'Shadow' doesn't necessarily have negative connotations - 'to stand in someone's shadow' does not mean that you are evil somehow. That's how Card is using 'shadow', and if you've seen the cover of "Ender's Shadow", you'd know that. In the first book, he was talking about Bean, who is in Ender's shadow -hence the name. Now again, the next story is about Bean, who is now standing in Peter's shadow. Peter is the Hegemon, the leader of the nominal world government. Hence, Shadow of the Hegemon. Card isn't even implying that the Hegemony is evil.
Also, in case you missed all the other Greek names in his books - oh, I don't know, say, Ender's Shadow, which had Nikolai, Julian, etc.? Moreover, it's not out of place, as it comes from a city where children's names are doled out by kitchen aides or other children as well. The symbolic importance of Achilles is easy enough, as Achilles really acts like the historic Achilles throughout most of the books. (Note that I mean the historic Achilles, who wasn't exactly much of a hero)
Blah. I won't waste more of my time arguing with a primarily troll post - I did however just want to make sure that someone who saw this post didn't think any of it was true.
Starting off an English criticism with a vague pronoun. Bad start. "That" is badly written? What is "that"? If you're referring to the review, it should be 'this', not 'that'.
But, in any case, to criticize your criticism of a critique (okay, properly a review- more on this later):
"Characters with religious views that are real to those who hold them" is not a tautology - it is not self evident that an author would present characters with consistent, believable religious views - it is completely common in novels for a person to appear to have a certain opinion one moment, and then a completely different one the next.
The 'suspension of disbelief' statement was unneeded, but it seems to be a buzzword when denoting a weak point in a novel that isn't that important. He's right on this case - this portion of the novel was weak, but it was not devastating to the novel. Card has never portrayed Achilles as a believable villain - the section in Ender's Shadow from Achilles's point of view is weak at best. Therefore, it's understandable that he avoided going into the specifics of how Achilles rose to power - the only real way to do that would be to tell it from Achilles's point of view. Instead, he came up with a rather creative solution, which was to use a secondary character critical of the villain. This way he didn't have to write from a point of view supportin Achilles, which he has trouble doing, and could still explain most of Achilles's actions. It was weak - it did require a bit of acceptance, rather than justification, but it at least was internally consistent.
Finally, the crack about Card being a 'trashy novel' author is not only unnecessary - it's flat out wrong. "Ender's Game" is commonly viewed as the best example of the 'unlikely hero/child hero' scenario in science fiction.
As to the other comment about being critical of the book, that is for a critique, not a review. A review is a reader's impression of the novel - if the reader enjoys the novel, the review is likely to be positive. If the reader dislikes the novel, the review is likely to be negative. Go fig. Don't criticize a review for not being a critique - it never pretended to be one.
True, however, just check to see if they have a policy against users setting up a home network. In many cases, they don't - if they don't, call them, and when they say 'oh, we disconnected you because the ethernet address was not bound' just explain that you have a network set up, and the modem is plugged in to a hub - in many cases, they'll basically just say 'okay' and fix the problem. It wasn't a big deal for me.
The other option is to have a cron job running that periodically pings the gateway on the other side, and when it goes down, simply issue the equivalent of/etc/rc.d/init.d/network restart. Strangely enough, this works... I don't know why.
Well, one of the two ethernet interfaces is static - it's probably 192.168.0.1. The fact that it doles out IP addresses using DHCP is meaningless. Thus, just set up the linux box to bring up eth0, then bring up eth0:0 (the alias) just as the aliasing-HOWTO says, and set 192.168.0.1 to the address of eth0:0. Run the dhcp service on eth0:0, and you're done.
Note that you need to make sure that 255.255.255.255 is routed to eth0:0, rather than eth0 so that the DHCPd boxes can know who really is trying to give them an IP. To do this, add 'route add 255.255.255.255 eth0:0' to the routing table.
I'm not sure if this will work - I hate DHCP, since it gets rid of the benefit of DNS, and I love giving computers names, rather than adsl-dialup-68.east.pacbell.net (fake, I know).
Hang on - I'll email something to you later tonight more appropriate to a FAQ. Though you might have to edit it to be appropriate to your situation, as I don't have one of them (though I'm actually quite interested). I think setting up a 4 MB flash distribution of linux should be a breeze - all you need is a 'bare minimum' distribution with kernel/file utilities/networking and then you can NFS mount or SMB mount (NFS... definitely NFS. Though even NFS sucks) a better array of tools. Seriously need to avoid distribution bloat, though. Trying to get some of the code from SmallLinux working would be a good idea.
As per the MP3 file playing, I can't really say much about under Linux, but I did have to heavily tweak my 486 to get it to play MP3's without stuttering, plus I had to sacrifice a bit on the quality. Also, don't forget you might be able to overclock other portions of the system as well. I heard something about an ISA slot? Most ISA cards are tolerant to up to 12-15 MHz, if not a bit more, for the bus frequency (This might stem back to older days when certain PCs ran at 12 MHz-ish: I'm not sure, but I don't remember there being multiple clock chips on one of my old Tandys...) While this may not seem like an obvious benefit, it may help out the video, if the video is sharing the ISA bus. If not, don't bother to do it, since while you may speed up your network connection, you might slow down the PC with the additional traffic.
See my comment one up, and choose the other article. But, to summarize, here's the basic points.
There's no reason one Ethernet card can't bind to multiple IP addresses - this is 'IP aliasing', and Linux has had it for a while. What it does is creates several 'aliased' Ethernet devices called (if the first is called eth0) eth0:0, eth0:1, etc.
So, go look up the HOWTO on IP Aliasing, and get that working (not really that hard - it's just a kernel module). Then, setup the firewall as if eth0:0 was a separate Ethernet card (i.e. eth1).
Physically, you just need a hub - plug the device with outside access to the Net into it, plug the settop box into it, and plug other machines into it as well.
My guess is you could easily - easily - handle firewalling + MP3 playing under Linux. No sweat. My 486/66 tweaked heavily plays MP3s fine, and you barely need any processing power to do routing/firewalling.
There's no reason you can't use the device as a router/firewall with only one NIC - that's easy. Obviously you have to have some way to connect to the Net in the first place - if you have a cable modem or DSL, then just plug the cable/DSL modem into a hub, plug the set top into the hub, and bind two IP addresses to it (one for the modem, one for the internal network), and set it to route one to the other. No big deal.
The only loss is that you're using one NIC twice, so your effective bandwidth is cut in half. This also screams for a full duplex solution, since it's guaranteed that there will be roughly equal traffic in/out. This allows one-way traffic to be roughly full speed, but bidirectional traffic will be cut in half. (Effectively, half duplex using this solution acts as 'quarter duplex' and full duplex works as 'half duplex' since every packet in needs to go out as well).
This downside isn't really that bad at all if you use something like a 10/100 hub/switch ($40-50 average). Here your effective bandwidth is so high, who cares if you cut it down by a bit?
I'm a bit confused as to why people think you can't use a one-NIC PC as a router/firewall... I've already done it several times.
Valid. But then you need to justify them not being able to remove that signal, or just leave it open. This seems to be a common failing of sci-fi : not to simply have the characters say "we don't know." It's a perfectly valid justification, no plot hole whatsoever, and it makes for a *better movie*, strangely enough! In this case it would make our heroes seem a bit more helpless to control the world around them, and thus, make their victory stronger. Imagine a scene with Trinity trying to give Neo CPR, or breaking down crying after she can't save him.
Sometimes I wonder if movie writers give scripts out for people to proofread, then, when they get the suggestions, purposely ignore them so as to give people like me something to think about. Eh.
Other movies make sense (internally... I find it hard to believe some actors would ever get those women). Why does this one get to roam free? Sci-fi movies aren't exempt from plot hole criticisms, and this is one. It was a weak-as-hell argument, and they could've done much better without reverting to pseudo-mystical bull. Especially as they went to such trouble to try to justify the whole energy generation crap.
Unfortunately, medical science disagrees with you. First, the heart is an automatic muscle - it beats on its own, with regulation from the sympathetic autonomic nervous system - located in the spinal column, not the brain. So, unless that Matrix implant was a lot more entangled than it looked, and actually stretched along your entire spinal column, it couldn't stop your heart from beating.
Breathing is a different matter, as that's located in the brain stem - the lowest brain stem, the medulla oblongata. Note that neither of these locations are in the correct place for
where the Matrix implant was, but I can forgive anatomy problems.
The real problem, actually, is one you address- what about life support systems? In fact, screw life support systems. You need one thing - CPR. OK, so you die in the Matrix, big deal. Provided they don't actually fry your brain (and if they had the capability to do that, it begs the question - why not just do it in the first place?) all they could do would be to sever the autonomic response. Big deal. CPR. Now you've got blood flowing to the brain, air flowing in the blood, you don't need no stinking brain.
After all, the Agents were conscious AIs - there's no reason to suppose that the Matrix itself also wasn't sentient. In this case, its intentions could have been separate from the Agents. (This was my interpretation of what the Oracle was, after all) This would explain why it didn't indiscriminately kill the rebels at any chance - it had stepped back, and decided not to interfere, and see who is the more resilient of the two.
Neo's superpowers wouldn't have to be an incorrectly wired up interface - his autonomic system just might not work exactly the same way in exactly the same *place* as other humans. Thus, when he died, and his body didn't really die, his brain realized something was strange, and essentially concluded he was in a dream-state, or something like that. Not out of the question.
OK, so that's one problem I had with the movie that's not entirely fully resolved (they would need to use that explanation) but is at least possible to resolve.
(The rebels also might not understand the hardware at all... this is also possible.)
No, I just don't shut off my brain during a sci-fi movie - just like I don't shut off my brain during any other movie. Non-sci-fi movies have to justify major plot points - why are sci-fi movies exempt?
Granted, the Matrix did try to justify this as best they could - by stating it. At least they didn't just 'assume' it was true. But I just really didn't enjoy the movie at all - they explained far too many things poorly (the need for humans to be around... should've just been left as either unknown, or should've been more creative) - and simply neglected other things(like the AI's driving intention - what were they trying to do, besides being at war with humans? why were they at war with humans?) All the viewer knew was that 'they were the enemy', but they had no drive, no justification for their actions.
I'm not entirely sure about the way the brain receives and processes the shock response, but I do know that there is no way to 'tell' your brain that it is no longer receiving oxygen - either it is or it isn't! The body doesn't have an oxygen-o-meter, so the only oxygen deprivation sensor it has is *brain damage*.
Let me give an example. Imagine someone was in a VR world, underwater, drowning. If the interface intercepts the nerve signaling (i.e., moving an arm in VR does not move the arm in reality) then the interface intercepts any conscious control of the autonomic system, and he breathes normally, regardless of what his brain is telling the rest of his body to do! If it does not, then he might hold his breath until he falls unconscious, at which point the autonomic system kicks in again. Either way - he wouldn't die. The only way you could die from drowning is to not have air available. Basically the same goes for other forms of death as well.
My main problem with the original is the same problem I have with all cyberspace-neuromancer type clones: why in the world would your brain kill your body if you 'thought' you died in some VR-type world? It makes no sense.
I mean, honestly, think about it. Most of your body which is devoted to survival is autonomic - heart, respiration, all take serious conscious effort to control, and quite a bit of training. It's extremely unlikely that your mind, thinking that you died, would cut off the *autonomic* response of breathing/heartbeat. That's idiotic. How does your brain know that you honestly died? All those bullets could've passed straight through, and not harmed anything.
Consider reality: several people wake up in hospitals thinking that they have died. If your body doesn't die if your brain thinks you died in reality, you wouldn't die from dying in VR!
Of course, the better analogy comes from dreams: if you die in a dream, do you die in reality? No... so why in the world does anyone think VR is any different?
Granted, the Matrix wouldn't exactly have any 'punch' if they didn't really die, but that's another example of Hollywood sacrificing common sense for theatrical effect. It'd be really nice to see someone who's very very smart come up with a good, scientifically sound plot that's still good cinema.
Black holes can have hair if you're dealing with Brans-Dicke theory, as well - I do realize that. However, I'm not sure if they would alter its emission spectrum. In any case, all I was using the no-hair theorem for was to indicate that a black hole's emission spectrum must be universal, even if it isn't a true blackbody (which it most likely is not... but it's close).
As I said before, there isn't a *word* to describe an object whose emission spectrum is independent of incident radiation, and unfortunately, color isn't well defined in layman usage, since color isn't intrinsic to an object, but depends on its surroundings. (For instance, what color is the sky? Most people would say blue, but that's simply because we're looking at the sky through a blue-green light - the Sun. If a uniform spectrum was incident upon the sky, what color would it appear? Probably purple: the sky scatters purple light best, however the human eye is less sensitive to purple light, so it might still be blue) Thus, I didn't use 'black', which would imply that it doesn't emit anything, but used 'pure black', which implies that it doesn't *reflect* anything (which is where the analogy with black comes in) and added the emission spectrum bit later. I've been trying to figure out a better word for this, but I can't come up with a good one.
This discussion started out as trying to figure out if there were a way to directly tell if a black hole is observable - the answer is yes, since a black hole is the only object which reflects no light whatsoever, and for most stellar mass or higher black holes, emits (virtually) no light. Hawking radiation doesn't enter into the discussion here, because a detector almost guaranteedly wouldn't have the sensitivity to detect one photon every few minutes or so against the stellar backdrop and other noise.
That would be why I had pure black in quotes - there's no term for an object whose emission spectrum is completely independent of any incident energy spectrum (This is not the definition of a blackbody... but it is close). However, the only other object with this characteristic is a true blackbody, which the black hole is (probably... there may be deviations from this due to quantum gravity type effects... possible resonance spikes at thermal energies equal to a pair, etc. Without any observational evidence, we can say virtually anything. Still, no matter what, a black hole's emission spectrum is completely determinable by theory - black holes have no hair, so the
spectrum must be determinable from the mass, charge, and angular momentum. Thus, even if it is not a true blackbody, it is 'pure black').
The reason I said 'particle radiation' rather than electromagnetic radiation is that typically when one thinks of a radiator of astrophysical origin, the object typically radiates omnidirectionally and continuously - i.e. the radiation is significant enough that the energy quantum of the radiation is insignificant compared to the luminosity of the object. In any black hole save a primordial black hole, this is not the case, and thus, if one were *observing* a black hole, one would not get a continuous spectrum, but occasional 'blips' from Hawking radiation. Thus, the object would, for the most part, never emit *any* radiation. (Obviously *any* electromagnetic radiation is particle radiation! The distinction is that in one case, we can ignore photon structure, and in the other case, we cannot. Typical black holes fall under particle radiation.)
Thus, direct evidence of a black hole would be observation of an object whose emission spectrum is a pure blackbody at the temperature equal to the Hawking temperature of the radius of the
'hole' visible in the CMBR.
Hawking radiation is particle radiation, not electromagnetic radiation. It is also completely independent of the incident energy upon the black hole. That still makes them 'pure black', since in some sense, they are similar to a pure blackbody - any outgoing radiation is of a universal form, completely independent of any energy incident on the object. There's still nothing else like that in the universe - just close approximations to it.
Who are you to tell God what he can and cannot do?
I'm sorry to say that, well, basically, your logic is entirely flawed. OK: It would be possible to truly see one, unfortunately for
incontrovertable proof, we'd need to actually be able to be on multiple sides of it and confirm that all forms of radiation cannot pass through
it. However, we're not likely to travel to Cyg X1 for sightseeing purposes! It's easy enough to confirm that we've got an object with a mass over the neutron star limit - it can't be anything else. A black hole might as well be defined to be something with a mass over the NS limit that we can't see. But, besides that...
There are no problems with black holes, whatsoever. God didn't decree laws which can't be used with black holes - not unless God is Einstein. The only reason singularities are problems is because we don't have the math to handle it. We really don't. No one really knows how to handle 'pure' singularities.
But then again, what is a 'pure' singularity? Do we know if it really goes to infinite density? It might not. If it goes to below the Planck length, there might not be any difference in saying that it *does* have the size of the Planck length, therefore giving it, not an infinite density, just a god awfully obscene one. And it's not like humans haven't had to deal with ultra-massive scales before - look at stellar distances.
Besides, your ideas of a well-formed universe are useless. Unfortunately, your argument is about as persuasive as Einstein's, when he said that God didn't play dice. My first line response was a paraphrase of Bohr's. The problem is that human ideas of a well-formed universe are based on a universe where things move much much slower than c, and all energies are small compared to rest masses. Guess what? The Universe is not required to remain there.
That's not technically true. Nothing in the universe is truly 'pure black' except for a black hole itself - it's a perfect absorber, of which none other exists in nature. Direct evidence would be seeing one - a giant, probably nearly spherical hole of 'nothingness'. Put yourself in orbit around it and watch stars wink out in each direction. Look at the CMBR and you'll see a hole exactly where the black hole is. Or, irradiate the sucker with a wide band of frequencies, and watch that nothing comes back (something will come back from everywhere *except* a black hole, due to the ISM/IGM/dust).
You are, however, correct about the strength of indirect information, as that is all that astronomers have, anyway. Hell, astronomers can make ridiculously strong statements about things just based on spectroscopy, simply because we know that it *must* work, or else all of humanity is fooling itself.
Galaxy collisions are very common, actually. Not only is the Milky Way absorbing the Large Magellenic Cloud (why do you think it looks so large? It's friggin' close) over time - they're inspiraling, that is - but the Milky Way is also currently devouring a smaller irregular galaxy - or, to be more specific, *has* devoured, we're just seeing it now.
I wish I could provide URLs for proof for those, but I mainly remember them from the papers, which were published about two years ago (the small irregular galaxy, that is, the LMC's fate is well known).
But those are kindof like speed bumps for a galaxy- in fact, that's how they grow - and evolve, actually, which of course, makes sense. What about a major collision between us, and say, Andromeda?
Wait a few billion years - it's happening. Give it a few billion more, and the Milky Way and Andromeda will be one very large elliptical galaxy. Of course, the Sun could just as easily become ejected from the merging galaxies, and that's not entirely out of the question, since we're near the rim and have significant angular momentum about one of the colliding centers of mass.
But, then the question comes, who cares? What does it matter? The answer is, truly, very little. Being in a galaxy is great for forming stars, but once a star is formed, it has no more need to stick around in a galaxy. So, being ejected doesn't matter. Neither does the impending galactic collision - considering the massive amount of space involved, the main effect of galactic collision is nothing more than heating up a bit of space dust.
But this is essentially what the benefit of hard science is - spinoffs. In this case, Apollo was pure 'engineering' - also known as 'proof-of-concept.' Research for science's sake usually has unexpected benefits in many unrelated areas. That said, you do raise a good point - it's just that Apollo is not a good example of what you're trying to say. Apollo was a good spending of money in the same way that Hubble was a good spending of money.
Keep in mind that 'humanity' != 'average person.' I can't stress this enough - partly because I am a pure scientist (practical benefits are for engineers) but mostly because it's true. Pure science is akin to the arts - it doesn't have a direct effect on the average person, true, but it helps society and culture by boosting morale and people's self-image and opinions on the society.
For instance, let me ask this question: we spend millions attempting to work out the age of the universe. Suppose we figure it out, and we're absolutely sure it's right. What does that do for the average person? Some people would say 'nothing' - well, that's partly true. Nothing tangible. But to many, it would give a sense of closure and a sense of their place in the world. It's a good aesthetic benefit.
It's hard to explain to people in America that the intangible things in society are more important than the tangible. This in contrast to Europe, where they name parks and roads after artists and scientists, whereas in America, we name roads after politicians who wanted the road built to boost the stock of a construction company who works on it. Not to say that Europe doesn't have its problems - but when it comes to art, culture, and society, they could run rings around us.
This subject has actually come up in Slashdot many times before. It's a standard problem with capitalism, in that people can't discern intangibles.
The other problem is that people are busy. Imagine if you wanted a yacht, then, and had a very good reason for it. Maybe your dying crazy uncle knew of a cure for cancer and you just needed a yacht to get there. Whatever. I don't care. Let's just say that you *could convince people if you had the time*.
If you had the time, you could probably raise money from everyone to buy that yacht. I don't see why not - except for the fact that people don't have time to listen to half a million people like you. In order for a system of 250 million people and growing to work, we need to actually have delegation of authority, and some organization which takes that 'listening to everyone' load off of people's backs so they can go and live their lives.
This is the main argument I have with individualistic-government ideas - society today simply does not have the time to handle their own lives, plus all of the responsibilities that 'individualistic governments' want to give them. I barely have time to investigate candidates!
Government-funded science is useful because it creates a beauracracy whose job is to determine what's valuable to society and what isn't. Letting corporations decide this is idiotic - corporations exist to make money, and some things may have phenomenally huge benefits with huge costs but are not cost-effective - that is, space travel. The beauracracy, therefore, has some semblance of giving funding to programs which deserve it.
On the arts side, I am actually rather frightened to hear people suggesting that arts do not have value to them. This is distinctly an artifact of America as a relatively new country, and one area we desparately need to learn from Europe. I shudder to think what would have happened to Leonardo da Vinci under your society.
Actually, he has no mistake here - your statement actually doesn't really make much sense when looking at real-world situations.
Most people have 'incentive-based' raises, that is, they do well, and they get good reviews, and they make more money. Or they have commission-based earnings, that is, they pull in more business, and make more money.
Both of these ideas here indicate one thing: the person has some control over his/her income, and therefore that person can maximize income while minimizing work.
You're talking about -promotions-, not raises - cases where work shifts drastically. He was talking about raises - like working at McDonald's and working towards a raise by always being available and helping out all the time.
You yourself said it! "Perhaps they'd worked their butt off at the plant..." the fact is, if people know that working hard won't earn them more money, they *won't work hard*!
This assumes that people work to maximize profits, rather than for personal satisfaction. This is an idealization of human culture, but it is borne up by economic trends, more or less.
Look, this whole topic is covered in basic economics and politics classes. It is the main reason that welfare ranks rose so high in the 80s and early 90s, and the elimination of the 'more money for less work' incentive in a lot of cases helped significantly thin the ranks of those on welfare.
(Then again, so is any element, so that's somewhat redundant.)
Carbon is the only element capable of forming strong, stable, long bonds in any configuration we feel like. Not only that, since it's perfectly happy to donate an electron as well as accept one, it's perfectly happy bonding with itself.
It's not hard to figure out why certain elements are 'better' than others - carbon is simply the ideal building block, since I can build *any* structure I want out of carbon, plus maybe a few trace impurities. Now, since carbon is a light element, those bond energies are rather high, since the electrons aren't ridiculously shielded from the nucleus. So now you've got a strong, stable structure made out of one of the most common elements in existence. Oh, I definitely think carbon has a pretty bright future.
On topic for a moment, I'm greatly amused by this. Buckyballs have literally become a rather amusing joke in the scientific world, since everyone wants to use them for *something* - I've seen an article where they were using buckyballs to fight AIDS, for instance. The downside is that, unfortunately, somehow these plans never come to fruition.
So, for now, I'm skeptical. Call me back when you have more than just a transistor - say a few logic gates, and when you've got them cheaply.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know where to start.
'Shadow' doesn't necessarily have negative connotations - 'to stand in someone's shadow' does not mean that you are evil somehow. That's how Card is using 'shadow', and if you've seen the cover of "Ender's Shadow", you'd know that. In the first book, he was talking about Bean, who is in Ender's shadow -hence the name. Now again, the next story is about Bean, who is now standing in Peter's shadow. Peter is the Hegemon, the leader of the nominal world government. Hence, Shadow of the Hegemon. Card isn't even implying that the Hegemony is evil.
Also, in case you missed all the other Greek names in his books - oh, I don't know, say, Ender's Shadow, which had Nikolai, Julian, etc.? Moreover, it's not out of place, as it comes from a city where children's names are doled out by kitchen aides or other children as well. The symbolic importance of Achilles is easy enough, as Achilles really acts like the historic Achilles throughout most of the books. (Note that I mean the historic Achilles, who wasn't exactly much of a hero)
Blah. I won't waste more of my time arguing with a primarily troll post - I did however just want to make sure that someone who saw this post didn't think any of it was true.
Starting off an English criticism with a vague pronoun. Bad start. "That" is badly written? What is "that"? If you're referring to the review, it should be 'this', not 'that'.
But, in any case, to criticize your criticism of a critique (okay, properly a review- more on this later):
"Characters with religious views that are real to those who hold them" is not a tautology - it is not self evident that an author would present characters with consistent, believable religious views - it is completely common in novels for a person to appear to have a certain opinion one moment, and then a completely different one the next.
The 'suspension of disbelief' statement was unneeded, but it seems to be a buzzword when denoting a weak point in a novel that isn't that important. He's right on this case - this portion of the novel was weak, but it was not devastating to the novel. Card has never portrayed Achilles as a believable villain - the section in Ender's Shadow from Achilles's point of view is weak at best. Therefore, it's understandable that he avoided going into the specifics of how Achilles rose to power - the only real way to do that would be to tell it from Achilles's point of view. Instead, he came up with a rather creative solution, which was to use a secondary character critical of the villain. This way he didn't have to write from a point of view supportin Achilles, which he has trouble doing, and could still explain most of Achilles's actions. It was weak - it did require a bit of acceptance, rather than justification, but it at least was internally consistent.
Finally, the crack about Card being a 'trashy novel' author is not only unnecessary - it's flat out wrong. "Ender's Game" is commonly viewed as the best example of the 'unlikely hero/child hero' scenario in science fiction.
As to the other comment about being critical of the book, that is for a critique, not a review. A review is a reader's impression of the novel - if the reader enjoys the novel, the review is likely to be positive. If the reader dislikes the novel, the review is likely to be negative. Go fig. Don't criticize a review for not being a critique - it never pretended to be one.
True, however, just check to see if they have a policy against users setting up a home network. In many cases, they don't - if they don't, call them, and when they say 'oh, we disconnected you because the ethernet address was not bound' just explain that you have a network set up, and the modem is plugged in to a hub - in many cases, they'll basically just say 'okay' and fix the problem. It wasn't a big deal for me.
/etc/rc.d/init.d/network restart. Strangely enough, this works... I don't know why.
The other option is to have a cron job running that periodically pings the gateway on the other side, and when it goes down, simply issue the equivalent of
Well, one of the two ethernet interfaces is static - it's probably 192.168.0.1. The fact that it doles out IP addresses using DHCP is meaningless. Thus, just set up the linux box to bring up eth0, then bring up eth0:0 (the alias) just as the aliasing-HOWTO says, and set 192.168.0.1 to the address of eth0:0. Run the dhcp service on eth0:0, and you're done.
Note that you need to make sure that 255.255.255.255 is routed to eth0:0, rather than eth0 so that the DHCPd boxes can know who really is trying to give them an IP. To do this, add 'route add 255.255.255.255 eth0:0' to the routing table.
I'm not sure if this will work - I hate DHCP, since it gets rid of the benefit of DNS, and I love giving computers names, rather than adsl-dialup-68.east.pacbell.net (fake, I know).
Good luck!
Hang on - I'll email something to you later tonight more appropriate to a FAQ. Though you might have to edit it to be appropriate to your situation, as I don't have one of them (though I'm actually quite interested). I think setting up a 4 MB flash distribution of linux should be a breeze - all you need is a 'bare minimum' distribution with kernel/file utilities/networking and then you can NFS mount or SMB mount (NFS... definitely NFS. Though even NFS sucks) a better array of tools. Seriously need to avoid distribution bloat, though. Trying to get some of the code from SmallLinux working would be a good idea.
As per the MP3 file playing, I can't really say much about under Linux, but I did have to heavily tweak my 486 to get it to play MP3's without stuttering, plus I had to sacrifice a bit on the quality. Also, don't forget you might be able to overclock other portions of the system as well. I heard something about an ISA slot? Most ISA cards are tolerant to up to 12-15 MHz, if not a bit more, for the bus frequency (This might stem back to older days when certain PCs ran at 12 MHz-ish: I'm not sure, but I don't remember there being multiple clock chips on one of my old Tandys...) While this may not seem like an obvious benefit, it may help out the video, if the video is sharing the ISA bus. If not, don't bother to do it, since while you may speed up your network connection, you might slow down the PC with the additional traffic.
See my comment one up, and choose the other article. But, to summarize, here's the basic points.
There's no reason one Ethernet card can't bind to multiple IP addresses - this is 'IP aliasing', and Linux has had it for a while. What it does is creates several 'aliased' Ethernet devices called (if the first is called eth0) eth0:0, eth0:1, etc.
So, go look up the HOWTO on IP Aliasing, and get that working (not really that hard - it's just a kernel module). Then, setup the firewall as if eth0:0 was a separate Ethernet card (i.e. eth1).
Physically, you just need a hub - plug the device with outside access to the Net into it, plug the settop box into it, and plug other machines into it as well.
My guess is you could easily - easily - handle firewalling + MP3 playing under Linux. No sweat. My 486/66 tweaked heavily plays MP3s fine, and you barely need any processing power to do routing/firewalling.
There's no reason you can't use the device as a router/firewall with only one NIC - that's easy. Obviously you have to have some way to connect to the Net in the first place - if you have a cable modem or DSL, then just plug the cable/DSL modem into a hub, plug the set top into the hub, and bind two IP addresses to it (one for the modem, one for the internal network), and set it to route one to the other. No big deal.
The only loss is that you're using one NIC twice, so your effective bandwidth is cut in half. This also screams for a full duplex solution, since it's guaranteed that there will be roughly equal traffic in/out. This allows one-way traffic to be roughly full speed, but bidirectional traffic will be cut in half. (Effectively, half duplex using this solution acts as 'quarter duplex' and full duplex works as 'half duplex' since every packet in needs to go out as well).
This downside isn't really that bad at all if you use something like a 10/100 hub/switch ($40-50 average). Here your effective bandwidth is so high, who cares if you cut it down by a bit?
I'm a bit confused as to why people think you can't use a one-NIC PC as a router/firewall... I've already done it several times.
Valid. But then you need to justify them not being able to remove that signal, or just leave it open. This seems to be a common failing of sci-fi : not to simply have the characters say "we don't know." It's a perfectly valid justification, no plot hole whatsoever, and it makes for a *better movie*, strangely enough! In this case it would make our heroes seem a bit more helpless to control the world around them, and thus, make their victory stronger. Imagine a scene with Trinity trying to give Neo CPR, or breaking down crying after she can't save him.
Sometimes I wonder if movie writers give scripts out for people to proofread, then, when they get the suggestions, purposely ignore them so as to give people like me something to think about. Eh.
Other movies make sense (internally... I find it hard to believe some actors would ever get those women). Why does this one get to roam free? Sci-fi movies aren't exempt from plot hole criticisms, and this is one. It was a weak-as-hell argument, and they could've done much better without reverting to pseudo-mystical bull. Especially as they went to such trouble to try to justify the whole energy generation crap.
Unfortunately, medical science disagrees with you. First, the heart is an automatic muscle - it beats on its own, with regulation from the sympathetic autonomic nervous system - located in the spinal column, not the brain. So, unless that Matrix implant was a lot more entangled than it looked, and actually stretched along your entire spinal column, it couldn't stop your heart from beating.
Breathing is a different matter, as that's located in the brain stem - the lowest brain stem, the medulla oblongata. Note that neither of these locations are in the correct place for
where the Matrix implant was, but I can forgive anatomy problems.
The real problem, actually, is one you address- what about life support systems? In fact, screw life support systems. You need one thing - CPR. OK, so you die in the Matrix, big deal. Provided they don't actually fry your brain (and if they had the capability to do that, it begs the question - why not just do it in the first place?) all they could do would be to sever the autonomic response. Big deal. CPR. Now you've got blood flowing to the brain, air flowing in the blood, you don't need no stinking brain.
Wow. Weak, but passable. I'm impressed.
After all, the Agents were conscious AIs - there's no reason to suppose that the Matrix itself also wasn't sentient. In this case, its intentions could have been separate from the Agents. (This was my interpretation of what the Oracle was, after all) This would explain why it didn't indiscriminately kill the rebels at any chance - it had stepped back, and decided not to interfere, and see who is the more resilient of the two.
Neo's superpowers wouldn't have to be an incorrectly wired up interface - his autonomic system just might not work exactly the same way in exactly the same *place* as other humans. Thus, when he died, and his body didn't really die, his brain realized something was strange, and essentially concluded he was in a dream-state, or something like that. Not out of the question.
OK, so that's one problem I had with the movie that's not entirely fully resolved (they would need to use that explanation) but is at least possible to resolve.
(The rebels also might not understand the hardware at all... this is also possible.)
No, I just don't shut off my brain during a sci-fi movie - just like I don't shut off my brain during any other movie. Non-sci-fi movies have to justify major plot points - why are sci-fi movies exempt?
Granted, the Matrix did try to justify this as best they could - by stating it. At least they didn't just 'assume' it was true. But I just really didn't enjoy the movie at all - they explained far too many things poorly (the need for humans to be around... should've just been left as either unknown, or should've been more creative) - and simply neglected other things(like the AI's driving intention - what were they trying to do, besides being at war with humans? why were they at war with humans?) All the viewer knew was that 'they were the enemy', but they had no drive, no justification for their actions.
I'm not entirely sure about the way the brain receives and processes the shock response, but I do know that there is no way to 'tell' your brain that it is no longer receiving oxygen - either it is or it isn't! The body doesn't have an oxygen-o-meter, so the only oxygen deprivation sensor it has is *brain damage*.
Let me give an example. Imagine someone was in a VR world, underwater, drowning. If the interface intercepts the nerve signaling (i.e., moving an arm in VR does not move the arm in reality) then the interface intercepts any conscious control of the autonomic system, and he breathes normally, regardless of what his brain is telling the rest of his body to do! If it does not, then he might hold his breath until he falls unconscious, at which point the autonomic system kicks in again. Either way - he wouldn't die. The only way you could die from drowning is to not have air available. Basically the same goes for other forms of death as well.
My main problem with the original is the same problem I have with all cyberspace-neuromancer type clones: why in the world would your brain kill your body if you 'thought' you died in some VR-type world? It makes no sense.
I mean, honestly, think about it. Most of your body which is devoted to survival is autonomic - heart, respiration, all take serious conscious effort to control, and quite a bit of training. It's extremely unlikely that your mind, thinking that you died, would cut off the *autonomic* response of breathing/heartbeat. That's idiotic. How does your brain know that you honestly died? All those bullets could've passed straight through, and not harmed anything.
Consider reality: several people wake up in hospitals thinking that they have died. If your body doesn't die if your brain thinks you died in reality, you wouldn't die from dying in VR!
Of course, the better analogy comes from dreams: if you die in a dream, do you die in reality? No... so why in the world does anyone think VR is any different?
Granted, the Matrix wouldn't exactly have any 'punch' if they didn't really die, but that's another example of Hollywood sacrificing common sense for theatrical effect. It'd be really nice to see someone who's very very smart come up with a good, scientifically sound plot that's still good cinema.
Black holes can have hair if you're dealing with Brans-Dicke theory, as well - I do realize that. However, I'm not sure if they would alter its emission spectrum. In any case, all I was using the no-hair theorem for was to indicate that a black hole's emission spectrum must be universal, even if it isn't a true blackbody (which it most likely is not... but it's close).
As I said before, there isn't a *word* to describe an object whose emission spectrum is independent of incident radiation, and unfortunately, color isn't well defined in layman usage, since color isn't intrinsic to an object, but depends on its surroundings. (For instance, what color is the sky? Most people would say blue, but that's simply because we're looking at the sky through a blue-green light - the Sun. If a uniform spectrum was incident upon the sky, what color would it appear? Probably purple: the sky scatters purple light best, however the human eye is less sensitive to purple light, so it might still be blue) Thus, I didn't use 'black', which would imply that it doesn't emit anything, but used 'pure black', which implies that it doesn't *reflect* anything (which is where the analogy with black comes in) and added the emission spectrum bit later. I've been trying to figure out a better word for this, but I can't come up with a good one.
This discussion started out as trying to figure out if there were a way to directly tell if a black hole is observable - the answer is yes, since a black hole is the only object which reflects no light whatsoever, and for most stellar mass or higher black holes, emits (virtually) no light. Hawking radiation doesn't enter into the discussion here, because a detector almost guaranteedly wouldn't have the sensitivity to detect one photon every few minutes or so against the stellar backdrop and other noise.
That would be why I had pure black in quotes - there's no term for an object whose emission spectrum is completely independent of any incident energy spectrum (This is not the definition of a blackbody... but it is close). However, the only other object with this characteristic is a true blackbody, which the black hole is (probably... there may be deviations from this due to quantum gravity type effects... possible resonance spikes at thermal energies equal to a pair, etc. Without any observational evidence, we can say virtually anything. Still, no matter what, a black hole's emission spectrum is completely determinable by theory - black holes have no hair, so the
spectrum must be determinable from the mass, charge, and angular momentum. Thus, even if it is not a true blackbody, it is 'pure black').
The reason I said 'particle radiation' rather than electromagnetic radiation is that typically when one thinks of a radiator of astrophysical origin, the object typically radiates omnidirectionally and continuously - i.e. the radiation is significant enough that the energy quantum of the radiation is insignificant compared to the luminosity of the object. In any black hole save a primordial black hole, this is not the case, and thus, if one were *observing* a black hole, one would not get a continuous spectrum, but occasional 'blips' from Hawking radiation. Thus, the object would, for the most part, never emit *any* radiation. (Obviously *any* electromagnetic radiation is particle radiation! The distinction is that in one case, we can ignore photon structure, and in the other case, we cannot. Typical black holes fall under particle radiation.)
Thus, direct evidence of a black hole would be observation of an object whose emission spectrum is a pure blackbody at the temperature equal to the Hawking temperature of the radius of the
'hole' visible in the CMBR.
Hawking radiation is particle radiation, not electromagnetic radiation. It is also completely independent of the incident energy upon the black hole. That still makes them 'pure black', since in some sense, they are similar to a pure blackbody - any outgoing radiation is of a universal form, completely independent of any energy incident on the object. There's still nothing else like that in the universe - just close approximations to it.
Who are you to tell God what he can and cannot do?
I'm sorry to say that, well, basically, your logic is entirely flawed. OK: It would be possible to truly see one, unfortunately for
incontrovertable proof, we'd need to actually be able to be on multiple sides of it and confirm that all forms of radiation cannot pass through
it. However, we're not likely to travel to Cyg X1 for sightseeing purposes! It's easy enough to confirm that we've got an object with a mass over the neutron star limit - it can't be anything else. A black hole might as well be defined to be something with a mass over the NS limit that we can't see. But, besides that...
There are no problems with black holes, whatsoever. God didn't decree laws which can't be used with black holes - not unless God is Einstein. The only reason singularities are problems is because we don't have the math to handle it. We really don't. No one really knows how to handle 'pure' singularities.
But then again, what is a 'pure' singularity? Do we know if it really goes to infinite density? It might not. If it goes to below the Planck length, there might not be any difference in saying that it *does* have the size of the Planck length, therefore giving it, not an infinite density, just a god awfully obscene one. And it's not like humans haven't had to deal with ultra-massive scales before - look at stellar distances.
Besides, your ideas of a well-formed universe are useless. Unfortunately, your argument is about as persuasive as Einstein's, when he said that God didn't play dice. My first line response was a paraphrase of Bohr's. The problem is that human ideas of a well-formed universe are based on a universe where things move much much slower than c, and all energies are small compared to rest masses. Guess what? The Universe is not required to remain there.
That's not technically true. Nothing in the universe is truly 'pure black' except for a black hole itself - it's a perfect absorber, of which none other exists in nature. Direct evidence would be seeing one - a giant, probably nearly spherical hole of 'nothingness'. Put yourself in orbit around it and watch stars wink out in each direction. Look at the CMBR and you'll see a hole exactly where the black hole is. Or, irradiate the sucker with a wide band of frequencies, and watch that nothing comes back (something will come back from everywhere *except* a black hole, due to the ISM/IGM/dust).
You are, however, correct about the strength of indirect information, as that is all that astronomers have, anyway. Hell, astronomers can make ridiculously strong statements about things just based on spectroscopy, simply because we know that it *must* work, or else all of humanity is fooling itself.
Galaxy collisions are very common, actually. Not only is the Milky Way absorbing the Large Magellenic Cloud (why do you think it looks so large? It's friggin' close) over time - they're inspiraling, that is - but the Milky Way is also currently devouring a smaller irregular galaxy - or, to be more specific, *has* devoured, we're just seeing it now.
I wish I could provide URLs for proof for those, but I mainly remember them from the papers, which were published about two years ago (the small irregular galaxy, that is, the LMC's fate is well known).
But those are kindof like speed bumps for a galaxy- in fact, that's how they grow - and evolve, actually, which of course, makes sense. What about a major collision between us, and say, Andromeda?
Wait a few billion years - it's happening. Give it a few billion more, and the Milky Way and Andromeda will be one very large elliptical galaxy. Of course, the Sun could just as easily become ejected from the merging galaxies, and that's not entirely out of the question, since we're near the rim and have significant angular momentum about one of the colliding centers of mass.
But, then the question comes, who cares? What does it matter? The answer is, truly, very little. Being in a galaxy is great for forming stars, but once a star is formed, it has no more need to stick around in a galaxy. So, being ejected doesn't matter. Neither does the impending galactic collision - considering the massive amount of space involved, the main effect of galactic collision is nothing more than heating up a bit of space dust.
But this is essentially what the benefit of hard science is - spinoffs. In this case, Apollo was pure 'engineering' - also known as 'proof-of-concept.' Research for science's sake usually has unexpected benefits in many unrelated areas. That said, you do raise a good point - it's just that Apollo is not a good example of what you're trying to say. Apollo was a good spending of money in the same way that Hubble was a good spending of money.
Keep in mind that 'humanity' != 'average person.' I can't stress this enough - partly because I am a pure scientist (practical benefits are for engineers) but mostly because it's true. Pure science is akin to the arts - it doesn't have a direct effect on the average person, true, but it helps society and culture by boosting morale and people's self-image and opinions on the society.
For instance, let me ask this question: we spend millions attempting to work out the age of the universe. Suppose we figure it out, and we're absolutely sure it's right. What does that do for the average person? Some people would say 'nothing' - well, that's partly true. Nothing tangible. But to many, it would give a sense of closure and a sense of their place in the world. It's a good aesthetic benefit.
It's hard to explain to people in America that the intangible things in society are more important than the tangible. This in contrast to Europe, where they name parks and roads after artists and scientists, whereas in America, we name roads after politicians who wanted the road built to boost the stock of a construction company who works on it. Not to say that Europe doesn't have its problems - but when it comes to art, culture, and society, they could run rings around us.
So, this absolutely has to be wrong, but, well, um.... they're going to have to pay hefty eBay fees anyway!
PS2 for $15k??I'm really confused about this one...
This subject has actually come up in Slashdot many times before. It's a standard problem with capitalism, in that people can't discern intangibles.
The other problem is that people are busy. Imagine if you wanted a yacht, then, and had a very good reason for it. Maybe your dying crazy uncle knew of a cure for cancer and you just needed a yacht to get there. Whatever. I don't care. Let's just say that you *could convince people if you had the time*.
If you had the time, you could probably raise money from everyone to buy that yacht. I don't see why not - except for the fact that people don't have time to listen to half a million people like you. In order for a system of 250 million people and growing to work, we need to actually have delegation of authority, and some organization which takes that 'listening to everyone' load off of people's backs so they can go and live their lives.
This is the main argument I have with individualistic-government ideas - society today simply does not have the time to handle their own lives, plus all of the responsibilities that 'individualistic governments' want to give them. I barely have time to investigate candidates!
Government-funded science is useful because it creates a beauracracy whose job is to determine what's valuable to society and what isn't. Letting corporations decide this is idiotic - corporations exist to make money, and some things may have phenomenally huge benefits with huge costs but are not cost-effective - that is, space travel. The beauracracy, therefore, has some semblance of giving funding to programs which deserve it.
On the arts side, I am actually rather frightened to hear people suggesting that arts do not have value to them. This is distinctly an artifact of America as a relatively new country, and one area we desparately need to learn from Europe. I shudder to think what would have happened to Leonardo da Vinci under your society.
Actually, he has no mistake here - your statement actually doesn't really make much sense when looking at real-world situations.
Most people have 'incentive-based' raises, that is, they do well, and they get good reviews, and they make more money. Or they have commission-based earnings, that is, they pull in more business, and make more money.
Both of these ideas here indicate one thing: the person has some control over his/her income, and therefore that person can maximize income while minimizing work.
You're talking about -promotions-, not raises - cases where work shifts drastically. He was talking about raises - like working at McDonald's and working towards a raise by always being available and helping out all the time.
You yourself said it! "Perhaps they'd worked their butt off at the plant..." the fact is, if people know that working hard won't earn them more money, they *won't work hard*!
This assumes that people work to maximize profits, rather than for personal satisfaction. This is an idealization of human culture, but it is borne up by economic trends, more or less.
Look, this whole topic is covered in basic economics and politics classes. It is the main reason that welfare ranks rose so high in the 80s and early 90s, and the elimination of the 'more money for less work' incentive in a lot of cases helped significantly thin the ranks of those on welfare.
Of course. Carbon's unique.
(Then again, so is any element, so that's somewhat redundant.)
Carbon is the only element capable of forming strong, stable, long bonds in any configuration we feel like. Not only that, since it's perfectly happy to donate an electron as well as accept one, it's perfectly happy bonding with itself.
It's not hard to figure out why certain elements are 'better' than others - carbon is simply the ideal building block, since I can build *any* structure I want out of carbon, plus maybe a few trace impurities. Now, since carbon is a light element, those bond energies are rather high, since the electrons aren't ridiculously shielded from the nucleus. So now you've got a strong, stable structure made out of one of the most common elements in existence. Oh, I definitely think carbon has a pretty bright future.
On topic for a moment, I'm greatly amused by this. Buckyballs have literally become a rather amusing joke in the scientific world, since everyone wants to use them for *something* - I've seen an article where they were using buckyballs to fight AIDS, for instance. The downside is that, unfortunately, somehow these plans never come to fruition.
So, for now, I'm skeptical. Call me back when you have more than just a transistor - say a few logic gates, and when you've got them cheaply.
Of course, that's an engineering problem.