What makes you think the author is correct? Engineers can be as reductive of other firelds as anyone else.
The article is is primarily argument by assertion; "Chip Morningstar" claims his stance is correct without providing any direct examples or quotations, and you all jump to agree without knowing anything about the subject? What a bunch of lemmings.
... is the most interesting writer I've come across recently, both in terms of writing style and ideas. His fiction is a kind of parallel world steampunk, describing a universe where steam-powered computers and coal-burning cyborgs coexist with magiacians schooled in quantum physics.
An interesting thig about Mieville is that like William Gibson or Mervyn Peake, his settings are as important or more important than the characters. His second book, Perdido Street Station, takes place in the massive city of New Crobuzon, and in many respects, the city is the protagonist. The sequel, The Scar, takes place on a floating pirate city called Armada; it's a lot like Waterworld with the suck knob turned way down.
[NB: skip Mieville's first book, King Rat; it's a second-rate urban fantasy set in contemporary London.]
A lot of SF people with John W. Campbell hangovers don't like anything resembling 'literature' mixed in with their SF, but here are a few of the blue-chip SF writers so far omitted in this discussion that have their stylistic shit correct:
J.G.Ballard - all the short stories, (esp. the ones in War Fever; novels: Crash, The Atrocity Exhibition, High Rise
Alfred Bester - The Demolished Man, The Stars My Destination
Samuel R. Delany - everything in Distant Stars; Nova, Dhalgren, Babel 17
Thomas M Disch - Camp Concentration, 334
Russell Hoban - Riddley Walker
K.W. Jeter - Dr Adder, The Glass Hammer, Farewell Horizontal, Noir
Joseph McElroy - Plus
Geoff Ryman - The Child Garden, The Unconquered Country, WAS, 253
Gene Wolfe - The 5th Head of Cerberus, The Book of the New Sun
Jack Womack - Ambient, Terraplane, Elvissey, Heathern, Random Acts of Senseless Violence, Gogin, Going, Gone, Let's Put the Future Behind Us
These ain't no Star Trek novelizations; they're real books that will stretch your mind... whether you like it or not.
Whether or not you're without the use of your computer for a few days depends on the efficiency of Compaq's customer service department.
Apple has an ongoing recall program for the AC adapters for first-generation Power Mac G3 laptops, and the turnaround time was astonishingly short. I filled in the form on their website on a Sunday evening, and Monday morning at 8:30 am, there was a courier at my door with a new adapter (the snazzy yoyo-shaped translucent ones that they give out with newer laptops) and a prepaid courier envelope for returning the old one. There was no loss of productivity because they supplied the new adapter first. Now *that's* class.
It seems that companies often outsource recall programs such as this to firms that specialize in recalls in order to speed things up. The address on the courier envelope I got wasn't to Apple corp, it was some local firm in a nearby industrial park.
interesting that they opted for the 'turtle stapled to the forehead' school of klingons vs the old-school 'ming the merciless' variety of klingons... even though this takes place before the first series. we'll probably NEVER figure that particular change out now (sigh).
it's now the first commerical break, and i was totally enthralled until the theme song.
my lord, it sounds like it was done by some out-of-work hairspray-metal band's lead singer. if i have to listen to this for seven years, i'd actually contemplate watxhing Lexx instead (shudder).
Part of the problem with Linux games is you need a manual just to INSTALL them, never mind write them.
As a long-time Windows gamer who recently switched to Linux, I recently ordered 3 titles from Loki to run on my reasonably-vanilla RedHat 7.1 system (Q3 Arena, SimCity 3000, Myth II). I assumed that in the rock-solid Linux environment, I'd be up and playing in minutes.
Foolish mortal.Q3 runs like molasses for no discernible reason, and SimCity and Myth won't even start. Other than the nifty metal Q3 box, I don't have a lot to show for all this.
Now, I'm no genius, but I managed to load Q3, Half-Life, plus all of their point releases, patches, expansions and several major mods (including Team Fortress Classic, Rocket Arena 3, Quake 3 Team Fortress and so on) onto my former Windows box without incident. The question of looking for support never really came up. But trying to resolve conflicts in Linux is a nightmare. Who do I ask for help, with Loki in shambles?
This off the evening news: there are explosions and fires on the perimeter of the city of Kabul in Afghanistan. Is this the beginning of retaliation for the real or imagined perpetrators?
What if it's a whole Fight Club full of Timothy McVeighs and Tyler Durdens?
It's not outside the realm of possibility that this was perpetrated by Americans, against Americans. If this is a militia-related crime, or the product of domestic paramilitary crazies of any stripe, the US is going to be faced with a major self-confidence crisis because there won't be any convenient Arabic scapegoats.
Two Korean Air Lines planes (escorted by Canadian fighter jets) eventually landed in Whitehorse, one a cargo jet, the other commercial. Neither had been allowed to land in Alaska because of the closing of US airspace.
Though the passenger jet was initially treated as a potential hijack, it was cleared within 1/2 hour of the initial announcement. Now they're merely part of the crowds of thousands who are a long-ass way from their destination.
One of the remaining planes that had been flying into North Americna air space (and refusing to respond) has been forced down in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory (Canada). Air Force officials are locking it down immediately.
News here is reporting the border is still open, on ground at least. Several checkpoints have closed for a few hours, but are supposed to be reopened.
Our airports are filling up with US and international flights -- even the small ones like St. John's Newfoundland 9it can only handle 16 wide-body jets and already has 14 on the ground). Passengers are milling around on ground level and being questioned by police.
kids do amazing things with Sim City because they don't care about the rules.
i've seen kids figure out how to do all sorts of weird stuff, like trap trains on tiny little circular tracks, build cities out of (almost) nothing but highways and police stations, and so on.
give them something that's modular -- the digital equivalent of Lego -- and your head will spin at what they create. in fact, any game with a level editor (from something as simple as Lode Runner to something as complicated as Quake) and you'll have them headed down the road to real programming before they've figured out that you've tricked them into learning.
this is weirdly similar to legal arguments about the validity of the GPL.
the validity of the GPL depends on the fact that each person who receives a piece of GPLed code after the second one enters into the same relationship with the licensor as the first person who receives the code (see section 6 of the GPL) -- they can only distribute the code further if they follow the terms of the licence themselves, and by their distribution of it, they in fact signal their compliance with the licence.
in this way, each person who circulates GPLed software is held responsible by the licence, even though they weren't part of the original transaction between the person who GPLed the software and its first recipient (this relationship is called 'privity').
so: the RIAA must be preparing to argue that music, like software, is licenced, not bought outright, and that existing licences hold the distributors of music online in places like Napster to the same terms as the people who first bought the CD.
to turn around and argue that this isn't so -- that we own our music -- could be potentially damaging to arguments about the validity of mass public licences like the GPL. there are some judges who have dismissed the legality of mass licences, arguing that yes, you do own your software... but if that's true, then the person who buys it isn't subject to the terms of the licence.
this could be very bad indeed, and will be a big legal mess no matter what happens.
The issue isn't whether rushing the assailant or hiding is the more reasonable course of action.
The issue is that Nugent's book creates a narrative where the victims of the Columbine shootings are liable for their victimization (they 'should have' done something other than they did = it's their fault it happened). Other infamous examples of this type of spurious logic are 'women who have been raped were asking for it' or 'the Jews were complicit with their own destruction in the Holocaust'.
I'm not interested in starting a subthread on the merits of gun ownership. I brought up the Nugent example because I think both he and Bush are looking for simple answers to problems that are much more complex.
Ted Nugent makes Bush's position on Columbine and the Internet look rational. Apparently, his book suggests that the Columbine kids should've rushed the gunmen... or pulled out their concealed weapons and boldly returned fire.
Maybe the solution to Bush, violence and the Internet is to smack the governor in the head with a big thick laptop. My G3 would probably cold-cock him in one go.
IMO it doesn't matter whether or not idealab! has a real case. The letter they sent to FuckedCo. accomplished what they wanted.
The 'cease and desist' letter is a favorite tool of lawyers; they wield it like a big club. Anyone who's poor enough to be unable to afford any kind of lawsuit (i.e. most of us) will usually back down from a cease and desist just to avoid the hassle.
At Coach House Books we were using a 'Y2OK' logo last year on our CD-ROM, and the parent company that owns Playboy send us a c&d letter, claiming they owned the rights to Y2OK. Our lawyer pointed out to them that the phrase was all over the web and therefore well in the public domain, then told them to fuck off. They did. But it was a rare instance of victory in such matters.
Over at Coach House, we instituted an electronic tipping system four years ago; it seemed like the only way to bring the shareware ethic to our online literature.
But people don't like to use credit cards for small amounts of money. When PayPal finally does get into Canada, we'll be on it like fat kids on a smartie.
Artists get royalties for songs played on the radio. RIAA is pretty clearly leading up to a phase 2 argument where, once they've taken care of the MP3 issue, they'll suggest that everyone who has their own personal station on ShoutCast or wherever should also be paying royalties for the privilege of (broad? narrow?)casting their music online, even through the normal audience for streaming MP3 radio is in the low dozens per station.
Doncha think there should be some sort of exemption for this, the way there is for extremely low-frequency radio stations that broadcast over a radius of a city block or so?
Slashdot Mirror
What makes you think the author is correct? Engineers can be as reductive of other firelds as anyone else.
The article is is primarily argument by assertion; "Chip Morningstar" claims his stance is correct without providing any direct examples or quotations, and you all jump to agree without knowing anything about the subject? What a bunch of lemmings.
... is the most interesting writer I've come across recently, both in terms of writing style and ideas. His fiction is a kind of parallel world steampunk, describing a universe where steam-powered computers and coal-burning cyborgs coexist with magiacians schooled in quantum physics.
An interesting thig about Mieville is that like William Gibson or Mervyn Peake, his settings are as important or more important than the characters. His second book, Perdido Street Station, takes place in the massive city of New Crobuzon, and in many respects, the city is the protagonist. The sequel, The Scar, takes place on a floating pirate city called Armada; it's a lot like Waterworld with the suck knob turned way down.
[NB: skip Mieville's first book, King Rat; it's a second-rate urban fantasy set in contemporary London.]
Mieville's home page is here.
These ain't no Star Trek novelizations; they're real books that will stretch your mind ... whether you like it or not.
Whether or not you're without the use of your computer for a few days depends on the efficiency of Compaq's customer service department.
Apple has an ongoing recall program for the AC adapters for first-generation Power Mac G3 laptops, and the turnaround time was astonishingly short. I filled in the form on their website on a Sunday evening, and Monday morning at 8:30 am, there was a courier at my door with a new adapter (the snazzy yoyo-shaped translucent ones that they give out with newer laptops) and a prepaid courier envelope for returning the old one. There was no loss of productivity because they supplied the new adapter first. Now *that's* class.
It seems that companies often outsource recall programs such as this to firms that specialize in recalls in order to speed things up. The address on the courier envelope I got wasn't to Apple corp, it was some local firm in a nearby industrial park.
I hope Compaq owners are this lucky.
interesting that they opted for the 'turtle stapled to the forehead' school of klingons vs the old-school 'ming the merciless' variety of klingons ... even though this takes place before the first series. we'll probably NEVER figure that particular change out now (sigh).
now, bring on the green chicks.
it's now the first commerical break, and i was totally enthralled until the theme song.
my lord, it sounds like it was done by some out-of-work hairspray-metal band's lead singer. if i have to listen to this for seven years, i'd actually contemplate watxhing Lexx instead (shudder).
my guess is that this is really about hiding the bonus jpegs of naked boys.
As a long-time Windows gamer who recently switched to Linux, I recently ordered 3 titles from Loki to run on my reasonably-vanilla RedHat 7.1 system (Q3 Arena, SimCity 3000, Myth II). I assumed that in the rock-solid Linux environment, I'd be up and playing in minutes.
Foolish mortal.Q3 runs like molasses for no discernible reason, and SimCity and Myth won't even start. Other than the nifty metal Q3 box, I don't have a lot to show for all this.
Now, I'm no genius, but I managed to load Q3, Half-Life, plus all of their point releases, patches, expansions and several major mods (including Team Fortress Classic, Rocket Arena 3, Quake 3 Team Fortress and so on) onto my former Windows box without incident. The question of looking for support never really came up. But trying to resolve conflicts in Linux is a nightmare. Who do I ask for help, with Loki in shambles?
This off the evening news: there are explosions and fires on the perimeter of the city of Kabul in Afghanistan. Is this the beginning of retaliation for the real or imagined perpetrators?
What if it's a whole Fight Club full of Timothy McVeighs and Tyler Durdens?
It's not outside the realm of possibility that this was perpetrated by Americans, against Americans. If this is a militia-related crime, or the product of domestic paramilitary crazies of any stripe, the US is going to be faced with a major self-confidence crisis because there won't be any convenient Arabic scapegoats.
Though the passenger jet was initially treated as a potential hijack, it was cleared within 1/2 hour of the initial announcement. Now they're merely part of the crowds of thousands who are a long-ass way from their destination.
One of the remaining planes that had been flying into North Americna air space (and refusing to respond) has been forced down in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory (Canada). Air Force officials are locking it down immediately.
Our airports are filling up with US and international flights -- even the small ones like St. John's Newfoundland 9it can only handle 16 wide-body jets and already has 14 on the ground). Passengers are milling around on ground level and being questioned by police.
i've seen kids figure out how to do all sorts of weird stuff, like trap trains on tiny little circular tracks, build cities out of (almost) nothing but highways and police stations, and so on.
give them something that's modular -- the digital equivalent of Lego -- and your head will spin at what they create. in fact, any game with a level editor (from something as simple as Lode Runner to something as complicated as Quake) and you'll have them headed down the road to real programming before they've figured out that you've tricked them into learning.
this is weirdly similar to legal arguments about the validity of the GPL.
the validity of the GPL depends on the fact that each person who receives a piece of GPLed code after the second one enters into the same relationship with the licensor as the first person who receives the code (see section 6 of the GPL) -- they can only distribute the code further if they follow the terms of the licence themselves, and by their distribution of it, they in fact signal their compliance with the licence.
in this way, each person who circulates GPLed software is held responsible by the licence, even though they weren't part of the original transaction between the person who GPLed the software and its first recipient (this relationship is called 'privity').
so: the RIAA must be preparing to argue that music, like software, is licenced, not bought outright, and that existing licences hold the distributors of music online in places like Napster to the same terms as the people who first bought the CD.
to turn around and argue that this isn't so -- that we own our music -- could be potentially damaging to arguments about the validity of mass public licences like the GPL. there are some judges who have dismissed the legality of mass licences, arguing that yes, you do own your software ... but if that's true, then the person who buys it isn't subject to the terms of the licence.
this could be very bad indeed, and will be a big legal mess no matter what happens.
The issue is that Nugent's book creates a narrative where the victims of the Columbine shootings are liable for their victimization (they 'should have' done something other than they did = it's their fault it happened). Other infamous examples of this type of spurious logic are 'women who have been raped were asking for it' or 'the Jews were complicit with their own destruction in the Holocaust'.
I'm not interested in starting a subthread on the merits of gun ownership. I brought up the Nugent example because I think both he and Bush are looking for simple answers to problems that are much more complex.
Maybe the solution to Bush, violence and the Internet is to smack the governor in the head with a big thick laptop. My G3 would probably cold-cock him in one go.
The 'cease and desist' letter is a favorite tool of lawyers; they wield it like a big club. Anyone who's poor enough to be unable to afford any kind of lawsuit (i.e. most of us) will usually back down from a cease and desist just to avoid the hassle.
At Coach House Books we were using a 'Y2OK' logo last year on our CD-ROM, and the parent company that owns Playboy send us a c&d letter, claiming they owned the rights to Y2OK. Our lawyer pointed out to them that the phrase was all over the web and therefore well in the public domain, then told them to fuck off. They did. But it was a rare instance of victory in such matters.
But people don't like to use credit cards for small amounts of money. When PayPal finally does get into Canada, we'll be on it like fat kids on a smartie.
Doncha think there should be some sort of exemption for this, the way there is for extremely low-frequency radio stations that broadcast over a radius of a city block or so?