That's what I thought. I have a 8 year old son who plays City of Heroes with me. Of course being 8 he gets very involved and excited and obsessed much as I did when I was his age. So the big problem with Mom is that its obsessive and unhealthy.
I think she's just annoyed because we haven't played Rise of Nations in a week although she won't admit that she actually ENJOYS that game. And she never complained about my son's obsession with that RON or Age of Mythology.
Destination Void is a little bit more on the "what is life / what is conciousness" kick. They start with human brains, but the ultimate resolution of the novel lies in a machine that is greater than its human creators. A machine that is alive and self-concious.
Perhaps Herbert was implying slavery by the conclusion of the novel (if you haven't read it, check it out - its a quick read) - but he has depicted slavery by other means in his novels. Not just machines. Such as the slavery of addiction to a drug (Dune series). The result of the Butlerian jihad seems in his books only to have made life cheaper and more abused as a tool rather than anything possessed of a certain degree of sanctity. See the Face Dancers of Tleilax and the uncountable Duncan Idaho Ghola "clones".
Mankind's relationships to his tools is one of the centerpieces of sci-fi. The tool out of control and turning on its master is a common play. From Frankenstein to Christine to Blade Runner. The time may soon be on us when our machines give better conversation than many of our fellow man. Hell, I'd argue that time is already here.
So, as P.K. Dick would say, who is the "android" and who is the "human"? Who is the master, who is the slave?
According to the Southern Cross brochure, 50% of the network is owned by New Zealand Telecomm. Hardly just an "American interest". This cable works both ways, opening up avenues of communication and commerce.
Further more, it should be noted that the Southern Cross runs through Fiji as well. This brings much needed bandwidth to some Pacific Islanders. I work for a company that works in this region and the Southern Cross is a big boon.
I think its hard for a lot of people to understand the Pacific Rim area. Improved telecommunications will have a dramatic impact. Flying out to some of these little atolls certainly feels like being in an Indiana Jones movie. During the recent coup attempt in Fiji, the internet media continued without disruption and provided much better coverage than other media forms.
The internet is GLOBAL. I used to work at an internet translation company. I worked on jobs that coordinated via the internet with translators in many different countries. On a single job there might be translators who lived in Europe, Asia, South America, Africa etc. It doesn't always work well or fast, but the internet is more than just America.
As CNN notes in the essay "Soaring toward Von Braun's vision" - the original aims of the NASA after the Moon landings was to build a fleet of shuttles and a space station to serve as a platform for manned flight to Mars.
I think there is a still a strong push in NASA to fulfill this vision. Hence the focus on the hardware programs (shuttle, space station). NASA has indicated a desire to put a man on Mars. Recent exploration into alternate methods of space propulsion (solar sails, ion drives) are all looking to get man to other planets within the solar system.
I disagree with your assumption that a trust network would be too small to be a threat. 1 such ring would be - but thousands of trust rings would be operational at any time. This is how a lot of FTP piracy occurs anyway. No anonymous access, accounts only. I think more real piracy occurs through FTP than napster and gnutella, especially with regard to large files (movies, games etc.). I have seen vast FTP servers of mp3 content as well (hundreds of albums). Not to mention USENET which carries hundreds of mp3s and other copyrighted media everyday. Almost every major piece of software is cracked and released on USENET before it reaches a store near you. If technology such as Napster and gnutella are shutdown or monitored by authorities (creating paranoia in the user base), piracy will just move to more private mechanisms. In the pre-internet days this was mostly done by home BBSs. In the halcyon daze of my rebelious youth, I recall both national and international networks of pirates who used almost any mechanism available to distribute the illegal software. Half of the incentive to cracking into the local university's systems (pre commercial internet) was to gain access to FTP and the speeds available over the net for moving illegal data. And on the mechanical end, we would hop in the car with a two or three computers and drive several hundred miles to "warez parties" too. These types of "non-public" distribution methods can amount to a sunstantial level of piracy. Indeed, lack of software support on the Amiga platform in the early nineties was often blamed on exactly this sort of piracy. You can't make piracy go away, its not just Napster or gnutella or anything. Removing those pieces of software will just move piracy back into the "seedy", unseen but ever present underground. I think in many ways the RIAA is reacting to the potential loss of income from its chief market demographic - young people. Young people are more likely to pirate, they are more likely to have a friend who shows them how to use napster or make mp3s or burn playstation CDs (real popular with the 12-16 year olds out here). The RIAA is afraid of losing its share of allowance money which it feels should be allocated to that $17 Britaney Spears album. The bad news for the RIAA is that Napster is "cool" to young people. Now that the kids know the software and use it - they are also going to be acutely aware of who took it away - if the RIAA shuts them down. That plus an extra dose of "record corporations suck" talk from the likes of Courteny Love and others. I could care less if the RIAA goes the way of the Dodo, they are monolithic middlemen who control a distribution system which is overblown, obsolete and passes ridiculous cost to the end user while often times screwing the artists over as well. Not too mention their hand in creating the vast wasteland that is radio today. That being said, most people grow up, make a few bucks and are happy to pay for a quality product rather than spend hours trying to find a good bootleg (compare downloading mpg movies off the net to ordering a DVD). If corporations would offer a cheap, fast and quality mechanism to get digital media to me - I would love it and use it. No, emusic.com does not count - 128kbps MP3 is NOT a quality product.
search for Quantum Project on Gnutella
on
Quantum Project
·
· Score: 1
Interestingly, when I tried searching for "quantum project" on gnutella, I got only one result, a 0-byte file titled "the MPAA is watching you" - spooooky.
If you poke around the sightsound.com site, you will see that they have other, longer movies with prices ranging from about $4-$6. So 90 minute films are on par with the cost of a SINGLE movie ticket (tickets are $6.50 where I live). However, thats the price for purchasing the film, not the rental cost. For rental, prices are about $3 for 5 days. Certainly long enough to output to VHS if you like. The sightsound.com model is really closer to video tape rental and purchase than it is to going to the movie theater. Movie theaters offer large screens and good audio systems (ideally), that can't be replicated in the home by average (read: not stinking rich) people. The cost model of the theater is $7 per person and they also rake in the cash from the concession stand. While sightsound.com is not perfect, I think video on demand has a bright future. They definately need more variety and better content. I'm not sure Toxic Avenger is worth $15! I also think its pretty lame to only support Windows. The reason isn't just because of the use of the asf (Windows media format). Actually, there is a version of the Windows Media Player for Macintosh (beta I think). However, you need Windows because the download is a self-extracting zip file with a component that handles the credit card transaction. You download the large.exe file, run it, then enter your credit card info and choose rental or purchase. This seems like a pretty cumbersome way to do things - and I would doubt seeing Linux support for it anytime in the future. I think it would be healthy to mail sightsound.com and ask them to support alternate formats (mpeg, quicktime) and payment mechanisms (web based secure transaction).
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That's what I thought. I have a 8 year old son who plays City of Heroes with me. Of course being 8 he gets very involved and excited and obsessed much as I did when I was his age. So the big problem with Mom is that its obsessive and unhealthy.
I think she's just annoyed because we haven't played Rise of Nations in a week although she won't admit that she actually ENJOYS that game. And she never complained about my son's obsession with that RON or Age of Mythology.
Seeing as you mentioned Atlantis - this ran on Yahoo news today:
Hunt for Atlantis Leads Researcher to Cyprus - Yahoo news
Destination Void is a little bit more on the "what is life / what is conciousness" kick. They start with human brains, but the ultimate resolution of the novel lies in a machine that is greater than its human creators. A machine that is alive and self-concious.
Perhaps Herbert was implying slavery by the conclusion of the novel (if you haven't read it, check it out - its a quick read) - but he has depicted slavery by other means in his novels. Not just machines. Such as the slavery of addiction to a drug (Dune series). The result of the Butlerian jihad seems in his books only to have made life cheaper and more abused as a tool rather than anything possessed of a certain degree of sanctity. See the Face Dancers of Tleilax and the uncountable Duncan Idaho Ghola "clones".
Mankind's relationships to his tools is one of the centerpieces of sci-fi. The tool out of control and turning on its master is a common play. From Frankenstein to Christine to Blade Runner. The time may soon be on us when our machines give better conversation than many of our fellow man. Hell, I'd argue that time is already here.
So, as P.K. Dick would say, who is the "android" and who is the "human"? Who is the master, who is the slave?
According to the Southern Cross brochure, 50% of the network is owned by New Zealand Telecomm. Hardly just an "American interest". This cable works both ways, opening up avenues of communication and commerce.
Further more, it should be noted that the Southern Cross runs through Fiji as well. This brings much needed bandwidth to some Pacific Islanders. I work for a company that works in this region and the Southern Cross is a big boon.
I think its hard for a lot of people to understand the Pacific Rim area. Improved telecommunications will have a dramatic impact. Flying out to some of these little atolls certainly feels like being in an Indiana Jones movie. During the recent coup attempt in Fiji, the internet media continued without disruption and provided much better coverage than other media forms.
The internet is GLOBAL. I used to work at an internet translation company. I worked on jobs that coordinated via the internet with translators in many different countries. On a single job there might be translators who lived in Europe, Asia, South America, Africa etc. It doesn't always work well or fast, but the internet is more than just America.
As CNN notes in the essay "Soaring toward Von Braun's vision" - the original aims of the NASA after the Moon landings was to build a fleet of shuttles and a space station to serve as a platform for manned flight to Mars.
I think there is a still a strong push in NASA to fulfill this vision. Hence the focus on the hardware programs (shuttle, space station). NASA has indicated a desire to put a man on Mars. Recent exploration into alternate methods of space propulsion (solar sails, ion drives) are all looking to get man to other planets within the solar system.
I disagree with your assumption that a trust network would be too small to be a threat. 1 such ring would be - but thousands of trust rings would be operational at any time. This is how a lot of FTP piracy occurs anyway. No anonymous access, accounts only. I think more real piracy occurs through FTP than napster and gnutella, especially with regard to large files (movies, games etc.). I have seen vast FTP servers of mp3 content as well (hundreds of albums). Not to mention USENET which carries hundreds of mp3s and other copyrighted media everyday. Almost every major piece of software is cracked and released on USENET before it reaches a store near you. If technology such as Napster and gnutella are shutdown or monitored by authorities (creating paranoia in the user base), piracy will just move to more private mechanisms. In the pre-internet days this was mostly done by home BBSs. In the halcyon daze of my rebelious youth, I recall both national and international networks of pirates who used almost any mechanism available to distribute the illegal software. Half of the incentive to cracking into the local university's systems (pre commercial internet) was to gain access to FTP and the speeds available over the net for moving illegal data. And on the mechanical end, we would hop in the car with a two or three computers and drive several hundred miles to "warez parties" too. These types of "non-public" distribution methods can amount to a sunstantial level of piracy. Indeed, lack of software support on the Amiga platform in the early nineties was often blamed on exactly this sort of piracy. You can't make piracy go away, its not just Napster or gnutella or anything. Removing those pieces of software will just move piracy back into the "seedy", unseen but ever present underground. I think in many ways the RIAA is reacting to the potential loss of income from its chief market demographic - young people. Young people are more likely to pirate, they are more likely to have a friend who shows them how to use napster or make mp3s or burn playstation CDs (real popular with the 12-16 year olds out here). The RIAA is afraid of losing its share of allowance money which it feels should be allocated to that $17 Britaney Spears album. The bad news for the RIAA is that Napster is "cool" to young people. Now that the kids know the software and use it - they are also going to be acutely aware of who took it away - if the RIAA shuts them down. That plus an extra dose of "record corporations suck" talk from the likes of Courteny Love and others. I could care less if the RIAA goes the way of the Dodo, they are monolithic middlemen who control a distribution system which is overblown, obsolete and passes ridiculous cost to the end user while often times screwing the artists over as well. Not too mention their hand in creating the vast wasteland that is radio today. That being said, most people grow up, make a few bucks and are happy to pay for a quality product rather than spend hours trying to find a good bootleg (compare downloading mpg movies off the net to ordering a DVD). If corporations would offer a cheap, fast and quality mechanism to get digital media to me - I would love it and use it. No, emusic.com does not count - 128kbps MP3 is NOT a quality product.
Interestingly, when I tried searching for "quantum project" on gnutella, I got only one result, a 0-byte file titled "the MPAA is watching you" - spooooky.
If you poke around the sightsound.com site, you will see that they have other, longer movies with prices ranging from about $4-$6. So 90 minute films are on par with the cost of a SINGLE movie ticket (tickets are $6.50 where I live). However, thats the price for purchasing the film, not the rental cost. For rental, prices are about $3 for 5 days. Certainly long enough to output to VHS if you like. The sightsound.com model is really closer to video tape rental and purchase than it is to going to the movie theater. Movie theaters offer large screens and good audio systems (ideally), that can't be replicated in the home by average (read: not stinking rich) people. The cost model of the theater is $7 per person and they also rake in the cash from the concession stand. While sightsound.com is not perfect, I think video on demand has a bright future. They definately need more variety and better content. I'm not sure Toxic Avenger is worth $15! I also think its pretty lame to only support Windows. The reason isn't just because of the use of the asf (Windows media format). Actually, there is a version of the Windows Media Player for Macintosh (beta I think). However, you need Windows because the download is a self-extracting zip file with a component that handles the credit card transaction. You download the large .exe file, run it, then enter your credit card info and choose rental or purchase. This seems like a pretty cumbersome way to do things - and I would doubt seeing Linux support for it anytime in the future. I think it would be healthy to mail sightsound.com and ask them to support alternate formats (mpeg, quicktime) and payment mechanisms (web based secure transaction).