Mr. Anthony, it is with very mixed emotions that I pose this comment/question. On the one hand, the stories and characters that you created and I read about in my mid-teens have endured the test of time. 'A Spell for Chameleon', 'Split Infinity', and 'On a Pale Horse' are tales that I'll think about fondly from time to time for the rest of my life.
On the other hand, I'll always remember the disappointments I had reading most of the subsequent books of the Xanth and Incarnations series. From my perspective, you have the ability to bring some very clever ideas to initial life, but then make the mistake of milking those ideas until they're utterly lifeless.
I would humbly encourage you to stick with singletons or at most trilogies in the future, and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD... PLEASE DO NOT WRITE ANOTHER XANTH NOVEL!
My question is, at what point should an artist pass by commercial success for artistic integrity? Do you feel that you've gone past that point a few times?
No. You still get 100+ per day. You just don't see them in your mailbox. But the bandwidth and storage space have already been eaten, and that's really what's evil about spam.
Excellent point.
I really, really hate to say it, but I'm increasingly convinced that the only way to stop spam is to do so through the legal system.
Ironically, though, anti-spam measures only serve to hide the problem from the general public! Anti-spam measures keep your average internet user from getting so pissed off that they'll vote for politicians who promote legislation that would alleviate the problem.
I hate to say it, but the biggest problem with getting enough critical mass to force legislation through is the anti-spam community that is hiding the true magnitude of the problem from your average voter.
The part of the article I found amusing was the end where they assure us that even if robots one day can beat us at soccer that we should still be proud, because building the robots was a human endeavor.
Almost every article relating to some type of AI has to get those little insecurity-based digs in. It reminds me of all those Star Trek episodes where human beings are held up as the treasures of the universe.
It's very telling and sad, really. We can't just celebrate achievement for its own sake, we have to tie it to our family, our school, our nation, or (at very least) our species.
Unfortunately, I don't think that we'll lose that immaturity any time soon.
ICANN's extremely well-paid and extremely sleazy attorney
I credit the Slashdot editors for aggregating most of the topics that I find interesting -- however, I don't think that I'm going to be accusing them of jounalistic integrity any time soon.
In most cases, Republicans are considered to be more hesitant to interfere with market forces than Democrats. This is a generally accepted political party distinction. The onus would be upon you to prove it wrong. However, you didn't even attempt to do that, you still continue to ignore my actual argument so that you can make your own irrelevant points.
But, E3 isn't "looked up to" as a source of fair-minded gaming reviews. It's an excuse for those in the industry to get together and show off their wares in hopes of getting some good press, a few resumes, and laid at an after-show party.
For useful gaming reviews, stick to magazines and web sites. My personal favorite is Computer Gaming World, because of its more mature approach to a subject that tends to be dominated by adolescent superlatives, trash talking, and an ingrained sense of style over substance.
Hmm, looks like you're having a lot of fun creating straw men over there. When you're ready to discuss what I actually said, re-read my post and feel free to try again -- otherwise, I'll just assume you're off ranting on your own tangent.
When you publish something on the web, it is publicly available via HTTP. End of story. Responsible netizens can observe the requests of "robots.txt" but they don't have to. If you want something more controlled, create a VPN or intranet or some other kind of non-public data server.
Your argument is analogous to those of spammers and telemarketers. You have a publicly available email box, so we can use it to send you spam - You have a publicly reachable phone, so we can use it to call you to sell you stuff.
Respecting the wishes of those who create content, own email boxes, or have telephones would trump the wishes of those who wish to use those resources -- in my ideal society.
They are deliberately snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in what is very transparently a sweetheart deal,
Why is it transparently a sweetheart deal? The Bush administration takes a typically Republican "hands off" stance to the private sector. It's one thing to not agree with that stance. It's another thing to instead accuse the administration of corrupt practices.
and records of campaign contributions by Microsoft (which you can look up online if you're so inclinded) bear this out.
But Microsoft gives money to both parties. In this case, it was in Microsoft's best interests to see a Republican "hands off" president in the Whitehouse. That their campaign contributions implied a quid pro quo is an assumption you're making based on what I can only guess are your political leanings. Logic doesn't really support your assertion.
Keep in mind that all politicians accept campaign contributions. Are you implying that all politicians take bribes? Or maybe that whenever a company or individual made a contribution to a politician and that politician influenced an outcome to be in favor of that contributor -- that it indicates the acceptance of a bribe?
Woah, not saying I agree with the Bush administration's position on this. Just saying that alleging capitulation for a bribe by a "journalistic" web site is way out of line.
Of course all rambus has to do now is buy a president to get out from under this.
Isn't it a tad irresponsible to accuse Bush of being "bought" by Microsoft because his administration is hesitant to interfere with market forces -- even when your typical/. geek would prefer that he did?
Republicans are normally slower to jump on the antitrust bandwagon. Accusations of impropriety are just way out of line, though.
Ya know, so very little is understood about the underlying nature of gravity. We don't know if there is an associated particle that plays a roll in a gravitational field. We don't even have a basic understanding of how gravity interacts with mass.
Given that lack of knowledge, your statement is really no more than just a shot from the hip (a guess based on your intuition).
I say that the bright orb in the night sky is the Moon, a naturally formed heavenly body to which we've sent astronauts.
Some other guy says that it's really an alien space ship, and that the "Sea of Tranquility" is just a big lens used to spy on us.
My claim is considered "ordinary" because there already exists "extraordinary" evidence for it. The other guy's claim is considered to be extraordinary because there's no real evidence for his claim.
So if you think about it, every theory requires a great deal evidence for it to be accepted as fact.
In most ways, regexen will be less complex than ever, yet more powerful. Read Larry's rationale for changing them and let us know how he's wrong -- his reasons made a lot of sense to me.
5 years after it's released, every regex library in existence will be compatible with the Perl 6 way of doing things, so you might as well start learning them now.
/me smacks himself in the head for even getting into this.
I think it's WAY more plausible than the alternative (oblivion). I mean, say there was a big bang. Well, who lit the fuse?
So, instead of being happy with the necessity of the spontaneous creation (or eternal existence) of a universe of our complexity, you've added a cognizant being who is powerful enough to create a universe of our complexity. Do an Internet search for "Occam's Razor" to see why that argument is an inherently flawed one. Comforting? Yes. Supported? No.
The reason I'm against abortion and stem cell research is that maybe it's okay and maybe it's not, but a human life is just one thing I don't want to fuck with, at any cost.
If God puts souls into embryos that are going to be harvested (he's all-knowing, in most religions)... who is to blame for allowing the soul to be destroyed?
You *are* paying for that space, no matter what snow job you might be buying into.
No, Tivo paid a premium for that space, and the consumer contractually agreed to let Tivo keep that space in the consumer's home. If the users wouldn't agree to that arrangement, Tivo would either need to raise the price of the hardware or buy hardware with less capacity. The arrangement is called a "subsidy", which actually tends to benefit consumers.
I've heard plenty of pundits on the environmentalists' side that have espoused imminent death, from a circa 1970 documentary I remember watching in school that predicted that by the 1990's acid rain might reach deadly proportions -- to the early 1990's, when Ted Danson predicted that within ten years, our environment would collapse. How about when Jimmy Carter told the nation that we had 50 years of petroleum left in the world? Uhoh... we'd better start hording now!
And if by some chance you're claiming that the "other" side is the one that I've grossly exaggerated, just spend a few days listening to Rush Limbaugh, you'll hear him say directly that man has had little if no impact upon the environment.
Get your head out of your ass and realize that your side is almost equally culpable in the attempted slaying of the truth.
People like me who are in the middle have no respect for you extremists, and we won't support you until you start pushing facts, not dogma.
It really is such a sickening debate. On the one hand, you have the Rush Limbaughs of the world who completely deny the possibility that we've done any damage to the environment. Then on the other side, we have the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and Hollywood that keeps telling us that we're all going to die any second from our horrifying environmental practices.
Both sides are all too willing to pick their sources of "information" selectively. That's not Science, that's Religion.
Lomborg has his issues with adherence to good Science, but I think his willingness to re-examine the issue from another direction is refreshing. Overall, we'd be better off if more of the combatants took this approach.
If you just hand off the programming work to a team overseas (especially in India), be prepared to have it utterly fail. I've seen it happen time after time after time...
Your only chance is if you have key company personnel overseas managing things every step of the way. You've got to have a very good manager there making sure that *your* priorities are being adhered to.
Overall, I'd say to be extraordinarily careful before undertaking offshore development.
Re:Bolo... networked Mac tank game
on
Netrek
·
· Score: 2
Bolo still rules, even after all these years. I play Everquest, Unreal Tournament, etc. -- but Bolo feels the most like a "sport".
My wife and I caught the noon showing, and we both really enjoyed it.
It's very well done.
The good:
- The performances were top notch.
- The effect of swinging on a web through New York was excellent and very "realistic".
- The pacing really kept things interesting.
The not bad, but could be better:
- Toby Maguire always sounds like he needs to clear a loogie out of his throat.
- It's rather amazing that the general public doesn't figure out the identities of Spider-Man or the Green Goblin. Spidey does lots of pretty amazing stuff as Peter Parker (without his mask on), and the Green Goblin's identity should be fairly obvious based on his research and government contracts.
First, consider how many of the things in 1984 have come true
But my point is: Look at the things in 1984 that *haven't* come true. Instead of the one-sided privacy-invasion hell that 1984 depicted, reality includes balances of power that prevented it. In other words, 1984 isn't an accurate prediction of reality, but the way it's referenced, you'd think that it is. Rather than dealing with reality on its own terms, people use it to exaggerate the extent of their problems in order to make their point.
Slashdot Mirror
Mr. Anthony, it is with very mixed emotions that I pose this comment/question. On the one hand, the stories and characters that you created and I read about in my mid-teens have endured the test of time. 'A Spell for Chameleon', 'Split Infinity', and 'On a Pale Horse' are tales that I'll think about fondly from time to time for the rest of my life.
On the other hand, I'll always remember the disappointments I had reading most of the subsequent books of the Xanth and Incarnations series. From my perspective, you have the ability to bring some very clever ideas to initial life, but then make the mistake of milking those ideas until they're utterly lifeless.
I would humbly encourage you to stick with singletons or at most trilogies in the future, and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD... PLEASE DO NOT WRITE ANOTHER XANTH NOVEL!
My question is, at what point should an artist pass by commercial success for artistic integrity? Do you feel that you've gone past that point a few times?
Yeah, but then you have to put up with all of those beautiful Swedish women... who needs that? :)
No. You still get 100+ per day. You just don't see them in your mailbox. But the bandwidth and storage space have already been eaten, and that's really what's evil about spam.
Excellent point.
I really, really hate to say it, but I'm increasingly convinced that the only way to stop spam is to do so through the legal system.
Ironically, though, anti-spam measures only serve to hide the problem from the general public! Anti-spam measures keep your average internet user from getting so pissed off that they'll vote for politicians who promote legislation that would alleviate the problem.
I hate to say it, but the biggest problem with getting enough critical mass to force legislation through is the anti-spam community that is hiding the true magnitude of the problem from your average voter.
The part of the article I found amusing was the end where they assure us that even if robots one day can beat us at soccer that we should still be proud, because building the robots was a human endeavor.
Almost every article relating to some type of AI has to get those little insecurity-based digs in. It reminds me of all those Star Trek episodes where human beings are held up as the treasures of the universe.
It's very telling and sad, really. We can't just celebrate achievement for its own sake, we have to tie it to our family, our school, our nation, or (at very least) our species.
Unfortunately, I don't think that we'll lose that immaturity any time soon.
ICANN's extremely well-paid and extremely sleazy attorney
I credit the Slashdot editors for aggregating most of the topics that I find interesting -- however, I don't think that I'm going to be accusing them of jounalistic integrity any time soon.
"hesitant" != "does not"
In most cases, Republicans are considered to be more hesitant to interfere with market forces than Democrats. This is a generally accepted political party distinction. The onus would be upon you to prove it wrong. However, you didn't even attempt to do that, you still continue to ignore my actual argument so that you can make your own irrelevant points.
As long as you're not a member of the gaming mafia, that's cool.
But, E3 isn't "looked up to" as a source of fair-minded gaming reviews. It's an excuse for those in the industry to get together and show off their wares in hopes of getting some good press, a few resumes, and laid at an after-show party.
For useful gaming reviews, stick to magazines and web sites. My personal favorite is Computer Gaming World, because of its more mature approach to a subject that tends to be dominated by adolescent superlatives, trash talking, and an ingrained sense of style over substance.
Hmm, looks like you're having a lot of fun creating straw men over there. When you're ready to discuss what I actually said, re-read my post and feel free to try again -- otherwise, I'll just assume you're off ranting on your own tangent.
When you publish something on the web, it is publicly available via HTTP. End of story. Responsible netizens can observe the requests of "robots.txt" but they don't have to. If you want something more controlled, create a VPN or intranet or some other kind of non-public data server.
Your argument is analogous to those of spammers and telemarketers. You have a publicly available email box, so we can use it to send you spam - You have a publicly reachable phone, so we can use it to call you to sell you stuff.
Respecting the wishes of those who create content, own email boxes, or have telephones would trump the wishes of those who wish to use those resources -- in my ideal society.
They are deliberately snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in what is very transparently a sweetheart deal,
Why is it transparently a sweetheart deal? The Bush administration takes a typically Republican "hands off" stance to the private sector. It's one thing to not agree with that stance. It's another thing to instead accuse the administration of corrupt practices.
and records of campaign contributions by Microsoft (which you can look up online if you're so inclinded) bear this out.
But Microsoft gives money to both parties. In this case, it was in Microsoft's best interests to see a Republican "hands off" president in the Whitehouse. That their campaign contributions implied a quid pro quo is an assumption you're making based on what I can only guess are your political leanings. Logic doesn't really support your assertion.
Keep in mind that all politicians accept campaign contributions. Are you implying that all politicians take bribes? Or maybe that whenever a company or individual made a contribution to a politician and that politician influenced an outcome to be in favor of that contributor -- that it indicates the acceptance of a bribe?
Woah, not saying I agree with the Bush administration's position on this. Just saying that alleging capitulation for a bribe by a "journalistic" web site is way out of line.
Of course all rambus has to do now is buy a president to get out from under this.
/. geek would prefer that he did?
Isn't it a tad irresponsible to accuse Bush of being "bought" by Microsoft because his administration is hesitant to interfere with market forces -- even when your typical
Republicans are normally slower to jump on the antitrust bandwagon. Accusations of impropriety are just way out of line, though.
Billy Joel.
Ya know, so very little is understood about the underlying nature of gravity. We don't know if there is an associated particle that plays a roll in a gravitational field. We don't even have a basic understanding of how gravity interacts with mass.
Given that lack of knowledge, your statement is really no more than just a shot from the hip (a guess based on your intuition).
I say that the bright orb in the night sky is the Moon, a naturally formed heavenly body to which we've sent astronauts.
Some other guy says that it's really an alien space ship, and that the "Sea of Tranquility" is just a big lens used to spy on us.
My claim is considered "ordinary" because there already exists "extraordinary" evidence for it. The other guy's claim is considered to be extraordinary because there's no real evidence for his claim.
So if you think about it, every theory requires a great deal evidence for it to be accepted as fact.
In most ways, regexen will be less complex than ever, yet more powerful. Read Larry's rationale for changing them and let us know how he's wrong -- his reasons made a lot of sense to me.
5 years after it's released, every regex library in existence will be compatible with the Perl 6 way of doing things, so you might as well start learning them now.
/me smacks himself in the head for even getting into this.
I think it's WAY more plausible than the alternative (oblivion). I mean, say there was a big bang. Well, who lit the fuse?
So, instead of being happy with the necessity of the spontaneous creation (or eternal existence) of a universe of our complexity, you've added a cognizant being who is powerful enough to create a universe of our complexity. Do an Internet search for "Occam's Razor" to see why that argument is an inherently flawed one. Comforting? Yes. Supported? No.
The reason I'm against abortion and stem cell research is that maybe it's okay and maybe it's not, but a human life is just one thing I don't want to fuck with, at any cost.
If God puts souls into embryos that are going to be harvested (he's all-knowing, in most religions)... who is to blame for allowing the soul to be destroyed?
You *are* paying for that space, no matter what snow job you might be buying into.
No, Tivo paid a premium for that space, and the consumer contractually agreed to let Tivo keep that space in the consumer's home. If the users wouldn't agree to that arrangement, Tivo would either need to raise the price of the hardware or buy hardware with less capacity. The arrangement is called a "subsidy", which actually tends to benefit consumers.
Your post is a case in point.
I've heard plenty of pundits on the environmentalists' side that have espoused imminent death, from a circa 1970 documentary I remember watching in school that predicted that by the 1990's acid rain might reach deadly proportions -- to the early 1990's, when Ted Danson predicted that within ten years, our environment would collapse. How about when Jimmy Carter told the nation that we had 50 years of petroleum left in the world? Uhoh... we'd better start hording now!
And if by some chance you're claiming that the "other" side is the one that I've grossly exaggerated, just spend a few days listening to Rush Limbaugh, you'll hear him say directly that man has had little if no impact upon the environment.
Get your head out of your ass and realize that your side is almost equally culpable in the attempted slaying of the truth.
People like me who are in the middle have no respect for you extremists, and we won't support you until you start pushing facts, not dogma.
It really is such a sickening debate. On the one hand, you have the Rush Limbaughs of the world who completely deny the possibility that we've done any damage to the environment. Then on the other side, we have the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and Hollywood that keeps telling us that we're all going to die any second from our horrifying environmental practices.
Both sides are all too willing to pick their sources of "information" selectively. That's not Science, that's Religion.
Lomborg has his issues with adherence to good Science, but I think his willingness to re-examine the issue from another direction is refreshing. Overall, we'd be better off if more of the combatants took this approach.
If you just hand off the programming work to a team overseas (especially in India), be prepared to have it utterly fail. I've seen it happen time after time after time...
Your only chance is if you have key company personnel overseas managing things every step of the way. You've got to have a very good manager there making sure that *your* priorities are being adhered to.
Overall, I'd say to be extraordinarily careful before undertaking offshore development.
Bolo still rules, even after all these years. I play Everquest, Unreal Tournament, etc. -- but Bolo feels the most like a "sport".
Here's the Bolo Homepage
My wife and I caught the noon showing, and we both really enjoyed it.
It's very well done.
The good:
- The performances were top notch.
- The effect of swinging on a web through New York was excellent and very "realistic".
- The pacing really kept things interesting.
The not bad, but could be better:
- Toby Maguire always sounds like he needs to clear a loogie out of his throat.
- It's rather amazing that the general public doesn't figure out the identities of Spider-Man or the Green Goblin. Spidey does lots of pretty amazing stuff as Peter Parker (without his mask on), and the Green Goblin's identity should be fairly obvious based on his research and government contracts.
First, consider how many of the things in 1984 have come true
But my point is: Look at the things in 1984 that *haven't* come true. Instead of the one-sided privacy-invasion hell that 1984 depicted, reality includes balances of power that prevented it. In other words, 1984 isn't an accurate prediction of reality, but the way it's referenced, you'd think that it is. Rather than dealing with reality on its own terms, people use it to exaggerate the extent of their problems in order to make their point.