What I can say is that it's infinitely less irritating, and far more realistic, than Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon or Gibson's Neuromancer.
I always hear these two books mentioned when people talk about computers in science fiction(aside only from 2001:A Space Odessey).
I have yet to read Cryptonomicon, so I cannot comment on that. I have, however, read Neuromancer.
The book is utter crap. The main character is unbelievable, and acts contrary to what his own mind and desires would be. The other characters lack personality and a solid basis for the actions they as well.
The story is mediocre and flaky at best. We're supposed to believe that the characters in the story are working for Armitage, but aren't, but really are. Their reasons for doing as he asks? The reader is left to assume it is because they are completely inept and gullible, and too afraid to turn to any reasonable educated person on the conditions they are in. In other words, the characters don't really think.
Granted, the environment, and the computer culture, and all the cyberpunkness *is* there, but that alone doesn't make a good story. And keep in mind that Blade Runner PRE-DATED this book by 2 years. The marriage of science fiction and computer crime was bound to happen eventually, Gibson is no saint for being arguably the first.
Anyway, I just wanted to propose an alternate view on Neuromancer so no one else gets duped into buying it. When you see geeks talk about it, don't let them sucker you into thinking it's something that you'll enjoy, it creates a world, but then it fails to give a story. There's been better work since.
To say nothing of the fact that almost all malls are private property.
Is that why I get to vote down a new mall proposed for my small college town every year or two?
Don't get me wrong, I agree with your argument, but the marriage of government and business is at least as bad, if not worse, than the marriage of religion and government in this day and age.
And you know what made it possible? All these people begging for the nanny state to "take care of our children". Congratulations, your nanny is here, and you and your kids will be paying for her for the rest of your poor tortured lives.
No offense, but in the US, we get monetary payouts when our media outlets screw us over.
Look up "Richard Jewell" for a good example of this.
The BBS "apologizes" and everyone feels happy. If I were this guy, I'd be foaming at the mouth wanting a judgement against them. But in the UK, I bet suing the BBC is next to impossible to do.
Stating the obvious (chimera analogy included)
on
Router Built for Gamers
·
· Score: 3, Funny
This is a router designed for gamers that also happens to be a great router for regular folks.
As the show's co-creator, 32-year-old Matt Stone, sums it up: 'I hate conservatives, but I really f--ing hate liberals.'"
As a voting libertarian, I looked at the entire Terry Schiavo incident exactly as the SP creators did, seeing hypocrisy in the way conservatives viewed "playing God". I think if anything, South Park alone might contribute to destruction of the Republican Party as one of only morals, and might even get it back into shape as representing the small-government advocates it once did.
Well, it makes sense that some people would be upset. Suppose Valve's code got stolen again, but this time, they realize they are going to run out of money. They try to make up for this by charging outrageous amounts of money for their game, like $150. No one buys it, and pretty soon support falls through and they go bankrupt. Their creditors PHYSICALLY REMOVE the steam servers from where they are housed, to auction them off and recoup their debt.
And 15 million Half-Life/HL2 fans can no longer play their games legally. Arguably, the biggest modding community is now working with an illegal gaming platform. Instead, they have to resort to using easily obtainable cracks individuals made after Valve went out of business in order to keep playing the game without Steam support.
But the cracks and new HL software violate the DMCA, so about half of them decide it's not worth going to jail to play a game they bought and paid for. The community dwindles.
And to add insult to injury, the "myg0t" cheating clan would probably be the one to make the crack. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
There's only one problem with this line of reasoning: No one cares about Windows source code anymore.
Sure, it might initially make it a bit easier for the Samba and OpenOffice teams, but who cares? They do a good enough job already.
Also, forcing Apple to standardize their DRM is a far cry from forcing them to open their source. Standardization for commercial companies just ensures that they are going to be the ones making the decisions on how the protocol/technology evolves.
This push by Congress isn't so much about opening up Apple's DRM as it is about getting everyone to use one standard, then forcing them to use it because it's "government approved", then regulating the hell out of it, and eventually maybe even taxing it.
Apple's making a lot of tax-free money right now, and that just pisses Congress off.
... several hundred old guys, who think they are "down with the Internet" because they can send an email, deciding what the new standards and protocols should be.
I'd rather let several hundred old guys (with a handful of young'ns) who've been working in the industry decide, as it's always been.
The best thing about closed DRM models is that they eventually inspire others in the market to release more open models. And how rapidly people will move over to the new format because it works for "everything".
Don't they have, like, a War on Terror to support or something?
Yeah, but they never really got down the War on Internet companies evading taxation, so they're looking for all sorts of excuses for why they should be involved.
The line for whether or not the government should "be involved" seems to be different from hardware and software. If it's a device designed to play music in a format popularized by the Internet, like an MP3 CD player, MP3 players, DVD-Rs, CD-Rs etc; then there's simply nothing the government wants to do or cares to do. After all, these things are tangible, and also taxable. They have to be sold at some point.
If it's software designed to facilitate the copying and distribution of said formats, it's another story. Think DeCSS for one, also for a while there LAME (mentioned because many websites in 1997-1998 said it was "grey area" legality), Napster, iTunes, Kazaa, BitTorrent.
Perhaps it's easier to disregard hardware because the human element is still there. In other words, someone can look at a DVD with "Mindhunters" on it, a movie that hasn't even hit US theaters, but has been on BitTorrent for a month-and-a-half now, and think, well, the DVD isn't the problem, the person who copied it is.
Yet for some reason, Bit-Torrent, iTunes, and other protocols must either be standardized or eliminated because they are inherenetly illegal. It's as if the human element is detached or presumed to not exist. Kazaa? Illegal. DCC file transfers? Illegal. BitTorrent? Illegal.
When does the madness on the part of my government end?
well, I had spilt pop earlier and that might have had something to do with it cause I was in a tight space (I use them at LAN parties too), and the mouse cord went around the back of the monitor and had a loop that got caught on the speaker (where my headphones were plugged in). The mouse practically falls off the table when I shook, and I go to catch it and instead knock it backwards, well, the loop is now against the speaker knob and since the other end is dangling from the back, I damn near lose my hearing. My blood curled, it was horrific.
Libertarians are principled, much like Republicans. However they are ardent defenders of both economic and personal rights, whereas Republicans only argue for economic rights and would like to keep junkies from their drugs, and keep gays from having a legal union.
I think a lot of issues between Libertarians and Republicans could be resolved by seperating church and morals from party planks. As a Christian myself, I think the idea of making sins illegal cheapens Christianity. If lying, adultery, and other "sins" are illegal, then the whole idea of accepting Christianity is for naught. We're supposed to be given free choice and then choose correctly; not be given the choice of jail or freedom.
Compelling people to be without sin is a whole lot different from giving them the choice.
It all comes down to change. MMORPGs lack change. Even in the newer generation games, there's nothing going on that begs for players to get involved. Pen and paper RPGs still reign supreme in the area of an evolving storyline.
In WoW, the same thing that happened yesterday is going to happen today. There no mission you are going to do that someone hasn't already done twice.
Games like Asheron's Call were so huge that, at least for a while, the idea that you were the first person to travel to a new area was still there. You could approach some remote location and find a tower, mountain, or valley that no one had ever been to.
The devs would add new monsters and npcs every month or two. It revolutionized the way players actually played the game. Reports would come in, via the game, about a new mob attacking one of the towns, and then you could go there and actually find/see it.
MxO looks to be the only game that might have a player-driven storyline. Unfortunately, the game is buggy as hell, and won't be going anywhere for a while till they get those issues resolved.
I also hope there's some sort of built-in safety in case the thing starts to zap you repeatedly. (Deadly endless loop, anyone?)
Kind of reminds me of the time I had my headphones plugged in and Counter-Strike crashed on a bomb explosion, repeating the extremely loud BOOM about 5 times before I reached up to pull the headphones off, inadvertently pulled on the mouse cord wrapped around the volume knob, and twisted it to full volume, deading my hearing for about 24 hours.
If you don't have any idea what it's like to try to sleep with a phone constantly ringing in your skull, I would suggest sticking to speakers for the rest of your gaming life.
And I would also suggest that you look at gaming accessories other than ones that are purposely designed to give you pain.
i have the right to determine who enters my house. even if there are outsiders that can help me out, ultimately i make the decision whether or not they enter my house.
And this line of reasoning doesn't properly explain the difference between intellectual property and physical property.
If someone, say the government, takes my money, I see it gone.
If someone, say you, takes something I've composed (I make music as a hobby), I haven't lost anything.
The problem with the debate of intellectual property rights is that the argument comes down to the CREATION of something that is so similar to what someone else has made.
I've been complaining about the Internet community's obession with April 1st since 1998. Of course, back then, the pranks were at least partially subtle.
Getting modded on April First is like getting laid, it feels pretty cool that you don't have to be an actual geek to get it done, but later on you're embarrased about just how low you had to drop your standards to accomplish that task.
Creationism and it's change to ID (intelligent design) kind of remind me of the Global Cooling theorists, which are nowadays referred to as Global Warming advocates.
This is no April 1st joke. The leading global warmning advocate, Stephen H. Schneider, was originally a global cooling advocate. To this day, he and many other climatologists are "media whores" about global temperatures. In fact, I would even go so far as to argue it's a prerequiste to getting in a peer-reviewed journal.
Slashdot Mirror
What I can say is that it's infinitely less irritating, and far more realistic, than Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon or Gibson's Neuromancer.
I always hear these two books mentioned when people talk about computers in science fiction(aside only from 2001:A Space Odessey).
I have yet to read Cryptonomicon, so I cannot comment on that. I have, however, read Neuromancer.
The book is utter crap. The main character is unbelievable, and acts contrary to what his own mind and desires would be. The other characters lack personality and a solid basis for the actions they as well.
The story is mediocre and flaky at best. We're supposed to believe that the characters in the story are working for Armitage, but aren't, but really are. Their reasons for doing as he asks? The reader is left to assume it is because they are completely inept and gullible, and too afraid to turn to any reasonable educated person on the conditions they are in. In other words, the characters don't really think.
Granted, the environment, and the computer culture, and all the cyberpunkness *is* there, but that alone doesn't make a good story. And keep in mind that Blade Runner PRE-DATED this book by 2 years. The marriage of science fiction and computer crime was bound to happen eventually, Gibson is no saint for being arguably the first.
Anyway, I just wanted to propose an alternate view on Neuromancer so no one else gets duped into buying it. When you see geeks talk about it, don't let them sucker you into thinking it's something that you'll enjoy, it creates a world, but then it fails to give a story. There's been better work since.
To say nothing of the fact that almost all malls are private property.
Is that why I get to vote down a new mall proposed for my small college town every year or two?
Don't get me wrong, I agree with your argument, but the marriage of government and business is at least as bad, if not worse, than the marriage of religion and government in this day and age.
And you know what made it possible? All these people begging for the nanny state to "take care of our children". Congratulations, your nanny is here, and you and your kids will be paying for her for the rest of your poor tortured lives.
Enjoy living in tax hell!
That's not accurate. For instance, a LAW is military-grade, but makes an absolutely horrible home-defense weapon.
Except for those pesky neighbor's SUVs.
No offense, but in the US, we get monetary payouts when our media outlets screw us over.
Look up "Richard Jewell" for a good example of this.
The BBS "apologizes" and everyone feels happy. If I were this guy, I'd be foaming at the mouth wanting a judgement against them. But in the UK, I bet suing the BBC is next to impossible to do.
This is a router designed for gamers that also happens to be a great router for regular folks.
:: Military-Grade : Civilian.
You're stating the obvious.
Gamer : Regular Folk
What? South Park doesn't define a generation?
What about the "South Park Republican"?
As the show's co-creator, 32-year-old Matt Stone, sums it up: 'I hate conservatives, but I really f--ing hate liberals.'"
As a voting libertarian, I looked at the entire Terry Schiavo incident exactly as the SP creators did, seeing hypocrisy in the way conservatives viewed "playing God". I think if anything, South Park alone might contribute to destruction of the Republican Party as one of only morals, and might even get it back into shape as representing the small-government advocates it once did.
Or one can hope, anyway.
Well, it makes sense that some people would be upset. Suppose Valve's code got stolen again, but this time, they realize they are going to run out of money. They try to make up for this by charging outrageous amounts of money for their game, like $150. No one buys it, and pretty soon support falls through and they go bankrupt. Their creditors PHYSICALLY REMOVE the steam servers from where they are housed, to auction them off and recoup their debt.
And 15 million Half-Life/HL2 fans can no longer play their games legally. Arguably, the biggest modding community is now working with an illegal gaming platform. Instead, they have to resort to using easily obtainable cracks individuals made after Valve went out of business in order to keep playing the game without Steam support.
But the cracks and new HL software violate the DMCA, so about half of them decide it's not worth going to jail to play a game they bought and paid for. The community dwindles.
And to add insult to injury, the "myg0t" cheating clan would probably be the one to make the crack. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
There's only one problem with this line of reasoning: No one cares about Windows source code anymore.
Sure, it might initially make it a bit easier for the Samba and OpenOffice teams, but who cares? They do a good enough job already.
Also, forcing Apple to standardize their DRM is a far cry from forcing them to open their source. Standardization for commercial companies just ensures that they are going to be the ones making the decisions on how the protocol/technology evolves.
This push by Congress isn't so much about opening up Apple's DRM as it is about getting everyone to use one standard, then forcing them to use it because it's "government approved", then regulating the hell out of it, and eventually maybe even taxing it.
Apple's making a lot of tax-free money right now, and that just pisses Congress off.
My query:
"Which search engine is the best?"
Google's response:
"AskJeeves."
... several hundred old guys, who think they are "down with the Internet" because they can send an email, deciding what the new standards and protocols should be.
I'd rather let several hundred old guys (with a handful of young'ns) who've been working in the industry decide, as it's always been.
The best thing about closed DRM models is that they eventually inspire others in the market to release more open models. And how rapidly people will move over to the new format because it works for "everything".
Don't they have, like, a War on Terror to support or something?
Yeah, but they never really got down the War on Internet companies evading taxation, so they're looking for all sorts of excuses for why they should be involved.
The line for whether or not the government should "be involved" seems to be different from hardware and software. If it's a device designed to play music in a format popularized by the Internet, like an MP3 CD player, MP3 players, DVD-Rs, CD-Rs etc; then there's simply nothing the government wants to do or cares to do. After all, these things are tangible, and also taxable. They have to be sold at some point.
If it's software designed to facilitate the copying and distribution of said formats, it's another story. Think DeCSS for one, also for a while there LAME (mentioned because many websites in 1997-1998 said it was "grey area" legality), Napster, iTunes, Kazaa, BitTorrent.
Perhaps it's easier to disregard hardware because the human element is still there. In other words, someone can look at a DVD with "Mindhunters" on it, a movie that hasn't even hit US theaters, but has been on BitTorrent for a month-and-a-half now, and think, well, the DVD isn't the problem, the person who copied it is.
Yet for some reason, Bit-Torrent, iTunes, and other protocols must either be standardized or eliminated because they are inherenetly illegal. It's as if the human element is detached or presumed to not exist. Kazaa? Illegal. DCC file transfers? Illegal. BitTorrent? Illegal.
When does the madness on the part of my government end?
well, I had spilt pop earlier and that might have had something to do with it cause I was in a tight space (I use them at LAN parties too), and the mouse cord went around the back of the monitor and had a loop that got caught on the speaker (where my headphones were plugged in). The mouse practically falls off the table when I shook, and I go to catch it and instead knock it backwards, well, the loop is now against the speaker knob and since the other end is dangling from the back, I damn near lose my hearing. My blood curled, it was horrific.
lol. Go to a state convention, you'll love it I swear. At least in my state we relish in our bitter arguments towards each other.
Libertarians are principled, much like Republicans. However they are ardent defenders of both economic and personal rights, whereas Republicans only argue for economic rights and would like to keep junkies from their drugs, and keep gays from having a legal union.
I think a lot of issues between Libertarians and Republicans could be resolved by seperating church and morals from party planks. As a Christian myself, I think the idea of making sins illegal cheapens Christianity. If lying, adultery, and other "sins" are illegal, then the whole idea of accepting Christianity is for naught. We're supposed to be given free choice and then choose correctly; not be given the choice of jail or freedom.
Compelling people to be without sin is a whole lot different from giving them the choice.
It all comes down to change. MMORPGs lack change. Even in the newer generation games, there's nothing going on that begs for players to get involved. Pen and paper RPGs still reign supreme in the area of an evolving storyline.
In WoW, the same thing that happened yesterday is going to happen today. There no mission you are going to do that someone hasn't already done twice.
Games like Asheron's Call were so huge that, at least for a while, the idea that you were the first person to travel to a new area was still there. You could approach some remote location and find a tower, mountain, or valley that no one had ever been to.
The devs would add new monsters and npcs every month or two. It revolutionized the way players actually played the game. Reports would come in, via the game, about a new mob attacking one of the towns, and then you could go there and actually find/see it.
MxO looks to be the only game that might have a player-driven storyline. Unfortunately, the game is buggy as hell, and won't be going anywhere for a while till they get those issues resolved.
I also hope there's some sort of built-in safety in case the thing starts to zap you repeatedly. (Deadly endless loop, anyone?)
Kind of reminds me of the time I had my headphones plugged in and Counter-Strike crashed on a bomb explosion, repeating the extremely loud BOOM about 5 times before I reached up to pull the headphones off, inadvertently pulled on the mouse cord wrapped around the volume knob, and twisted it to full volume, deading my hearing for about 24 hours.
If you don't have any idea what it's like to try to sleep with a phone constantly ringing in your skull, I would suggest sticking to speakers for the rest of your gaming life.
And I would also suggest that you look at gaming accessories other than ones that are purposely designed to give you pain.
Congratulations, you summed up the Libertarian platform on campagin finance quite well.
That is a positive right, and thus, is null and void.
i have the right to determine who enters my house. even if there are outsiders that can help me out, ultimately i make the decision whether or not they enter my house.
And this line of reasoning doesn't properly explain the difference between intellectual property and physical property.
If someone, say the government, takes my money, I see it gone.
If someone, say you, takes something I've composed (I make music as a hobby), I haven't lost anything.
The problem with the debate of intellectual property rights is that the argument comes down to the CREATION of something that is so similar to what someone else has made.
I've been complaining about the Internet community's obession with April 1st since 1998. Of course, back then, the pranks were at least partially subtle.
Yeah, no crap. I think someone's trying to tell me something. It was just intended to be for the author of the original comment.
I noticed that Bill Gates was one of the 1st people to do this
If you're modeling your life after Bill Gates, you've got worse problems than LCDs over CRTs.
And...
Getting modded on April First is like getting laid, it feels pretty cool that you don't have to be an actual geek to get it done, but later on you're embarrased about just how low you had to drop your standards to accomplish that task.
Creationism and it's change to ID (intelligent design) kind of remind me of the Global Cooling theorists, which are nowadays referred to as Global Warming advocates.
For more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
This is no April 1st joke. The leading global warmning advocate, Stephen H. Schneider, was originally a global cooling advocate. To this day, he and many other climatologists are "media whores" about global temperatures. In fact, I would even go so far as to argue it's a prerequiste to getting in a peer-reviewed journal.