I'm not sure I'm understanding your logic. By not relying on magic calculating boxes, the Irish are the most prolific magic calculating box programming people in the world...
But that's bad, right? I still don't understand how wasting umpty bajillion minutes trying to divide two numbers wouldn't be better spent examining something that calculators CAN'T do, like number theory. I'm not advocating ignorance of how numbers work, I'm advocating being free from turning every nut and bolt in a complex problem.
When the aliens attack, I'll dust off my math book and re-learn how to do long division. Until then, I'm quite happy with my HP 48G.
This is ludicrous. Our many times removed great grandparents have indulged in blood sports throughout recorded history. I'd MUCH rather we explore our dark side in Quake than in a gladiatorial arena, or in a Crusade against unbelievers, or a football match where the crowd tramples itself to death.
(that last one just sorta snuck in there...)
Ladies and gentlemen, THERE IS A DIFFERENCE between something that happens in a computer rendered environment and something that happens in real life. It's not a question of realism, it's a question of CONSEQUENCES. If I have an arbitrarily realistic combat simulation (think Star Trek holodeck sorts of things) and one person shoots the other, the loser can still buy dinner. The consequences are NIL (well, except the loser is out the cost of dinner...). NOTHING REALLY HAPPENED. If, on the other hand, one shoots the other in real life, one person is DEAD. THAT is the only important distinction. If a person is sufficiently mentally disturbed that they cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality, that person is not competent to be out in public unsupervised.
Explain how Occam's Razor leads you to conclude that video games are to blame, and not, for instance, masturbation. Do you mean the variant of Occam's Razor that allows you to conclude whatever suits your rhetorical position, without regard to the facts? If so, I suggest you get a different one.
Huh? This STILL doesn't make any sense. These kids wore black trenchcoats. Contrary to many administrators' thinking, black trenchcoats do not make people shoot other people. If you can find me one person who plays Quake, and can demonstrate that Quake (and not milk or black trenchcoats or Wonderbread or the systematic oppression inflicted upon him by his peers or the absence of a moral code enforced by the parents) caused him to kill, we'll talk.
Please reconcile your statement that gun availability correlates to shootings in schools with the fact that in Switzerland (and, if I'm not mistaken, Israel), every household has a fully automatic rifle in the closet. Please use statistics and be specific.
Guns are not the problem. They may or may not exacerbate the problem, but I'd rather have an armed populace and take my chances with some nutjob blowing my head off than live in Kosovo (whose populace was disarmed shortly before the region exploded).
Re:hehe my T85 had 32k of ram and that was huge
on
HP49G is a reality
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· Score: 1
Golden Gate Bridge might have happened with calculations done by hand, but you can be Goddamn sure that the B-2 Spirit wasn't. If you're satisfied with early 19th century technology, that's fine. Me, I can't wait to have my HP mounted permanently on my forearm. : )
In my experience, exams where the prof permits calculators are substantially more difficult than ones where only the brain is allowed. When they started allowing calculators on the SATs, the entire test was rewritten for that purpose.
Why should I use my brain's processor time for long division? Why should I memorize log tables? This is totally useless knowledge. Why shouldn't we concentrate on training our brains to synthesize, rather than be a lookup table for numbers? While I agree that it's important to be taught how to divide manually, and memorize SOME multiplication tables, at some point in the secondary education process, calculators should not only be allowed, but encouraged. You can simply conquer bigger problems in less time if you don't have to do long division.
When did Vader see 3PO? They never crossed paths. And anyhow, how would Vader differentiate 3PO from every other protocol droid he encountered? It'd be like trying to pick out a single green Ford Taurus out of a mall parking lot.
The decisions become more difficult, maybe, but it's still our responsibility as sentient beings to make them, rather than default to the popular viewpoint.
Now that I've seen the movie twice, I can safely tell you that it NUKED Titanic's happy ass, but that's just my opinion.
So don't let them. Don't believe the hype. George Lucas isn't exactly sitting on your chest with a plunger, you know. Why do you let PepsiCo decide whether or not you're going to enjoy a given movie? If you want to go see it, do so. If you don't, don't. Nobody's forcing anybody to do anything.
Are you dense? I never had any money for toys when I was a kid, and now I do. If you don't understand why playing with Lego and action figures and neat models is fun, then I feel very very sorry for you. You might think that makes you more mature, but I just think it's kinda sad.
Note that LUCAS is NOT calling this the movie of the millenium. Blaming Lucas for something that other people said, and taking his movie to task for it, is rather inappropriate, don't you think?
Look, people, the hype DOESN'T MATTER. It's safe to say that any movie/director who appears on every major news magazine's cover in the space of a month is pretty well hyped. These very news magazines are whipping themselves into a froth about the hype surrounding this movie, hype which THEY are responsible for making.
What's Lucas to do? There's a HUGE grassroots fan movement around this movie. The fanboys (myself included) are beside themselves with anticipation for this movie. It IS only a movie, but it's a BIG FUN movie that I've been waiting a good long time to see. If he declines all these interviews, he becomes a reclusive antisocial hermit. If he accepts all these interviews, and tries to communicate his goals for these films, he becomes a narcissistic sell-out. He's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. What would YOU do in his situation?
As far as the marketing blitz, it's annoying. It's kitschy. It's pretty darn grotesque in the form of that Taco Bell/KFC/Pizza Hut commercial. However, it's ALSO American business. Would YOU refuse that enormous pile of money? I know that I can't say I would.
George Lucas is in my opinion making quality films for children. They're not soft-pedaled Barney crap, but they're also not Reservoir Dogs (and that's a Good Thing IMHO). It just so happens that a bunch of us who were the target audience for his last films are VERY VERY excited about this next batch. I can't understand why that's a bad thing.
So according to you, the movie sucked because the herd said they liked it. You, through some Mary Mary Quite Contrary logic, say "Since the herd liked it, I must NOT like it to preserve my individuality!" Somebody else is still controlling your preferences. Me, I watched Titanic, thought it was a relatively not awful movie, and ground my teeth every time I heard Celine Dion wailing (which would have happened with or without the big boat).
I've got 2 tickets for TPM, and I'm giddy like a schoolgirl, and it has NOTHING to do with what the herd thinks, thank you very much.
Re:Lucas is to movies as Gates is to software
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More Star Wars Hype
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61 whole minutes! I'm impressed with the restraint exhibited by the slashdot crowd. I figure somebody would've gone there much more quickly. : )
Re:Lucas is to movies as Gates is to software
on
More Star Wars Hype
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· Score: 1
Well shit. Client=climate. Shoulda used the preview button...
Re:Lucas is to movies as Gates is to software
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More Star Wars Hype
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Has me by the short and curlies? Are you MAD? He has a movie. I wish to see it. I'm willing to pay a couple bucks (the ticket I currently have in my wallet cost a friend of mine a four hours in line and cost me $4 and some undying gratitude) to watch his movie. He elects to only show this movie in theatres of sufficient quality to do justice to the hard work he and his company put into the film. That's fine...it's showing at all the good theaters (that is, the ones I'm accustomed to going to) here in town. He's licensed some manufacturers to make toys based on his IP. That's fine too, I've bought some of the toys and I feel that the pleasure they bring me is worth more than the money I paid for them.
Lucas isn't coercing ANYBODY. The comparisons that some people insist on making ( X is like Bill Gates/Microsoft because they want to make money on their products and services), where X is Red Hat, George Lucas, or the fucking Easter Bunny are tired and pointless. Believe it or not, it is indeed possible in today's economic client to make money using good products, rather than shady business tactics. I've never seen CONCLUSIVE evidence that Lucas is anything more nefarious than a good storyteller, a savvy marketeer, and a zealous defender of his intellectual property. Hell, I wish I could be remembered that way!
Umm...well, gee, I seem to have misplaced my 70mm film projector. DVD is not all things to all people, to be sure, but it's a damn sight better than a WHOLE LOT of alternatives. It's a VERY convenient, VERY compact, VERY user friendly format, and I think it's terrific. How would YOU make the "ultimate repository" publicly available?
I KNOW that the people-soft one was tongue in cheek, but what did you EXPECT to hear from an Intel marketing drone? And anyway, who wants to be stuck watching TPM behind some goober in a day-glo reflective bunny suit?
I couldn't care less about the hype. It's not in my way, it's not going to take away from my enjoyment of the movie, and if having Star Wars Lego sets constitutes hype, then HYPE AWAY. I've already conceded that unless the movie is HORRIBLE, I'm going to LOVE it, if for no other reasons than that it puts me back in touch with some happy childhood memories. That's worth the price of a ticket to ME, thanks.
All the critics and naysayers and killjoys are welcome to their opinion. I just kinda feel sorry for them.
Real science fiction fans can tell the difference between science fiction and space opera. Star Wars never has been, and never will be, sci fi. If you don't like Star Wars, I'm sorry. It's a real shame that you can't appreciate the craftsmanship of this epic (I use the term in the formal sense, not in the marketing drivel sense) story. The Phantom Menace's marketing blitz happened ONLY because Star Wars was BRILLIANT filmmaking. Me, I just got back from Toys R Us buying a couple Star Wars Lego sets, bringing together two of my fondest childhood memories. If you don't have memories like that, you can't be expected to understand why some of us are SO fond of these films and these toys.
A business found a profitable niche, and therefore they're like Microsoft? I don't think that stands up to rational scrutiny. It is simply not possible for any company to legally exert the control over the Linux community that Microsoft exerts over the WinTel PC community. Why? GPL.
That's a very interesting perspective. I'm not entirely sure I agree, though. I have no formal training in ethics, but I think of myself as a person with a strong sense of right and wrong. I agree entirely that what is/should be ethical has little correlation with what is/should be legal (IE is it unethical for me to drive 75mph? Depending on the circumstances, I'd argue that often the answer is no. However, in Texas, it is illegal).
Are you saying that it would be unethical for me to, for instance, read The Anarchist's Cookbook to find out how to build improvised explosives and firearms?
I agree with you that self control is a matter of ethics, but I do not understand the jump between "I am an unethical person because I did action X" and "I am an unethical person because I entertained notion Y".
This is ridiculous. A "death-obsessed" culture is no less ethically legitimate than our current "money-obsessed" culture that we are currently stuck in. Being obsessed with death, or the occult, or cannibalism, or chopping up people into little bitty bits is OK. DOING many of these things is illegal and unethical. I can THINK about whatever the hell I want to. I can take an academic interest in LITERALLY ANYTHING, and that is ethically and morally just fine. Puritanical notions about forbidden knowledge are simply ridiculous. One culture being better or worse than another can only be determined by history, and it's a notoriously dog-eat-dog progression. Doesn't get much more Darwinian than that.
Having said that, I agree with you that the notion of the "right" to Internet access is absolutely absurd. We are FREE to use the Internet, but we do not have any RIGHT to do so.
I'd be real interested to hear your line of reasoning, since the number of relevant parallels I can see are, well, zero. I mean they're both companies, in the United States, and they'd both like to make some money. How exactly is VA Research going to take away everybody else's trucks and go home? That's unpossible. : )
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure I'm understanding your logic. By not relying on magic calculating boxes, the Irish are the most prolific magic calculating box programming people in the world...
But that's bad, right? I still don't understand how wasting umpty bajillion minutes trying to divide two numbers wouldn't be better spent examining something that calculators CAN'T do, like number theory. I'm not advocating ignorance of how numbers work, I'm advocating being free from turning every nut and bolt in a complex problem.
When the aliens attack, I'll dust off my math book and re-learn how to do long division. Until then, I'm quite happy with my HP 48G.
This is ludicrous. Our many times removed great grandparents have indulged in blood sports throughout recorded history. I'd MUCH rather we explore our dark side in Quake than in a gladiatorial arena, or in a Crusade against unbelievers, or a football match where the crowd tramples itself to death.
(that last one just sorta snuck in there...)
Ladies and gentlemen, THERE IS A DIFFERENCE between something that happens in a computer rendered environment and something that happens in real life. It's not a question of realism, it's a question of CONSEQUENCES. If I have an arbitrarily realistic combat simulation (think Star Trek holodeck sorts of things) and one person shoots the other, the loser can still buy dinner. The consequences are NIL (well, except the loser is out the cost of dinner...). NOTHING REALLY HAPPENED. If, on the other hand, one shoots the other in real life, one person is DEAD. THAT is the only important distinction. If a person is sufficiently mentally disturbed that they cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality, that person is not competent to be out in public unsupervised.
Explain how Occam's Razor leads you to conclude that video games are to blame, and not, for instance, masturbation. Do you mean the variant of Occam's Razor that allows you to conclude whatever suits your rhetorical position, without regard to the facts? If so, I suggest you get a different one.
Huh? This STILL doesn't make any sense. These kids wore black trenchcoats. Contrary to many administrators' thinking, black trenchcoats do not make people shoot other people. If you can find me one person who plays Quake, and can demonstrate that Quake (and not milk or black trenchcoats or Wonderbread or the systematic oppression inflicted upon him by his peers or the absence of a moral code enforced by the parents) caused him to kill, we'll talk.
Please reconcile your statement that gun availability correlates to shootings in schools with the fact that in Switzerland (and, if I'm not mistaken, Israel), every household has a fully automatic rifle in the closet. Please use statistics and be specific.
Guns are not the problem. They may or may not exacerbate the problem, but I'd rather have an armed populace and take my chances with some nutjob blowing my head off than live in Kosovo (whose populace was disarmed shortly before the region exploded).
Golden Gate Bridge might have happened with calculations done by hand, but you can be Goddamn sure that the B-2 Spirit wasn't. If you're satisfied with early 19th century technology, that's fine. Me, I can't wait to have my HP mounted permanently on my forearm. : )
In my experience, exams where the prof permits calculators are substantially more difficult than ones where only the brain is allowed. When they started allowing calculators on the SATs, the entire test was rewritten for that purpose.
Why should I use my brain's processor time for long division? Why should I memorize log tables? This is totally useless knowledge. Why shouldn't we concentrate on training our brains to synthesize, rather than be a lookup table for numbers? While I agree that it's important to be taught how to divide manually, and memorize SOME multiplication tables, at some point in the secondary education process, calculators should not only be allowed, but encouraged. You can simply conquer bigger problems in less time if you don't have to do long division.
When did Vader see 3PO? They never crossed paths. And anyhow, how would Vader differentiate 3PO from every other protocol droid he encountered? It'd be like trying to pick out a single green Ford Taurus out of a mall parking lot.
The decisions become more difficult, maybe, but it's still our responsibility as sentient beings to make them, rather than default to the popular viewpoint.
Now that I've seen the movie twice, I can safely tell you that it NUKED Titanic's happy ass, but that's just my opinion.
So don't let them. Don't believe the hype. George Lucas isn't exactly sitting on your chest with a plunger, you know. Why do you let PepsiCo decide whether or not you're going to enjoy a given movie? If you want to go see it, do so. If you don't, don't. Nobody's forcing anybody to do anything.
Are you dense? I never had any money for toys when I was a kid, and now I do. If you don't understand why playing with Lego and action figures and neat models is fun, then I feel very very sorry for you. You might think that makes you more mature, but I just think it's kinda sad.
Note that LUCAS is NOT calling this the movie of the millenium. Blaming Lucas for something that other people said, and taking his movie to task for it, is rather inappropriate, don't you think?
Look, people, the hype DOESN'T MATTER. It's safe to say that any movie/director who appears on every major news magazine's cover in the space of a month is pretty well hyped. These very news magazines are whipping themselves into a froth about the hype surrounding this movie, hype which THEY are responsible for making.
What's Lucas to do? There's a HUGE grassroots fan movement around this movie. The fanboys (myself included) are beside themselves with anticipation for this movie. It IS only a movie, but it's a BIG FUN movie that I've been waiting a good long time to see. If he declines all these interviews, he becomes a reclusive antisocial hermit. If he accepts all these interviews, and tries to communicate his goals for these films, he becomes a narcissistic sell-out. He's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. What would YOU do in his situation?
As far as the marketing blitz, it's annoying. It's kitschy. It's pretty darn grotesque in the form of that Taco Bell/KFC/Pizza Hut commercial. However, it's ALSO American business. Would YOU refuse that enormous pile of money? I know that I can't say I would.
George Lucas is in my opinion making quality films for children. They're not soft-pedaled Barney crap, but they're also not Reservoir Dogs (and that's a Good Thing IMHO). It just so happens that a bunch of us who were the target audience for his last films are VERY VERY excited about this next batch. I can't understand why that's a bad thing.
So according to you, the movie sucked because the herd said they liked it. You, through some Mary Mary Quite Contrary logic, say "Since the herd liked it, I must NOT like it to preserve my individuality!" Somebody else is still controlling your preferences. Me, I watched Titanic, thought it was a relatively not awful movie, and ground my teeth every time I heard Celine Dion wailing (which would have happened with or without the big boat).
I've got 2 tickets for TPM, and I'm giddy like a schoolgirl, and it has NOTHING to do with what the herd thinks, thank you very much.
61 whole minutes! I'm impressed with the restraint exhibited by the slashdot crowd. I figure somebody would've gone there much more quickly. : )
Well shit. Client=climate. Shoulda used the preview button...
Has me by the short and curlies? Are you MAD? He has a movie. I wish to see it. I'm willing to pay a couple bucks (the ticket I currently have in my wallet cost a friend of mine a four hours in line and cost me $4 and some undying gratitude) to watch his movie. He elects to only show this movie in theatres of sufficient quality to do justice to the hard work he and his company put into the film. That's fine...it's showing at all the good theaters (that is, the ones I'm accustomed to going to) here in town. He's licensed some manufacturers to make toys based on his IP. That's fine too, I've bought some of the toys and I feel that the pleasure they bring me is worth more than the money I paid for them.
Lucas isn't coercing ANYBODY. The comparisons that some people insist on making ( X is like Bill Gates/Microsoft because they want to make money on their products and services), where X is Red Hat, George Lucas, or the fucking Easter Bunny are tired and pointless. Believe it or not, it is indeed possible in today's economic client to make money using good products, rather than shady business tactics. I've never seen CONCLUSIVE evidence that Lucas is anything more nefarious than a good storyteller, a savvy marketeer, and a zealous defender of his intellectual property. Hell, I wish I could be remembered that way!
Umm...well, gee, I seem to have misplaced my 70mm film projector. DVD is not all things to all people, to be sure, but it's a damn sight better than a WHOLE LOT of alternatives. It's a VERY convenient, VERY compact, VERY user friendly format, and I think it's terrific. How would YOU make the "ultimate repository" publicly available?
I KNOW that the people-soft one was tongue in cheek, but what did you EXPECT to hear from an Intel marketing drone? And anyway, who wants to be stuck watching TPM behind some goober in a day-glo reflective bunny suit?
I couldn't care less about the hype. It's not in my way, it's not going to take away from my enjoyment of the movie, and if having Star Wars Lego sets constitutes hype, then HYPE AWAY. I've already conceded that unless the movie is HORRIBLE, I'm going to LOVE it, if for no other reasons than that it puts me back in touch with some happy childhood memories. That's worth the price of a ticket to ME, thanks.
All the critics and naysayers and killjoys are welcome to their opinion. I just kinda feel sorry for them.
Real science fiction fans can tell the difference between science fiction and space opera. Star Wars never has been, and never will be, sci fi. If you don't like Star Wars, I'm sorry. It's a real shame that you can't appreciate the craftsmanship of this epic (I use the term in the formal sense, not in the marketing drivel sense) story. The Phantom Menace's marketing blitz happened ONLY because Star Wars was BRILLIANT filmmaking. Me, I just got back from Toys R Us buying a couple Star Wars Lego sets, bringing together two of my fondest childhood memories. If you don't have memories like that, you can't be expected to understand why some of us are SO fond of these films and these toys.
A business found a profitable niche, and therefore they're like Microsoft? I don't think that stands up to rational scrutiny. It is simply not possible for any company to legally exert the control over the Linux community that Microsoft exerts over the WinTel PC community. Why? GPL.
That's a very interesting perspective. I'm not entirely sure I agree, though. I have no formal training in ethics, but I think of myself as a person with a strong sense of right and wrong. I agree entirely that what is/should be ethical has little correlation with what is/should be legal (IE is it unethical for me to drive 75mph? Depending on the circumstances, I'd argue that often the answer is no. However, in Texas, it is illegal).
Are you saying that it would be unethical for me to, for instance, read The Anarchist's Cookbook to find out how to build improvised explosives and firearms?
I agree with you that self control is a matter of ethics, but I do not understand the jump between "I am an unethical person because I did action X" and "I am an unethical person because I entertained notion Y".
This is ridiculous. A "death-obsessed" culture is no less ethically legitimate than our current "money-obsessed" culture that we are currently stuck in. Being obsessed with death, or the occult, or cannibalism, or chopping up people into little bitty bits is OK. DOING many of these things is illegal and unethical. I can THINK about whatever the hell I want to. I can take an academic interest in LITERALLY ANYTHING, and that is ethically and morally just fine. Puritanical notions about forbidden knowledge are simply ridiculous. One culture being better or worse than another can only be determined by history, and it's a notoriously dog-eat-dog progression. Doesn't get much more Darwinian than that.
Having said that, I agree with you that the notion of the "right" to Internet access is absolutely absurd. We are FREE to use the Internet, but we do not have any RIGHT to do so.
I'd be real interested to hear your line of reasoning, since the number of relevant parallels I can see are, well, zero. I mean they're both companies, in the United States, and they'd both like to make some money. How exactly is VA Research going to take away everybody else's trucks and go home? That's unpossible. : )