Geez I've already been modded down once
on
Greenbacks No More
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· Score: 2
But the entire reason to change the money so far has been "Americans are resistant to change" and so, to prove that they aren't, they should change.
Huh? Because using US cash is only marginally more difficult to use than other cash, it should change. C'mon... It's not like US money is all written in 3cm squares with only barcodes on them to differentiate them.
A similar argument: "In the US they only have stick-shift automobiles! As a foreign contractor this is annoying! Back home everyone drives automatics! And when we tell them to change they say 'We should change just because it assaults your refined foreign tastes?' like a bunch of rubes! Stupid americans..."
To say that a people are free to chose only what you let them isn't freedom.
Actually I wish all automobiles had to be stick-shifts. It would solve the cellphone problem right quick.
God... are people that stupid?
on
Greenbacks No More
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· Score: 1, Flamebait
Either you are a) using low amounts of bills so it is not an issue or b) you are using a lot of bills so you damn well better pay attention to what you are handling??? Right now US currency is one of the few non-retarded cash systems out there. The Simpsons summed it up perfectly this Wednesday:
"Look at all that pink and purple." "Our money sure is gay."
To: Federal Reserve Re: US Currency Don't be Gay.
I think you are overestimating what is being done
on
Robocup 2002 Now Underway
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· Score: 5, Informative
Ok, I'm not there but as far as I know android team v. android team is not being done this year, contrary to what the article is insinuating.
* Standing Still on One Leg * Humanoid walk - out from one end, around a pylon and back, * Shoot - where the bot is able to shoot on the goal and get it in. * Penalty Shootout * 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 Soccer * Freestyle - Five minutes of judged performance art.
According to the organizers they are just hoping to get some teams to try the first few! And as you can see the competitive playing of soccer is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaayy down the list and probably aren't even being attempted this 'Cup. Sure, those nice posed shots of those Sony bots look nice, but those aren't competition pictures. Sure, the information on the Official Robocup site is sparse, but don't you think that they would have some big announcement if it did?
This article from MSNBC is confusing one league (the humanoids) with another (the non-humanoid) in an attempt to create hype. Personally I think Robocup deserves it, but not by misconstruing what's going on.
Ok we have seen a pretty consistent stream of articles about how Walmart/walmart.com have taken a decided interest in pushing non-MS OS machines (be they Linux based or clean).
But the 10k question is: who is behind this? I mean, this isn't like some normal free or open software guru we've known for ten years. Somebody at Walmart must be putting their John Hanncock on this.
Personally I'd like to get to know a little more about them (to congratulate them at least). Even more so I'd like a little more insight in to what got them started on this and how it all went down.
Short take of this Post: I wanna/. Interview! I'm sure it would go over huge.
To me this seems to be one of the first mainstream (outside of the IT industry and for endusers) acceptances of things most geeks hold dear. Who wants to miss this part of history?
Isn't this always the problem? I mean, every problem? We can't live without something, but we can't have too much of it: Patents, seratonin, oxygen, laws, protein, etc, etc, etc. Hell, probably half of the discussions on Slashdot could be resolved by realizing that a middle ground equalibrium point needs to be reached.
Sadly every time a new subject is broached, two factions arise with the same redundant "yes but" arguments. And you always have the brave few trying to reconcile everything. But it's always pointless. After a point all the damn DeCSS/MPAA/RIAA/DMCA topics look the same.
The core of the problem: there is no concrete value of optimality that can be stated that is true in all infinite cases.
Examples: How many patents should we allow? How much protein should we eat a day? How many rights does a corporation have?
Has anyone mentioned internet radio as an alternative? Ok, it's broadband only in terms of possible audience... but that doesn't stop me from listening to Bassdrive.com all day, everyday.
Sure it is usually non-mainstream music. Who cares if it doesn't appeal to the widest, most general audience?
The key of internet radio is that you can usually find what you like. I have stations that play early 90's jungle, hard-step, tech-step, garage two-step, jungle-ragga, acid jazz, russian pop/rock, independent US hip-hop, french hard core.
Ok so it might just be me listening to it. Oh, boo-hoo. Either you listen to what you like with the distinct possibility of ostracising yourself from the mainstream, or accept the shill Godsmack/Creed/DMB so you can talk to other folk about music/hit bigger shows with your friends. Of course then you can pay your 400 bucks for a Rolling Stones ticket.
And that is another thing: underground/independent metal, rock, death metal, electronica, detroit house, hip-hop, and jazz have all survived very well without any help of the mainstream. Steve Albini, Martin Adkins, El-P. Sometimes you have to accept that most people aren't looking for what you are serving.
But if you like this kind of thing, this may be the sort of thing you kind of like.
Since the clones really only came to the rescue. I would usually consider an "attack" when someone does a preemptive strike-
Oh wait, Lucas was talking about Hayden Christenssen's acting!
Anakin: "Obi-wan... is... holding me #$#*@!" Grip: "Oh no! The Hayden-bot is malfunctioning! Everybody... run!!!"
Spoilers and general insights * The Yoda fight was cool. * Jango being able to kill Jedi easily and then not was lame. * When Boba picked up his father's helmet, Jango's head should have popped out. * When lil' Boba and Jango were flying around was anyone else thinking of Bruce Spence in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome? ("Their ain't no Mara-Mara Land!") * R2 having jets was stupid. * Killing Tuskin Radiers, vicious nomadic peoples who just pillage and steal, doesn't seem to be that big of a "sin". * How many outfits did Amadala take with her? "We are refugees... refugees with a full wardrobe!!!" She must have changed outfits forty times. * Christopher Lee kicks ass. But the problem was that he made no appearance until the last 45 minutes. Also it just makes Darth Maul even that more lame: a minor character who should have either hung around or should have just been replaced with Darth Tyrannus in the first place. Scaramanga!!! * When was Obi-wan just all about explaining the plot? "Let me go here so I can explain this and then make useless dialogue to explain the plot"
Final Verdict: I guess the background story to a good story isn't necessarily good nor interesting.
I was watching the latest Kurosawa documentary DVD (BTW: it kicks ass) and he says at the very beginning that he always hated expository dialogue and always tried to avoid it. He actually tries to view scenes as silent movies and see how they would work and then add any necessary dialogue. Lucas, who paid homage to Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, now seems sidetracked with his own Hero Mythos crappola egoism and has forgotten the teachings of a true master.
Of course without Lucas's (and FF Coppola's) help, Kagamusha and Ran would have never been made. For that reason I can never hate Lucas. Although he may be hit and miss, he seems to recognize true genius.
That on tablet 5,532 there is the first known operating version of Vi. The original scribes had talked about installing Emacs but not enough clay could be drawn from the river to compile the byte-code.
Ebert has a good basic measuring stick of a good movie: if you can remember any quotes from it.
Then list five memorable lines from Phantom Menace.
Then list five lines from A New Hope.
"Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope."
"That's no moon! It's a space station."
"When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master."
"Only the master of evil, Darth."
"He doesn't like you." "I'm sorry." "I don't like you either. You just watch yourself. We're wanted men. I have the death sentence on twelve systems." "I'll be careful." "You'll be DEAD!"
Do you think that Attack of the Clones will be as basically enjoyable? I don't think so. At least we get to see some Mandalorians. I'm going to wait. Maybe catch a matinee.
Personally I want to see the Star Wars where Jar-Jar dies on every page.
MASK? Hell yes! I remember one of my most vivid memories from my childhood was that, when the Challenger blew up, I wanted to watch MASK but my Mom wouldn't let me and we had to watch the news.
Ok so it was inconsiderate but I was six at the time!
Well I have a feeling its for more than that. A guy that worked with my Mom had Lou Gehrig's Disease and, as he slowly lost control of his body, ended up using a lot of hands free technology.
This corner of the technology market existence based upon physically disabling afflictions, not laziness. Personally I wish that there was no need for it.
You can go out, get a full promo copy of a cd that isn't out yet (El-P - Fantastic Damage, Blackalicious - Flaming Arrows) or a cd version that will never be released (N*E*R*D - In Search Of (import version), Latyrx).
Hmmm, ok. No, there has to be something that will prove that an honor digital music system would work:
You get to be monitored by a large corporate service and are accountable to the government.
versus
Complete and utter anonymity (for sake of argument).
Conclusion: There is no way in Hell that commercial digital music sharing will take off as long as a viable free PtP service(s) exists.
I can recall back in the late '80, I used to buy a lot of "45's".. that is 7-inch records with one song on each side (Memo to 13-year old 'l33t doods': this is where the terms "A-Side" and "B-Side" came from).
And with the advent of the Turntable as Instrument you somehow think that we know less about vinyl than you? Not to be aggressive (which that first sentence is, I can see) but the development of modern Hip-hop/Electronica/Jungle/2-step/etc DJ/Turntalbist culture the vinyl LP is probably more important now than it has been since the advent of the tape cassette.
But then I'm seeing a large anti-hip-hop/rap vibe on this site... probably from a deep lack of understanding about "those people's" music. I'm sorry but todays music is not what is shown on MTV, VH-1, BET (or, hell, even MTV2 and MM for that matter). Todays music is a solid steel mongrel of a thousand ethnic styles that cultivates old and ancient tastes with the new.
Actually I hear that concerts for most bands (save the large arena filling tours) are a break even business: most of it goes to promotion, the facility, and other costs. Much like the movie theater business.
But like you said most of the money is made in merchandise. That is why paying 20 bucks for a t-shirt from a band you really dig isn't a bad thing. Sure the shirt is shit, but most of the money is going into their pocket.
Of course musicians getting screwed over by the industry isn't anything new: Del the Funky Homosapien and Future Development, J-Live and the whole of his catalogue. Ask anyone in the underground of any scene who spent some time at a major.
Of course the GZA/Genius summed it up perfectly on "Protect Ya Neck": Who's your A&R?/A mountain climber who plays an electric guitar?
Artists gripes with the industry extend beyond genre class or race.
(A suggestion for aspiring groups: one nice thing Corrosion of Conformity did was, at their shows, you could buy their CD signed by all members of the band. The things sold like hot cakes and now I have their last two LPs signed... sweet)
The Jargon File is out there and, oddly enough it too looks pretty similar to the others described. I don't know that is speaking highly of the JF or poorly abou the rest of the work out there.
I've never looked or read any of the adword posts. It is just the same damn advert gibberish. Now instead of being a stupid animated gif or flash it's a piece of html (which is nice in a non-obtrusive way). I won't be surprised if any adblocker program figures out how to parse a page from *.google.com to remove said word ads.
IDE slots? 12? Please tell me this is a typo... or that there are 24 PCI slots. WTF would you use 12 IDE slots for that you wouldn't want to do with something a little more *ahem* modern?
If there was any movie anyone should gripe about
on
Star Wars as Pulp Sci-Fi
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· Score: 3, Insightful
It should be the Matrix. Ok David Brin was kind of on target but at least some of the things he said can be argued against: the Rebel Alliance seemed to be an alliance of all races and beings in a republic (sadly the movie is a little too much *Zap* *Boom* *Bang* to focus on this). And at least they were only attacking known military installations (the Death Star, the Star Destroyers, etc) instead of blindly razing citizens (ala some terrorist folk we know).
But now the Matrix. Damn... ok, maybe it is JUST because so many people gush about it... but what about the morality of this movie?
Morpheus points out explicitly that they are killing people even if the Matrix is virtual. That even though these nameless Redshirts and slobs are just doing what they're told because they are a part of a group hallucination it is ok to murder them en mass in extremely violent and callous ways why...?
Because we are righteous? We are doing the best thing? We are destroying the evil dictators (in the most round about way possible)?
Tell me, did Trinity and Neo have to go through the bottom floor? Did they have to kill 30 or 40 guys? Especially when they end up grabbing a Bell Huey anyway? "Who cares! They're nameless spear-chuckers! In the end their sacrifice won't be in vain!" Sounds a little: "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."
And then what about the evil tyrannical machines (beyond the FUD ludditism of the movie)? They specifically said that human beings couldn't live in a utopia so they made the Matrix the way it was.
"So?" the leather-clad hippies retort. "Where was our choice in the matter?"
What. Like the same choice you gave those SWAT guys? And the fact that the Agents possess normal humans doesn't stop Neo from blowing all them fuckers away. "Yeah! Coool!!! Bla-dow!!!" Yep, no ethical quandries here!
"But they eat people!!" Oh Jeezus. And like, when it's all over, people can just do whatever the hell they want? Anyone here get their food, house, and shelter for free? Anyone out there going to live forever that I don't know of?
And when they win: Earth is a barren wasteland with no sun and no way to support the billions of freshly freed humans (well those that survive the blazing machineguns of the "Freedom Fighters"). "Gee, thank you!" They'll all say. "This is much better!"
The only moral of the entire movie is this: Man is paranoid and reactionary. When he is not in control of his own destiny (no matter how self-destructive) he will violently lash out, blindly ignoring the consequences.
I actually thought the Seven Samurai Criterion guy got better as he went along. He talked about Kurosawa's brother and other effects upon the actor, the production of SS (which almost bankrupted Toho), and other little technical throw away stuff (like the scene of chopping firewood).
But the best DVD Commentary Track? Chopper on his autobiographical movie Chopper! Hands down! Mark "Chopper" Reid: psycho crim, proletariat sociologist, best selling Aussie author, humorist. I mean it has it all.
You can hear him pitching back the beers while their recording, its great!
Just hear him say "The year two-THOUSAND???" is worth the 20 bucks itself!!!
(since I am too lazy to read an article at 11:30 at night) but I remember reading that now actors are charging extra for all of the outtakes, deleted scenes, making-of footage, and commentary tracks that may or may not even be in the final DVD (and was, before this, basically all thrown away).
Of course now the "commentary" track is being ruined. Take Eye of the Beholder: Ewan McGregor[sic], Ashley Judd, Nonsensical everything, Shittiest movie Ever. And IT has a director's commentary track. Wild Things. Battlefield Earth. WTF? Are they STILL trying to snowjob you? Not like they need to after you shelled out 24 bucks for the DVD. At least if they were fucking honest on them.
Director: Now Ashley Judd starts crying here. [Puffs on cigarett] You know, I must have blacked out here 'cause I don't know what the hell I was thinking...
Instead it's like this:
Director: You can really see Denise Richards reach deep for that emotion. People say that she's just a hot piece of dumb ass but I really think she made a statement with this film...
Goddamn and Goodfellas DOESN'T have a commentary track? AND it's on a two sided DVD?
Kurosawa would never talk about his own movies. That wasn't his business. Let the scholars talk about them. What would he respond when people would as him what his favorite movie was? "The one I'm currently working on."
Says a lot (... damn, Eye of the Beholder!!! Now I'm in a really bad mood. Damn, Slashdot...)
I'm surprised that I haven't seen a link to this article from Technology Review a few months back.
It discusses the move from classical AI to more business oriented AI field of today. The key: business application = research funding. Sure we all want Artificial Men (that's what it all comes down to doesn't it?) but who's going to pay for it.
Actually there is some interesting work IBM is doing on fruit recognition. You know those self-help check-outs at the market? The problem is that you need to have human interaction (and monitoring) for weighing up fruit (due to the difference in price/lbs.).
What these guys are doing is a recognition system that would recognize different fruits and number (since some, like apples, are done by number not weight). Now this is a non-trivial task even for humans(how good are you at telling a plantine from a banana? Or an oversized orange from a grapefruit?) and add in the translucent bag and the shuffle and you get a lot of headaches. And their work seems very promising.
Of course it isn't AI as we all want it but life ain't the Jetsons. Who wants to deal with sentience when a few damn filters and some boosting of some classifiers suffices?
...its going to be the best thing to hit the PS2 since, well, Final Fantasy X
Excluding Metal Gear Solid 2 and GTA 3 which, if I remember correctly, were much better received critically and sold more than FFX.
Final Fantasy has basically become watching a DVD with a broken pause feature: you have to intermittantly hit a button to get the movie started again.
Freedom Force, on the other hand, is as close to a pen-n-paper RPG experience you can get. Exciting, personal, and thrilling. Oh and replayable. Another classic from Crave/Looking Glass.
BTW Kingdome Hearts does look cool though. It seems Sony is going to try and take the demographic they don't have: the kids from Nintendo.
At two different universities (undergrad at Miami University and grad State) both programs just recently switched to Java as the intro language and, later on, introduce C/C++ for OS courses.
And this seems to be the big push (I think Cornell uses Java as its intro language too) internationally.
The rational: free (as in a book on Dianetics), object-oriented, relatively painless.
And as far as I know Sun and MS still aren't giving each other reach arounds.
As one of my profs loves to put it "No real science has the word 'science' in it". Physics, Chemistry as compared to Social Science or Dropping Mad Science.
And then there is Dijkstra's ubiquous quote/Attrition header "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
I know this is OT but what would you call CS if you couldn't use the S? Computers? Algorithmics? Fingering Finite State Machines? Gasp, Information Technology? (BTW I think Technology is about as appropriate as Science is as a root noun).
Slashdot Mirror
But the entire reason to change the money so far has been "Americans are resistant to change" and so, to prove that they aren't, they should change.
Huh? Because using US cash is only marginally more difficult to use than other cash, it should change. C'mon... It's not like US money is all written in 3cm squares with only barcodes on them to differentiate them.
A similar argument: "In the US they only have stick-shift automobiles! As a foreign contractor this is annoying! Back home everyone drives automatics! And when we tell them to change they say 'We should change just because it assaults your refined foreign tastes?' like a bunch of rubes! Stupid americans..."
To say that a people are free to chose only what you let them isn't freedom.
Actually I wish all automobiles had to be stick-shifts. It would solve the cellphone problem right quick.
Either you are a) using low amounts of bills so it is not an issue or b) you are using a lot of bills so you damn well better pay attention to what you are handling??? Right now US currency is one of the few non-retarded cash systems out there. The Simpsons summed it up perfectly this Wednesday:
"Look at all that pink and purple."
"Our money sure is gay."
To: Federal Reserve
Re: US Currency
Don't be Gay.
Ok, I'm not there but as far as I know android team v. android team is not being done this year, contrary to what the article is insinuating.
According to the Official 2002 Robocup Humanoid League Draft Rule there are three catagories of Current and Future events with several sub-sections. Here is the run down.
* Standing Still on One Leg
* Humanoid walk - out from one end, around a pylon and back,
* Shoot - where the bot is able to shoot on the goal and get it in.
* Penalty Shootout
* 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 Soccer
* Freestyle - Five minutes of judged performance art.
According to the organizers they are just hoping to get some teams to try the first few! And as you can see the competitive playing of soccer is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaayy down the list and probably aren't even being attempted this 'Cup. Sure, those nice posed shots of those Sony bots look nice, but those aren't competition pictures. Sure, the information on the Official Robocup site is sparse, but don't you think that they would have some big announcement if it did?
This article from MSNBC is confusing one league (the humanoids) with another (the non-humanoid) in an attempt to create hype. Personally I think Robocup deserves it, but not by misconstruing what's going on.
The best thing about the Robocup site is that you can actually watch the replays of the simulation games with Flash. Pretty sweet.
Ok we have seen a pretty consistent stream of articles about how Walmart/walmart.com have taken a decided interest in pushing non-MS OS machines (be they Linux based or clean).
/. Interview! I'm sure it would go over huge.
But the 10k question is: who is behind this? I mean, this isn't like some normal free or open software guru we've known for ten years. Somebody at Walmart must be putting their John Hanncock on this.
Personally I'd like to get to know a little more about them (to congratulate them at least). Even more so I'd like a little more insight in to what got them started on this and how it all went down.
Short take of this Post: I wanna
To me this seems to be one of the first mainstream (outside of the IT industry and for endusers) acceptances of things most geeks hold dear. Who wants to miss this part of history?
Isn't this always the problem? I mean, every problem? We can't live without something, but we can't have too much of it: Patents, seratonin, oxygen, laws, protein, etc, etc, etc. Hell, probably half of the discussions on Slashdot could be resolved by realizing that a middle ground equalibrium point needs to be reached.
Sadly every time a new subject is broached, two factions arise with the same redundant "yes but" arguments. And you always have the brave few trying to reconcile everything. But it's always pointless. After a point all the damn DeCSS/MPAA/RIAA/DMCA topics look the same.
The core of the problem: there is no concrete value of optimality that can be stated that is true in all infinite cases.
Examples:
How many patents should we allow?
How much protein should we eat a day?
How many rights does a corporation have?
Has anyone mentioned internet radio as an alternative? Ok, it's broadband only in terms of possible audience... but that doesn't stop me from listening to Bassdrive.com all day, everyday.
Sure it is usually non-mainstream music. Who cares if it doesn't appeal to the widest, most general audience?
The key of internet radio is that you can usually find what you like. I have stations that play early 90's jungle, hard-step, tech-step, garage two-step, jungle-ragga, acid jazz, russian pop/rock, independent US hip-hop, french hard core.
Ok so it might just be me listening to it. Oh, boo-hoo. Either you listen to what you like with the distinct possibility of ostracising yourself from the mainstream, or accept the shill Godsmack/Creed/DMB so you can talk to other folk about music/hit bigger shows with your friends. Of course then you can pay your 400 bucks for a Rolling Stones ticket.
And that is another thing: underground/independent metal, rock, death metal, electronica, detroit house, hip-hop, and jazz have all survived very well without any help of the mainstream. Steve Albini, Martin Adkins, El-P. Sometimes you have to accept that most people aren't looking for what you are serving.
But if you like this kind of thing, this may be the sort of thing you kind of like.
Since the clones really only came to the rescue. I would usually consider an "attack" when someone does a preemptive strike-
Oh wait, Lucas was talking about Hayden Christenssen's acting!
Anakin: "Obi-wan... is... holding me #$#*@!"
Grip: "Oh no! The Hayden-bot is malfunctioning! Everybody... run!!!"
Spoilers and general insights
* The Yoda fight was cool.
* Jango being able to kill Jedi easily and then not was lame.
* When Boba picked up his father's helmet, Jango's head should have popped out.
* When lil' Boba and Jango were flying around was anyone else thinking of Bruce Spence in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome? ("Their ain't no Mara-Mara Land!")
* R2 having jets was stupid.
* Killing Tuskin Radiers, vicious nomadic peoples who just pillage and steal, doesn't seem to be that big of a "sin".
* How many outfits did Amadala take with her? "We are refugees... refugees with a full wardrobe!!!" She must have changed outfits forty times.
* Christopher Lee kicks ass. But the problem was that he made no appearance until the last 45 minutes. Also it just makes Darth Maul even that more lame: a minor character who should have either hung around or should have just been replaced with Darth Tyrannus in the first place. Scaramanga!!!
* When was Obi-wan just all about explaining the plot? "Let me go here so I can explain this and then make useless dialogue to explain the plot"
Final Verdict: I guess the background story to a good story isn't necessarily good nor interesting.
I was watching the latest Kurosawa documentary DVD (BTW: it kicks ass) and he says at the very beginning that he always hated expository dialogue and always tried to avoid it. He actually tries to view scenes as silent movies and see how they would work and then add any necessary dialogue. Lucas, who paid homage to Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, now seems sidetracked with his own Hero Mythos crappola egoism and has forgotten the teachings of a true master.
Of course without Lucas's (and FF Coppola's) help, Kagamusha and Ran would have never been made. For that reason I can never hate Lucas. Although he may be hit and miss, he seems to recognize true genius.
That on tablet 5,532 there is the first known operating version of Vi. The original scribes had talked about installing Emacs but not enough clay could be drawn from the river to compile the byte-code.
Ebert has a good basic measuring stick of a good movie: if you can remember any quotes from it.
Then list five memorable lines from Phantom Menace.
Then list five lines from A New Hope.
"Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope."
"That's no moon! It's a space station."
"When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master."
"Only the master of evil, Darth."
"He doesn't like you."
"I'm sorry."
"I don't like you either. You just watch yourself. We're wanted men. I have the death sentence on twelve systems."
"I'll be careful."
"You'll be DEAD!"
Do you think that Attack of the Clones will be as basically enjoyable? I don't think so. At least we get to see some Mandalorians. I'm going to wait. Maybe catch a matinee.
Personally I want to see the Star Wars where Jar-Jar dies on every page.
Oh yeah, anyone remember MASK?
MASK? Hell yes! I remember one of my most vivid memories from my childhood was that, when the Challenger blew up, I wanted to watch MASK but my Mom wouldn't let me and we had to watch the news.
Ok so it was inconsiderate but I was six at the time!
Definitely worth a look for us truly lazy folks.
Well I have a feeling its for more than that. A guy that worked with my Mom had Lou Gehrig's Disease and, as he slowly lost control of his body, ended up using a lot of hands free technology.
This corner of the technology market existence based upon physically disabling afflictions, not laziness. Personally I wish that there was no need for it.
Let us compare:
25 cents
versus
0 cents (and a nil chance of getting busted).
Let's try again:
You have to wait until the Tuesday of release.
versus
You can go out, get a full promo copy of a cd that isn't out yet (El-P - Fantastic Damage, Blackalicious - Flaming Arrows) or a cd version that will never be released (N*E*R*D - In Search Of (import version), Latyrx).
Hmmm, ok. No, there has to be something that will prove that an honor digital music system would work:
You get to be monitored by a large corporate service and are accountable to the government.
versus
Complete and utter anonymity (for sake of argument).
Conclusion: There is no way in Hell that commercial digital music sharing will take off as long as a viable free PtP service(s) exists.
I can recall back in the late '80, I used to buy a lot of "45's" .. that is 7-inch records with one song on each side (Memo to 13-year old 'l33t doods': this is where the terms "A-Side" and "B-Side" came from).
And with the advent of the Turntable as Instrument you somehow think that we know less about vinyl than you? Not to be aggressive (which that first sentence is, I can see) but the development of modern Hip-hop/Electronica/Jungle/2-step/etc DJ/Turntalbist culture the vinyl LP is probably more important now than it has been since the advent of the tape cassette.
But then I'm seeing a large anti-hip-hop/rap vibe on this site... probably from a deep lack of understanding about "those people's" music. I'm sorry but todays music is not what is shown on MTV, VH-1, BET (or, hell, even MTV2 and MM for that matter). Todays music is a solid steel mongrel of a thousand ethnic styles that cultivates old and ancient tastes with the new.
Actually I hear that concerts for most bands (save the large arena filling tours) are a break even business: most of it goes to promotion, the facility, and other costs. Much like the movie theater business.
But like you said most of the money is made in merchandise. That is why paying 20 bucks for a t-shirt from a band you really dig isn't a bad thing. Sure the shirt is shit, but most of the money is going into their pocket.
Of course musicians getting screwed over by the industry isn't anything new: Del the Funky Homosapien and Future Development, J-Live and the whole of his catalogue. Ask anyone in the underground of any scene who spent some time at a major.
Steve Albini (seminal musician [Big Black, Shelac] and producer [In Utero and a thousand other things]) wrote a GREAT article a couple years ago on the state of the industry.
Of course the GZA/Genius summed it up perfectly on "Protect Ya Neck": Who's your A&R?/A mountain climber who plays an electric guitar?
Artists gripes with the industry extend beyond genre class or race.
(A suggestion for aspiring groups: one nice thing Corrosion of Conformity did was, at their shows, you could buy their CD signed by all members of the band. The things sold like hot cakes and now I have their last two LPs signed... sweet)
The Jargon File is out there and, oddly enough it too looks pretty similar to the others described. I don't know that is speaking highly of the JF or poorly abou the rest of the work out there.
I've never looked or read any of the adword posts. It is just the same damn advert gibberish. Now instead of being a stupid animated gif or flash it's a piece of html (which is nice in a non-obtrusive way). I won't be surprised if any adblocker program figures out how to parse a page from *.google.com to remove said word ads.
IDE slots? 12? Please tell me this is a typo... or that there are 24 PCI slots. WTF would you use 12 IDE slots for that you wouldn't want to do with something a little more *ahem* modern?
It should be the Matrix. Ok David Brin was kind of on target but at least some of the things he said can be argued against: the Rebel Alliance seemed to be an alliance of all races and beings in a republic (sadly the movie is a little too much *Zap* *Boom* *Bang* to focus on this). And at least they were only attacking known military installations (the Death Star, the Star Destroyers, etc) instead of blindly razing citizens (ala some terrorist folk we know).
But now the Matrix. Damn... ok, maybe it is JUST because so many people gush about it... but what about the morality of this movie?
Morpheus points out explicitly that they are killing people even if the Matrix is virtual. That even though these nameless Redshirts and slobs are just doing what they're told because they are a part of a group hallucination it is ok to murder them en mass in extremely violent and callous ways why...?
Because we are righteous? We are doing the best thing? We are destroying the evil dictators (in the most round about way possible)?
Tell me, did Trinity and Neo have to go through the bottom floor? Did they have to kill 30 or 40 guys? Especially when they end up grabbing a Bell Huey anyway? "Who cares! They're nameless spear-chuckers! In the end their sacrifice won't be in vain!" Sounds a little: "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."
And then what about the evil tyrannical machines (beyond the FUD ludditism of the movie)? They specifically said that human beings couldn't live in a utopia so they made the Matrix the way it was.
"So?" the leather-clad hippies retort. "Where was our choice in the matter?"
What. Like the same choice you gave those SWAT guys? And the fact that the Agents possess normal humans doesn't stop Neo from blowing all them fuckers away. "Yeah! Coool!!! Bla-dow!!!" Yep, no ethical quandries here!
"But they eat people!!" Oh Jeezus. And like, when it's all over, people can just do whatever the hell they want? Anyone here get their food, house, and shelter for free? Anyone out there going to live forever that I don't know of?
And when they win: Earth is a barren wasteland with no sun and no way to support the billions of freshly freed humans (well those that survive the blazing machineguns of the "Freedom Fighters"). "Gee, thank you!" They'll all say. "This is much better!"
The only moral of the entire movie is this: Man is paranoid and reactionary. When he is not in control of his own destiny (no matter how self-destructive) he will violently lash out, blindly ignoring the consequences.
I actually thought the Seven Samurai Criterion guy got better as he went along. He talked about Kurosawa's brother and other effects upon the actor, the production of SS (which almost bankrupted Toho), and other little technical throw away stuff (like the scene of chopping firewood).
But the best DVD Commentary Track? Chopper on his autobiographical movie Chopper! Hands down! Mark "Chopper" Reid: psycho crim, proletariat sociologist, best selling Aussie author, humorist. I mean it has it all.
You can hear him pitching back the beers while their recording, its great!
Just hear him say "The year two-THOUSAND???" is worth the 20 bucks itself!!!
(since I am too lazy to read an article at 11:30 at night) but I remember reading that now actors are charging extra for all of the outtakes, deleted scenes, making-of footage, and commentary tracks that may or may not even be in the final DVD (and was, before this, basically all thrown away).
Of course now the "commentary" track is being ruined. Take Eye of the Beholder: Ewan McGregor[sic], Ashley Judd, Nonsensical everything, Shittiest movie Ever. And IT has a director's commentary track. Wild Things. Battlefield Earth. WTF? Are they STILL trying to snowjob you? Not like they need to after you shelled out 24 bucks for the DVD. At least if they were fucking honest on them.
Director: Now Ashley Judd starts crying here. [Puffs on cigarett] You know, I must have blacked out here 'cause I don't know what the hell I was thinking...
Instead it's like this:
Director: You can really see Denise Richards reach deep for that emotion. People say that she's just a hot piece of dumb ass but I really think she made a statement with this film...
Goddamn and Goodfellas DOESN'T have a commentary track? AND it's on a two sided DVD?
Kurosawa would never talk about his own movies. That wasn't his business. Let the scholars talk about them. What would he respond when people would as him what his favorite movie was? "The one I'm currently working on."
Says a lot (... damn, Eye of the Beholder!!! Now I'm in a really bad mood. Damn, Slashdot...)
But where will I park that in my missle silo?
I'm surprised that I haven't seen a link to this article from Technology Review a few months back.
It discusses the move from classical AI to more business oriented AI field of today. The key: business application = research funding. Sure we all want Artificial Men (that's what it all comes down to doesn't it?) but who's going to pay for it.
Actually there is some interesting work IBM is doing on fruit recognition. You know those self-help check-outs at the market? The problem is that you need to have human interaction (and monitoring) for weighing up fruit (due to the difference in price/lbs.).
What these guys are doing is a recognition system that would recognize different fruits and number (since some, like apples, are done by number not weight). Now this is a non-trivial task even for humans(how good are you at telling a plantine from a banana? Or an oversized orange from a grapefruit?) and add in the translucent bag and the shuffle and you get a lot of headaches. And their work seems very promising.
Of course it isn't AI as we all want it but life ain't the Jetsons. Who wants to deal with sentience when a few damn filters and some boosting of some classifiers suffices?
...its going to be the best thing to hit the PS2 since, well, Final Fantasy X
Excluding Metal Gear Solid 2 and GTA 3 which, if I remember correctly, were much better received critically and sold more than FFX.
Final Fantasy has basically become watching a DVD with a broken pause feature: you have to intermittantly hit a button to get the movie started again.
Freedom Force, on the other hand, is as close to a pen-n-paper RPG experience you can get. Exciting, personal, and thrilling. Oh and replayable. Another classic from Crave/Looking Glass.
BTW Kingdome Hearts does look cool though. It seems Sony is going to try and take the demographic they don't have: the kids from Nintendo.
At two different universities (undergrad at Miami University and grad State) both programs just recently switched to Java as the intro language and, later on, introduce C/C++ for OS courses.
And this seems to be the big push (I think Cornell uses Java as its intro language too) internationally.
The rational: free (as in a book on Dianetics), object-oriented, relatively painless.
And as far as I know Sun and MS still aren't giving each other reach arounds.
As one of my profs loves to put it "No real science has the word 'science' in it". Physics, Chemistry as compared to Social Science or Dropping Mad Science.
And then there is Dijkstra's ubiquous quote/Attrition header "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
I know this is OT but what would you call CS if you couldn't use the S? Computers? Algorithmics? Fingering Finite State Machines? Gasp, Information Technology? (BTW I think Technology is about as appropriate as Science is as a root noun).