if that makes any sense. :)
--
I think one of the best of the really old ones was Fireball. It was one of the first (if not the first) multi-ball pinball machine. It had a spinning wheel in the middle, which would fling the ball in various directions. It was pretty advanced for being fully-mechanical. It was eventually remade as an electronic unit in the 80s.
--
You know what the other thing that's lame about modern pinball? Score inflation. Is it really more fun to score (literally!) 4 billion points than it was to score 100,000? Not to mention that 10 points (for the "match") or even 1000 points means nothing compared to a billion.
I'm not saying we have to go back to the old mechanical days of 4 digit scores, but what next? BONUS 1 QUADRILLION POINTS!
--
Well, here's my advice: a man has to have his priorities in line.
The girlfriend's got to go.
--
Something else that I always liked about Pinball was the artwork. A lot of the old machines had really cool artwork. It seems like video games never really had anything as cool.
Anyone know of any books of Pinball machine art? If not, someone should make one! It would be a shame if it all disintegrated in someone's garage without being preserved.
--
I'm 35 (it's not that old dammit!) and grew up just as the video game revolution was coming into full swing. Just before that, pinball machines and other games were fully mechanical (i.e., solonoid powered). I used to go down to the Balboa Fun Zone in Southern California, and loved playing them for hours. 3 games for a quarter, 5 balls / game!
When video games began to "invade" (pun intended), I started playing those a lot. But I still loved to play pinball. The thing about pinball is that it takes all the reflex talent of video games, but it has a mechanical unpredictability, and liveliness that a video game just never has. I never managed to hold a record in my local video arcade, but I held several pinball records (the typical arcade back then would keep the names of the local kids who held the records on the wall -- gotta encourage people to keep spending quarters!).
It's funny that this came up today... just yesterday, I played a pinball machine in a video store for the first time in a few years. Won a game the second time I played it. HA! I still got it. :)
--
I was thinking about this the other day. I think this is even somewhat inevitable, but I think it would be a good thing...
SF authors should start reusing ideas.
Now, stay with me here. I suggest that there are two things involved in a SF book. One is vital, the other is not, but both together brings greatness. 1) The concept. The ringworld; Uplift; Robots. Whatever, good SF has a concept that starts you thinking. 2) Good characterization. If you have this and a good concept you have a great novel. If you only have a good concept, you can still have an interesting novel.
What I would like to see is authors take a lot of the great concepts and make great novels out of them. For example: Let's face it... Ringworld was a book with a GREAT concept, but sucky, uninteresting characters. But the concept was so great that it carried the book. On the other hand, I thought the Uplift books had great characters AND a great concept, which makes it a great series of books.
There are an infinite number of stories that could be done with the concept of a Ringworld. Or pick your concept! There are whole slew of them out there that are begging for a fresh treatment.
I suspect that a lot of authors would love to do some books of this nature, but are held back by being thought "unoriginal". But heck, look at the success of Star Trek books or whatever. People like seeing new stories using the same concepts.
Or Shakespeare. How many stories have been redone using the same "concept" that Shakespeare originated? But a fresh look at an old concept can still make a great story.
As I stated before, I think this is somewhat inevitable. We've seen the flow of concepts drying up over the last 10-20 years, compared to the early day of Sci Fi. Now we see authors getting lazy and writing the same old Fantasy books with elves, unicorns, etc, blah blah. But this is what I'm talking about. Fantasy itself is a "concept", but one that is "acceptable" to plagurize. I hope that we get a few more concepts enter into the "acceptable" category.
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