Snicker... Marxists/communists/etc. are the last people on earth who should be telling people that their "system doesn't work". They can't even understand human nature.
The elevator would be the cheapest and most flexible option once constructed. But more importantly, developing the elevator is really contingent on only one new technology - the material the ribbon is made of. And that can be conducted down here on the ground. Even if it fails to meet the requirements the basic materials research should still be viable and useful here on earth - like velcro, except with major industrial applications.
Of course you shouldn't put your eggs all in one basket.
Seen it. All of it. Had some good points (spaceships actually acted like they were in zero-g vaccum, not air, thank god). Overacting bugged me. Too much grandiosity.
Naughty words wouldn't even make sense (presumably in the future dialects have evolved somewhat) but even so they could be used in the proper context. By say, gritty federation ground troops, which we saw a little of in one episode. Same deal with sex and nudity (those Trill have a reputation for being somewhat... flexible in their relationships). I didn't really have gore in mind, though it wouldn't hurt if again, in context.
What I had in mind was mostly the adult motivation and possibly some disturbing content, particularly with regard to character motivation. Are the Cardassians evil when they're doing what they believe is right and necessary? Are Bajorans good when they're regarded by terrorists in some quarters? What if Klingon violence, Vulcan coldness, and Romulan self-interest visually reflected their reputation in the show? Etc. To say nothing of the motivations of individual characters, and the machinations of plot.
P.S. I think it's obvious the Trek crew is saving the nudity for the Enterprise movie. Jesus H. Christ, who's nipples are next?
... and I had no compulsion to see this movie. It was a TV show wrapped in the typical hollywood "Blockbuster" action-plot-effects formula. Bad combo. Star Trek II didn't have effects all that spectacular, but goddamnit, it had character development and dialogue and suspense and tragedy. You know, things that make a good story regardless of medium.
Know what the next ST Movie I'd like to see is? An epic-length, well-written, character-driven drama (with some action) in the DS9 branch of the Star Trek universe, with special attention paid to the complex (and Hard SF) relationship between species, cultures, and individuals that defined that show. Maybe even make it dangerous to be R-rated. THAT would be different, and interesting.
One would hope it would pave the way to a better OS X Aqua environment.
The fact is, OS X is just a short step away from a resolution independent graphics engine. Quartz already renders and scales in a fundamentally resolution independent manner. Quartz Extreme uses the graphics cards to speed much of that - and those graphics cards were really designed for 3D scenes where elements constantly change resolution.
With some work, and some updating of the APIs, we could have a completely resolution independent OS X environment. Instead of selecting lower pseudo-resolutions on your monitor control panel , we could be draging a slider to resize the monitor resolution on the fly to anything smaller than the maximum supported resolution of the card. (Note: yes, even bigger than maximum supported resolution of the monitor). SVG would probably replace tiff for the most part, but scaled, higher resolution tiffs would probably do the job as well.
Frankly the APIs are the main problem - since nobody has ever done something like that before, the Cocoa and Carbon APIs and Interface Builder need to provide for more flexible ways to define positioning information and for rendering bitmapped graphics (allowing programs to choose whether to scale like the rest of the environment or constrain themselves to the native bitmap of the monitor).
Project Orion died in '64. Nuclear power in general was called into question. But why would a little that stop the government from pursuing such a promising technology as nuclear propulsion? If I were them, I'd pursue it in secret in somewhere like Area 51.
First of all, stop this nonsense about terrorism. A direct attack can be easily ruled out. The shuttle was too high and too fast for any missile to have hit it. The weapons technology simply doesn't exist. Even if it did, we would have seen it on the tapes. Sabotage is an extremely unlikely possibility. The program was under extra tight security due to the presence of the Israeli astronaut (and it was tight to begin with). A homemade terrorist wouldn't stand a chance in hell of getting anywhere he could do anything, nor is it likely he could figure out what need to be done. A pro saboteur might stand a remote chance, if he didn't mind having himself and the people who sent him being terminated with extreme prejudice, which doesn't sound like any pro I've ever heard of.
Everything we know so far, and can infer, suggests there was a catastrophic systems failure. The cause of that failure is unknown. It could have been something as small as a very tiny damage or control failure causing the shuttle's body approach to shift, damaging the less-shielded parts with the extreme heat, pushing the shuttle into an uncontrolled tumble and the subsequent breakup.
What will happen now, is the investigation will begin. Every photo and scrap of video will collected and analyzed and pieced together. Every piece of debris will be collected with its location to find out where it came from. By the time they're done we'll probably be able to say exactly what the series of events was, right down to what part of the shuttle each of those streaks in the sky was. We may never know the exact root cause though.
Of course that won't stop the usual suspects from making unsubstantiated oblique insinuations, or the usual opportunists from claiming credit. Just like 9/11, people will use it if they can. I can say with little doubt that it won't affect GW's schedule a bit. We might even get to see him try to connect the Iraqis for pathetically transparent political reasons, just like 9/11. Without a doubt the media will spin everything into a tawdry, sentimental, over-commented affair.
I don't pity the astronauts (although I do pity their families). They knew the risks well, including the bureaucracy-created ones that spelled doom for the Challenger, and they took the chance anyway. They were doing what they wanted to do. And likely they would not want their deaths to stop others. Which is sad, because the ultimate victim of this may very well be the manned space program itself.
Whether it was a careless, avoidable mistake like the Challenger or something truly unavoidable like micrometeorite damage, it was inevitable that something like this would happen someday. NASA never recovered completely from Challenger - indeed, according to a pilot of the Columbia I spoke to once who quit the program after that disaster, NASA didn't even really learn and change from it. They've had a number of very public failures, not the least of which is the money pit that is the ISS. We just lost 25% of our shuttle fleet. The remaining 3 birds will likely be grounded for some time. Voices have been saying for years it's unnecessary to send people into space when machines can do the job as well and cheaper. They will probably get their way now.
At this point it there's a good chance human beings will stop going to space to work - although I still have hope someday we may go there to live.
Except when China puts their man in space and makes the usual vainglorious speeches, we might just be shamed right back up there.
Since sputnik, competition has fueled the manned space program. Perhaps that will keep it alive now.
I bet Bo-tox would become quite popular with the liar segment of society real quick after this is introduced. (aka politicians, mafioso types, and executives of all kinds).
I don't think Safari should be the Chimera developers main concern as competition. What they should be worrying about is what's IN Safari - specifically, webcore. Because it's going to make it MUCH easier for people to create browsers with novel interface features for the mac. Including tabbed browsing, even if safari itself doesn't.
My advice to the chimera developers - either focus on bringing the unique features of the mozilla platform like XUL apps that are not so easily replicated, or quit and spend your time someplace else.
(And IMHO, the value of tabbed browsing is not so much organizing pages but preventing clutter. The main problem with the desktop metaphor is it doesn't take many open windows before it's practically unusable.)
If they're getting twice the mileage due to better fuel efficiency, then why not just double the gas tax? High gas prices seem like a great way to get people to switch to more efficient cars. If people switch to cars that use alternative fuels in significant numbers, then tax that (yes, even electricity - power plants pollute too). Maybe someday they'll have to switch to GPS based taxing, but that'll be way in the future.
When I close the lid on my iBook and it goes to sleep there is a pulsing white light on the front of the machine where an LED is shining through the case. When that LED is off you wouldn't even know it's there.
It'd be nice if there were similar indicators for new mail, or alarms from iCal, connection state, short messages, etc.
THAT is how I think this technology will be used. As indicators of state independent of the display, that effectively use sparse cover space, that can change in multiple ways, and so forth. And uniquely, they don't mar up the computer's appearance when they're not needed. Possibly this will even be like having a second display capable of showing generalized information, at least in part. Changing the overall appearance of the computer is just a bonus.
They didn't really go out of business...
on
The End of Solotrek
·
· Score: 3, Funny
They're just trying to cover up the fact that they've been bought out by COBRA, a ruthless international terrorist organization determined to rule the world!
Want proof? Here it is! They've got blueprints and everything.
Should we argue for taking away the wealth of the Kennedys and Rockefellers as well?
No, we should force them out of the political arena, along with all the other established political dynasties in America - the Bushes, Gores, Romneys, Tafts, Pryors, Sununus, Fords, Udalls, etc. While we're at it we should head off the nascent dynasties of Clinton, Powell, and Dole.
This is America. We don't need no damn new nobility running the country.
The thing to remember is, this is not an ad for something, it's a wanted poster. And while people have become adept at ignoring banners, they're still there and people still see them. They're just not clicking on them, which is not that surprising since you'll probably see hundreds per day.
I'll bet you WOULD notice and pay attention if a picture of someone you knew popped up in front of your face. Recognition would be instantaneous and unexpected. And a lot of people will be seeing these. Certainly a lot more than watch America's Most Wanted, or the notices at the post office. If I were this guy, I'd lie low 'til the banners stop.
Comparing movies and TV is very much a matter of apples and oranges, despite the superficial similarities. A 2hr story built around a short story with limited originality is a far cry from 26 episodes spread over the better part of the year.
Most SF isn't franchised, and when it's not the viewers are low (for reasons I won't go into here). Of course any franchised show is bound to go stale eventually. Obsessive fanboy types are what keeps Star Trek on the air. The ironic thing is that SF should be by definition original.
Furthermore, 3 out of 4 of those movies were only SF in the perfunctory sense (it's got aliens, so it must be SF). Only one (Jurrasic Park) is SF in the true sense (i.e. it takes a speculative look at our future based on what we know today).
So movielink is ignoring mac users - should I be surprised? Maybe they are specifically shunning us for lack of DRM, but it's just as likely they wouldn't have bothered developing for the platform anyway since it's a smaller market. To say nothing of Microsoft pressure. This could just be a cheap, convinient jab on their part. And a meaningless one at that, since this service is a few dollars too expensive and a few years too early for anyone.
If there's one thing Mac users are used to, it's getting locked out of content. Realplayer and windows media player took forever to make it to Mac OS and then Mac OS X. Every codec in development always makes it to the mac platform last, often long after it's available for Windows.
DivX:) AVIs still aren't supported properly even with the codecs, because Quicktime still can't handle variable bitrate AVI audio (a problem people have been complaining about for years now) - which is not part of the official AVI standard but is nonetheless the defacto standard for this supposedly obsolete but nonetheless popular format.
As far as know, content is something you fight for. The only solution that even comes close to no-hassle, no-conversion, no-wait playback is the cross-platform Video Lan Client, although it has a lousy interface. Thank god for OS X, which tied us into the *nix community, which has many of the exact same problems.
Maybe if they actually sold TV Seasons on a volume or two at less than $50 (A standard 26 ep season will often take 13 volumes and cost well over a $120) people would actually buy them. The current model, which is to charge MORE MONEY for LESS TIME than a movie for a LOWER QUALITY product that is available for FREE ELSEWHERE, is absolutely ludicrous. Being able to put a whole on a single volume would be a good start for mass-market pricing.
Slashdot Mirror
Snicker... Marxists/communists/etc. are the last people on earth who should be telling people that their "system doesn't work". They can't even understand human nature.
The elevator would be the cheapest and most flexible option once constructed. But more importantly, developing the elevator is really contingent on only one new technology - the material the ribbon is made of. And that can be conducted down here on the ground. Even if it fails to meet the requirements the basic materials research should still be viable and useful here on earth - like velcro, except with major industrial applications.
Of course you shouldn't put your eggs all in one basket.
Seen it. All of it. Had some good points (spaceships actually acted like they were in zero-g vaccum, not air, thank god). Overacting bugged me. Too much grandiosity.
Naughty words wouldn't even make sense (presumably in the future dialects have evolved somewhat) but even so they could be used in the proper context. By say, gritty federation ground troops, which we saw a little of in one episode. Same deal with sex and nudity (those Trill have a reputation for being somewhat... flexible in their relationships). I didn't really have gore in mind, though it wouldn't hurt if again, in context.
What I had in mind was mostly the adult motivation and possibly some disturbing content, particularly with regard to character motivation. Are the Cardassians evil when they're doing what they believe is right and necessary? Are Bajorans good when they're regarded by terrorists in some quarters? What if Klingon violence, Vulcan coldness, and Romulan self-interest visually reflected their reputation in the show? Etc. To say nothing of the motivations of individual characters, and the machinations of plot.
P.S. I think it's obvious the Trek crew is saving the nudity for the Enterprise movie. Jesus H. Christ, who's nipples are next?
... and I had no compulsion to see this movie. It was a TV show wrapped in the typical hollywood "Blockbuster" action-plot-effects formula. Bad combo. Star Trek II didn't have effects all that spectacular, but goddamnit, it had character development and dialogue and suspense and tragedy. You know, things that make a good story regardless of medium.
Know what the next ST Movie I'd like to see is? An epic-length, well-written, character-driven drama (with some action) in the DS9 branch of the Star Trek universe, with special attention paid to the complex (and Hard SF) relationship between species, cultures, and individuals that defined that show. Maybe even make it dangerous to be R-rated. THAT would be different, and interesting.
One would hope it would pave the way to a better OS X Aqua environment.
The fact is, OS X is just a short step away from a resolution independent graphics engine. Quartz already renders and scales in a fundamentally resolution independent manner. Quartz Extreme uses the graphics cards to speed much of that - and those graphics cards were really designed for 3D scenes where elements constantly change resolution.
With some work, and some updating of the APIs, we could have a completely resolution independent OS X environment. Instead of selecting lower pseudo-resolutions on your monitor control panel , we could be draging a slider to resize the monitor resolution on the fly to anything smaller than the maximum supported resolution of the card. (Note: yes, even bigger than maximum supported resolution of the monitor). SVG would probably replace tiff for the most part, but scaled, higher resolution tiffs would probably do the job as well.
Frankly the APIs are the main problem - since nobody has ever done something like that before, the Cocoa and Carbon APIs and Interface Builder need to provide for more flexible ways to define positioning information and for rendering bitmapped graphics (allowing programs to choose whether to scale like the rest of the environment or constrain themselves to the native bitmap of the monitor).
Project Orion died in '64. Nuclear power in general was called into question. But why would a little that stop the government from pursuing such a promising technology as nuclear propulsion? If I were them, I'd pursue it in secret in somewhere like Area 51.
Ever heard of the Aurora?
Here's what I've got to say.
First of all, stop this nonsense about terrorism. A direct attack can be easily ruled out. The shuttle was too high and too fast for any missile to have hit it. The weapons technology simply doesn't exist. Even if it did, we would have seen it on the tapes. Sabotage is an extremely unlikely possibility. The program was under extra tight security due to the presence of the Israeli astronaut (and it was tight to begin with). A homemade terrorist wouldn't stand a chance in hell of getting anywhere he could do anything, nor is it likely he could figure out what need to be done. A pro saboteur might stand a remote chance, if he didn't mind having himself and the people who sent him being terminated with extreme prejudice, which doesn't sound like any pro I've ever heard of.
Everything we know so far, and can infer, suggests there was a catastrophic systems failure. The cause of that failure is unknown. It could have been something as small as a very tiny damage or control failure causing the shuttle's body approach to shift, damaging the less-shielded parts with the extreme heat, pushing the shuttle into an uncontrolled tumble and the subsequent breakup.
What will happen now, is the investigation will begin. Every photo and scrap of video will collected and analyzed and pieced together. Every piece of debris will be collected with its location to find out where it came from. By the time they're done we'll probably be able to say exactly what the series of events was, right down to what part of the shuttle each of those streaks in the sky was. We may never know the exact root cause though.
Of course that won't stop the usual suspects from making unsubstantiated oblique insinuations, or the usual opportunists from claiming credit. Just like 9/11, people will use it if they can. I can say with little doubt that it won't affect GW's schedule a bit. We might even get to see him try to connect the Iraqis for pathetically transparent political reasons, just like 9/11. Without a doubt the media will spin everything into a tawdry, sentimental, over-commented affair.
I don't pity the astronauts (although I do pity their families). They knew the risks well, including the bureaucracy-created ones that spelled doom for the Challenger, and they took the chance anyway. They were doing what they wanted to do. And likely they would not want their deaths to stop others. Which is sad, because the ultimate victim of this may very well be the manned space program itself.
Whether it was a careless, avoidable mistake like the Challenger or something truly unavoidable like micrometeorite damage, it was inevitable that something like this would happen someday. NASA never recovered completely from Challenger - indeed, according to a pilot of the Columbia I spoke to once who quit the program after that disaster, NASA didn't even really learn and change from it. They've had a number of very public failures, not the least of which is the money pit that is the ISS. We just lost 25% of our shuttle fleet. The remaining 3 birds will likely be grounded for some time. Voices have been saying for years it's unnecessary to send people into space when machines can do the job as well and cheaper. They will probably get their way now.
At this point it there's a good chance human beings will stop going to space to work - although I still have hope someday we may go there to live.
Except when China puts their man in space and makes the usual vainglorious speeches, we might just be shamed right back up there.
Since sputnik, competition has fueled the manned space program. Perhaps that will keep it alive now.
I bet Bo-tox would become quite popular with the liar segment of society real quick after this is introduced. (aka politicians, mafioso types, and executives of all kinds).
No Warcraft for you, heretic!
...but we do have death rays now.
Super. America, where hath your soul gone?
Mod parent up.
I don't think Safari should be the Chimera developers main concern as competition. What they should be worrying about is what's IN Safari - specifically, webcore. Because it's going to make it MUCH easier for people to create browsers with novel interface features for the mac. Including tabbed browsing, even if safari itself doesn't.
My advice to the chimera developers - either focus on bringing the unique features of the mozilla platform like XUL apps that are not so easily replicated, or quit and spend your time someplace else.
(And IMHO, the value of tabbed browsing is not so much organizing pages but preventing clutter. The main problem with the desktop metaphor is it doesn't take many open windows before it's practically unusable.)
How much will they charge you for using the wireless router and broadband service you already paid for?
If they're getting twice the mileage due to better fuel efficiency, then why not just double the gas tax? High gas prices seem like a great way to get people to switch to more efficient cars. If people switch to cars that use alternative fuels in significant numbers, then tax that (yes, even electricity - power plants pollute too). Maybe someday they'll have to switch to GPS based taxing, but that'll be way in the future.
When I close the lid on my iBook and it goes to sleep there is a pulsing white light on the front of the machine where an LED is shining through the case. When that LED is off you wouldn't even know it's there.
It'd be nice if there were similar indicators for new mail, or alarms from iCal, connection state, short messages, etc.
THAT is how I think this technology will be used. As indicators of state independent of the display, that effectively use sparse cover space, that can change in multiple ways, and so forth. And uniquely, they don't mar up the computer's appearance when they're not needed. Possibly this will even be like having a second display capable of showing generalized information, at least in part. Changing the overall appearance of the computer is just a bonus.
They're just trying to cover up the fact that they've been bought out by COBRA, a ruthless international terrorist organization determined to rule the world!
Want proof? Here it is! They've got blueprints and everything.
Should we argue for taking away the wealth of the Kennedys and Rockefellers as well?
No, we should force them out of the political arena, along with all the other established political dynasties in America - the Bushes, Gores, Romneys, Tafts, Pryors, Sununus, Fords, Udalls, etc. While we're at it we should head off the nascent dynasties of Clinton, Powell, and Dole.
This is America. We don't need no damn new nobility running the country.
The thing to remember is, this is not an ad for something, it's a wanted poster. And while people have become adept at ignoring banners, they're still there and people still see them. They're just not clicking on them, which is not that surprising since you'll probably see hundreds per day.
I'll bet you WOULD notice and pay attention if a picture of someone you knew popped up in front of your face. Recognition would be instantaneous and unexpected. And a lot of people will be seeing these. Certainly a lot more than watch America's Most Wanted, or the notices at the post office. If I were this guy, I'd lie low 'til the banners stop.
FOR ME TO POOP ON!
Comparing movies and TV is very much a matter of apples and oranges, despite the superficial similarities. A 2hr story built around a short story with limited originality is a far cry from 26 episodes spread over the better part of the year.
Most SF isn't franchised, and when it's not the viewers are low (for reasons I won't go into here). Of course any franchised show is bound to go stale eventually. Obsessive fanboy types are what keeps Star Trek on the air. The ironic thing is that SF should be by definition original.
Furthermore, 3 out of 4 of those movies were only SF in the perfunctory sense (it's got aliens, so it must be SF). Only one (Jurrasic Park) is SF in the true sense (i.e. it takes a speculative look at our future based on what we know today).
Considering the present state of the Japanese economy, I'm sure free software is looking pretty good right about now to a lot of people.
Cartoon Network has Futurama now. No doubt it will become the anchor of Adult Swim, which is expanding into M-Th as well. So, get some basic cable.
So movielink is ignoring mac users - should I be surprised? Maybe they are specifically shunning us for lack of DRM, but it's just as likely they wouldn't have bothered developing for the platform anyway since it's a smaller market. To say nothing of Microsoft pressure. This could just be a cheap, convinient jab on their part. And a meaningless one at that, since this service is a few dollars too expensive and a few years too early for anyone.
If there's one thing Mac users are used to, it's getting locked out of content. Realplayer and windows media player took forever to make it to Mac OS and then Mac OS X. Every codec in development always makes it to the mac platform last, often long after it's available for Windows.
DivX:) AVIs still aren't supported properly even with the codecs, because Quicktime still can't handle variable bitrate AVI audio (a problem people have been complaining about for years now) - which is not part of the official AVI standard but is nonetheless the defacto standard for this supposedly obsolete but nonetheless popular format.
As far as know, content is something you fight for. The only solution that even comes close to no-hassle, no-conversion, no-wait playback is the cross-platform Video Lan Client, although it has a lousy interface. Thank god for OS X, which tied us into the *nix community, which has many of the exact same problems.
Maybe if they actually sold TV Seasons on a volume or two at less than $50 (A standard 26 ep season will often take 13 volumes and cost well over a $120) people would actually buy them. The current model, which is to charge MORE MONEY for LESS TIME than a movie for a LOWER QUALITY product that is available for FREE ELSEWHERE, is absolutely ludicrous. Being able to put a whole on a single volume would be a good start for mass-market pricing.