In this particular case there IS a problem with the technology used. Cassette-recorder based storage is inherently unreliable, and its XC12 incarnation has enough unreliability to drive you insane. Could be somewhat rectified by Turbo2000, though... --
I for one get really bored whenever someone starts reminding us that most of the things in Matrix were in fact thought up by writers decades ago.
Some points:
1. Hardly any thought is original. Most of what you read in books or see in the cinema are reprocessed ideas from the past. Sometimes just a few years back, sometimes centuries -- in new clothes. You could dissect almost any movie this way and point to earlier work that contributed to it -- inadvertedly or otherwise.
2. A movie is not a book. Just because a movie uses some of the ideas from the book does not make it a blockbuster movie. Or even interesting one. Most of Stephen King's books turned out to be boring when translated to screen (with arguable exceptions of "Shining" and "Misery"). The fact that Dick (and others, centuries(!) ago), came up with some ideas that found their way into "Matrix" by no means makes it _lesser_ movie. To the contrary -- it's probably the first movie that managed to introduce some quite complex ways of thinking about our world to unwashed masses. And how beautifully at that.
3. I could argue here, that teologians from centuries ago were tacking ideas that Dick later picked up. Is it a valid point? Does it diminish the quality of Dick's works? Judge by yourself.
Imagine black, small, disk-shaped robot looking completely harmless. It just sits there, not even trying to move. It produces no sound, even if you listen really carefully. No fire-throwers, no blinking lights, no hammers, cutters nor any other medieval stuff.
All around it battle rages on and the robot is motionless.
But you would be mistaken to think that it does nothing. In fact, it's scanning the ether for signals. It listens, learns and reasons. It guesses frequencies used by all contestants. It figures what each command does by building the map of battlefield with help of proximity meters and sophisticated heuristics extracting valueable information from command sequences radioed to fighting robots.
Soon it can control its opponents. Using powerful transmitter hidden inside its hull, it oh-so-slighly "enhances" orders of operators. A bit more to the left here, so that that arm could reach you. Trying to strike forward? Let me delay you for a second, just enough for this fire-blowing robot to get in your way.
Complete control over the battlefield. The last remaining opponent just uses it's weapons on itself and the victory is ours.
Check out the entry for pareidolia in "The Skeptic's Dictionary" (http://www.skepdic.com/pareidol.html ) to learn more about why people see ghosts in a bunch of blurry pixels. You may also wish to visit my page, which deals specifically with such images on the Moon (http://wfmh.org.pl/~thorgal/Moon/). Enjoy.
Um, let me remind you that programmers doing daily builds only have to deal with *public* keys, as only these are being compiled into the final binary. What follows, only public keys have to be stored in the building, and locations of both *private* keys are still not known.
NASA has never made secret of the way Challenger astronauts died. There is an official report somewhere on their web site which details a sequence of events before and after the explosion. IIRC, it says that it is supposed astronauts were conscious after crew compartment separated and it states that they all probably were killed on water-impact (200G).
Slashdot Mirror
In this particular case there IS a problem with the technology used. Cassette-recorder based storage is inherently unreliable, and its XC12 incarnation has enough unreliability to drive you insane. Could be somewhat rectified by Turbo2000, though...
--
Milek
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Distributing Bibles to Persian Gulf women? You mean, you want them to be even more depressed?
Bible bashes women on every second page, you know...
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Here is a link.
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I for one get really bored whenever someone starts reminding us that most of the things in Matrix were in fact thought up by writers decades ago.
Some points:
1. Hardly any thought is original. Most of what you read in books or see in the cinema are reprocessed ideas from the past. Sometimes just a few years back, sometimes centuries -- in new clothes. You could dissect almost any movie this way and point to earlier work that contributed to it -- inadvertedly or otherwise.
2. A movie is not a book. Just because a movie uses some of the ideas from the book does not make it a blockbuster movie. Or even interesting one. Most of Stephen King's books turned out to be boring when translated to screen (with arguable exceptions of "Shining" and "Misery"). The fact that Dick (and others, centuries(!) ago), came up with some ideas that found their way into "Matrix" by no means makes it _lesser_ movie. To the contrary -- it's probably the first movie that managed to introduce some quite complex ways of thinking about our world to unwashed masses. And how beautifully at that.
3. I could argue here, that teologians from centuries ago were tacking ideas that Dick later picked up. Is it a valid point? Does it diminish the quality of Dick's works? Judge by yourself.
Milek
--
http://www.frams.poznan.pl/
Both interesting and beautiful.
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It's a shame.
Imagine black, small, disk-shaped robot looking completely harmless. It just sits there, not even trying to move. It produces no sound, even if you listen really carefully. No fire-throwers, no blinking lights, no hammers, cutters nor any other medieval stuff.
All around it battle rages on and the robot is motionless.
But you would be mistaken to think that it does nothing. In fact, it's scanning the ether for signals. It listens, learns and reasons. It guesses frequencies used by all contestants. It figures what each command does by building the map of battlefield with help of proximity meters and sophisticated heuristics extracting valueable information from command sequences radioed to fighting robots.
Soon it can control its opponents. Using powerful transmitter hidden inside its hull, it oh-so-slighly "enhances" orders of operators. A bit more to the left here, so that that arm could reach you. Trying to strike forward? Let me delay you for a second, just enough for this fire-blowing robot to get in your way.
Complete control over the battlefield. The last remaining opponent just uses it's weapons on itself and the victory is ours.
--
...and 1/3 less interesting. I love geek parts, they makes the book so unique.
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She was NOT driving. Read the link he provided, then post.
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Yeah, so now Big-Bang is a "creation myth"?
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Hey, but your brain IS a machine.
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I've got shivers every time I read it.
Wonder how it's going to look in Polish translation.
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Hey, at BellStream they work this way on non-mission critical projects, too. Or rather, they treat every project as mission-critical. ;)
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Accidental gun deaths? Well, to lead this analogy further is to say MS has put guns in the hands of all their users. Oh well...
Milek
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echo "127.0.0.1 doubleclick.net" >>
Check out the entry for pareidolia in "The Skeptic's Dictionary" (http://www.skepdic.com/pareidol.html ) to learn more about why people see ghosts in a bunch of blurry pixels. You may also wish to visit my page, which deals specifically with such images on the Moon (http://wfmh.org.pl/~thorgal/Moon/). Enjoy.
Um, let me remind you that programmers doing daily
builds only have to deal with *public* keys, as only these are being compiled into the final binary. What follows, only public keys have to be stored in the building, and locations of both *private* keys are still not known.
Milek
That was really intelligent. In similar vein, the theory of gravity
should not be taught as proven fact.
Learn what the scientific meaning of "theory" is, then post.
http://lists .openprojects.net/pipermail/g200-dev/1999-July/002 304.html
NASA has never made secret of the way Challenger
astronauts died. There is an official report somewhere
on their web site which details a sequence of events
before and after the explosion. IIRC, it says that
it is supposed astronauts were conscious after crew
compartment separated and it states that they all
probably were killed on water-impact (200G).