What about money being wasted on 'defence systems' at the cost of innovative research? If World Peace were to be established Today, how much of the wrold's defence budgets could go into this kind of 'Save Humanity' work?
See this Internet thing you are using. It started as a Defense Department project. War has long been a motivator for progress. Either progress or die, literally. Check out the history of aviation.
Compare the NSF and DARPA. They both give money to people to perform scientific research. How many innovations has the NSF come up with? I've worked on both NSF and DARPA projects, and the DARPA projects were far more rigorous. There was stuff that I thought was crap "dog and pony show" stuff for the NSF that would never have pass DARPA. DARPA can take away your funding in a heartbeat and often does.
I think World Peace would be the kind of event that causes us to stand idle for 800 years. If we evolved militarily for 800 years, shooting down an asteriod out in deep space would probably seem like a piece of cake.
Was it A) An evil conspiracy of evil Oil Companies seeking to cover the planet in waste and polution in a plot to take over the world.
B) An evil conspiracy of evil Car Companies seeking to cover the planet in waste and polution in a plot to take over the world.
C) An evil conspiracy of evil Oil Companies working with evil Car Companies seeking to cover the planet in waste and polution in a plot to take over the world.
D) The oil lovin' election stealin' George W Bush and evil Oil Company exCEO Dick Chaney
E) SUVs
F) George W Bush and Dick Chaney driving an SUV filled with evil Oil Company CEOs and evil Car Company CEOs.
But it seems to me that we would be much better served if we talked about how to get more women in the field
It depends on the reasons that women aren't going into the field. If it is because of some "old boy's club" keeping them down, then that is wrong. If it is because women in general, for whatever reason, don't necessarily want to go down that path then no one should push them on it. Just make it equal for the women who want to be mathematicians.
Women don't generally go to Star Trek conventions, but no one accuses Star Trek conventions of being sexist.
Hmm, so the Greeks, Euler, Descartes, and thousands of other mathematicians don't count? Math is one of the oldest fields I can think of.
And yet, someone could learn and understand all of their most important discoveries before they graduate with a B.S. in Math. From what I've read of Andrew Wiles final resolution of Fermat's Last Theorem, it would take years of specialized study to understand.
How can your own company hoax itself?!?! This wasn't just some Onion article or fake email everyone sent out. It was a bloody press release! And it was NOT an April Fools Trick as it dates May 2nd.
Gee everybody was fooled into believing the iLoo was real because Microsoft issues a press release saying it was building the darn thing. Really pulled one over on us...
MAYBE the truth is that Microsoft recieved so much bad press over it that they decided to pull the iLoo and pretend it was a joke. If that is the case, aren't there regulations against such things?
The reason why Dell is on top is they know what they are doing and put the best into their computers. I knew ATI's were the king of the hill when Dell started putting them into their boxes instead of Nvidia.
Toddlers might sometimes wonder why people need to learn so many words and learn to speak in complicated phrases, when it seems that all you really need to do is point and cry to get what you want. Then we grow up.
The power of Unix is that you can use it to do things that its designers did not (nor did they have to) think about. Your example is flawed in its purpose because you will find it increasingly difficult to do tasks the UI people did not anticipate you would need. Such as doing something with those files you found, rename them to.bak or resize the.gifs or whatever. Until someone writes a Visual Basic program to do it and sells it for 29.95.
A) I believe in optimizing for the common case. How many people will ever find the need to do such tasks? How much time will you spending doing those sorts of tasks?
B) You are still thinking command line. For backups I make a folder called "backup" and click/drag my files to it. Most of my programs also automatically make.bak files.
Many Mac and Windows applications can work on a collection of files by clicking and dragging them.
I'm not saying that scripts are bad. I love them for certain tasks.
Like grepping a text delimited file and piping its output into awk or sed from a simple command prompt? Or storing that information in a simple system variable to be used by a C program compiled on gcc for whatever reason you need? How dumb is you!
Vs Windows 2000:
Right click on folder. Select search. Type text. Click "Search Now".
I already know which one is harder. Now which one is better?
It's Open Source bigshot college educated programmer, weren't you bright enough to FIX the problems or just whine because thats what you can do?
Someone already did. It is called OS X.
Riiiiiiiiiight, everything should work perfectly the first time with only minutes invested regardless of the complexity of the code and how many source/header files you are trying to link up with that makefile.
Your attitude is the biggest weakness of Unix. Instead of trying to make Unix better, you blame the messenger for being "too stupid" to get it.
I think you want it to be harder because it makes you feel superior.
Personally, I could give a crap what about computer "religious wars". I've programmed in C, C++, Java, PL/SQL, Delphi, and more scripting languages than I can think of. I've programmed on UNIX boxes, Linux boxes, and Windows boxes. The only thing I care about is getting the job done in the best way possible.
This documents has many excellent points. When you are a green developer just into college you are sort of brainwashed into the "UNIX is the best. PCs and Macs are just toys compared to the incredible power of UNIX." When I encountered things I just assumed it was my lack of knowledge or understanding. UNIX wouldn't have faults or problems!
Of course, many of these problem have been resolved since this book was written. Unfortunately, far too many have remained and have many their way into Linux.
A) Cryptic Command Names. Still there in Linux
B) "Unix was like Homer, handed down as oral wisdom."
Man, this is so true. I got most of my UNIX knowledge passed down to me by upperclassmen and professors. It is amazing how much training it takes in UNIX to do something simple in Windows. For example, recursively searching through a subtree for some text in a file.
C) Terminal Insanity. Still there in many ways. VT100 pops up its ugly head decades after it should have been killed.
D) The X-Windows Disaster. X-Windows is what first made me question UNIX's superiority. Dang X sucks. Bad. What a mess! "Motif Self-Abuse Kit" made me laugh because my brief experience programming Motif was one of the worst in my life. It was a mess of void pointers and pointers to functions that was an absolute pain to program.
E) Make "Unfortunately, in their zeal to be general, many Unix tools forget about the quick and easy part."
I've never found a make that I liked. You should not have to spend hours programming the freakin makefile. Nor should you have to debug whitespace because you have an extra space or tab.
1) Why doesn't Tatooine make sense? It is important because Anakin was born there and all of his remaining family lives there. They take Luke there because that is where his family is. This is actually one of the plot points Lucas seemed to do well with.
2) C-3PO being built by Anakin is a bit hokey, but the droids are in all the films because they are essentially owned by the Skywalkers. Its no coincidence that Leia trusted R2 with the Death Star plans considering how many times the little guy saved her mom's life.
I'm alot more skeptical about Chewy however. A young Lando may make more sense considering the battle he mentioned in ROTJ which allowed the Rebels to trust him enough to become a General.
In my feminism class at the University of Southern California, the first paragraph of the syllabus talked about the tension between Difference vs. Equality feminism and how it affected the entire field.
On one hand you have the "Gloria Steinum" type feminism that fought against the stereotyping of women as only homemakers and secretaries. This type of feminism cringes at any notion of women and men being different.
On the other hand you have people like Harvard psychology professor Carol Gilligan, whose work "A Different Voice" showed the bias in scientific research when you *didn't* take the difference in men and women into account. Check out http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/gilligan.html for a brief bio of Carol Gilligan.
These two threads of feminism are mutually exclusive and each one considers the other to be sexist in some way. But they are both valid feminist theories.
"The United States is NOT a super power because of its "large world wide voice". The United States is a super power because IT IS POWERFUL ENOUGH TO COMPLEATLY DESTORY EVERY MAN WOMAN AND CHILD IN ANY NUMBER OF NATIONS AT ANY POINT IN TIME IT SHOULD SO CHOOSE TO DO SO"
Russia can still do the same, but are not considered a superpower anymore.
Superpower is one of those words so overused that people forget its meaning. A regional power is a country that has a large amount of power and influence in a particular geographic region. Britian, France, and Germany are European powers. China and Japan are East Asian powers.
A Superpower is a country whose influence extends far beyond its region to every part of the globe. During the Cold War, United States and Soviet power was evident in every region. The Soviets had power all the way into the Americas as evidenced by Cuba and the communist uprisings in Central America. The United States had power in places as far off as Europe, Korea, and Turkey.
After the fall of the Cold War the United States is the only country that has that sort of reach. Russia can't extend its power to start uprisings the Western Hemisphere anymore. The United States just a short time ago helped the Northern Alliance take down their enemy the Taliban half a world away in a land notorious for "chewing up" big-shot powers for hundreds of years. That's power. That's a superpower. It is not just being able to blow everyone up. It is also being able to influence people through ideas and arguments. Its about making what you want to happen actually happen.
Not every country strives to be a superpower. Remember this when you hear about China being the next "superpower". China has shown little interest in what happens outside their region. If they had Taiwan they would be pretty much content.
Europe recently failed the superpower test by their inability to stop the genocide in the former Yugoslavia and the necessity of the United States to come in and stop the madness once again. That is just embarrassing. Imagine if France had to come over here and deal with Mexico. You have to be able to deal with your own region before you can see yourself as a "superpower".
Most weather is due to the heat from the sun causing things like water evaporation and air currents due to warm air rising. If you put Earth out in the middle of space with no nearby star you would pretty much not have any weather.
RPGs and graphical adventures sort of merged....
on
Top Ten Dying Game Genres
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I really think RPGs and graphical adventures sort of merged together. The first RPGs were mostly about combat and the first graphical adventures had no combat. However, RPGs started going beyond "kill this, get gem, bring gem back" to more complicated scenarios requiring you to talk to people and perform tasks. The Ultimas circa 6 and 7 really pushed the limits for RPGs in this regard. In fact Ultima 7 was IMHO more graphical adventure than RPG since the combat model was very simplistic and your stats did not carry very much meaning. It was the story and interactions that made the game.
The Infinity Engine Bioware/Black Isle games had a great deal of Graphical Adventure elements in them---most than most people realize. I still remember in Baldur's Gate I being able to slip past some killers by wearing a "cursed gender-switching belt". They pushed the envelope making RPGs stats as much of a requirement as items in solving the quest, especially in Torment.
At the end the Kings Quest games were going in the opposite direction---putting combat in an graphical adventure.
that it took until 1990 for the first game capable of side-scrolling! Dang, the Nintendo had that for 5 years before and was already on Mario 3! That is pretty bad and shows how far computer games were behind technology wise. Of course Id would put computer gaming on the forefront of technology with the Doom.
Which begs the question of whether computer gaming would be dead without John Carmack. I know not every game needs cutting edge 3d graphics (Europa Universalis) but many games would be greatly lessened without being able to create believable worlds (Jedi Knight II).
Yes. Or admit that the USA has passed its prime as a society and is now on the slow slide into cultural and moral decay. It is not what you did in the past, it is what have you done lately that counts.
People like you have been declaring the "death of America" for the past hundred or so years. Our slide into "cultural and moral decay" is the reason why Japan thought we wouldn't fight back after Pearl Harbor, the reason why the USSR thought we needed to be forced into Communism, the reason why everybody thought Japan was going to whip our butts in the 70s and 80s and why on September 11th a bunch of terrorists thought that they could blow up the Twin Towers without any retribution.
Heck, you can even go back to the founding of this nation when the wise Europeans didn't think we would last more than a couple years at best.
America has been underestimated for pretty much its entire existence.
NASA's "focus" for the past two decades has been to build a space station and a shuttle to get to it. After the moon landings this is a pretty logical next step.
Unfortunately we have ran into more technical and engineering challenges that we would have liked. But we tried. Now we have to move forward and figure out what to do next. However, you cannot start comparing us to the Chinese and Europeans until after they have landed on the moon and asked themselves "what's next?".
BTW, we have sent up a ton of different mission including the Hubble Telescope and the Mars Pathfinder. These have generally been "side projets" in comparison to the grand vision, but any one of these would be considered a "tremendous accomplishment" to China or Europe.
Helm's Deep in War 3? Ha! The engine can only handle a couple 100 units at best. You would need something like the engine from the Total War games www.totalwar.com to have a battle that felt anything like Helm's Deep.
The Total War games can get into the tens of thousands and still look pretty cool. The battlefields are huge as well. Check out: http://www.totalwar.com/
All those people griping about RTS games being stagnant just haven't looked hard enough.
people would rather view their complex world in terms of a neat, all-ends tied up, good vs. evil novel like LoTR. The characters are all very straightforward, and you never have to wonder if Gandalf has ulterier motives.
What LoTR did you read? Mine had basically every character (including Gandalf) tempted by the ring and its power. Galadriel fantasized about taking it. Boromir tried to take it. The ring twisted Frodo and Bilbo greatly. Denethor was a pretty screwed up king and very distrustful of Aragorn and Gandalf, and for good reason because Gandalf had an ulterior motive in that he thought Aragon should be king.
Surprisingly the movie actually does an excellent job showing these conflicts--especially with regards to Gollum. Is Gollum good or evil? Not exactly a clear cut question. If this was the simplistic story you are describing Gollum would just be an enemy to be defeated. Instead he is given mercy and forgiveness.
It's a good story, but a dangerous way to view the world for those not sophisticated enough to look past it..Anyhow, this is why it's important to push people through to more complex literative and stories where people aren't good or evil, but who work towards their own logical (or not) ends.
The problem I think you are having is not that the characters are too simplistic but that the universe is "too simplistic" in that it HAS a sense of "good" and a sense of "evil". Seeing morality as "working towards their own logical ends" is Moral Relativism. It implies that there is no outside or objective good or evil---what works towards my good end is good and what works against me is evil.
What you have to realize is that not everyone sees the world in this manner and it is arrogant to believe that those who are not Moral Relativists are somehow not sophisticated enough.
With regards to this whole Iraq situation, one of the problems is that many Americans are not relativists while many Europeans are. One example of how Non-Relativists see the Iraq situations as "Gassed own people;Invaded other countries;Was beaten and agreed to disarm;Failed to Disarm;Must do something". I can't speak for the relativists but I believe many view it from the end back "US want to invade Iraq;US must have motive; Iraq has oil and US needs oil;US must be trying to take Iraq oil". Of course there is many more threads to this. These are just small examples.
In fact I find many of the war protestors arguments as utterly unsophisticated. I'm sorry but a French protestor holding a "No blood for oil" sign doesn't cut it when France has more oil interests in Iraq than any other country (ex. TotalFinaElf). All too often the protests degrade into rather unsophisticated Bush namecalling instead of trying to understand his arguments and motivations. Sure oil is a big consideration, but if all we cared about was oil we would serve Israel on a silver platter to the Arab League tomorrow and would not give a crap if it was Saddam or Adolf himself selling us the oil.
Brian Ellenberger
Andrew Sullivan a hyperconservative????
on
Salon Asks for Help
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
If you think Andrew Sullivan is a "hyperconservative" it shows how skewed your view of the political landscape is. If you have ever read any of Mr. Sullivan's works you would know that he is socially liberal on many positions. Most "hyperconservatives" don't support abortion, gay marriage, and sex outside marriage.
One of the problems with political debate in this country is that we are all too quick to label and catagorize people instead of listening to their opinions. It is all too easy for a liberal to label someone like Andrew Sullivan as an "EVIL SUPER HYPERCONSERVATIVE" and then ignore his writings instead of reading them and giving them a chance to enlighten yourself or change your viewpoint. Likewise it is too easy for a conservative to label him as "EVIL CORRUPT HOMOSEXUAL" as do the same. The problem is that he does not fit into nice predefined catagories. This is one of the reasons I enjoy reading is articles so much. I don't agree with everything he says but I still gain understanding from his insitefulness. Much more than I would gain if I just read someone I agreed with 100%.
Just a tip. If you are only reading articles you agree with 100% you are doing something wrong. Challenge yourself sometime by reading people who you don't agree with and try understanding the world from their viewpoint. It will make you a much wiser and better person. If more people did that we could get away from childish namecalling and maybe have a reasonable debate sometime.
Under your thinking, if I lock my doors, but the locks weren't the best, most effective ones, then I am at fault. If a new lock that comes out that is strong and I don't upgrade, then I am at fault.
Well, door locks only keep honest people honest. Within 3 feet of my locked front door is a window that is easy to break and enter through. Am I at fault for not putting bars on it?
No. It is not my job to deter people from doing illegal things, even if I do. They simply are not supposed to do them and if they get caught, the can be punished.
Mod parent up please. This does not deserve to be stuck at 0.
If I break into someone's house, I'll be charged with breaking and entering, and with trespassing.
You can get 5-10 years for a breaking and entering offense. Mitnick, who broke into dozens of businesses, only was in jail for 6. If he had been sentenced the same as a person who broken into tens of homes and businesses he would have gotten many many more years.
"The (majority) of the offenses are generally disgruntled employees getting back at the employer or trying to make money."
And how is this not serious? Destruction and blackmail are extremely serious and should not be tolerated in society.
Prison is not just rehabilitation. It is a deterrent. If there were little or no consequences to, say, wiping out a server just because you are mad you got fired then many many more people would do it. Consequentially companies would crack down hard on everyone and treat all employees like assumed criminals.
Most of the world we live in is based on trust. Most homes and businesses are relatively easy to break into. And if the consequences for such actions were light then more people would be trying it just for fun. And then home owners would have to put bars on their windows and constantly worry about keeping their house secure.
In fact, this is essentially what Slashdotters are recommending people do to their computers. Most people have better things to do with their lives than worrying about locking down their computer from hackers. How about the hackers say on their own boxes and stay the heck away from everyone elses!! If someone breaks into my computer, it is not MY fault the computer was easy to crack. It is the hackers fault for doing something they weren't supposed to do. And the hacker should go to jail for it, just as they would go to jail for breaking into my house and checking out all my stuff. I don't care if they steal anything or not, it is an invasion of my life and privacy!
I am sick of the hypocrisy Slashdot getting all up in arms about the Patriot Act and then worshipping Kevin Mitnick. At least I can vote against the Congressmen who supported the Patriot Act. I can't vote to keep Mitnick wannabes off my computer, except to vote to put them in jail where they belong.
in that pseudo-moral sense that children aren't mature enough to handle reading about subjects like death, consensual torture and murder, sex, cancer, and incest
Here is a tip, how about not putting irrelevant flamebait into the first paragraph of a book review?
Slashdot Mirror
What about money being wasted on 'defence systems' at the cost of innovative research? If World Peace were to be established Today, how much of the wrold's defence budgets could go into this kind of 'Save Humanity' work?
See this Internet thing you are using. It started as a Defense Department project. War has long been a motivator for progress. Either progress or die, literally. Check out the history of aviation.
Compare the NSF and DARPA. They both give money to people to perform scientific research. How many innovations has the NSF come up with? I've worked on both NSF and DARPA projects, and the DARPA projects were far more rigorous. There was stuff that I thought was crap "dog and pony show" stuff for the NSF that would never have pass DARPA. DARPA can take away your funding in a heartbeat and often does.
I think World Peace would be the kind of event that causes us to stand idle for 800 years. If we evolved militarily for 800 years, shooting down an asteriod out in deep space would probably seem like a piece of cake.
Brian Ellenberger
So who *REALLY* killed the Sparrow?
Was it
A) An evil conspiracy of evil Oil Companies seeking to cover the planet in waste and polution in a plot to take over the world.
B) An evil conspiracy of evil Car Companies seeking to cover the planet in waste and polution in a plot to take over the world.
C) An evil conspiracy of evil Oil Companies working with evil Car Companies seeking to cover the planet in waste and polution in a plot to take over the world.
D) The oil lovin' election stealin' George W Bush and evil Oil Company exCEO Dick Chaney
E) SUVs
F) George W Bush and Dick Chaney driving an SUV filled with evil Oil Company CEOs and evil Car Company CEOs.
Brian Ellenberger
But it seems to me that we would be much better served if we talked about how to get more women in the field
It depends on the reasons that women aren't going into the field. If it is because of some "old boy's club" keeping them down, then that is wrong. If it is because women in general, for whatever reason, don't necessarily want to go down that path then no one should push them on it. Just make it equal for the women who want to be mathematicians.
Women don't generally go to Star Trek conventions, but no one accuses Star Trek conventions of being sexist.
Hmm, so the Greeks, Euler, Descartes, and thousands of other mathematicians don't count? Math is one of the oldest fields I can think of.
And yet, someone could learn and understand all of their most important discoveries before they graduate with a B.S. in Math. From what I've read of Andrew Wiles final resolution of Fermat's Last Theorem, it would take years of specialized study to understand.
Brian
Here is the Google Cache for the iLoo.
How can your own company hoax itself?!?! This wasn't just some Onion article or fake email everyone sent out. It was a bloody press release! And it was NOT an April Fools Trick as it dates May 2nd.
Gee everybody was fooled into believing the iLoo was real because Microsoft issues a press release saying it was building the darn thing. Really pulled one over on us...
MAYBE the truth is that Microsoft recieved so much bad press over it that they decided to pull the iLoo and pretend it was a joke. If that is the case, aren't there regulations against such things?
BrianThe reason why Dell is on top is they know what they are doing and put the best into their computers. I knew ATI's were the king of the hill when Dell started putting them into their boxes instead of Nvidia.
x ps.htm
Check out this gaming machine:
http://www.dell.com/us/en/gen/topics/segtopic_dim
Brian
Toddlers might sometimes wonder why people need to learn so many words and learn to speak in complicated phrases, when it seems that all you really need to do is point and cry to get what you want. Then we grow up.
.bak or resize the .gifs or whatever. Until someone writes a Visual Basic program to do it and sells it for 29.95.
.bak files.
The power of Unix is that you can use it to do things that its designers did not (nor did they have to) think about. Your example is flawed in its purpose because you will find it increasingly difficult to do tasks the UI people did not anticipate you would need. Such as doing something with those files you found, rename them to
A) I believe in optimizing for the common case. How many people will ever find the need to do such tasks? How much time will you spending doing those sorts of tasks?
B) You are still thinking command line. For backups I make a folder called "backup" and click/drag my files to it. Most of my programs also automatically make
Many Mac and Windows applications can work on a collection of files by clicking and dragging them.
I'm not saying that scripts are bad. I love them for certain tasks.
Brian
Like grepping a text delimited file and piping its output into awk or sed from a simple command prompt? Or storing that information in a simple system variable to be used by a C program compiled on gcc for whatever reason you need? How dumb is you!
Vs Windows 2000:
Right click on folder. Select search. Type text. Click "Search Now".
I already know which one is harder. Now which one is better?
It's Open Source bigshot college educated programmer, weren't you bright enough to FIX the problems or just whine because thats what you can do?
Someone already did. It is called OS X.
Riiiiiiiiiight, everything should work perfectly the first time with only minutes invested regardless of the complexity of the code and how many source/header files you are trying to link up with that makefile.
Or maybe someone could do it right.
Your attitude is the biggest weakness of Unix. Instead of trying to make Unix better, you blame the messenger for being "too stupid" to get it.
I think you want it to be harder because it makes you feel superior.
Personally, I could give a crap what about computer "religious wars". I've programmed in C, C++, Java, PL/SQL, Delphi, and more scripting languages than I can think of. I've programmed on UNIX boxes, Linux boxes, and Windows boxes. The only thing I care about is getting the job done in the best way possible.
Brian Ellenberger
This documents has many excellent points. When you are a green developer just into college you are sort of brainwashed into the "UNIX is the best. PCs and Macs are just toys compared to the incredible power of UNIX." When I encountered things I just assumed it was my lack of knowledge or understanding. UNIX wouldn't have faults or problems!
Of course, many of these problem have been resolved since this book was written. Unfortunately, far too many have remained and have many their way into Linux.
A) Cryptic Command Names. Still there in Linux
B) "Unix was like Homer, handed down as oral wisdom."
Man, this is so true. I got most of my UNIX knowledge passed down to me by upperclassmen and professors. It is amazing how much training it takes in UNIX to do something simple in Windows. For example, recursively searching through a subtree for some text in a file.
C) Terminal Insanity. Still there in many ways. VT100 pops up its ugly head decades after it should have been killed.
D) The X-Windows Disaster. X-Windows is what first made me question UNIX's superiority. Dang X sucks. Bad. What a mess! "Motif Self-Abuse Kit" made me laugh because my brief experience programming Motif was one of the worst in my life. It was a mess of void pointers and pointers to functions that was an absolute pain to program.
E) Make "Unfortunately, in their zeal to be general, many
Unix tools forget about the quick and easy part."
I've never found a make that I liked. You should not have to spend hours programming the freakin makefile. Nor should you have to debug whitespace because you have an extra space or tab.
1) Why doesn't Tatooine make sense? It is important because Anakin was born there and all of his remaining family lives there. They take Luke there because that is where his family is. This is actually one of the plot points Lucas seemed to do well with.
2) C-3PO being built by Anakin is a bit hokey, but the droids are in all the films because they are essentially owned by the Skywalkers. Its no coincidence that Leia trusted R2 with the Death Star plans considering how many times the little guy saved her mom's life.
I'm alot more skeptical about Chewy however. A young Lando may make more sense considering the battle he mentioned in ROTJ which allowed the Rebels to trust him enough to become a General.
Brian Ellenberger
In my feminism class at the University of Southern California, the first paragraph of the syllabus talked about the tension between Difference vs. Equality feminism and how it affected the entire field.
On one hand you have the "Gloria Steinum" type feminism that fought against the stereotyping of women as only homemakers and secretaries. This type of feminism cringes at any notion of women and men being different.
On the other hand you have people like Harvard psychology professor Carol Gilligan, whose work "A Different Voice" showed the bias in scientific research when you *didn't* take the difference in men and women into account. Check out http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/gilligan.html for a brief bio of Carol Gilligan.
These two threads of feminism are mutually exclusive and each one considers the other to be sexist in some way. But they are both valid feminist theories.
Brian Ellenberger
"The United States is NOT a super power because of its "large world wide voice". The United States is a super power because IT IS POWERFUL ENOUGH TO COMPLEATLY DESTORY EVERY MAN WOMAN AND CHILD IN ANY NUMBER OF NATIONS AT ANY POINT IN TIME IT SHOULD SO CHOOSE TO DO SO"
Russia can still do the same, but are not considered a superpower anymore.
Superpower is one of those words so overused that people forget its meaning. A regional power is a country that has a large amount of power and influence in a particular geographic region. Britian, France, and Germany are European powers. China and Japan are East Asian powers.
A Superpower is a country whose influence extends far beyond its region to every part of the globe. During the Cold War, United States and Soviet power was evident in every region. The Soviets had power all the way into the Americas as evidenced by Cuba and the communist uprisings in Central America. The United States had power in places as far off as Europe, Korea, and Turkey.
After the fall of the Cold War the United States is the only country that has that sort of reach. Russia can't extend its power to start uprisings the Western Hemisphere anymore. The United States just a short time ago helped the Northern Alliance take down their enemy the Taliban half a world away in a land notorious for "chewing up" big-shot powers for hundreds of years. That's power. That's a superpower. It is not just being able to blow everyone up. It is also being able to influence people through ideas and arguments. Its about making what you want to happen actually happen.
Not every country strives to be a superpower. Remember this when you hear about China being the next "superpower". China has shown little interest in what happens outside their region. If they had Taiwan they would be pretty much content.
Europe recently failed the superpower test by their inability to stop the genocide in the former Yugoslavia and the necessity of the United States to come in and stop the madness once again. That is just embarrassing. Imagine if France had to come over here and deal with Mexico. You have to be able to deal with your own region before you can see yourself as a "superpower".
Brian Ellenberger
Most weather is due to the heat from the sun causing things like water evaporation and air currents due to warm air rising. If you put Earth out in the middle of space with no nearby star you would pretty much not have any weather.
I really think RPGs and graphical adventures sort of merged together. The first RPGs were mostly about combat and the first graphical adventures had no combat. However, RPGs started going beyond "kill this, get gem, bring gem back" to more complicated scenarios requiring you to talk to people and perform tasks. The Ultimas circa 6 and 7 really pushed the limits for RPGs in this regard. In fact Ultima 7 was IMHO more graphical adventure than RPG since the combat model was very simplistic and your stats did not carry very much meaning. It was the story and interactions that made the game.
The Infinity Engine Bioware/Black Isle games had a great deal of Graphical Adventure elements in them---most than most people realize. I still remember in Baldur's Gate I being able to slip past some killers by wearing a "cursed gender-switching belt". They pushed the envelope making RPGs stats as much of a requirement as items in solving the quest, especially in Torment.
At the end the Kings Quest games were going in the opposite direction---putting combat in an graphical adventure.
Brian Ellenberger
anything else is so slanted and pre-digested as to be worthless for news anyways
:)
You mean like that NPR reporter above you refering to the war as "Gulf War II: Die Harder".
that it took until 1990 for the first game capable of side-scrolling! Dang, the Nintendo had that for 5 years before and was already on Mario 3! That is pretty bad and shows how far computer games were behind technology wise. Of course Id would put computer gaming on the forefront of technology with the Doom.
Which begs the question of whether computer gaming would be dead without John Carmack. I know not every game needs cutting edge 3d graphics (Europa Universalis) but many games would be greatly lessened without being able to create believable worlds (Jedi Knight II).
Brian Ellenberger
Yes. Or admit that the USA has passed its prime as a society and is now on the slow slide into cultural and moral decay. It is not what you did in the past, it is what have you done lately that counts.
People like you have been declaring the "death of America" for the past hundred or so years. Our slide into "cultural and moral decay" is the reason why Japan thought we wouldn't fight back after Pearl Harbor, the reason why the USSR thought we needed to be forced into Communism, the reason why everybody thought Japan was going to whip our butts in the 70s and 80s and why on September 11th a bunch of terrorists thought that they could blow up the Twin Towers without any retribution.
Heck, you can even go back to the founding of this nation when the wise Europeans didn't think we would last more than a couple years at best.
America has been underestimated for pretty much its entire existence.
NASA's "focus" for the past two decades has been to build a space station and a shuttle to get to it. After the moon landings this is a pretty logical next step.
Unfortunately we have ran into more technical and engineering challenges that we would have liked. But we tried. Now we have to move forward and figure out what to do next. However, you cannot start comparing us to the Chinese and Europeans until after they have landed on the moon and asked themselves "what's next?".
BTW, we have sent up a ton of different mission including the Hubble Telescope and the Mars Pathfinder. These have generally been "side projets" in comparison to the grand vision, but any one of these would be considered a "tremendous accomplishment" to China or Europe.
Brian Ellenberger
Helm's Deep in War 3? Ha! The engine can only handle a couple 100 units at best. You would need something like the engine from the Total War games www.totalwar.com to have a battle that felt anything like Helm's Deep.
The Total War games can get into the tens of thousands and still look pretty cool. The battlefields are huge as well. Check out: http://www.totalwar.com/
All those people griping about RTS games being stagnant just haven't looked hard enough.
Brian Ellenberger
people would rather view their complex world in terms of a neat, all-ends tied up, good vs. evil novel like LoTR. The characters are all very straightforward, and you never have to wonder if Gandalf has ulterier motives.
What LoTR did you read? Mine had basically every character (including Gandalf) tempted by the ring and its power. Galadriel fantasized about taking it. Boromir tried to take it. The ring twisted Frodo and Bilbo greatly. Denethor was a pretty screwed up king and very distrustful of Aragorn and Gandalf, and for good reason because Gandalf had an ulterior motive in that he thought Aragon should be king.
Surprisingly the movie actually does an excellent job showing these conflicts--especially with regards to Gollum. Is Gollum good or evil? Not exactly a clear cut question. If this was the simplistic story you are describing Gollum would just be an enemy to be defeated. Instead he is given mercy and forgiveness.
It's a good story, but a dangerous way to view the world for those not sophisticated enough to look past it..Anyhow, this is why it's important to push people through to more complex literative and stories where people aren't good or evil, but who work towards their own logical (or not) ends.
The problem I think you are having is not that the characters are too simplistic but that the universe is "too simplistic" in that it HAS a sense of "good" and a sense of "evil". Seeing morality as "working towards their own logical ends" is Moral Relativism. It implies that there is no outside or objective good or evil---what works towards my good end is good and what works against me is evil.
What you have to realize is that not everyone sees the world in this manner and it is arrogant to believe that those who are not Moral Relativists are somehow not sophisticated enough.
With regards to this whole Iraq situation, one of the problems is that many Americans are not relativists while many Europeans are. One example of how Non-Relativists see the Iraq situations as "Gassed own people;Invaded other countries;Was beaten and agreed to disarm;Failed to Disarm;Must do something". I can't speak for the relativists but I believe many view it from the end back "US want to invade Iraq;US must have motive; Iraq has oil and US needs oil;US must be trying to take Iraq oil". Of course there is many more threads to this. These are just small examples.
In fact I find many of the war protestors arguments as utterly unsophisticated. I'm sorry but a French protestor holding a "No blood for oil" sign doesn't cut it when France has more oil interests in Iraq than any other country (ex. TotalFinaElf). All too often the protests degrade into rather unsophisticated Bush namecalling instead of trying to understand his arguments and motivations. Sure oil is a big consideration, but if all we cared about was oil we would serve Israel on a silver platter to the Arab League tomorrow and would not give a crap if it was Saddam or Adolf himself selling us the oil.
Brian Ellenberger
If you think Andrew Sullivan is a "hyperconservative" it shows how skewed your view of the political landscape is. If you have ever read any of Mr. Sullivan's works you would know that he is socially liberal on many positions. Most "hyperconservatives" don't support abortion, gay marriage, and sex outside marriage.
One of the problems with political debate in this country is that we are all too quick to label and catagorize people instead of listening to their opinions. It is all too easy for a liberal to label someone like Andrew Sullivan as an "EVIL SUPER HYPERCONSERVATIVE" and then ignore his writings instead of reading them and giving them a chance to enlighten yourself or change your viewpoint. Likewise it is too easy for a conservative to label him as "EVIL CORRUPT HOMOSEXUAL" as do the same. The problem is that he does not fit into nice predefined catagories. This is one of the reasons I enjoy reading is articles so much. I don't agree with everything he says but I still gain understanding from his insitefulness. Much more than I would gain if I just read someone I agreed with 100%.
Just a tip. If you are only reading articles you agree with 100% you are doing something wrong. Challenge yourself sometime by reading people who you don't agree with and try understanding the world from their viewpoint. It will make you a much wiser and better person. If more people did that we could get away from childish namecalling and maybe have a reasonable debate sometime.
Brian Ellenberger
Under your thinking, if I lock my doors, but the locks weren't the best, most effective ones, then I am at fault. If a new lock that comes out that is strong and I don't upgrade, then I am at fault.
Well, door locks only keep honest people honest. Within 3 feet of my locked front door is a window that is easy to break and enter through. Am I at fault for not putting bars on it?
No. It is not my job to deter people from doing illegal things, even if I do. They simply are not supposed to do them and if they get caught, the can be punished.
Mod parent up please. This does not deserve to be stuck at 0.
If I break into someone's house, I'll be charged with breaking and entering, and with trespassing.
You can get 5-10 years for a breaking and entering offense. Mitnick, who broke into dozens of businesses, only was in jail for 6. If he had been sentenced the same as a person who broken into tens of homes and businesses he would have gotten many many more years.
Brian Ellenberger
"The (majority) of the offenses are generally disgruntled employees getting back at the employer or trying to make money."
And how is this not serious? Destruction and blackmail are extremely serious and should not be tolerated in society.
Prison is not just rehabilitation. It is a deterrent. If there were little or no consequences to, say, wiping out a server just because you are mad you got fired then many many more people would do it. Consequentially companies would crack down hard on everyone and treat all employees like assumed criminals.
Most of the world we live in is based on trust. Most homes and businesses are relatively easy to break into. And if the consequences for such actions were light then more people would be trying it just for fun. And then home owners would have to put bars on their windows and constantly worry about keeping their house secure.
In fact, this is essentially what Slashdotters are recommending people do to their computers. Most people have better things to do with their lives than worrying about locking down their computer from hackers. How about the hackers say on their own boxes and stay the heck away from everyone elses!! If someone breaks into my computer, it is not MY fault the computer was easy to crack. It is the hackers fault for doing something they weren't supposed to do. And the hacker should go to jail for it, just as they would go to jail for breaking into my house and checking out all my stuff. I don't care if they steal anything or not, it is an invasion of my life and privacy!
I am sick of the hypocrisy Slashdot getting all up in arms about the Patriot Act and then worshipping Kevin Mitnick. At least I can vote against the Congressmen who supported the Patriot Act. I can't vote to keep Mitnick wannabes off my computer, except to vote to put them in jail where they belong.
Brian Ellenberger
in that pseudo-moral sense that children aren't mature enough to handle reading about subjects like death, consensual torture and murder, sex, cancer, and incest
Here is a tip, how about not putting irrelevant flamebait into the first paragraph of a book review?