Lest anyone think that is a joke, think about where the states would be if China had enough of a presence on the moon to prevent us landing there again, or even orbiting. The moon is a great way station on the way to mars, or anywhere else, source of titanium, aluminum, O2, H2O, H3 or just a place to keep a depot of supplies - so there is the wall between the states and space. What if they use it as a weapons platform/military base?
Then they build their bridge to mars, mine those materials, make fuel, build a way station and ship, off they go, wall and bridge built of the moon's rock.
David Zindell for something a bit more philosophiocal than scientific science fiction. I was pleasantly surprised by 'The Wild'.
Alexander Jablakov, for gorgeous writing - look for Carve the Sky, A Deeper Sea and Breath of Suspension. Poetic and human science fiction.
Mary Gentle for something rare and precious - Fantasy stories that you haven't already read a dozen times. Her writing is uneven and sometimes insanely bad, but it is a real treat to read a story that is not a re-work of one of the three unoversal fantasy themes. (A Secret History, Architecture of Light, Rats and Gargoyles). Not knowing where the hell she was going got me through a lot of her spotty writing. I was unable to stop reading 'Grunts', though I often desperately wanted to.
David Zindell for something a bit more philosophiocal than scientific science fiction. I was pleasantly surprised by 'The Wild'.
Alexander Jablakov, for gorgeous writing - look for Carve the Sky, A Deeper Sea and Breath of Suspension. Poetic and human science fiction.
Mary Gentle for something rare and precious - Fantasy stories that you haven't already read a dozen times. Her writing is uneven and sometimes insanely bad, but it is a real treat to read a story that is not a re-work of one of the three unoversal fantasy themes. (A Secret History, Architecture of Light, Rats and Gargoyles). Not knowing where the hell she was going got me through a lot of her spotty writing. I was unable to stop reading 'Grunts', though I often desperately wanted to.
Hmm, lets see - large swaths of airborn bacteria consuming CO2 and absorbing UV light... sounds like a system well on the way to terraforming the planet.
Well, ok, so they are producing hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide, but still, if they are real they could be making some substantial changes to the environment of Venus, perhaps changes that would make it easier for other forms of biological life to exist. Life changing its environment to be friendlier to life.
Sure was smart of us to eliminate all our poverty and corruption before building -our- net infrastructure! Boy what an international laughingstock we would be if we had tried to get everyone wired up while there were still people starving in our country.
Yeah, lets have peace and dignity and cleanliness in Africa before we help them get online - after all, every computer geek who is building an information superhighway is a geek who is not building a sewer system and fighting aids! You are all prepared to build sewers and fight political corruption and implement health programs over there, right?
Lets stop trying to solve one problem before we solve the one before - we can only do one thing at a time, after all.
At least one other geek.
Anyone reading who is interested in the subject of polyamoury should read "The Ethical Slut" Lizst/Easton, Greenery Press 1997(?)
What a silly notion. What about tribalism, social activism, movements, clubs and so on? Individualism can be one form of resistance, but certainly isn't anything that will threaten corporate nature. (I won't repeat a previous post pointing out the power of movements as apposed to individuals.) It is so easy to paint in black and white - if all you want is a line drawing. Corporations are all evil, individualism is good, nothing in between... True resistance as a society to the corporate ethic is education, it always is the answer to any 'evil' force in our society. It is groups of people who have the power to recruit, educate, press the issue into the societal spotlight - individuals who make a difference are frequently leaders of movements shortly thereafter. What do you do if you want to push society a bit further out of the corporate mindset? Tell your friends. Tell them to tell their friends.
I think this is an excellent idea - if modified slightly. Only a historical perspective will truly show us what were the significant documents of the internet, but I think a nice repository of important, or at least interesting documents would be a Good Thing. I wouldn't mind working on this. I am thinking a collection of suggested/donated documents, very accessible, nicely formatted, and always growing. Sort of an ongoing archive of current thought and philosophy. If anyone else thinks this is a good idea, email your suggestions, documents, urls.... I build a page and start thinking about layout...
(and I hope the Guys are reading)... is that the infinite configurability is buried in a config file with little or no documentation. I love to configure, tweak, redecorate, and I am not afraid to go poking into textfiles... but it seems a shame to have such a system designed for such extensive configurability, and no pleasant way to configure. Maybe you -can- put a specific pixmap in as a custom windowbar, but you have to study an entire theme file to figure out what pixmap to replace. Honestly, it is not that much less trouble than editing the source for fvwm. I hope I am wrong here, that I have just missed a doc, or that spiffy configuration app... Man, I would love to edit my theme in place with d-n-d, realtime, and this unrealized potential is frustrating... This isn't a criticizm, consider it a feature request.
I guess I would feel better about it...
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if any of them were funny. Or believable. Or interesting.
The soul of a good AFD prank is that you believe, up to the point where you hit a wall and realize that you were taken in all this time. Also, humor almost always involves something that is funny, and the soul of wit is brevity. Even the most banal of jokes, if it involves guts and originality and sheer hutzpah, can work, provided there is a herd of sheep just in your office, not in every single room you walk into all day.
Sorry, but 15 dozen very obviously fake stories, overdone and shoved in your face on april the first just seems like a waste of bandwidth. Now the soothing voice of an NPR reporter, explaining calmly as you slowly wake up, that Caregie Hall is now Amazon.com Hall, now that is more like it. (Admittedly being half-alseep helps).
NPR knows how to do it. Every year, they have 1, One, only a singular story which is fake, and -almost- believable. Their reporters are smooth, calm, and carry the full wieght of NPR newsworthiness, even while demonstrating the new silent keyboard to be used in Amazon.com Hall's seatback computer terminals.
I worry more about the sheer failure of humor, originality and ingenuity this AFD than I do about people confusing the real news for the fake. Is this the best we can do?
Slashdot Mirror
Lest anyone think that is a joke, think about where the states would be if China had enough of a presence on the moon to prevent us landing there again, or even orbiting. The moon is a great way station on the way to mars, or anywhere else, source of titanium, aluminum, O2, H2O, H3 or just a place to keep a depot of supplies - so there is the wall between the states and space. What if they use it as a weapons platform/military base?
Then they build their bridge to mars, mine those materials, make fuel, build a way station and ship, off they go, wall and bridge built of the moon's rock.
(Dang it, I did format that....)
David Zindell for something a bit more philosophiocal than scientific science fiction. I was pleasantly surprised by 'The Wild'.
Alexander Jablakov, for gorgeous writing - look for Carve the Sky, A Deeper Sea and Breath of Suspension. Poetic and human science fiction.
Mary Gentle for something rare and precious - Fantasy stories that you haven't already read a dozen times. Her writing is uneven and sometimes insanely bad, but it is a real treat to read a story that is not a re-work of one of the three unoversal fantasy themes. (A Secret History, Architecture of Light, Rats and Gargoyles). Not knowing where the hell she was going got me through a lot of her spotty writing. I was unable to stop reading 'Grunts', though I often desperately wanted to.
David Zindell for something a bit more philosophiocal than scientific science fiction. I was pleasantly surprised by 'The Wild'. Alexander Jablakov, for gorgeous writing - look for Carve the Sky, A Deeper Sea and Breath of Suspension. Poetic and human science fiction. Mary Gentle for something rare and precious - Fantasy stories that you haven't already read a dozen times. Her writing is uneven and sometimes insanely bad, but it is a real treat to read a story that is not a re-work of one of the three unoversal fantasy themes. (A Secret History, Architecture of Light, Rats and Gargoyles). Not knowing where the hell she was going got me through a lot of her spotty writing. I was unable to stop reading 'Grunts', though I often desperately wanted to.
We have such a catagory already: "Space"
Hmm, lets see - large swaths of airborn bacteria consuming CO2 and absorbing UV light... sounds like a system well on the way to terraforming the planet.
Well, ok, so they are producing hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide, but still, if they are real they could be making some substantial changes to the environment of Venus, perhaps changes that would make it easier for other forms of biological life to exist. Life changing its environment to be friendlier to life.
Sure was smart of us to eliminate all our poverty and corruption before building -our- net infrastructure! Boy what an international laughingstock we would be if we had tried to get everyone wired up while there were still people starving in our country.
Yeah, lets have peace and dignity and cleanliness in Africa before we help them get online - after all, every computer geek who is building an information superhighway is a geek who is not building a sewer system and fighting aids! You are all prepared to build sewers and fight political corruption and implement health programs over there, right?
Lets stop trying to solve one problem before we solve the one before - we can only do one thing at a time, after all.
At least one other geek. Anyone reading who is interested in the subject of polyamoury should read "The Ethical Slut" Lizst/Easton, Greenery Press 1997(?)
What a silly notion. What about tribalism, social activism, movements, clubs and so on? Individualism can be one form of resistance, but certainly isn't anything that will threaten corporate nature. (I won't repeat a previous post pointing out the power of movements as apposed to individuals.) It is so easy to paint in black and white - if all you want is a line drawing. Corporations are all evil, individualism is good, nothing in between... True resistance as a society to the corporate ethic is education, it always is the answer to any 'evil' force in our society. It is groups of people who have the power to recruit, educate, press the issue into the societal spotlight - individuals who make a difference are frequently leaders of movements shortly thereafter. What do you do if you want to push society a bit further out of the corporate mindset? Tell your friends. Tell them to tell their friends.
HTML tags
lazy fingers lose knowlege
you must provide breaks
Finally light dawns of Haiku as tech critique the world has much need
I think this is an excellent idea - if modified slightly. Only a historical perspective will truly show us what were the significant documents of the internet, but I think a nice repository of important, or at least interesting documents would be a Good Thing. I wouldn't mind working on this. I am thinking a collection of suggested/donated documents, very accessible, nicely formatted, and always growing. Sort of an ongoing archive of current thought and philosophy. If anyone else thinks this is a good idea, email your suggestions, documents, urls.... I build a page and start thinking about layout...
(and I hope the Guys are reading)... is that the infinite configurability is buried in a config file with little or no documentation. I love to configure, tweak, redecorate, and I am not afraid to go poking into textfiles... but it seems a shame to have such a system designed for such extensive configurability, and no pleasant way to configure. Maybe you -can- put a specific pixmap in as a custom windowbar, but you have to study an entire theme file to figure out what pixmap to replace. Honestly, it is not that much less trouble than editing the source for fvwm. I hope I am wrong here, that I have just missed a doc, or that spiffy configuration app... Man, I would love to edit my theme in place with d-n-d, realtime, and this unrealized potential is frustrating... This isn't a criticizm, consider it a feature request.
if any of them were funny. Or believable. Or interesting.
The soul of a good AFD prank is that you believe, up to the point where you hit a wall and realize that you were taken in all this time.
Also, humor almost always involves something that is funny, and the soul of wit is brevity. Even the most banal of jokes, if it involves guts and originality and sheer hutzpah, can work, provided there is a herd of sheep just in your office, not in every single room you walk into all day.
Sorry, but 15 dozen very obviously fake stories, overdone and shoved in your face on april the first just seems like a waste of bandwidth. Now the soothing voice of an NPR reporter, explaining calmly as you slowly wake up, that Caregie Hall is now Amazon.com Hall, now that is more like it. (Admittedly being half-alseep helps).
NPR knows how to do it. Every year, they have 1, One, only a singular story which is fake, and -almost- believable. Their reporters are smooth, calm, and carry the full wieght of NPR newsworthiness, even while demonstrating the new silent keyboard to be used in Amazon.com Hall's seatback computer terminals.
I worry more about the sheer failure of humor, originality and ingenuity this AFD than I do about people confusing the real news for the fake. Is this the best we can do?