There are exactly 0(zero, zip, nada, none, nicth, nul,) stations in my area that broadcast Blue Grass.
I log into http://www.OzarkMountainAirwaves.com/ and listen all I want. They "narrowcast" 24/7/52 over the net.
Somewhat off-topic, I know...but if you're looking for a good live(not canned) bluegrass show, tune your streaming MP3 thingee to Grassroots on WMUK 102.1 FM out of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Great show done by a really informative and well-researched crew.
Whoops...not sure why my post was sent as an AC, but here's one more piece of info.
Rather Interesting Records serves as something of a sister site to Fax. It's run by, and releases records primarily by, a guy by the name of Uwe Schmidt. Typical of electronic music artists, he goes under a variety of pseudonyms, the most well-known being Atom Heart and Lassigue Bendthaus(A recent NYTimes article about LB's latest release, a collection of Kraftwerk songs covered as Brazilian music, can be found here).
Actually, I think she's just about to release another artist's work...It's some blues guy or something. She doesn't seem to have a website up for the label yet, so i can't verify that for you...
This "feature" seems to be of limited value...what's the point(aside from eye-candy, which is what the Mac interface designers seem to be shooting for these days)?
I must respectfully disagree...from a usability standpoint, the new interface is almost as bad, if not worse, than the god-awful Quicktime 4.0 interface. The worst of the lot are those new window controls-what the hell do those three different colored balls represent? There's no obvious function to 'em until they're moused over, at which point they show little plus and minus signs and the like, which are still somewhat meaningless. It's disappointing to see a company that helped pioneer human-computer interfacing devolve into shameless eye-candy while sacrificing usability at the same time.
I think apple does best with "sealed" machines that users are willing to throw away when they have reached the end of their useful lives.
As a longtime Mac user, I'd actually agree with this statement. Until the G3 arrived, Macs ranged from insanely difficult(those stupid "pizza-box" cases on the 6100 for example) to nearly impossible(the SE) to get inside of. However, I think one of the platform's strengths is the longevity of the machines themselves, without significant upgrades. I don't have the URL right here in front of me but I remember a survey not too long ago that pointed out that Mac users hang on to their machines a lot longer on average than do PC users.
'Course, it may have something to do with the fact that they cost so damn much and the users were trying to squeeze every last penny ouy of 'em..:-)
I think that one crucial angle that the article missed was that it's not necessary to work at a job that deals directly with one's favorite intellectual pursuits in order to have a satisfying life.
I must disagree with this statement, or at least amend it to read this way:
I think that one crucial angle that the article missed was that it's not always necessary to work at a job that deals directly with one's favorite intellectual pursuits in order to have a satisfying life.
That may be fine for some people, but given the choice, I'd ALWAYS search out a job that appealed to my intellectual pursuits. Otherwise, it's not worh doin', IMHO. (And living in the USA, I count myself as very lucky to be able to make this choice.)
most people i know have at least one bill or piece of data on file with a misspelled name. i myself have had everything from my social security number to my name entered incorrectly.
This makes me chuckle a little bit...in Terry Gilliam's wonderful Brazil a simple misspelling causes the accidental extermination of an innocent person. (Brazil is a masterpiece of modern paranoia...if you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for?)
You'll see a lot of the same politically in-correct, anti-postmodernism attitudes reflected in the Victorians in "The Diamond Age," another great book.
This is true, however, unlike Cryptonomicon, Stephenson's critique of postmodernism didn't sink to childish and offensive levels, which was my original point.
A book on cryptography, soldiers fighting in WWII, and hacking is going to be a male-oriented book if it wants to be realistic.
This may also be true, but just because it's male-oriented doesn't mean it has to be offensive. I'm a male, I enjoy crypto, I'm a computer geek, and I've got a number of WWII histories on my bookshelf, but that doesn't mean I view all women as either sex-toys or ballbreakers. That's a one-dimensional view, in my opinion.
Re:I think it's a decent portrayal for a nerd.
on
Review:Cryptonomicon
·
· Score: 1
P.S. I'm not at all trying to say that being offended by this reaction isn't a valid female perspective. It's just that the book was written from the perspective of a socially inept man.
Well, as a socially inept man, I find myself a little disturbed, for a couple of reasons....first off, not every geek is a guy(although, yeah, yeah...i know, most of us are...)and why should only women be offended by these things? Second, the book's written in the third person...so technically it's not written from his perspective.
Just picking nits here, but it's important to make these distinctions.
Any English or Women's Studies department is chock full of people who match this description, and the classes contain many larval-form Charlenes.
I know of this first-hand, my partner is a Women's Studies grad....but it still smacks of feminist-baiting and stereotyping. Not every feminist is a man-hating/technology-hating freak.:)
but Stephenson has written excellentfemale characters before
I know, and that's exactly why these characters are such a disappointment. It makes me wonder if he was really trying to appeal to the Clancy school of techno-geek, as has been mentioned elsewhere here. I wouldn't immediately categorize this as a "downward slide into misogyny", but some explanation may be in order, at least to clarify his intent.
I don't think people are necessarilyexpecting that characters have to be "models", I just think it's legit for readers of an author of Stephenson's caliber to expect him to create characters that are less stereotypical and derogatory.
I'll probably get flamed to death for what I'm about to suggest here, but before you begin lighting the torches let me state for the record that I've been a huge Stephenson fan since Snow Crash and have read(and loved) everything he's written with the exception of The Big U, so I'm not trying to slaughter the sacred cow of geek literature. Overall, I really liked Cryptonomicon and hopefully I'm just reading too much into certain things here...
Having said all that, here's my problem with the book:
The character of Randy's wife seems like a big troll for feminists...Stephenson has had a long history of strong female characters in his books, and that's why this character is such a letdown: The stereotypical white-male-bashing-feminist-liberal-type portrayal is so one-dimensional, it only makes the inclusion of her character feel reactionary and childish on Stephenson's part. The same can be said for the emasculated colleagues she is surrounded with...It seems like a cheap shot. The restaurant scence seems particularly set up to inflame liberals and feminists. Although many of the points he makes are valid, it could have been done in a more mature manner. This treatment of women seems to be a recurring theme in the book. The female characters are either there to provide sex(Glory or Mary for example) or are stereotyped butch feminists(Amy, whose character is pretty thinly developed, and Randy's wife)...I realize the opinions of the author and the characters in his novels are not necessarily one and the same, but if this is how Stephenson really feels it would be a big disappointment....
I'll second that...I've had no problems with it, aside from a slightly cumbersome interface. Aside from NiftyTelnet, are there any other Mac clients? I've done extensive searching and can't seem to come up with anything else.
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There are exactly 0(zero, zip, nada, none, nicth, nul,) stations in my area that broadcast Blue Grass.
I log into http://www.OzarkMountainAirwaves.com/ and listen all I want. They "narrowcast" 24/7/52 over the net.
Somewhat off-topic, I know...but if you're looking for a good live(not canned) bluegrass show, tune your streaming MP3 thingee to Grassroots on WMUK 102.1 FM out of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Great show done by a really informative and well-researched crew.
Rather Interesting Records serves as something of a sister site to Fax. It's run by, and releases records primarily by, a guy by the name of Uwe Schmidt. Typical of electronic music artists, he goes under a variety of pseudonyms, the most well-known being Atom Heart and Lassigue Bendthaus(A recent NYTimes article about LB's latest release, a collection of Kraftwerk songs covered as Brazilian music, can be found here).
There's an official Rather Interesting site, but it hasn't been updated in a while. In yet another bit of shameless self-promotion, there is a sister site to 2350.org, at www.datacide.org.
Actually, I think she's just about to release another artist's work...It's some blues guy or something. She doesn't seem to have a website up for the label yet, so i can't verify that for you...
This "feature" seems to be of limited value...what's the point(aside from eye-candy, which is what the Mac interface designers seem to be shooting for these days)?
I must respectfully disagree...from a usability standpoint, the new interface is almost as bad, if not worse, than the god-awful Quicktime 4.0 interface. The worst of the lot are those new window controls-what the hell do those three different colored balls represent? There's no obvious function to 'em until they're moused over, at which point they show little plus and minus signs and the like, which are still somewhat meaningless. It's disappointing to see a company that helped pioneer human-computer interfacing devolve into shameless eye-candy while sacrificing usability at the same time.
The University of Michigan had a pool of Unix boxes named after various baked goods....Toast, Pita, Muffin, Bagel, etc.....
I think apple does best with "sealed" machines that users are willing to throw away when they have reached the end of their useful lives.
As a longtime Mac user, I'd actually agree with this statement. Until the G3 arrived, Macs ranged from insanely difficult(those stupid "pizza-box" cases on the 6100 for example) to nearly impossible(the SE) to get inside of. However, I think one of the platform's strengths is the longevity of the machines themselves, without significant upgrades. I don't have the URL right here in front of me but I remember a survey not too long ago that pointed out that Mac users hang on to their machines a lot longer on average than do PC users.
'Course, it may have something to do with the fact that they cost so damn much and the users were trying to squeeze every last penny ouy of 'em..:-)
I think that one crucial angle that the article missed was that it's not necessary to work at a job that deals directly with one's favorite intellectual pursuits in order to have a satisfying life.
I must disagree with this statement, or at least amend it to read this way:
I think that one crucial angle that the article missed was that it's not always necessary to work at a job that deals directly with one's favorite intellectual pursuits in order to have a satisfying life.
That may be fine for some people, but given the choice, I'd ALWAYS search out a job that appealed to my intellectual pursuits. Otherwise, it's not worh doin', IMHO. (And living in the USA, I count myself as very lucky to be able to make this choice.)
most people i know have at least one bill or piece of data on file with a misspelled name. i myself have had everything from my social security number to my name entered incorrectly.
This makes me chuckle a little bit...in Terry Gilliam's wonderful Brazil a simple misspelling causes the accidental extermination of an innocent person.
(Brazil is a masterpiece of modern paranoia...if you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for?)
I never said Randy was derogatory...
My response was that the book's attitude towards women was.
Sorry if that wasn't clear.
You'll see a lot of the same politically in-correct, anti-postmodernism attitudes reflected in the Victorians in "The Diamond Age," another great book.
This is true, however, unlike Cryptonomicon, Stephenson's critique of postmodernism didn't sink to childish and offensive levels, which was my original point.
A book on cryptography, soldiers fighting in WWII, and hacking is going to be a male-oriented book if it wants to be realistic.
This may also be true, but just because it's male-oriented doesn't mean it has to be offensive. I'm a male, I enjoy crypto, I'm a computer geek, and I've got a number of WWII histories on my bookshelf, but that doesn't mean I view all women as either sex-toys or ballbreakers. That's a one-dimensional view, in my opinion.
P.S. I'm not at all trying to say that being offended by this reaction isn't a valid female perspective. It's just that the book was written from the perspective of a socially inept man.
Well, as a socially inept man, I find myself a little disturbed, for a couple of reasons....first off, not every geek is a guy(although, yeah, yeah...i know, most of us are...)and why should only women be offended by these things? Second, the book's written in the third person...so technically it's not written from his perspective.
Just picking nits here, but it's important to make these distinctions.
Any English or Women's Studies department is chock full of people who match this description, and the classes contain many larval-form Charlenes.
:)
I know of this first-hand, my partner is a Women's Studies grad....but it still smacks of feminist-baiting and stereotyping. Not every feminist is a man-hating/technology-hating freak.
but Stephenson has written excellentfemale characters before
I know, and that's exactly why these characters are such a disappointment. It makes me wonder if he was really trying to appeal to the Clancy school of techno-geek, as has been mentioned elsewhere here. I wouldn't immediately categorize this as a "downward slide into misogyny", but some explanation may be in order, at least to clarify his intent.
I don't think people are necessarilyexpecting that characters have to be "models", I just think it's legit for readers of an author of Stephenson's caliber to expect him to create characters that are less stereotypical and derogatory.
Having said all that, here's my problem with the book:
The character of Randy's wife seems like a big troll for feminists...Stephenson has had a long history of strong female characters in his books, and that's why this character is such a letdown: The stereotypical white-male-bashing-feminist-liberal-type portrayal is so one-dimensional, it only makes the inclusion of her character feel reactionary and childish on Stephenson's part. The same can be said for the emasculated colleagues she is surrounded with...It seems like a cheap shot. The restaurant scence seems particularly set up to inflame liberals and feminists. Although many of the points he makes are valid, it could have been done in a more mature manner. This treatment of women seems to be a recurring theme in the book. The female characters are either there to provide sex(Glory or Mary for example) or are stereotyped butch feminists(Amy, whose character is pretty thinly developed, and Randy's wife)...I realize the opinions of the author and the characters in his novels are not necessarily one and the same, but if this is how Stephenson really feels it would be a big disappointment....
The only thing that bugs me about this is:
If it's a scam, then how'd they manage to
get CAUCE involved in the whole thing? Or
does CAUCE have less integrity than I thought?
I'll second that...I've had no problems with it, aside from a slightly cumbersome interface. Aside from NiftyTelnet, are there any other Mac clients? I've done extensive searching and can't seem to come up with anything else.