I'd say the amount of Barnes & Nobles, Borders, and similar bookstores that have their own coffee shop inside, speaks of the synergy they want to exploit.
This is not new at all. Already people go to Borders to hang out, have coffee, check out some books and CDs... and leave with some bags of new stuff.
Some time ago, just as they learned that their business is media, bookstores learned that retention over time (browse, browse, browse) is the key to increasing their business. Coffee shops, poetry readings and social events are such forms of retention. Corporate bookstores are the new mini-malls.
A common complaint of the typical college file-sharer (precisely the age demographic that most often does the above in my experience), is the songs-I-want : CD-price as a factor limiting the amount of CDs they would buy. They spend some time browsing, listening to CD samples, and at the end they have to choose which one to buy because they like 3 songs from different CDs but each costs 20 bucks, and they can only afford one.
Given a choice to spend money per song plus media, they'll take it and be more satisfied customers. And satisfied customers are more likely to rationalize to themselves larger expenses, buying those 2 CDs they can barely afford becuase it's exactly what they want anyway. By lowering the price barrier you increase the rate of impulsive buys.
This is part of why iTunes is successful; and these are sales straight out of the "browse, sample, buy" market of Virgin, Borders et al. It only makes sense puts 2 and 2 together and embeds the new business model with the old retention scheme.
I'm only surprised it's HP and Starbucks we're talking about, and not Borders, or Barnes & Nobles, partnered with either.
Since you're talking about taste and less-than-stellar films: Dark City and The Crow may be visually and stylistically interesting, but that doesn't make them "very good films".
The first is a pretty good B-movie, or a mediocre film, depending on the expectations. The second is a semi-competent action-flick that was overhyped by related tragedies.
It takes more than good scene cuts and gothic aesthetics to mek a "good film". Good scripts and acting have to be involved. Not even the best director can save a movie if it has no story, or if the script and the acting kills it.
Closest thing I've seen in normal procs are the old-fashioned Durons. They approached that mark.
I had mine, a 600 Mhz proc, running at 900 Mhz with no problems for a few years with a cheap heatsink/fan.
Clocked it down to 850 Mhz after I moved and it started failing (probably ventilation issues). Still survived until I got a free Thunderbird to replace it with.
Still, 3 years at 150% is a pretty good run for a normal proc, and it probably still runs.
The point is that high-overclock potential is not that surprising. On a console, where increasing the speed of the proc beyond original spec is a bug and not a feature, it is far more likely that the procs are not put to work to their full potential.
I had read The Garden of the Forking Paths along with other works of Borges, but had not been aware of the Herbert Quain fictional review. Yet another reminder I should get ahold of the rest of his complete works.
In case you are interested in that sort of literature, I recommend checking out the works of Stanislaw Lem : the immensely underrated Polish science fiction writer.
He saw himself more as a follower of Borges' fantastic writings than the pulp-sci-fi that defined the genre in the west, and published some outstanding works in the same vein: fictional encyclopedias, reviews, anthologies, etc. and experimental writings.
When I'm done with Hegel, I may not understand his point, may not remember what I just read, and almost certainly will be at a loss at why I was reading it in the first place.
However, that's far behind from 'Ulysses' where I find myself in the same situation around page 40, only to stop and say "f*ck this, let's start over again"... four times too.
That's not to say it's unsurmountable; I just have my doubts it is technically readable. By the fifth time you just get to a point where you enjoy the prose style and tricks but it has little meaning, like a sub-vocalization-induced hypnotic trance.
As outstanding as the book is, I wouldn't call it "interactive fiction". The plot is static, if open to interpretation (like any good fiction).
It was an excercise in literary techniques. The "out-of-sequence" process you mention was just another postmodernist toy, and not the most radical in its school by any means (although more readable, therefore successful).
It could be seen as a natural progression from previous experiments in sequence, back to Borges (whom I think Cortazar admired specially).
There seem to be plenty of opportunities to mix computers and medicine for someone with experience/knowledge in both fields.
I'd say if you are considering switching careers, combine an MS degree program with self-study. Academic programs offer contacts and structure.
On the very interesting, but smaller market, side: bioinformatics is a field that obviously benefits from education in both areas. Being highly proficient on both fields could give you a very cool research job.
On the vanilla, but much wider market, side:
- The medical industry is still lagging behind in IT. Most doctors are not computer-savyy, and this has translated in low IT spending and traditional, paper-and-people based solutions for a lot of things. Small to medium medical offices can be positively Luddite.
- There is a desperate need for good software that has not been, and cannot be, satisfied by typical retail software. Think custom applications, vertical markets. The few applications that exist own their respective markets and charge accordingly high bills.
- New regulations (HIPAA for one) and market pressure are forcing the industry in the US to do more than "catch up" and embrace technology much like financial institutions have done for a long time.
- HIPAA et al will not only force a lot of IT investments in that community; they impose new BIG requirements on the vertical applications that already exist. This opens the market to competition that can meet those requirements better and/or faster than the conservative choice (which may not meet them at all).
The difficult part (I believe) is on having medical knowledge and credibility, where a professional of that industry has an advantage. Being able to communicate with doctors, understand what they want and let them understand what they need. That's easier for someone who shares their vocabulary and frame of mind.
Team up with some geeks if you need to (to build an application, for example) and go into the market as a startup. Or knock on the doors of the more stable companies you find in that field.
I find it interesting that you believe Computer Science is equivalent to life-critical work in aeronautics, medical equipment, etc.
I don't think professionals of other careers make the same assumption. In general, I think an engineer building 747s would consider himself/herself a member of the aeronautics industry. If in charge of a heart monitor, a member of the medical industry. The same apply to the pilots/technicians that drive these things.
In general, these and other industries (security, nuclear energy, military, etc) involve life-or-death issues and require significant training and experience on everyone involved.
These are industry-centered concerns. Other industries (financial institutions) have other concerns. None of this has to do specifically with Computer Science.
While you may make a case that getting into "hard Computer Science" is not that easy, making a case that getting into "real Computer Science" is difficult is not very convincing unless you provide a convincing definition of "real Computer Science".
IT might not be a piece of cake. It typically requires above average logical ability, attention to detail, and long attention span.
However, as proud as you might be of being a professional of our field, the amount of long-term dedication it requires is in no way comparable to medicine.
It is perfectly possible to get a degree in less than 4 years; you don't need a Phd to practice Computer Science. It is also perfectly possible for someone to get into IT without a CS degree; there is no end of technical certifications and programs to validate knowledge... getting a job without a formal degree is a matter of market demand, not of insurance, liabilities and legalities.
I don't see how you could find the comment as insulting as the opposite example you propose. Perhaps if he were talking of some specialization that requires a decade of experience and/or extensive graduate research, but I saw no comments to that regard.
Would it sound so crazy to ask a manager about a change of careers? An accountant? A graphic designer? I don't think so.
There are few careers where the idea is honestly preposterous. Computer programmer is not one of them. Medical doctor is.
How long did it take to colonize America after Columbus first reported back with his findings (not even touching on whether Columbus was first)? How long after the first colonies on the east coast until the west was also conquored? Keep in mind that timeline before you label space as abandoned.
Well, considering that by 1502 they sent the first governor of La Espanola, with 2500 colonists, to take over the first settlements of the new land, it seems Spain moved pretty fast by modern standards.
By the 1510s and 1520s the colonization process was already well underway in the Antilles and progressing in the mainlands, with a decent agricultural economy quickly replacing the "mining outpost" economy and culture that gave birth to the original colonies
By the 1520s and 1530s some of the most important mainland (non-conquered) colonies were already established: Bogota, Coro, Maracaibo, etc.
Conquest accelerated settlement in other, richer areas, such as Tenochtitlan and Cajamarca. Still, either because of historical chance, the inconvenience of war, or just geographic distance it happened pretty much in the same frame: 1520s and 1530s.
Considering: - the mainland was not discovered until 1498 - reports took months, if not more, to arrive to headquarters - Spain was an underpopulated, impoverished country recovering from war - people didn't exactly know where they were going or how they were getting there (check out a map from those times), and had very little idea of what they would find on the other side
It seems 20 years is a reasonable reaction-to-results time for an inefficient merchantilist monarchy.
Now if the Moon is the "New World", we've been to the "mainland" since 1969, and talking and carefully planning about how to get to that pretty visible target for a longer time.
Now, getting there is far from trivial, but with 500 years of technological advance, far more efficient communication systems and a relative economic prosperity one would think there could be more action during those 35 years.
The timeline doesn't seem to be very generous to NASA. If anything, it makes them look live they've been gazing (or forced to gaze) at their navels for a long time.
Of course, this all depends on the colonization analogy. If NASA's program had been centered on the "robot probes in space" idea it wouldn't even apply. But that program got cut too, with the probes quickly becoming less frequent, cheaper, less ambitious... The center of NASA's project is the Space Station, which is, keeping the analogy, just like colonizing the Canaries.
Still, the "frontier" in this case was indeed abandoned: the Moon, solar system exploration (as in Voyager et al), etc.
Earth-orbit is hardly a "frontier" in this century. 200 km may qualify as space research, but not space exploration.
NASA's space exploration is not like the colonization of America by European powers, because after setting foot there the powers that be didn't follow through with settlements or even extended exploration.
Rather, it's more similar to the explorations of the Chinese expeditions, reaching far into new frontiers and promising new trades and colonies, only to have the fleets disassembled because of lack of interest in anything outside of the Middle Kingdom.
I lament the loss of Hubble because of its scientific importance to astronomers worldwide. But I find it hard to believe that going to orbit repeatedly is part of some progressive space program. It's mostly basic scientific research that requires space presence much like biological research requires computer time: NASA's involvemente has to do with its pseudo-monopoly of space, not with its raison d'etre.
The whole point of Middle Earth is that it is a Fantasy Setting. Changing names would not only be a gratuitous change; if changed to "less fantasy-like" names, it would harm the internal consistency and suspension of disbelief.
NGE is a Science Fiction. As kabbalistic as it gets, it aims at being a speculative fiction about an Apocalypse to the world we know. The names of the characters are not part of a brand-new self-consistent fictitious world. They are names tied to the culture of what we call "reality", and the geographic location where those fictitious events take place. Once you move that place, the names have to change.
The question is not whethet Asuka is named Asuka. The question is whether Asuka IS Asuka, and whether New City HAS TO BE Tokyo.
There may be good reasons why Tokyo-3 is the only possible setting for EVA. I don't think so. But I do think that, were it to be set in New York, it would be quite silly to have it populated by Japanese schoolkids, technicians and military.
Re:Militarisation of space - one option
on
The Future of NASA
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· Score: 2, Interesting
My country (Venezuela) put something like that at the constitutional level. We claim sovereignty over the "ultraterrestial space" covering our national territories up to the limits of national legislation and international treaties.
Not everyone is proud of that touch of legal genius.
Legislation has no meaning without enforceability. That is a fact of politics and a fact of life.
Aerial space can be legislated because it is both enforceable and has a direct reason to be enforced: - It is clearly viable that someone directly above you can drop something on your head and you want to keep them off that space. - It is clearly viable that, with the proper technology, you can get them off that space.
I don't think orbit legislation is that easy to enforce, or to justify their enforcement:
Up to which extension are we supposed to claim sovereignty? 200 km? 500 km? 20000 km? Indefinitely?
From which projection? How can we handle overlaps?
That's not even counting the irony where, for some countries, their "ultraterrenal" frontier could be larger than their terrenal extension.
Is it really enough to ensure safety? Does it have a legitimate safety purpose in the first place? Or can we park a ballistics launcher clearly off the contested space and let the payload travel into it when necessary? Aerial legislation is not very effective against missiles.
Geostationary intelligence satellites that require constant invasion of space may offend a country. But this begs the enforceability aspect: how, and when would sovereignty be enforced? What do we do with the far more numerous, beneficial and important private satellites (GPS, TV, radio, data, comm, etc). What do we do with the spy satellites that are NOT geostationary (do we chase them?). What do we do with satellites out of control?
Requesting an airplane to correct its course is easy, cheap, and pretty normal. We risk international incidents whenever a boat crosses over a tense frontier, and it's not that difficult to turn them around.
What do we do with a satellite where: a) Fuel is very limited and expensive b) Maneuverability is limited and very delicate c) The damn artifact is, one-way trip considered, VERY expensive d) Has no one to answer questions and take responsabilites on board e) Is probably just as expensive for you to shoot down
Actually, the whole "New World" thing started because of some ambitious crazy people who wanted to sail further. History's superpowers were more concerned with getting to Madagascar and from there to the Indies, if anywhere at all.
Sailing across the Canaries sounded pretty nice and safer too. That's closer to the Shuttle initiative.
Columbus' trip was closer to a "Mars or bust" project than to anything Shuttle related. Magellan's like a suicidal tour de force of the solar system, screw the chances of getting most of us killed in the process.
Not to say he's right, but your analogy actually reinforces his POV, not yours.
Not everyone is appalled by the spelling just because it is not Japanese.
I personally agree with you that it's a pretty silly thing to care about the series. Particularly because this is probably a secondary effect of another change.
They are more than likely to move "New City" (previously Tokyo-3) to the US simply to capture more empathy from US-based audiences (their market). If we try to be objective, that's also the reason why it was Tokyo-3 in the first place (to appeal to the Japanese market). They can move the city anywhere without afrecting the plot.
Most characters are Japanese in EVA because they are in Japan, NERV is from Japan, they work in Japan. Once they move the city to the US, it only makes sense to make Misato, Ritsuko, Fuyutsuki, etc. US citizens, with Western names and faces.
However, there are characters that just don't match the profile. Altering certain aspects of the character's appearance alters the personality of the character and their dramatic effect. That's exactly what concept art is for, and that's where some of the problems appear:
- The ages of the girls don't match the profile, and that fundamentally alters the character. See my other comment on the main thread.
- Misato, if that brunette girl with an Uzi is Misato, doesn't match the profile either: she looks too serious, military type. Misato's hard edge is supposed to be a contrast, surprising if not incongruent with her basic outward personality: careless, immature young woman with a taste for alcohol, slacking and having a good time.
- Asuka getting an American name is probably a mistake. She was half-Japanese and half-German, and this was exploited in the plot throughout the series. It accentuated her sense of alienation with "normal school life" (Japanese) culture, as well as her adopted pseudo-family. It reinforced her "I'm better than anyone here anyway" attitude.
It sounds as if they would be removing that from her character. Kate Rose sounds like she would be quite at home in the US and have an easier time to get over herself. While Asuka seems a fish out of her element trying to compensate by shaping the world around herself, Kate will seem a spoiled brat from the start. And I don't think the movie will have much time to expose the deeper roots behind Asuka's attitude, which justified her when the audience concluded that she was ALSO a spoiled brat.
Of course, one could imagine Kate Rose being a rude German brat, but the thing with names and concept art is that it's supposed to tell you about the personality of the character at once. Asuka Langley told you a bit of the story in two words and a picture, Kate Rose tells you a bit less.
There are a bunch of comments expressing fears of Hollywood pushing up the ages of the actors/actresses, and with good reason.
It's culturally understandable that the movie studio wouldn't want to put 14-year olds in tight-fitting lates plugsuits, playing roles with some sexual tension and innuendo (sometimes creepy and yet plot-vital, like Gendou/Rei/Ritsuko), and showing them off to an army of otakus with a reputation for keeping a subset of the porno industry alive on the basis on hentai doujinshi of EVA and similar series....
Having them "just turned 18" would be a very convenient cop-out, allowing them to hire appealing nymphettes for the lead roles and market their sexual appeal to a larger crowd.
The problem is, a large part of the emotional complexity of the series had to do with the fact these were Children with the weight of mankind's survival on their shoulders. Immature Children. Very screwed up Children, as a matter of fact. Still having to deal with classes, bullies, family, puberty, and oh, wait, another big monster appeared and is going to rip your robot's arms off and you're going to feel everything because that's the kind of technology we use and that's the kind of guy you are.
Young college-age adults, specially the young precocious 18 year olds that Hollywood can cast as tragic heroes, would be more prepared to deal with those issues and concentrate on the big-robot-fight-to-save-the-world part of the job. They would look childish having some of the emotional crisis that made EVA's characters believable.
This could turn the movie into a typical big-robot movie, an update to the likes of Ultraman. It would miss the point of EVA, and the truth is there are plenty of more simple/typical robot-series they could adapt better, and more easily, to that format.
Perhaps not in the same way Windows is, but that doesn't mean it is not monocultural.
If anything, the UNIX culture seems to pride itself on being monocultural and on using UNIX constructs (grep, grok, emacs, etc) as thought primitives.
It just happens their monoculturalism lies within the broader "UNIX-like" definition.
This may or may not be better, but it's certainly not good if it becomes a matter of pride. It is essentially a lack of variation at the genus rather than the species level, it may save you from a particular strain but you're still very vulnerable to more strategic flaws or attacks, or to flexible strains.
What is the priority of the Open Source Community?
Why do they keep using the word "community" all over the place anyway?
If my project is "open source" but my agenda is completely personal/independant, there is no reason for me to use the word "community" (and I don't) and it makes all the sense in the world for me to duplicate work, compete with existing products, do whatever I need to fulfill my agenda...
On the other hand if I use the word "community" and claim a different, usually political, commonal agenda (like "building a free, non-commercial OS" or "making Linux a desktop OS that can replace Windows"), it's clear my priorities are very different. Acting on my own will be less productive, and may be effectively damaging, to my claimed common agenda.
In the commercial world, every application-centric agenda is personal and independant. Competing with other solutions is PART of the agenda. Stealing market share from a competent product is a good thing because your goal is not to provide the user with a great application, but to have the user keep YOUR application.
Commonal agendas become standard processes and have different dynamics. Sometimes they are agendas of subsections of the industry with common interest. But they rarely appear as applications.
The point is not whether those problems appear in the commercial source or not, because they can be compatible with the agendas of commercial agencies. The problem is whether they are contrary to the claimed Open Source agenda, and how to solve them if they are.
This is idiotic. Closed source != Microsoft and Microsoft competes with the rest of the closed source community (and open source too).
Closed Source: Internet Explorer, AOL, Opera, Safari... Open Source: Mozilla, Galeon, Konqueror...
Closed Source: Media Player, iTunes, WinAmp... Open Source: Mplayer, XMMS, Xine,...
Closed Source: Word, WordPerfect, a thousand "el cheapo" word processors I've seen in 5$ software shareware and bargain bins that look bad enough not to try them... Open Source: OpenOffice Writer, AbiWord, KOffice,...
Microsoft, like most decently run companies, will try not fragment their market unnecessarily. What do you expect them to do, release 4 Office Suites to compete with each other?
Perhaps the public feuds are an effect of the ego-boo based economy of Open Source, which may be indirectly beneficial to the quality of the products.
However, the feuds are directly damaging to both the quality and the adoption of the products. And their visibility makes them all the more volatile, and all the more difficult to reconcile into a more productive, friendly competition before it reaches the point of folkloric absurdity (like the vi vs emacs?) and calms down.
Perhaps it's because that was about the time I tried Linux for the first time, but it seems to me that the KDE vs GNOME feud was quite unproductive for a long time. It encouraged redundant work, blocked collaboration, and presented issues of fragmentation and lack of interoperability that I believe hurt Linux.
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I'd say the amount of Barnes & Nobles, Borders, and similar bookstores that have their own coffee shop inside, speaks of the synergy they want to exploit.
This is not new at all. Already people go to Borders to hang out, have coffee, check out some books and CDs... and leave with some bags of new stuff.
Some time ago, just as they learned that their business is media, bookstores learned that retention over time (browse, browse, browse) is the key to increasing their business. Coffee shops, poetry readings and social events are such forms of retention. Corporate bookstores are the new mini-malls.
A common complaint of the typical college file-sharer (precisely the age demographic that most often does the above in my experience), is the songs-I-want : CD-price as a factor limiting the amount of CDs they would buy. They spend some time browsing, listening to CD samples, and at the end they have to choose which one to buy because they like 3 songs from different CDs but each costs 20 bucks, and they can only afford one.
Given a choice to spend money per song plus media, they'll take it and be more satisfied customers. And satisfied customers are more likely to rationalize to themselves larger expenses, buying those 2 CDs they can barely afford becuase it's exactly what they want anyway. By lowering the price barrier you increase the rate of impulsive buys.
This is part of why iTunes is successful; and these are sales straight out of the "browse, sample, buy" market of Virgin, Borders et al. It only makes sense puts 2 and 2 together and embeds the new business model with the old retention scheme.
I'm only surprised it's HP and Starbucks we're talking about, and not Borders, or Barnes & Nobles, partnered with either.
Perhaps it's not because HP is afraid of MS.
Perhaps it's because HP is afraid of not making money.
Cool factor aside, what exactly would HP get out of that business model?
Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics"
1: A Hollywood Exec may not crate a good adaptation of book to film, or, through inaction, allow such a movie to be made.
2: A Hollywood Exec must obey orders given it by the Marketing Polls except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3: A Hollywood Exec must protect its own profit margins as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Since you're talking about taste and less-than-stellar films: Dark City and The Crow may be visually and stylistically interesting, but that doesn't make them "very good films".
The first is a pretty good B-movie, or a mediocre film, depending on the expectations. The second is a semi-competent action-flick that was overhyped by related tragedies.
It takes more than good scene cuts and gothic aesthetics to mek a "good film". Good scripts and acting have to be involved. Not even the best director can save a movie if it has no story, or if the script and the acting kills it.
Side note;
Closest thing I've seen in normal procs are the old-fashioned Durons. They approached that mark.
I had mine, a 600 Mhz proc, running at 900 Mhz with no problems for a few years with a cheap heatsink/fan.
Clocked it down to 850 Mhz after I moved and it started failing (probably ventilation issues). Still survived until I got a free Thunderbird to replace it with.
Still, 3 years at 150% is a pretty good run for a normal proc, and it probably still runs.
The point is that high-overclock potential is not that surprising. On a console, where increasing the speed of the proc beyond original spec is a bug and not a feature, it is far more likely that the procs are not put to work to their full potential.
Thanks for the article.
I had read The Garden of the Forking Paths along with other works of Borges, but had not been aware of the Herbert Quain fictional review. Yet another reminder I should get ahold of the rest of his complete works.
In case you are interested in that sort of literature, I recommend checking out the works of Stanislaw Lem : the immensely underrated Polish science fiction writer.
He saw himself more as a follower of Borges' fantastic writings than the pulp-sci-fi that defined the genre in the west, and published some outstanding works in the same vein: fictional encyclopedias, reviews, anthologies, etc. and experimental writings.
Joyce still beats Hegel.
When I'm done with Hegel, I may not understand his point, may not remember what I just read, and almost certainly will be at a loss at why I was reading it in the first place.
However, that's far behind from 'Ulysses' where I find myself in the same situation around page 40, only to stop and say "f*ck this, let's start over again"... four times too.
That's not to say it's unsurmountable; I just have my doubts it is technically readable. By the fifth time you just get to a point where you enjoy the prose style and tricks but it has little meaning, like a sub-vocalization-induced hypnotic trance.
As outstanding as the book is, I wouldn't call it "interactive fiction". The plot is static, if open to interpretation (like any good fiction).
It was an excercise in literary techniques. The "out-of-sequence" process you mention was just another postmodernist toy, and not the most radical in its school by any means (although more readable, therefore successful).
It could be seen as a natural progression from previous experiments in sequence, back to Borges (whom I think Cortazar admired specially).
There seem to be plenty of opportunities to mix computers and medicine for someone with experience/knowledge in both fields.
I'd say if you are considering switching careers, combine an MS degree program with self-study. Academic programs offer contacts and structure.
On the very interesting, but smaller market, side: bioinformatics is a field that obviously benefits from education in both areas. Being highly proficient on both fields could give you a very cool research job.
On the vanilla, but much wider market, side:
- The medical industry is still lagging behind in IT. Most doctors are not computer-savyy, and this has translated in low IT spending and traditional, paper-and-people based solutions for a lot of things. Small to medium medical offices can be positively Luddite.
- There is a desperate need for good software that has not been, and cannot be, satisfied by typical retail software. Think custom applications, vertical markets. The few applications that exist own their respective markets and charge accordingly high bills.
- New regulations (HIPAA for one) and market pressure are forcing the industry in the US to do more than "catch up" and embrace technology much like financial institutions have done for a long time.
- HIPAA et al will not only force a lot of IT investments in that community; they impose new BIG requirements on the vertical applications that already exist. This opens the market to competition that can meet those requirements better and/or faster than the conservative choice (which may not meet them at all).
The difficult part (I believe) is on having medical knowledge and credibility, where a professional of that industry has an advantage. Being able to communicate with doctors, understand what they want and let them understand what they need. That's easier for someone who shares their vocabulary and frame of mind.
Team up with some geeks if you need to (to build an application, for example) and go into the market as a startup. Or knock on the doors of the more stable companies you find in that field.
I find it interesting that you believe Computer Science is equivalent to life-critical work in aeronautics, medical equipment, etc.
I don't think professionals of other careers make the same assumption. In general, I think an engineer building 747s would consider himself/herself a member of the aeronautics industry. If in charge of a heart monitor, a member of the medical industry. The same apply to the pilots/technicians that drive these things.
In general, these and other industries (security, nuclear energy, military, etc) involve life-or-death issues and require significant training and experience on everyone involved.
These are industry-centered concerns. Other industries (financial institutions) have other concerns. None of this has to do specifically with Computer Science.
While you may make a case that getting into "hard Computer Science" is not that easy, making a case that getting into "real Computer Science" is difficult is not very convincing unless you provide a convincing definition of "real Computer Science".
IT might not be a piece of cake. It typically requires above average logical ability, attention to detail, and long attention span.
However, as proud as you might be of being a professional of our field, the amount of long-term dedication it requires is in no way comparable to medicine.
It is perfectly possible to get a degree in less than 4 years; you don't need a Phd to practice Computer Science. It is also perfectly possible for someone to get into IT without a CS degree; there is no end of technical certifications and programs to validate knowledge... getting a job without a formal degree is a matter of market demand, not of insurance, liabilities and legalities.
I don't see how you could find the comment as insulting as the opposite example you propose. Perhaps if he were talking of some specialization that requires a decade of experience and/or extensive graduate research, but I saw no comments to that regard.
Would it sound so crazy to ask a manager about a change of careers? An accountant? A graphic designer? I don't think so.
There are few careers where the idea is honestly preposterous. Computer programmer is not one of them. Medical doctor is.
Well, considering that by 1502 they sent the first governor of La Espanola, with 2500 colonists, to take over the first settlements of the new land, it seems Spain moved pretty fast by modern standards.
By the 1510s and 1520s the colonization process was already well underway in the Antilles and progressing in the mainlands, with a decent agricultural economy quickly replacing the "mining outpost" economy and culture that gave birth to the original colonies
By the 1520s and 1530s some of the most important mainland (non-conquered) colonies were already established: Bogota, Coro, Maracaibo, etc.
Conquest accelerated settlement in other, richer areas, such as Tenochtitlan and Cajamarca. Still, either because of historical chance, the inconvenience of war, or just geographic distance it happened pretty much in the same frame: 1520s and 1530s.
Considering:
- the mainland was not discovered until 1498
- reports took months, if not more, to arrive to headquarters
- Spain was an underpopulated, impoverished country recovering from war
- people didn't exactly know where they were going or how they were getting there (check out a map from those times), and had very little idea of what they would find on the other side
It seems 20 years is a reasonable reaction-to-results time for an inefficient merchantilist monarchy.
Now if the Moon is the "New World", we've been to the "mainland" since 1969, and talking and carefully planning about how to get to that pretty visible target for a longer time.
Now, getting there is far from trivial, but with 500 years of technological advance, far more efficient communication systems and a relative economic prosperity one would think there could be more action during those 35 years.
The timeline doesn't seem to be very generous to NASA. If anything, it makes them look live they've been gazing (or forced to gaze) at their navels for a long time.
Of course, this all depends on the colonization analogy. If NASA's program had been centered on the "robot probes in space" idea it wouldn't even apply. But that program got cut too, with the probes quickly becoming less frequent, cheaper, less ambitious... The center of NASA's project is the Space Station, which is, keeping the analogy, just like colonizing the Canaries.
Still, the "frontier" in this case was indeed abandoned: the Moon, solar system exploration (as in Voyager et al), etc.
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Earth-orbit is hardly a "frontier" in this century. 200 km may qualify as space research, but not space exploration.
NASA's space exploration is not like the colonization of America by European powers, because after setting foot there the powers that be didn't follow through with settlements or even extended exploration.
Rather, it's more similar to the explorations of the Chinese expeditions, reaching far into new frontiers and promising new trades and colonies, only to have the fleets disassembled because of lack of interest in anything outside of the Middle Kingdom.
http://www.time.com/time/asia/features/journey2
I lament the loss of Hubble because of its scientific importance to astronomers worldwide. But I find it hard to believe that going to orbit repeatedly is part of some progressive space program. It's mostly basic scientific research that requires space presence much like biological research requires computer time: NASA's involvemente has to do with its pseudo-monopoly of space, not with its raison d'etre.
The whole point of Middle Earth is that it is a Fantasy Setting. Changing names would not only be a gratuitous change; if changed to "less fantasy-like" names, it would harm the internal consistency and suspension of disbelief.
NGE is a Science Fiction. As kabbalistic as it gets, it aims at being a speculative fiction about an Apocalypse to the world we know. The names of the characters are not part of a brand-new self-consistent fictitious world. They are names tied to the culture of what we call "reality", and the geographic location where those fictitious events take place. Once you move that place, the names have to change.
The question is not whethet Asuka is named Asuka. The question is whether Asuka IS Asuka, and whether New City HAS TO BE Tokyo.
There may be good reasons why Tokyo-3 is the only possible setting for EVA. I don't think so. But I do think that, were it to be set in New York, it would be quite silly to have it populated by Japanese schoolkids, technicians and military.
My country (Venezuela) put something like that at the constitutional level. We claim sovereignty over the "ultraterrestial space" covering our national territories up to the limits of national legislation and international treaties.
Not everyone is proud of that touch of legal genius.
Legislation has no meaning without enforceability. That is a fact of politics and a fact of life.
Aerial space can be legislated because it is both enforceable and has a direct reason to be enforced:
- It is clearly viable that someone directly above you can drop something on your head and you want to keep them off that space.
- It is clearly viable that, with the proper technology, you can get them off that space.
I don't think orbit legislation is that easy to enforce, or to justify their enforcement:
Up to which extension are we supposed to claim sovereignty? 200 km? 500 km? 20000 km? Indefinitely?
From which projection? How can we handle overlaps?
That's not even counting the irony where, for some countries, their "ultraterrenal" frontier could be larger than their terrenal extension.
Is it really enough to ensure safety? Does it have a legitimate safety purpose in the first place? Or can we park a ballistics launcher clearly off the contested space and let the payload travel into it when necessary? Aerial legislation is not very effective against missiles.
Geostationary intelligence satellites that require constant invasion of space may offend a country. But this begs the enforceability aspect: how, and when would sovereignty be enforced? What do we do with the far more numerous, beneficial and important private satellites (GPS, TV, radio, data, comm, etc). What do we do with the spy satellites that are NOT geostationary (do we chase them?). What do we do with satellites out of control?
Requesting an airplane to correct its course is easy, cheap, and pretty normal. We risk international incidents whenever a boat crosses over a tense frontier, and it's not that difficult to turn them around.
What do we do with a satellite where:
a) Fuel is very limited and expensive
b) Maneuverability is limited and very delicate
c) The damn artifact is, one-way trip considered, VERY expensive
d) Has no one to answer questions and take responsabilites on board
e) Is probably just as expensive for you to shoot down
Actually, the whole "New World" thing started because of some ambitious crazy people who wanted to sail further. History's superpowers were more concerned with getting to Madagascar and from there to the Indies, if anywhere at all.
Sailing across the Canaries sounded pretty nice and safer too. That's closer to the Shuttle initiative.
Columbus' trip was closer to a "Mars or bust" project than to anything Shuttle related. Magellan's like a suicidal tour de force of the solar system, screw the chances of getting most of us killed in the process.
Not to say he's right, but your analogy actually reinforces his POV, not yours.
Not everyone is appalled by the spelling just because it is not Japanese.
I personally agree with you that it's a pretty silly thing to care about the series. Particularly because this is probably a secondary effect of another change.
They are more than likely to move "New City" (previously Tokyo-3) to the US simply to capture more empathy from US-based audiences (their market). If we try to be objective, that's also the reason why it was Tokyo-3 in the first place (to appeal to the Japanese market). They can move the city anywhere without afrecting the plot.
Most characters are Japanese in EVA because they are in Japan, NERV is from Japan, they work in Japan. Once they move the city to the US, it only makes sense to make Misato, Ritsuko, Fuyutsuki, etc. US citizens, with Western names and faces.
However, there are characters that just don't match the profile. Altering certain aspects of the character's appearance alters the personality of the character and their dramatic effect. That's exactly what concept art is for, and that's where some of the problems appear:
- The ages of the girls don't match the profile, and that fundamentally alters the character. See my other comment on the main thread.
- Misato, if that brunette girl with an Uzi is Misato, doesn't match the profile either: she looks too serious, military type. Misato's hard edge is supposed to be a contrast, surprising if not incongruent with her basic outward personality: careless, immature young woman with a taste for alcohol, slacking and having a good time.
- Asuka getting an American name is probably a mistake. She was half-Japanese and half-German, and this was exploited in the plot throughout the series. It accentuated her sense of alienation with "normal school life" (Japanese) culture, as well as her adopted pseudo-family. It reinforced her "I'm better than anyone here anyway" attitude.
It sounds as if they would be removing that from her character. Kate Rose sounds like she would be quite at home in the US and have an easier time to get over herself. While Asuka seems a fish out of her element trying to compensate by shaping the world around herself, Kate will seem a spoiled brat from the start. And I don't think the movie will have much time to expose the deeper roots behind Asuka's attitude, which justified her when the audience concluded that she was ALSO a spoiled brat.
Of course, one could imagine Kate Rose being a rude German brat, but the thing with names and concept art is that it's supposed to tell you about the personality of the character at once. Asuka Langley told you a bit of the story in two words and a picture, Kate Rose tells you a bit less.
There are a bunch of comments expressing fears of Hollywood pushing up the ages of the actors/actresses, and with good reason.
It's culturally understandable that the movie studio wouldn't want to put 14-year olds in tight-fitting lates plugsuits, playing roles with some sexual tension and innuendo (sometimes creepy and yet plot-vital, like Gendou/Rei/Ritsuko), and showing them off to an army of otakus with a reputation for keeping a subset of the porno industry alive on the basis on hentai doujinshi of EVA and similar series....
Having them "just turned 18" would be a very convenient cop-out, allowing them to hire appealing nymphettes for the lead roles and market their sexual appeal to a larger crowd.
The problem is, a large part of the emotional complexity of the series had to do with the fact these were Children with the weight of mankind's survival on their shoulders. Immature Children. Very screwed up Children, as a matter of fact. Still having to deal with classes, bullies, family, puberty, and oh, wait, another big monster appeared and is going to rip your robot's arms off and you're going to feel everything because that's the kind of technology we use and that's the kind of guy you are.
Young college-age adults, specially the young precocious 18 year olds that Hollywood can cast as tragic heroes, would be more prepared to deal with those issues and concentrate on the big-robot-fight-to-save-the-world part of the job. They would look childish having some of the emotional crisis that made EVA's characters believable.
This could turn the movie into a typical big-robot movie, an update to the likes of Ultraman. It would miss the point of EVA, and the truth is there are plenty of more simple/typical robot-series they could adapt better, and more easily, to that format.
Perhaps not in the same way Windows is, but that doesn't mean it is not monocultural.
If anything, the UNIX culture seems to pride itself on being monocultural and on using UNIX constructs (grep, grok, emacs, etc) as thought primitives.
It just happens their monoculturalism lies within the broader "UNIX-like" definition.
This may or may not be better, but it's certainly not good if it becomes a matter of pride. It is essentially a lack of variation at the genus rather than the species level, it may save you from a particular strain but you're still very vulnerable to more strategic flaws or attacks, or to flexible strains.
I think they are supposed to be clinically insane.
Preferably with a big Eodipus complex and latent schizophrenia.
Perhaps, but it still sounds like a genetic improvement over the previous known methods.
Let's call it: Woody Allen 2.0
Or was that beta-testing?
Since Slashdot doesn't allow dupes...
What is the priority of the Open Source Community?
Why do they keep using the word "community" all over the place anyway?
If my project is "open source" but my agenda is completely personal/independant, there is no reason for me to use the word "community" (and I don't) and it makes all the sense in the world for me to duplicate work, compete with existing products, do whatever I need to fulfill my agenda...
On the other hand if I use the word "community" and claim a different, usually political, commonal agenda (like "building a free, non-commercial OS" or "making Linux a desktop OS that can replace Windows"), it's clear my priorities are very different. Acting on my own will be less productive, and may be effectively damaging, to my claimed common agenda.
In the commercial world, every application-centric agenda is personal and independant. Competing with other solutions is PART of the agenda. Stealing market share from a competent product is a good thing because your goal is not to provide the user with a great application, but to have the user keep YOUR application.
Commonal agendas become standard processes and have different dynamics. Sometimes they are agendas of subsections of the industry with common interest. But they rarely appear as applications.
The point is not whether those problems appear in the commercial source or not, because they can be compatible with the agendas of commercial agencies. The problem is whether they are contrary to the claimed Open Source agenda, and how to solve them if they are.
This is idiotic. Closed source != Microsoft and Microsoft competes with the rest of the closed source community (and open source too).
...
...
Closed Source: Internet Explorer, AOL, Opera, Safari...
Open Source: Mozilla, Galeon, Konqueror...
Closed Source: Media Player, iTunes, WinAmp...
Open Source: Mplayer, XMMS, Xine,
Closed Source: Word, WordPerfect, a thousand "el cheapo" word processors I've seen in 5$ software shareware and bargain bins that look bad enough not to try them...
Open Source: OpenOffice Writer, AbiWord, KOffice,
Microsoft, like most decently run companies, will try not fragment their market unnecessarily. What do you expect them to do, release 4 Office Suites to compete with each other?
Perhaps the public feuds are an effect of the ego-boo based economy of Open Source, which may be indirectly beneficial to the quality of the products.
However, the feuds are directly damaging to both the quality and the adoption of the products. And their visibility makes them all the more volatile, and all the more difficult to reconcile into a more productive, friendly competition before it reaches the point of folkloric absurdity (like the vi vs emacs?) and calms down.
Perhaps it's because that was about the time I tried Linux for the first time, but it seems to me that the KDE vs GNOME feud was quite unproductive for a long time. It encouraged redundant work, blocked collaboration, and presented issues of fragmentation and lack of interoperability that I believe hurt Linux.