Ok, maybe. To be honest, I have not read the 2001 book, just watched the movie. But I have read 2010, 2061, and 3001. The monoliths were bescribed as black and non-reflective in the other three books.
AFAIK, while the movie was based on the first book (which was more like a movie script), the latter books were more influenced by the movie. On the other hand, Arthur C. Clarke stated himself that the different books take places in different universes or dimentions, so they don't relate to each other 100%. Which means that if, whoever it was who installed the Seatle Monolith, based it on the first book, you are correct and the monolith should've been transparent (like made out of glass or summin:), and if he/she based it on the movie or the latter books, I'm right. In any case, whoever installed the monolith screwed up, cuz it's neither transparent nor black and non-reflective.
That's nice, but they got the color wrong. The monolith was made out of non-reflective black material. Nobody knew just what that material was, but it certainly was not steel, or looked like steel.
Actually, Russians had a space shuttle program too, but it got canceled in late 1980s. The shuttle was called Buran.
More info here:
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/rsa/buran.html
Why do you demand that people who use free software sign up for the politics? Is there supposed to be a minimum intelligence limit for your average Linux user? Although I may be wading through a few more newbie posts on newsgroups, I'm happy to see the new-found popularity of Linux and the attention it's brought to the free software effort. Making it more "doze-like" (if this is what's required to present a more friendly human interface) will only allow more users to escape the QA-hell that's Microsoft. Whether new users understand the different licensing models or philosophy behind it makes little difference to me. All this attention can only lead to more, higher quality free software.
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Ok, maybe. To be honest, I have not read the 2001 book, just watched the movie. But I have read 2010, 2061, and 3001. The monoliths were bescribed as black and non-reflective in the other three books. AFAIK, while the movie was based on the first book (which was more like a movie script), the latter books were more influenced by the movie. On the other hand, Arthur C. Clarke stated himself that the different books take places in different universes or dimentions, so they don't relate to each other 100%. Which means that if, whoever it was who installed the Seatle Monolith, based it on the first book, you are correct and the monolith should've been transparent (like made out of glass or summin :), and if he/she based it on the movie or the latter books, I'm right. In any case, whoever installed the monolith screwed up, cuz it's neither transparent nor black and non-reflective.
That's nice, but they got the color wrong. The monolith was made out of non-reflective black material. Nobody knew just what that material was, but it certainly was not steel, or looked like steel.
Everyone, quickly, run to your college or university computer lab and start launching and closing MS Office software repeatedly!!!
Actually, Russians had a space shuttle program too, but it got canceled in late 1980s. The shuttle was called Buran. More info here: http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/rsa/buran.html
Why do you demand that people who use free software sign up for the politics? Is there supposed to be a minimum intelligence limit for your average Linux user? Although I may be wading through a few more newbie posts on newsgroups, I'm happy to see the new-found popularity of Linux and the attention it's brought to the free software effort. Making it more "doze-like" (if this is what's required to present a more friendly human interface) will only allow more users to escape the QA-hell that's Microsoft. Whether new users understand the different licensing models or philosophy behind it makes little difference to me. All this attention can only lead to more, higher quality free software.