2) Where's "Neuromancer" -- the book from which everything in the Matrix (including its name) that didn't come from Kung Fu movies was stolen? Again it's been optioned continuously but never green-lighted.
William Gibson's script for Neuromancer is out there and IMHO... well, let's just say that it isn't much better than the one he had for Johnny Mneumonic.
Actually much of the non-HK stuff wasn't from Neuromancer but the Grant Morrison comic book series The Invisibles (an astounding piece of work. It starts off with the notion "What if every conspiracy you ever hear of was true...?" and goes ape). The W. Bros had a copy of The Invisibles on the set of The Matrix and referenced it constantly (and you can pick up sly inserts in the movies). I recommend it to anyone to pick it up.
Every so often, they'll show several frames of different perspectives at once - but each in its own box/frame (like a pictures frame). On occasion, especially when not too much is happening, it's not hard to watch them all.
Have you seen Timecode? Directed by Michael Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) and starring Salma Hayek and Holly Hunter, Timecode was done using multiple cameras and a single shot. Yeah, it could be better, but technically it's impressive. Figgis intelligently has the other subshots go slow-paced when he wants you to focus on one with a high level of activity. In doing so he is able to successfully create a thrilling technique. In lesser hands it would require the bottle of Aspirin.
I think that's the crux: the more complex the technique, the more steady hand needed to pull it off. Figgis is able to edit together a good (but by no means great) movie.
direction, acting or cinematography aren't the key creative process in filmmaking... editing is (and because of the editing techniques he pioneered, D.W. Griffith can be said to be the father of modern cinema). Of course this all depends on if you ascribe to the auteur theory...
An implicit question of the last, oh, 28 years in movies (using Jaws as the start... maybe 2001?) is if big special effects are an editing process (and, thus, creative) or just the next step in set design? Bullet-time and wire-fu may be neat tricks, but do they add anything to what the story is saying (heck, it's quite possible that movie A can use both to say something while movie B can just use them as garnish)? But even The Matrix's big selling point isn't the action (or what differentiates it from say Ballistic: Ecks versus Sever). If it was limited to non-CGI techniques from 30 years ago, would the movie suffered anything more than "realism"?
So this article has this neat cubism thing. Another tool in the workbench. But film isn't painting. Visuals are a means not an end. Maybe someone will come along and blow us away. But Memento and Irreversible work by using a cut and paste method developed a century ago, not an advance in digital postproduction.
Strange that I knew this being from OH... oh wait! The three hours of Law and Order on TNT must've pound it into my brain! I knew I was spending all of that time for something;p Jerry Orbach and Jesse Martin are the tops.
I'd love nothing more than having all my college books in eBook format, Oh my, I would've never made it through two degrees if all my books were digital... I'm a big fan of the team work session: go to the lab, break out the books, and throw out whatever makes no sense to you. It's much easier to do this when everyone can flip through books, make little annotations, point things out by finger, and bookmark for later reference. Of course...
and preferably for half the price... Now THAT I would give up the above for. Man, how was I able to have only three classes and 300 bucks in book costs? And then I'm supposed to sell them off for 60? Rather keep them under the noble (and unrealistic) notion that I'd open them again! But then the scam would be up for the scholastic book industry;p
The article states that the girl (and I assume her mother) set up an account with Kazaa for their music download service. Couldn't they then say they were mislead by the service? Of course Kazaa probably has its back covered by some fine print. "...service shall not be used in the exchange of illegal software or files..." some such.
Kazaa seems to be an anachronism held over from the late '90s: all venture capital, free product, and all Underpants Gnomes three step plan to Profit!!!
Universal Music Group is cutting its prices by 30% (and note that UMG is by far the largest music multinational). Many think that this will push down many cds below the magic 10 dollar mark.
I guess it's up to each to decide if these two cancel out. Of course this does answer two of the biggest/. gripes against the music industry: the labels taking too big of a piece and over inflated SRPs. The only one left would be that the RIAA is a vindictive/cruel/abusive litigator... but how much effect does that have on a purchase? How many folks upon hearing this decide to not buy a cd (or pick up something indie... say Interpol Turn on the Bright Lights which was selling at 9.99 for the last year)?
All wackiness aside, this is an interesting point. Of course the article is sparse but I assume the battery allows for A) the bacteria to consume as much sugar as they wish, and B) allows them to reproduce as often as possible. And as far as I can tell, that is the sum purpose of existence for these little guys.
So then the question of 'slavery' all comes down to perspective: is it slavery when there is in fact no limitation on your lifestyle? Or is the 'sense' of slavery enough (i.e. to feel enslaved is to be enslaved)? As far as I can tell the bacteria wouldn't care. So I'd think this woul be best characterized as a symbiotic relationship.
Anyway, I'm waaayy OT but thanks for opportunity to post-jack.
That the IT industry is still paying for the dot-com stuff. Hell, even now as all the ex-dot-com'ers are looking for jobs you have a wave of new CS college grads who started their degrees when it seemed as if IT was going to change the world.
Of course I've also heard that people are finding limitations to the outsourcing of IT. Like it or not making software isn't stitching shirts or assembling toys for Happy Meals. The issues of holding to the spirit of a project spec or communicating with a customer requires a certain level of locality. I think folks are starting to realize that a 8pm conference call to Bengal is not the way to do software dev.
On a completely unrelated note: what the hell does the first 500 words of the article have to do with anything? What does a supposed responsibility of the IT industry to offshoring labor jobs or the high IT salaries have to do with the article at hand? Jesus, I felt like I was in parochial school getting the finger wag of Original Sin all over again. The gist: "You are so lucky to be IT. You have no right to complain!" This from a guy who works at OSDN to a lot of folks without jobs?
No wonder it makes no fucking sense. Here it is revised:
The number of 18+ women is growing and is more than 18- boys (21%) but the largest demographic is still 18+ men (38%). So that means males represent at least 59% of the market. Ok so "women" outnumber "boys". But boys still play longer than the average gamer and they don't go into it, but I suspect they probably buy more games per capita.
I also wonder how skewed their info on Mature games is since probably a significant part of those sales are those 18- year old boys getting their older brothers/parents to buy them Vice City. Actually, are they just going by who hands (a father buying a game for his daughter) over the money or who the game is for (the daughter)?
The number of 18+ women is growing and is more than at least 59% of the market. Ok so "women" outnumber "boys". But boys still play longer than the average gamer and they don't go into it, but I suspect they probably buy more games per capita.
I also wonder how skewed their info on Mature games is since probably a significant part of those sales are those Vice City. Actually, are they just going by who hands (a father buying a game for his daughter) over the money or who the game is for (the daughter)?
Actually I thought the purpose of all Hollywood advertising was to start a word of mouth avalanche, like Blair Witch Project: put teasers out there to get a select group (Early Adopters) to hype it for you until the ball starts rolling (spread it to the Early Majority who in turn pass it onto...).
Problem is if there's already a significant minority (say folks tired of the B'Fleck + J'Lo marketing monstrosity) taking a negative opinion of the work, the opposite effect is true. Same thing happened to Waterworld and Battlefield Earth (strange how all three actually did suck). Such are the risks of advertising.
No lie. You are specialized into a niche research field... something that IT companies and even most research orgs don't need. I am beginning work at the JHU Advanced Physics Lab and I was helped by having my Master's and not having a PhD. According to this profile of the organization (government-educational nonprofit R&D) only 18% of the Engineers and Scientists have Doctorates (and most are in Physics) while 51% have Master's. When asked about getting a PhD my boss and HR rep said it was completely unnecessary. There's that 5% of chief researchers commanding the masses of Master's.
This sentiment was shared by my academic advisor in grad school (when I was still considering getting a PhD): a PhD is only useful for getting a job in academics. Everywhere else it's too much unnecessary training. Even to get it at a job can be bad news since there is an implicit expectation of your company to pay you more.
Nothing prohibits non-PhD's from doing research. But having one can have long-term career consequences. My father has a PhD in Org Chem and it has made his life hell since the last recession in 1990. Being old, overeducated, and experienced can make you first in line to get cut from a job. And they'll never believe you if you say you'd work for 18 bucks an hour. Getting a PhD could be the biggest mistake of your life if you aren't protected against the whims of the economy.
He was expecting a large sum of money, but instead gets a handful of objects. He then proceeds to get into multiple situations where one of the objects is exactly what he needs to get him out of a jam
Actually that sounds interestingly similar to Fincher's The Game starring Michael Douglas.
The problem with a half dozen individual groups is that they are then useless for politicians. If you can only count on them voting for you on a single issue and they become fractious everywhere else, they have no powerbase.
If you're only going to support McCaan on his anti-trust agenda and ignore him on everything else (and not vote for him since you only care about one of his fifty issues), he's not going to give two shits about what you think.
The reason why "police unions, the AFL-CIO, and the Christian Right" are strong is that they provide support over a wide swath of things and thus provide an opportunity to gain a huge wad of votes. Police unions are not just about law enforcement, labor unions aren't just about blue-collar rights, and the Christian right isn't just about religion.
And, yes, the Christian Right and police unions have always had political power. The Right formed up in the 80's and was beholden by a powerful evangelist money backers. Politicians are always about appearing pro-law enforcement, therefore Police groups have political power.
The tech community has no such impact. By not gaining their support you don't have to worry about being anti-family, religion, or order.
I'm sorry my friend but geeks lives don't revolve around security and privacy issues. Taxation, military spending, religion all are all more important to geeks and end user voters. They are Big Issues. They are the ones that get politicians elected. Therefore they are the ones of value. Hell, even the EFF doesn't get 100% support around these parts. Again their stance on the RIAA is specific to a subsection.
The tech community is a fractious bunch and thus completely useless as a political group. Why? Because "Speciality in IT" != Any political agenda. The camps of liberal, conservative, and libertarian thinking are wide and diverse. Hell, look at any thread on the RIAA. Probably the only platform all tech folks are for is rational copyright law (i.e. showing SCO who's the daddy). But other than that, there is no cohesion.
There's a reason why police unions, the AFL-CIO, and the Christian Right are all strong forces: they have a complete package of beliefs that they can get a large body of voters to agree on. Religion? Government? Taxes? The tech community could never get such a gestalt.
I think it is one of the great tech-urban legends that IT is a uniformly liberal RMS-style social group or ever was.
I think/. should put together an interview with Mr McBride. Seriously, I want to hear this guy reason and rationalize this stuff. Maybe he can come up with a good reason. Or maybe his head will spin off like a fist full of Chinese fireworks.
How would you translate that to text? *fffffffwwwwwwwwppppp!!!*
As if the FBI didn't have their own messes to clean up such as the handling of pre-911 intelligence, FBI agents turned spy (Robert Hanssen), the Los Alamos lab debacle, double agent Mrs. Katrina Leung, need I say more?"
What does this have to do with anything? It's nothing but an attack instead of dealing with the issue at hand. I'm sorry but a billion dollar government organization can do two things at once. Not well but well enough.
Heroin in Bhutan has been a prob for a while
on
Cable TV Ruins Bhutan
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Actually the heroin trade has been a problem in Bhutan for a while (along with other SE Asian countries as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka). Although not a source of the drug, it is one of the many pathways out and Bhutani courier recruitment has always been high. With the drug trade comes competition and that brings in guns and violence...
And increased usage and addiction in the country. Even in Afganistan after the Taliban instituted a ban on poppy growning (and was quite successful BTW) there was still a significant unreported underclass of addicts. Even UN drug documents find no comprehensive numbers on addicts in countries like Bhutan and the Maldives.
The difference now: instant media coverage (i.e. television), perhaps?
It is quite possible that they turned on the light for the first time and didn't like what they saw. So instead of considering that things might have been this bad for a while, they blame the one who suggested turning on the lights in the first place.
And then it comes down to who to blame: those who produce it, those who make it available, those who consume it, or those who make it a crime. Everyone has their hands dirty, but not enough to take the heat.
As the article says, the US always gets shoe-horned into a "well if we want clean solutions, lets go wind/solar!" agenda... but since either solution is a pipe-dream, we continue living the same coal and oil lifestyle. Countries like Germany, that didn't have the benefit of West Virginia coal, went nuclear a while ago (and haven't been Chernobyl-ing left and right as some anti-nuke FUD would tell us).
Heck, maybe the US can finally sneak into Kyoto if this goes through! Could it be possible that *gasp* GWB might make the US a cleaner place while anti-nuke environmental nut Al Gore screwed the pooch on this one? What is the world coming to?
I think the root of this poster's problem is what is done with interactive entertainment. When someone plays a video game they expect a different experience then what a book or a movie would give them. It is like any "play" activity and thus is bound by that expectation in the consumer. Complain about 95% of games being solved with a gun? Well no one's going to play the video game equivilent of C-SPAN.
Interactivity demands action. Action usually implies simulated physical activity or puzzle. And this activity usually needs some verve. The 100m sprint may be the purest competitive sport on the planet... but it would SUCK as a video game. Dialogue and plot may help make a game experience better... but no one will play a game that is just a queue of cutscenes.
So we have sports games, action games, puzzle games. The problem is that much of the action either needs to be scripted or supplied by a human opponent (either local or remote). And compared to the 80's, current games are far and above more complex. How much more side scrolling jumping on sprites and picking up coins do you want?
And guess what: a sequel of Jet Grind Radio (i.e. Jet Set Radio Future, out on PS2) or Shenmue (I believe the new one will be out on X-box soon) is still just as derivative as the next Doom installment.
Of course you can take the world in The Matrix and apply it to the real world. Of course it would then be that the heroes (Neo et al) are more akin to Al-Qaeda than anything else. A quick synopsis:
A group find that the world is under repression from a foreign/alien force that has 99% of the world under its sway. Taking religious prophecy as mandate they stage a guerilla war against the agents of oppression. They also specifically state that although they are fighting for all of humanity, killing civilians is perfectly acceptable in the name of their goal (as agents can take them over, so better to kill them all anyway). Oh and the rebels have almost no plan for what would happen if they won (and the 9 billion batteries are freed).
I guess I spoke to quickly. I think Morpheus is more of an archtype for Osama Bin Laden: the hands-off spiritual center of the organization. I guess Neo would then be more like Mohammad Atta or Amyan Al-Zawahiri (who's the CEO of the Al-Qaeda org). Then you can finish it off with Trinity as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed... Cypher as Jose Padilla... Agent Smith as Dick Cheney... fun for all!
The EU has been considering this for a while. You'll never even know they're there.
Yeah until the police come to your house late at night asking questions. I guess this is the end of cold cash being the last refuge of private transaction.
I think the problem is in clearance. This is very easily a project that might require someone to have a top secret access. Who has this? Certain politicians, many intel guys, many defense guys, and some contractors. Now contractors make no sense as being on an oversight committee because we only want "informed" opinions.
But the only informed opinions with clearance would be those intel and defense guys. Kind of a recursive catch-22. This has been the problem with a good deal of top secret projects. For example: Area-51 is suspected not of being home to UFOs... but being used as an illegal dumping ground for caustic and hazardous materials. But since it's top top secret, the EPA isn't going to go waltzing in there for no good reason.
Slashdot Mirror
2) Where's "Neuromancer" -- the book from which everything in the Matrix (including its name) that didn't come from Kung Fu movies was stolen? Again it's been optioned continuously but never green-lighted.
William Gibson's script for Neuromancer is out there and IMHO... well, let's just say that it isn't much better than the one he had for Johnny Mneumonic.
Actually much of the non-HK stuff wasn't from Neuromancer but the Grant Morrison comic book series The Invisibles (an astounding piece of work. It starts off with the notion "What if every conspiracy you ever hear of was true...?" and goes ape). The W. Bros had a copy of The Invisibles on the set of The Matrix and referenced it constantly (and you can pick up sly inserts in the movies). I recommend it to anyone to pick it up.
Every so often, they'll show several frames of different perspectives at once - but each in its own box/frame (like a pictures frame). On occasion, especially when not too much is happening, it's not hard to watch them all.
Have you seen Timecode ? Directed by Michael Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) and starring Salma Hayek and Holly Hunter, Timecode was done using multiple cameras and a single shot. Yeah, it could be better, but technically it's impressive. Figgis intelligently has the other subshots go slow-paced when he wants you to focus on one with a high level of activity. In doing so he is able to successfully create a thrilling technique. In lesser hands it would require the bottle of Aspirin.
I think that's the crux: the more complex the technique, the more steady hand needed to pull it off. Figgis is able to edit together a good (but by no means great) movie.
direction, acting or cinematography aren't the key creative process in filmmaking... editing is (and because of the editing techniques he pioneered, D.W. Griffith can be said to be the father of modern cinema). Of course this all depends on if you ascribe to the auteur theory...
An implicit question of the last, oh, 28 years in movies (using Jaws as the start... maybe 2001?) is if big special effects are an editing process (and, thus, creative) or just the next step in set design? Bullet-time and wire-fu may be neat tricks, but do they add anything to what the story is saying (heck, it's quite possible that movie A can use both to say something while movie B can just use them as garnish)? But even The Matrix's big selling point isn't the action (or what differentiates it from say Ballistic: Ecks versus Sever). If it was limited to non-CGI techniques from 30 years ago, would the movie suffered anything more than "realism"?
So this article has this neat cubism thing. Another tool in the workbench. But film isn't painting. Visuals are a means not an end. Maybe someone will come along and blow us away. But Memento and Irreversible work by using a cut and paste method developed a century ago, not an advance in digital postproduction.
Strange that I knew this being from OH... oh wait! The three hours of Law and Order on TNT must've pound it into my brain! I knew I was spending all of that time for something ;p Jerry Orbach and Jesse Martin are the tops.
*du-dum*!
I'd love nothing more than having all my college books in eBook format,
;p
Oh my, I would've never made it through two degrees if all my books were digital... I'm a big fan of the team work session: go to the lab, break out the books, and throw out whatever makes no sense to you. It's much easier to do this when everyone can flip through books, make little annotations, point things out by finger, and bookmark for later reference. Of course...
and preferably for half the price...
Now THAT I would give up the above for. Man, how was I able to have only three classes and 300 bucks in book costs? And then I'm supposed to sell them off for 60? Rather keep them under the noble (and unrealistic) notion that I'd open them again! But then the scam would be up for the scholastic book industry
The article states that the girl (and I assume her mother) set up an account with Kazaa for their music download service. Couldn't they then say they were mislead by the service? Of course Kazaa probably has its back covered by some fine print. "...service shall not be used in the exchange of illegal software or files..." some such.
Kazaa seems to be an anachronism held over from the late '90s: all venture capital, free product, and all Underpants Gnomes three step plan to Profit!!!
Universal Music Group is cutting its prices by 30% (and note that UMG is by far the largest music multinational). Many think that this will push down many cds below the magic 10 dollar mark.
/. gripes against the music industry: the labels taking too big of a piece and over inflated SRPs. The only one left would be that the RIAA is a vindictive/cruel/abusive litigator... but how much effect does that have on a purchase? How many folks upon hearing this decide to not buy a cd (or pick up something indie... say Interpol Turn on the Bright Lights which was selling at 9.99 for the last year)?
I guess it's up to each to decide if these two cancel out. Of course this does answer two of the biggest
All wackiness aside, this is an interesting point. Of course the article is sparse but I assume the battery allows for A) the bacteria to consume as much sugar as they wish, and B) allows them to reproduce as often as possible. And as far as I can tell, that is the sum purpose of existence for these little guys.
So then the question of 'slavery' all comes down to perspective: is it slavery when there is in fact no limitation on your lifestyle? Or is the 'sense' of slavery enough (i.e. to feel enslaved is to be enslaved)? As far as I can tell the bacteria wouldn't care. So I'd think this woul be best characterized as a symbiotic relationship.
Anyway, I'm waaayy OT but thanks for opportunity to post-jack.
That the IT industry is still paying for the dot-com stuff. Hell, even now as all the ex-dot-com'ers are looking for jobs you have a wave of new CS college grads who started their degrees when it seemed as if IT was going to change the world.
Of course I've also heard that people are finding limitations to the outsourcing of IT. Like it or not making software isn't stitching shirts or assembling toys for Happy Meals. The issues of holding to the spirit of a project spec or communicating with a customer requires a certain level of locality. I think folks are starting to realize that a 8pm conference call to Bengal is not the way to do software dev.
On a completely unrelated note: what the hell does the first 500 words of the article have to do with anything? What does a supposed responsibility of the IT industry to offshoring labor jobs or the high IT salaries have to do with the article at hand? Jesus, I felt like I was in parochial school getting the finger wag of Original Sin all over again. The gist: "You are so lucky to be IT. You have no right to complain!" This from a guy who works at OSDN to a lot of folks without jobs?
No wonder it makes no fucking sense. Here it is revised:
The number of 18+ women is growing and is more than 18- boys (21%) but the largest demographic is still 18+ men (38%). So that means males represent at least 59% of the market. Ok so "women" outnumber "boys". But boys still play longer than the average gamer and they don't go into it, but I suspect they probably buy more games per capita.
I also wonder how skewed their info on Mature games is since probably a significant part of those sales are those 18- year old boys getting their older brothers/parents to buy them Vice City. Actually, are they just going by who hands (a father buying a game for his daughter) over the money or who the game is for (the daughter)?
The number of 18+ women is growing and is more than at least 59% of the market. Ok so "women" outnumber "boys". But boys still play longer than the average gamer and they don't go into it, but I suspect they probably buy more games per capita.
I also wonder how skewed their info on Mature games is since probably a significant part of those sales are those Vice City. Actually, are they just going by who hands (a father buying a game for his daughter) over the money or who the game is for (the daughter)?
Word of mouth is good... unless it's bad.
Actually I thought the purpose of all Hollywood advertising was to start a word of mouth avalanche, like Blair Witch Project: put teasers out there to get a select group (Early Adopters) to hype it for you until the ball starts rolling (spread it to the Early Majority who in turn pass it onto...).
Problem is if there's already a significant minority (say folks tired of the B'Fleck + J'Lo marketing monstrosity) taking a negative opinion of the work, the opposite effect is true. Same thing happened to Waterworld and Battlefield Earth (strange how all three actually did suck). Such are the risks of advertising.
No lie. You are specialized into a niche research field... something that IT companies and even most research orgs don't need. I am beginning work at the JHU Advanced Physics Lab and I was helped by having my Master's and not having a PhD. According to this profile of the organization (government-educational nonprofit R&D) only 18% of the Engineers and Scientists have Doctorates (and most are in Physics) while 51% have Master's. When asked about getting a PhD my boss and HR rep said it was completely unnecessary. There's that 5% of chief researchers commanding the masses of Master's.
This sentiment was shared by my academic advisor in grad school (when I was still considering getting a PhD): a PhD is only useful for getting a job in academics. Everywhere else it's too much unnecessary training. Even to get it at a job can be bad news since there is an implicit expectation of your company to pay you more.
Nothing prohibits non-PhD's from doing research. But having one can have long-term career consequences. My father has a PhD in Org Chem and it has made his life hell since the last recession in 1990. Being old, overeducated, and experienced can make you first in line to get cut from a job. And they'll never believe you if you say you'd work for 18 bucks an hour. Getting a PhD could be the biggest mistake of your life if you aren't protected against the whims of the economy.
He was expecting a large sum of money, but instead gets a handful of objects. He then proceeds to get into multiple situations where one of the objects is exactly what he needs to get him out of a jam
Actually that sounds interestingly similar to Fincher's The Game starring Michael Douglas.
The problem with a half dozen individual groups is that they are then useless for politicians. If you can only count on them voting for you on a single issue and they become fractious everywhere else, they have no powerbase.
If you're only going to support McCaan on his anti-trust agenda and ignore him on everything else (and not vote for him since you only care about one of his fifty issues), he's not going to give two shits about what you think.
The reason why "police unions, the AFL-CIO, and the Christian Right" are strong is that they provide support over a wide swath of things and thus provide an opportunity to gain a huge wad of votes. Police unions are not just about law enforcement, labor unions aren't just about blue-collar rights, and the Christian right isn't just about religion.
And, yes, the Christian Right and police unions have always had political power. The Right formed up in the 80's and was beholden by a powerful evangelist money backers. Politicians are always about appearing pro-law enforcement, therefore Police groups have political power.
The tech community has no such impact. By not gaining their support you don't have to worry about being anti-family, religion, or order.
I'm sorry my friend but geeks lives don't revolve around security and privacy issues. Taxation, military spending, religion all are all more important to geeks and end user voters. They are Big Issues. They are the ones that get politicians elected. Therefore they are the ones of value. Hell, even the EFF doesn't get 100% support around these parts. Again their stance on the RIAA is specific to a subsection.
The tech community is a fractious bunch and thus completely useless as a political group. Why? Because "Speciality in IT" != Any political agenda. The camps of liberal, conservative, and libertarian thinking are wide and diverse. Hell, look at any thread on the RIAA. Probably the only platform all tech folks are for is rational copyright law (i.e. showing SCO who's the daddy). But other than that, there is no cohesion.
There's a reason why police unions, the AFL-CIO, and the Christian Right are all strong forces: they have a complete package of beliefs that they can get a large body of voters to agree on. Religion? Government? Taxes? The tech community could never get such a gestalt.
I think it is one of the great tech-urban legends that IT is a uniformly liberal RMS-style social group or ever was.
I think /. should put together an interview with Mr McBride. Seriously, I want to hear this guy reason and rationalize this stuff. Maybe he can come up with a good reason. Or maybe his head will spin off like a fist full of Chinese fireworks.
How would you translate that to text? *fffffffwwwwwwwwppppp!!!*
Actually the heroin trade has been a problem in Bhutan for a while (along with other SE Asian countries as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka). Although not a source of the drug, it is one of the many pathways out and Bhutani courier recruitment has always been high. With the drug trade comes competition and that brings in guns and violence...
And increased usage and addiction in the country. Even in Afganistan after the Taliban instituted a ban on poppy growning (and was quite successful BTW) there was still a significant unreported underclass of addicts. Even UN drug documents find no comprehensive numbers on addicts in countries like Bhutan and the Maldives.
The difference now: instant media coverage (i.e. television), perhaps?
It is quite possible that they turned on the light for the first time and didn't like what they saw. So instead of considering that things might have been this bad for a while, they blame the one who suggested turning on the lights in the first place.
And then it comes down to who to blame: those who produce it, those who make it available, those who consume it, or those who make it a crime. Everyone has their hands dirty, but not enough to take the heat.
As the article says, the US always gets shoe-horned into a "well if we want clean solutions, lets go wind/solar!" agenda... but since either solution is a pipe-dream, we continue living the same coal and oil lifestyle. Countries like Germany, that didn't have the benefit of West Virginia coal, went nuclear a while ago (and haven't been Chernobyl-ing left and right as some anti-nuke FUD would tell us).
Heck, maybe the US can finally sneak into Kyoto if this goes through! Could it be possible that *gasp* GWB might make the US a cleaner place while anti-nuke environmental nut Al Gore screwed the pooch on this one? What is the world coming to?
I think the root of this poster's problem is what is done with interactive entertainment. When someone plays a video game they expect a different experience then what a book or a movie would give them. It is like any "play" activity and thus is bound by that expectation in the consumer. Complain about 95% of games being solved with a gun? Well no one's going to play the video game equivilent of C-SPAN.
Interactivity demands action. Action usually implies simulated physical activity or puzzle. And this activity usually needs some verve. The 100m sprint may be the purest competitive sport on the planet... but it would SUCK as a video game. Dialogue and plot may help make a game experience better... but no one will play a game that is just a queue of cutscenes.
So we have sports games, action games, puzzle games. The problem is that much of the action either needs to be scripted or supplied by a human opponent (either local or remote). And compared to the 80's, current games are far and above more complex. How much more side scrolling jumping on sprites and picking up coins do you want?
And guess what: a sequel of Jet Grind Radio (i.e. Jet Set Radio Future, out on PS2) or Shenmue (I believe the new one will be out on X-box soon) is still just as derivative as the next Doom installment.
Of course you can take the world in The Matrix and apply it to the real world. Of course it would then be that the heroes (Neo et al) are more akin to Al-Qaeda than anything else. A quick synopsis:
A group find that the world is under repression from a foreign/alien force that has 99% of the world under its sway. Taking religious prophecy as mandate they stage a guerilla war against the agents of oppression. They also specifically state that although they are fighting for all of humanity, killing civilians is perfectly acceptable in the name of their goal (as agents can take them over, so better to kill them all anyway). Oh and the rebels have almost no plan for what would happen if they won (and the 9 billion batteries are freed).
I guess I spoke to quickly. I think Morpheus is more of an archtype for Osama Bin Laden: the hands-off spiritual center of the organization. I guess Neo would then be more like Mohammad Atta or Amyan Al-Zawahiri (who's the CEO of the Al-Qaeda org). Then you can finish it off with Trinity as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed... Cypher as Jose Padilla... Agent Smith as Dick Cheney... fun for all!
The EU has been considering this for a while. You'll never even know they're there.
Yeah until the police come to your house late at night asking questions. I guess this is the end of cold cash being the last refuge of private transaction.
I think the problem is in clearance. This is very easily a project that might require someone to have a top secret access. Who has this? Certain politicians, many intel guys, many defense guys, and some contractors. Now contractors make no sense as being on an oversight committee because we only want "informed" opinions.
But the only informed opinions with clearance would be those intel and defense guys. Kind of a recursive catch-22. This has been the problem with a good deal of top secret projects. For example: Area-51 is suspected not of being home to UFOs... but being used as an illegal dumping ground for caustic and hazardous materials. But since it's top top secret, the EPA isn't going to go waltzing in there for no good reason.
I'm first in line
Said the Horse at the Glue Factory.