So how long is it going to be before the Hollywood suits pick up on this and give us a new mess of disaster movies based on it, like they do with every possibly scary piece of science news?
I totally agree with you. After Dune, the books didn't just go downhill, they dropped off a cliff and plummeted to depths not worthy to be printed. I gave "God Emperor" to my mother after I finished it, and she was so pissed off at me she didn't talk to me for a month. Not only did the later books dilute the value of the original, but they devoured Herbert's career. Now they are being written by anybody that walks by Brian Herbert's office. And of course, the beloved Skiffy Channel will be happy to make bad adaptations of all these bad books, milking the franchise until it's long past dead.
These people are soulless hacks with no love for literature, and should have some kind of Clockwork Orange technique done on them so they can never write, act, direct or produce again.
And I suppose you are going to personally guarantee that once launched, it keeps going until it safely leaves the solar system, instead of hanging around the system for the next ten thousand years before we hit it? You are aware that it's fairly difficult to actually get out of the solar system, aren't you?
"Deja vu all over again" is a quote from Yogi Berra, a fairly famous baseball player well-known for his peculiar brand of Spoonerisms and strange phrasings.
He was not retarded or even dumb. He knew exactly what he was saying. Unfortunately for you, you didn't get the joke. This does not reflect well on you. Too bad...
BTW, yes. I was born in America and have lived all over the world, and I have found that most Americans are idiots. But most Europeans are idiots, too. And most Africans, and most Asians, and most Australians. I still don't have an opinion on the Antarcticans, but I'm willing to to bet that they're idiots too.
The biggest reason I am wary (note that I'm not fanatically opposed) of nuclear is that you have to look at the worst-case scenarios. Murphy's Law is always at work, and in the case of nuclear plants, "anything that can go wrong" is a pretty bad scenario. Look at Chernobyl - I know it's only one of thousands of plants working in the world without any problems, but there it is.
Second reason - waste disposal. These things are going to be dangerous for hundreds of generations to come! This may not be a problem just yet, but I'm fairly sure it's going to be a hell of an issue in a few hundred years. The amount of dangerous waste is going to be too big to handle properly. What do we do then, start dumping the stuff on other planets, and so on ad infinitum?
Third reason - disclosure, lack of. The energy industry has never been completely honest with the public about the hazards of its operations. Ditto the American government. These guys were trying to tell us nuclear plants were completely, 100% safe from the very dawn of the nuclear age, when they had no idea yet of the dangers involved. This doesn't inspire me to trust them now.
Fourth reason - two-headed fish. He may have been trying it on, but I have a friend who swears he has caught two-headed fish in the water near his local plant in Britain. Again, I'm not sure whether to believe him or not. But it's a nasty thought.
You have heard that one, right? This could be a cool way to distribute information, if it works. I'd like to see a little more detail on the proposal, but in theory it sounds like a Good Idea.
Ditto. Until they started their latest style of crappy "campy" ads, I thought of them as a decent low-cost Gap alternative. Now I just won't step inside them. I can't help feeling that if more people did this, we might have better TV, or at least better ads - which are about 30% of prime-time TV anyway.
Why not take the exoskeleton idea all the way to come up with remote soldiers, a la "Forever Peace" by Joe Haldeman? Sure, each unit would cost more initially, but if a unit "died", you would not have to train up a whole new soldier. Each unit would be practically invulnerable and completely fearless.
And BTW, this is another Heinlein idea, although he never saw it being used by the military.
What, are you kidding? Remake intelligent SF shows that had something resembling an actual plot, with real characters? You haven't watched too much TV lately, have you?
"Story Arc" has nothing whatsoever to do with B5. It's a descriptive term for a central story running continuously in any kind of episodic fiction. Each episode has its own story line, but the arc connects them all. It may not be geometrically correct, but that's what it's called.
And yes, this phrase has been overused in general over the last few years, but not just by B5. It's just one of those pieces of jargon that suddenly become widespread.
Furthermore, when I get together with my fellow foaming-at-the-mouth Star Wars fanboys, we actually mention the SW story arcs quite a bit.
I would predict that a lot of the ASCII art, as well as some animated Java applets, common graphic sigs and the like, will eventually be recognized as the dominant form of "folk art" in this period. However, it is an unfortunate truth that folk art is never recognized in its own time. Eventually some fanatic collector of ASCII roses, who just happens to be rich and/or well-known, will start to dig up every surviving example of the genre and will publicize the whole thing. That's how it usually happens.
Um. So sorry, but Leonardo and Michelangelo made very large amounts of money, were granted complete freedom from any criticism of their private lives, and were the toast of Europe throughout most of their careers. When Leonardo repeatedly insisted on giving his patrons his own artistic visions instead of the things he was hired for, the works were rejected. But he was NOT considered a nut. He was considered artistic and rather unreliable, which is absolutely true, but he was acknowledged as one of the greatest artists of all time.
Why does everybody here assume that the US has the most liberal laws in the Universe and is the ultimate guardian of freedom? Christ, American TV networks can't even show a nipple or a spliff, at any time of day, without fear of being shut down. American citizens cannot be trusted with strong encryption, or watching DVDs on their computers. Where is all this freedom and liberality people keep talking about?
But seriously, the problem is that if this thing ever goes through in its full form, the most restrictive laws of every participating country will be applied to all countries. American drug policies, Moslem nudity laws, Chinese anti-government laws, British library regulations, etc.
Absolutely. I don't know herpetology, but I do know English, and it always annoys me to hear people talking about poisonous snakes. In all the serious scientific literature i've read, snakes and spiders have never been referred to as poisonous.
Cynical? You can never be too cynical. I'll bet this not only happens soon, but it will be presented as a cool new added service for us stoopid consumers - just like the new practice of listing paid links on search engines is billed as "increasing the relevance of your searches".
Most of the spammers I see lately seem to be using software that simply makes up e-mail addresses. I'm not sure about it, but at work I get every e-mail that is improperly addressed to our domain, and every day I see at least twenty or thirty messages to made-up names, i.e. "stripedskink@mydomain.com", or "bob@mydomain.com" when we never had a Bob working here. Sure, there is a chance that workers here are making up e-mail addresses when they surf, but there seem to be too many of them for that.
Junk sendings to actual former employees is a very small minority of the spam that I see here. We had one guy who was looking for a loan online, and his address now gets at least 2 spams a day. But that's about the extent of the truly targetted spam.
Dunno, but I keep hearing rumours of a movie coming soon... I don't even know what AliG is, I just keep seeing the name on film-rumour websites. Is it good? How long does it keep if refrigerated?
No, actually this happens anytime you say "Monty P.." anywhere in the world. Even in Israel, there are two kinds of people - those who watch Baywatch, and those who know MPATHG by heart. And I was originally introduced to the movies by a pack of raving Englishmen and a couple of Kiwis, who claimed unanimously that Python was the pinnacle of the old British culture and the cornerstone of the new.
1. Re: sellouts. Google is the only search engine that has remained a search engine and not tried to become Baby AOL for the sake of an instant dollar. While it does feature sponsored links, it labels them clearly as such. It does not disguise them as "featured links", "popular results", or any other pseudo-content. It does not surround its search results with ads masquerading as error messages, and it does not offer to run a duplicate search on Amazon.com. It's straightforward and simple.
2. Re: search technology - they do actually innovate. Google was one of the first to use an index of link popularity and relevance to rank the sites in their index, which gives you better results than a search engine that just looks for instances of your search phrase.
3. Re: spin control. Well, first of all, Salon.com is not exactly tech press. Secondly, I've never seen a single negative article about _any_ search engine in a major tech site. Not just Google. Even ridiculous engines like Ask Jeeves hardly ever get negative press.
It depends mostly on the nature of the unit one serves in. There are units that value discipline and machine-like execution of orders, and there are those that thrive on independence and mistrust. If a tank driver stops to question the directions given him by the commander, who almost always has the best view of the terrain, he is likely to kill everyone in the tank. So tankers are very big on blind discipline. A lot of specialized infantry units, however, require practically psychotic levels of independence, because they usually operate alone or in very small units, and tend to get into a lot of situations that The Book doesn't cover. For this reason, tankers usually get labelled as squares or robots(I don't know what the American slang version would be, but hopefully you'll understand) by infantrymen. In return, they usually think of infantry as unskilled and undisciplined monkeys.
Re:Responsibility in war/hackers at war
on
Hacker Crackdown?
·
· Score: 1
Do YOU seriously think 'the authorities' (why do people always put that in quotation marks?) will shut the whole Internet down? No, life wouldn't cease, but no elected official is ever going to take such a drastic measure. In 1993 it might have been done, but not today.
Re:Katz writes about things without having 2 clues
on
Selfish Society
·
· Score: 1
What makes you think IT is any more a meritocracy than any other field? Have you led such a sheltered life that you believe farmers, mechanics, doctors, teachers, chemists, Marines, etc. can just bluff their way through life in their chosen (or forced) careers? Be real. Your skills are no more important than a million other skills that people work hard to acquire. Don't be so arrogant - someday you may need a doctor. And I'm fairly sure you made some use of a farmer's work today.
Slashdot Mirror
So, is it okay to delete kernel32.dll?
So how long is it going to be before the Hollywood suits pick up on this and give us a new mess of disaster movies based on it, like they do with every possibly scary piece of science news?
These people are soulless hacks with no love for literature, and should have some kind of Clockwork Orange technique done on them so they can never write, act, direct or produce again.
And I suppose you are going to personally guarantee that once launched, it keeps going until it safely leaves the solar system, instead of hanging around the system for the next ten thousand years before we hit it? You are aware that it's fairly difficult to actually get out of the solar system, aren't you?
He was not retarded or even dumb. He knew exactly what he was saying. Unfortunately for you, you didn't get the joke. This does not reflect well on you. Too bad...
BTW, yes. I was born in America and have lived all over the world, and I have found that most Americans are idiots. But most Europeans are idiots, too. And most Africans, and most Asians, and most Australians. I still don't have an opinion on the Antarcticans, but I'm willing to to bet that they're idiots too.
Second reason - waste disposal. These things are going to be dangerous for hundreds of generations to come! This may not be a problem just yet, but I'm fairly sure it's going to be a hell of an issue in a few hundred years. The amount of dangerous waste is going to be too big to handle properly. What do we do then, start dumping the stuff on other planets, and so on ad infinitum?
Third reason - disclosure, lack of. The energy industry has never been completely honest with the public about the hazards of its operations. Ditto the American government. These guys were trying to tell us nuclear plants were completely, 100% safe from the very dawn of the nuclear age, when they had no idea yet of the dangers involved. This doesn't inspire me to trust them now.
Fourth reason - two-headed fish. He may have been trying it on, but I have a friend who swears he has caught two-headed fish in the water near his local plant in Britain. Again, I'm not sure whether to believe him or not. But it's a nasty thought.
You have heard that one, right? This could be a cool way to distribute information, if it works. I'd like to see a little more detail on the proposal, but in theory it sounds like a Good Idea.
Ditto. Until they started their latest style of crappy "campy" ads, I thought of them as a decent low-cost Gap alternative. Now I just won't step inside them. I can't help feeling that if more people did this, we might have better TV, or at least better ads - which are about 30% of prime-time TV anyway.
And BTW, this is another Heinlein idea, although he never saw it being used by the military.
So Slashdot is printing a piece from the BBC that reprints a story from the NY Post, which sums up some great Web rumours. Very accurate and logical.
What, are you kidding? Remake intelligent SF shows that had something resembling an actual plot, with real characters? You haven't watched too much TV lately, have you?
"Story Arc" has nothing whatsoever to do with B5. It's a descriptive term for a central story running continuously in any kind of episodic fiction. Each episode has its own story line, but the arc connects them all. It may not be geometrically correct, but that's what it's called. And yes, this phrase has been overused in general over the last few years, but not just by B5. It's just one of those pieces of jargon that suddenly become widespread. Furthermore, when I get together with my fellow foaming-at-the-mouth Star Wars fanboys, we actually mention the SW story arcs quite a bit.
That while Voyager was on air, the world needed A Sci-Fi show.
I would predict that a lot of the ASCII art, as well as some animated Java applets, common graphic sigs and the like, will eventually be recognized as the dominant form of "folk art" in this period. However, it is an unfortunate truth that folk art is never recognized in its own time. Eventually some fanatic collector of ASCII roses, who just happens to be rich and/or well-known, will start to dig up every surviving example of the genre and will publicize the whole thing. That's how it usually happens.
Um. So sorry, but Leonardo and Michelangelo made very large amounts of money, were granted complete freedom from any criticism of their private lives, and were the toast of Europe throughout most of their careers. When Leonardo repeatedly insisted on giving his patrons his own artistic visions instead of the things he was hired for, the works were rejected. But he was NOT considered a nut. He was considered artistic and rather unreliable, which is absolutely true, but he was acknowledged as one of the greatest artists of all time.
But seriously, the problem is that if this thing ever goes through in its full form, the most restrictive laws of every participating country will be applied to all countries. American drug policies, Moslem nudity laws, Chinese anti-government laws, British library regulations, etc.
Absolutely. I don't know herpetology, but I do know English, and it always annoys me to hear people talking about poisonous snakes. In all the serious scientific literature i've read, snakes and spiders have never been referred to as poisonous.
Cynical? You can never be too cynical. I'll bet this not only happens soon, but it will be presented as a cool new added service for us stoopid consumers - just like the new practice of listing paid links on search engines is billed as "increasing the relevance of your searches".
Junk sendings to actual former employees is a very small minority of the spam that I see here. We had one guy who was looking for a loan online, and his address now gets at least 2 spams a day. But that's about the extent of the truly targetted spam.
Dunno, but I keep hearing rumours of a movie coming soon... I don't even know what AliG is, I just keep seeing the name on film-rumour websites. Is it good? How long does it keep if refrigerated?
No, actually this happens anytime you say "Monty P.." anywhere in the world. Even in Israel, there are two kinds of people - those who watch Baywatch, and those who know MPATHG by heart. And I was originally introduced to the movies by a pack of raving Englishmen and a couple of Kiwis, who claimed unanimously that Python was the pinnacle of the old British culture and the cornerstone of the new.
1. Re: sellouts. Google is the only search engine that has remained a search engine and not tried to become Baby AOL for the sake of an instant dollar. While it does feature sponsored links, it labels them clearly as such. It does not disguise them as "featured links", "popular results", or any other pseudo-content. It does not surround its search results with ads masquerading as error messages, and it does not offer to run a duplicate search on Amazon.com. It's straightforward and simple.
2. Re: search technology - they do actually innovate. Google was one of the first to use an index of link popularity and relevance to rank the sites in their index, which gives you better results than a search engine that just looks for instances of your search phrase.
3. Re: spin control. Well, first of all, Salon.com is not exactly tech press. Secondly, I've never seen a single negative article about _any_ search engine in a major tech site. Not just Google. Even ridiculous engines like Ask Jeeves hardly ever get negative press.
It depends mostly on the nature of the unit one serves in. There are units that value discipline and machine-like execution of orders, and there are those that thrive on independence and mistrust. If a tank driver stops to question the directions given him by the commander, who almost always has the best view of the terrain, he is likely to kill everyone in the tank. So tankers are very big on blind discipline. A lot of specialized infantry units, however, require practically psychotic levels of independence, because they usually operate alone or in very small units, and tend to get into a lot of situations that The Book doesn't cover. For this reason, tankers usually get labelled as squares or robots(I don't know what the American slang version would be, but hopefully you'll understand) by infantrymen. In return, they usually think of infantry as unskilled and undisciplined monkeys.
Do YOU seriously think 'the authorities' (why do people always put that in quotation marks?) will shut the whole Internet down? No, life wouldn't cease, but no elected official is ever going to take such a drastic measure. In 1993 it might have been done, but not today.
What makes you think IT is any more a meritocracy than any other field? Have you led such a sheltered life that you believe farmers, mechanics, doctors, teachers, chemists, Marines, etc. can just bluff their way through life in their chosen (or forced) careers? Be real. Your skills are no more important than a million other skills that people work hard to acquire. Don't be so arrogant - someday you may need a doctor. And I'm fairly sure you made some use of a farmer's work today.