Image and feelings are everything. For me. For you. For them.
I went into Physics because I thought it would be magnificent to shape the world, to create something that would revolutionize the world. I went into physics because of what I felt it was worth.
I spent time in front of computers and eventually got a developer job because I throught and felt that it was/is cool when I get something working.
Now, considering what women are taught, in terms of 'what is important', 'what is impressive', do you think they'd feel the same way about Physics or Software Development as you or I?
That's why there are so few women in Physics or IT.
Because our culture (end to end, in school, their parents, in the media, etc etc) have taught them what is cool, what is impressive, and what is interesting.
And it's not software.
There won't be many women in IT until our culture gives women the idea that writing code, hacking software, and sitting in front of computers is a lofty goal, with some rewarding emotional feedback.
You'll know that day has come when there is a 'developer barbie' that comes with her own workstation, server cluster, IPO forms, and million dollar equity agreement. (House in Silicon Valley with pool and tennis court sold separately).
Individual uses service to send threat. (not cool)
Police need to determine who sent threat, ask ISP/Annoy for identity of individual who made threat. (cool)
ISP/Annoy says no, show me warrant. (cool)
Police/Authorities apply for warrant/legal-ruling requiring that ISP/Annoy disclose identity of individual who made threat. (cool)
Police/Authorities ask that proceedings be 'closed' so that investigation can proceed without individual learning of it. (cool, it's under the eye of the judiciary, and ISP/Annoy has ability to comment/be-involved in legal proceedings to protect their anonymous users from un-necessary discloser)
ISP/Annoy blockades the proceedings of the investigation and request for disclosure of identity based not upon merits of the investigation, but rather on principle, horribly delaying the investigation into a threat of violence against an individual. (NOT cool).
A YEAR LATER, police/authorities drop request, as it's now way too late to be useful. (damn unfortunate)
ISP/Annoy swaggers around boasting "gosh aren't we the greatest, standing up for our 'ideals' against 'the man'", meanwhile allowing someone to get away with making a threat of violence against someone else. (also NOT cool)
Bunch of people foaming at the mouth display their ignorance of anything deeper than 'obvious' by raving and rantin on about how 'injust' it is that the proceedings were 'hidden'. (lamers).
This place used to be full of insightful people, where the hell did they go?
No no. The source and all our modifications are GPL'd and included. It's just that this package is distributed in our standard 'packaging' and that standard packaging and the form you have to get by to download it contain our 'standard' license. If one read those and presumed that they applied to everything being downloaded or within the package (which they seem to claim), then the wrong message would be received....
> A simple e-mail to Compaq legal oughta do the trick; it's only a minor error.
I'm resentful of the fact that an e-mail to their legal department is even necessary.
Why?
Because the (nameless) company I work for has done the EXACT same thing, in spite of my own internal objections! As far as they were concerned, the 'wrapper' license doesn't mean what it clearly claims it means, the 'sub' license was burried in there and 'over-rides' the wrapper license, and so that was that. (Go figure, the glove is on the other hand and they interpret it in whatever way is convenient.)
My degrees took 8 years of my life and a quarter million dollars of tax money.
Once ever two years my IT job barely touches something that I learned in university. Thinking of challenging my choice of subject to study? When I entered university *everyone* was saying that what I was taking was going to be in hot demand when I got out.
Twice a year I meet someone who is intelligent enough, insightful enough, can express themselves well enough, and is interested in talking deeply about something that my university life and classes exposed me to (anything, historical, social, scientific, philosophic, anything at all, not something specific).
Sure, I have lots of really educated thoughts about all the issues of the day and things I read in the papers and on slashdot, which don't really affect anything in this world, they just churn over and over in my mind.
If you're going to claim that it was worth 8 years of my life and $250,000 tax dollars, I have a 40 pound gold brick I'd like to shove up your ass.
No, seriously. This is what technology is for. To make things easier, to eliminate overhead, to reduce the costs of doing things.
Unfortunately progress in a capitalistic society which doesn't have a well organized safety net means people losing their jobs until they find a new one. Unpleasant, but it must happen.
Also unfortunately is the fact that the system coming online that is reducing all the overhead, is not being provided legally in a way that would create jobs, or at least send the right amount of money back to the content creators.
That's a result of two things: a) the cost of distribution of media using the new technology is so low that no-one can really make money off of it, compared against direct file sharing between people (IE: the new system is so efficient there is almost no need for any new jobs to be created), and b) we have a society of people who for some reason don't think they owe anything to the big faceless corporations and rich people creating the content. Myself included.
Only one thing would-have/could prevent this from happening and continuing. The ENTIRE content creation industry has to band together really quick and get an acceptable content authorization and charge system running, one that is so easy to use by the users that they'll actually consider it vs the illegal content. They're behind the 8 ball right now, and they're pre-occupied with hiding under rocks, so I predict a grisly demise. We'll lose some content creators along the way over the next 10 to 20 years.
(Not directed at author of the parent article, directed at everyone)
> But once girls find out what I do, I'm suddenly a geek.
I have, throughout my entire life, regarded the term 'geek' as a highly derogatory four letter word. If you were to do a fast paced word association test with me, and gave me the word 'geek', the word I would spit out would be 'nigger'(*).
It is based upon the experiences in my life that have taught me my emotional worth and place in society.
I respect the black community for deciding to fight, instead of roll over and play kitten. They did not "redefine" what nigger meant, they took it for what it was, and attempted to change the source of the problem, not ignore it or accept it. It's with a heavy heart that I've watched as the 'minority' I'm a part of has begun playing the part of Uncle Tom.
You've re-defined the term geek in your own thoughts, and in your own way you know you should be or are proud of yourself. But for those who have been affected by being labeled 'geeks', I've never seen it translated into carrying oneself with confidence and pride outside of our little ghetto. And in most places it is infrequently translated into respect from those outside of our community.
You may be 'proud' GEEKS in here, but everyone out there is still thinking 'nigger'.
-C
(*) - Note that I'm not claiming we're as deep in the hole as blacks once were. But I feel that my own feelings, their source, and the feelings of those outside our community, must come from a similar part of the human mind and experience.
Re:The Horror and Pain of Film
on
Movies Online?
·
· Score: 1
>> Image quality? > This could be...
I'm saying every film I've ever seen has had way too much scratches/dust/etc. I didn't notice it when I was younger, as the only other thing I ever saw was broadcast TV at the edge of it's range, and now DVD is just spoiling me completely.
> When I worked at a theater, anywhere from 65-85 percent of the ticket price went > straight back to the movie company.. Since then, the film company's cut has risen considerably.
Hmmm. That was an interesting tidbit. I always wondered why movies were rated according to gross revenue, but if that much actually goes back to the companies...
> And the 30 frames per second DVD refresh rate is so much better than 24, right?
I've recently seen enough movies on bigger TVs and 19 inch monitors from DVD such that I *really* notice the 24fps in theaters, so much so that it's almost unbearable.
> How many movie tickets can you buy for the cost of that equipment?
That's a fair point.
> there are a lot of people who spend a night a week seeing a movie with friends, and then going to a local coffee shop to talk about it.
It's also a good chance to go out for dinner. I do enjoy that. However I'd happily trade that in for inviting a half dozen friends over to kick back on the perfect leather couch, in perfect darkness and perfect silence, with all the nearly-free perfect-popcorn, perfect-Guinness, perfect-5.1-sound-system, and watch a couple movies on a 16x8 foot screen from 8-10 feet away.
I'm definitely not claiming to predict the future demise of movie theaters. The rest of the fools on this planet are impossible to predict (seeing as I think most of them are fools). But my experiences and personal thoughts on the matter are quite clear. I'm not claiming to represent anyone's opinions or intentions on the matter other than my own.
Enjoy your movies. (Personally I'm looking forward to X-Men next).
The Horror and Pain of Film
on
Movies Online?
·
· Score: 1
>there is the fact that digital technology is still not up to the par that actual projected film is.
Image quality? I've never seen a projected film that wasn't utterly full of 'projected defects'. Even the preview of Chicken Run that I went to two days before it's opening had so much it was noticable during ~20-30% of the film(*).
The sound? Always: Too loud. Off center. Decidedly over-done(*).
The 'social' atmosphere? You mean the autistic guy sitting in the row in front of me doing his thing every 15 minutes(**), or the woman bringing in her 6 month old?(*)
Oh yeah, that 24 fps is just *spectacular* for all the action. I'll just hold my damn breath until this 48 fps stuff comes out within 5 miles of me.
The west wall in my apartment is a nice flat white, 12 feet wide by 8 feet high. I'm just dreaming about the day I can project 1600x1200 HDTV/DVD onto it(***). My current HDs can hold 70 hours of DivX Mpeg4. Fuck theaters. They're dead meat.
Cheers
(*) I have ~20 screens within 2 miles of my house and I only see movies at the best two locations, with 'the best' sound systems, one of them built 6 months ago, and yet these are the impressions I'm left with.
(**) Seriously. Not that we didn't get used to it pretty quickly. And I'm not suggesting he shouldn't get to see movies.
(***) Anyone know where the status of those 'micro-machined mirror' projector displays are?
..and I haven't even begun to figure out how that is analogous to the microwaves thing, other than through real and perceived speed... I want a an analogy that relates to the physical process occuring....
I never was quite clear wrt how the phase velocity could be different than the packet velocity... but it's been a while...
You see, I'm a *visualization* person, and I mean visualization on the minute physical level. Simply presenting the calculus and saying 'see, this is how it turns out' is not what I'm asking for. I want to visualize how the physics of the system is interacting to create the behaviour described by the mathematics.
In my 1st year physics course it took me two full hours of hard thinking about the applicatoin of linear conservation of momentum to the particle force dynamics in a spinning object in order to visualize just what physical processes created the effects shown by gyroscopes (the right hand rule) and such...
The best description for this is "mentally integrating the physical principles" instead of mathematically doing it. It was rewarding when I finally got there. Much nicer than simply accepting the math and observation and saying "it is so".
> eaten up the past few weeks of my time, as well as the time of my friends, who > rarely read forums or go to gaming websites, who have no idea who John Romero > is, and have no idea how long it should/shouldn't take to make a game
The above quote is our biggest hint. My theory is that people who enjoy the game are simply people who don't know how poorly DK compares to all other recent games, people who don't know what they're missing.
Note that this isn't a dig against them. Imagine if you had never played FPS or action games any time in the last 3-5 years, say since Doom. Now you come across DK. Wow, wouldn't you be impressed!? Me too.
And the game reviews sort of hint that as well, I mean, they flat out state that the biggest problem with DK is that it's an N years old game engine, design, puzzles, gameplay, and graphics, that's been heavily surpassed by more recent stuff.
So it's not supprising that some people will enjoy it. There *are* a few thousand people out there who have, for one reason or other, for better or worse, bought the merely average games this season. Some won't be happy with their purchase, some will. The distribution between happy and unhappy (impressed and un-impressed) will shift with their experience, expectations, and the quality (or lack thereof) of the game.
You know of a RISC computer that will run a TCP/IP stack and LAN card on a sixth of a watt?
...(goes away and searches)... nuts, no reports of the power levels attained from a potatoe battery experiment. I would have expected some 5th grade class somewhere to post their results. Your half volt sounds ok, but I don't know about your 20mA of current... sounds a little high.
But now I want to know how many potatoes it *would* take to power a computer?
And how long before some crazy nut actually spends a week inserting metal into tens of thousands of potatoes to actually demonstrate it?
I guess it might be more efficient to puree the potatoes and immerse big plates of metal in the puree... but then the're not really potatoes anymore, are they? They're 'battery acid substitute'.
Oooh, I'm impressed. Slashdot already has links to the homepages of the two main subjects of the story of interest. Within which details of what is likely being talked of in the Toronto Star article can be found. I wish I had noticed that before I did all that searching.
Anyways, you'll notice that the publications start back in the early 90's. The 'new' thing they've discovered together might be what is talked about here, and is more clearly described here and here (Sajeev John's page contained links to this stuff...).
I haven't seen anything yet to tell us if this is such a better way of making this class of material that it counts as a 'revolution'. We have to find someone who knows a lot more about the current state of the art in creating photonic band gap materials and get this person to analyze this new method and it's results, to tell us if it's a significant advance, or what it's advantages are.
> Whatever entity (nation, corporation, etc) first gets appreciable numbers of people
> (and the infrastructure to support them)into space will be the ones to replace the USA
> on the world scene.
Then may I suggest it should be us, the techies and intelligent geeks of the world!
We're smart. We're well paid and could affort to finance something like this. We can organize. Ten grand a year from all million of us, and we're on our way!
Slashdot Mirror
Hey! Now that's an interesting idea! I wouldn't mind transferring some of the points my post got to the reply, the one you're talking about!
Hmmmmm....
Image and feelings are everything. For me. For you. For them.
I went into Physics because I thought it would be magnificent to shape the world, to create something that would revolutionize the world. I went into physics because of what I felt it was worth.
I spent time in front of computers and eventually got a developer job because I throught and felt that it was/is cool when I get something working.
Now, considering what women are taught, in terms of 'what is important', 'what is impressive', do you think they'd feel the same way about Physics or Software Development as you or I?
That's why there are so few women in Physics or IT.
Because our culture (end to end, in school, their parents, in the media, etc etc) have taught them what is cool, what is impressive, and what is interesting.
And it's not software.
There won't be many women in IT until our culture gives women the idea that writing code, hacking software, and sitting in front of computers is a lofty goal, with some rewarding emotional feedback.
You'll know that day has come when there is a 'developer barbie' that comes with her own workstation, server cluster, IPO forms, and million dollar equity agreement. (House in Silicon Valley with pool and tennis court sold separately).
This is my take:
Individual uses service to send threat. (not cool)
Police need to determine who sent threat, ask ISP/Annoy for identity of individual who made threat. (cool)
ISP/Annoy says no, show me warrant. (cool)
Police/Authorities apply for warrant/legal-ruling requiring that ISP/Annoy disclose identity of individual who made threat. (cool)
Police/Authorities ask that proceedings be 'closed' so that investigation can proceed without individual learning of it. (cool, it's under the eye of the judiciary, and ISP/Annoy has ability to comment/be-involved in legal proceedings to protect their anonymous users from un-necessary discloser)
ISP/Annoy blockades the proceedings of the investigation and request for disclosure of identity based not upon merits of the investigation, but rather on principle, horribly delaying the investigation into a threat of violence against an individual. (NOT cool).
A YEAR LATER, police/authorities drop request, as it's now way too late to be useful. (damn unfortunate)
ISP/Annoy swaggers around boasting "gosh aren't we the greatest, standing up for our 'ideals' against 'the man'", meanwhile allowing someone to get away with making a threat of violence against someone else. (also NOT cool)
Bunch of people foaming at the mouth display their ignorance of anything deeper than 'obvious' by raving and rantin on about how 'injust' it is that the proceedings were 'hidden'. (lamers).
This place used to be full of insightful people, where the hell did they go?
No no. The source and all our modifications are GPL'd and included. It's just that this package is distributed in our standard 'packaging' and that standard packaging and the form you have to get by to download it contain our 'standard' license. If one read those and presumed that they applied to everything being downloaded or within the package (which they seem to claim), then the wrong message would be received....
Clear?
> A simple e-mail to Compaq legal oughta do the trick; it's only a minor error.
I'm resentful of the fact that an e-mail to their legal department is even necessary.
Why?
Because the (nameless) company I work for has done the EXACT same thing, in spite of my own internal objections! As far as they were concerned, the 'wrapper' license doesn't mean what it clearly claims it means, the 'sub' license was burried in there and 'over-rides' the wrapper license, and so that was that. (Go figure, the glove is on the other hand and they interpret it in whatever way is convenient.)
Good luck getting anything done about it.
My degrees took 8 years of my life and a quarter million dollars of tax money.
Once ever two years my IT job barely touches something that I learned in university. Thinking of challenging my choice of subject to study? When I entered university *everyone* was saying that what I was taking was going to be in hot demand when I got out.
Twice a year I meet someone who is intelligent enough, insightful enough, can express themselves well enough, and is interested in talking deeply about something that my university life and classes exposed me to (anything, historical, social, scientific, philosophic, anything at all, not something specific).
Sure, I have lots of really educated thoughts about all the issues of the day and things I read in the papers and on slashdot, which don't really affect anything in this world, they just churn over and over in my mind.
If you're going to claim that it was worth 8 years of my life and $250,000 tax dollars, I have a 40 pound gold brick I'd like to shove up your ass.
Yes, that's right. I'm pissed off.
Ahhhh. Progress.
No, seriously. This is what technology is for. To make things easier, to eliminate overhead, to reduce the costs of doing things.
Unfortunately progress in a capitalistic society which doesn't have a well organized safety net means people losing their jobs until they find a new one. Unpleasant, but it must happen.
Also unfortunately is the fact that the system coming online that is reducing all the overhead, is not being provided legally in a way that would create jobs, or at least send the right amount of money back to the content creators.
That's a result of two things: a) the cost of distribution of media using the new technology is so low that no-one can really make money off of it, compared against direct file sharing between people (IE: the new system is so efficient there is almost no need for any new jobs to be created), and b) we have a society of people who for some reason don't think they owe anything to the big faceless corporations and rich people creating the content. Myself included.
Only one thing would-have/could prevent this from happening and continuing. The ENTIRE content creation industry has to band together really quick and get an acceptable content authorization and charge system running, one that is so easy to use by the users that they'll actually consider it vs the illegal content. They're behind the 8 ball right now, and they're pre-occupied with hiding under rocks, so I predict a grisly demise. We'll lose some content creators along the way over the next 10 to 20 years.
(Not directed at author of the parent article, directed at everyone)
> But once girls find out what I do, I'm suddenly a geek.
I have, throughout my entire life, regarded the term 'geek' as a highly derogatory four letter word. If you were to do a fast paced word association test with me, and gave me the word 'geek', the word I would spit out would be 'nigger'(*).
It is based upon the experiences in my life that have taught me my emotional worth and place in society.
I respect the black community for deciding to fight, instead of roll over and play kitten. They did not "redefine" what nigger meant, they took it for what it was, and attempted to change the source of the problem, not ignore it or accept it. It's with a heavy heart that I've watched as the 'minority' I'm a part of has begun playing the part of Uncle Tom.
You've re-defined the term geek in your own thoughts, and in your own way you know you should be or are proud of yourself. But for those who have been affected by being labeled 'geeks', I've never seen it translated into carrying oneself with confidence and pride outside of our little ghetto. And in most places it is infrequently translated into respect from those outside of our community.
You may be 'proud' GEEKS in here, but everyone out there is still thinking 'nigger'.
-C
(*) - Note that I'm not claiming we're as deep in the hole as blacks once were. But I feel that my own feelings, their source, and the feelings of those outside our community, must come from a similar part of the human mind and experience.
> This could be...
I'm saying every film I've ever seen has had way too much scratches/dust/etc. I didn't notice it when I was younger, as the only other thing I ever saw was broadcast TV at the edge of it's range, and now DVD is just spoiling me completely.
> When I worked at a theater, anywhere from 65-85 percent of the ticket price went .. Since then, the film company's cut has risen considerably.
> straight back to the movie company
Hmmm. That was an interesting tidbit. I always wondered why movies were rated according to gross revenue, but if that much actually goes back to the companies...
> And the 30 frames per second DVD refresh rate is so much better than 24, right?
I've recently seen enough movies on bigger TVs and 19 inch monitors from DVD such that I *really* notice the 24fps in theaters, so much so that it's almost unbearable.
> How many movie tickets can you buy for the cost of that equipment?
That's a fair point.
> there are a lot of people who spend a night a week seeing a movie with friends, and then going to a local coffee shop to talk about it.
It's also a good chance to go out for dinner. I do enjoy that. However I'd happily trade that in for inviting a half dozen friends over to kick back on the perfect leather couch, in perfect darkness and perfect silence, with all the nearly-free perfect-popcorn, perfect-Guinness, perfect-5.1-sound-system, and watch a couple movies on a 16x8 foot screen from 8-10 feet away.
I'm definitely not claiming to predict the future demise of movie theaters. The rest of the fools on this planet are impossible to predict (seeing as I think most of them are fools). But my experiences and personal thoughts on the matter are quite clear. I'm not claiming to represent anyone's opinions or intentions on the matter other than my own.
Enjoy your movies. (Personally I'm looking forward to X-Men next).
Image quality? I've never seen a projected film that wasn't utterly full of 'projected defects'. Even the preview of Chicken Run that I went to two days before it's opening had so much it was noticable during ~20-30% of the film(*).
The sound? Always: Too loud. Off center. Decidedly over-done(*).
The 'social' atmosphere? You mean the autistic guy sitting in the row in front of me doing his thing every 15 minutes(**), or the woman bringing in her 6 month old?(*)
Oh yeah, that 24 fps is just *spectacular* for all the action. I'll just hold my damn breath until this 48 fps stuff comes out within 5 miles of me.
The west wall in my apartment is a nice flat white, 12 feet wide by 8 feet high. I'm just dreaming about the day I can project 1600x1200 HDTV/DVD onto it(***). My current HDs can hold 70 hours of DivX Mpeg4. Fuck theaters. They're dead meat.
Cheers
(*) I have ~20 screens within 2 miles of my house and I only see movies at the best two locations, with 'the best' sound systems, one of them built 6 months ago, and yet these are the impressions I'm left with.
(**) Seriously. Not that we didn't get used to it pretty quickly. And I'm not suggesting he shouldn't get to see movies.
(***) Anyone know where the status of those 'micro-machined mirror' projector displays are?
Owwwww! That hurt my brain.
I never was quite clear wrt how the phase velocity could be different than the packet velocity... but it's been a while...
You see, I'm a *visualization* person, and I mean visualization on the minute physical level. Simply presenting the calculus and saying 'see, this is how it turns out' is not what I'm asking for. I want to visualize how the physics of the system is interacting to create the behaviour described by the mathematics.
In my 1st year physics course it took me two full hours of hard thinking about the applicatoin of linear conservation of momentum to the particle force dynamics in a spinning object in order to visualize just what physical processes created the effects shown by gyroscopes (the right hand rule) and such...
The best description for this is "mentally integrating the physical principles" instead of mathematically doing it. It was rewarding when I finally got there. Much nicer than simply accepting the math and observation and saying "it is so".
> eaten up the past few weeks of my time, as well as the time of my friends, who
> rarely read forums or go to gaming websites, who have no idea who John Romero
> is, and have no idea how long it should/shouldn't take to make a game
The above quote is our biggest hint. My theory is that people who enjoy the game are simply people who don't know how poorly DK compares to all other recent games, people who don't know what they're missing.
Note that this isn't a dig against them. Imagine if you had never played FPS or action games any time in the last 3-5 years, say since Doom. Now you come across DK. Wow, wouldn't you be impressed!? Me too.
And the game reviews sort of hint that as well, I mean, they flat out state that the biggest problem with DK is that it's an N years old game engine, design, puzzles, gameplay, and graphics, that's been heavily surpassed by more recent stuff.
So it's not supprising that some people will enjoy it. There *are* a few thousand people out there who have, for one reason or other, for better or worse, bought the merely average games this season. Some won't be happy with their purchase, some will. The distribution between happy and unhappy (impressed and un-impressed) will shift with their experience, expectations, and the quality (or lack thereof) of the game.
Well it might have helped if I had spelled potato properly
Still no results in my search though.
You know of a RISC computer that will run a TCP/IP stack and LAN card on a sixth of a watt?
But now I want to know how many potatoes it *would* take to power a computer?
And how long before some crazy nut actually spends a week inserting metal into tens of thousands of potatoes to actually demonstrate it?
I guess it might be more efficient to puree the potatoes and immerse big plates of metal in the puree... but then the're not really potatoes anymore, are they? They're 'battery acid substitute'.
Oooh, I'm impressed. Slashdot already has links to the homepages of the two main subjects of the story of interest. Within which details of what is likely being talked of in the Toronto Star article can be found. I wish I had noticed that before I did all that searching.
Anyways, you'll notice that the publications start back in the early 90's. The 'new' thing they've discovered together might be what is talked about here, and is more clearly described here and here (Sajeev John's page contained links to this stuff...).
It's just a new way of making something that's been researched for the past 10 years, photonic band gap materials.
I haven't seen anything yet to tell us if this is such a better way of making this class of material that it counts as a 'revolution'. We have to find someone who knows a lot more about the current state of the art in creating photonic band gap materials and get this person to analyze this new method and it's results, to tell us if it's a significant advance, or what it's advantages are.
AKA: More peer review please.
> Whatever entity (nation, corporation, etc) first gets appreciable numbers of people
> (and the infrastructure to support them)into space will be the ones to replace the USA
> on the world scene.
Then may I suggest it should be us, the techies and intelligent geeks of the world!
We're smart. We're well paid and could affort to finance something like this. We can organize. Ten grand a year from all million of us, and we're on our way!