I regard restarting WinNT at work as a regular, unavoidable task. Some people seem to get away with never having to reboot, whereas I just seem to crash computers whenever I go near them. I even managed to crash my pocket calculator once... --------------------------------------
GL has gotten much sloppier. He doesn't even have to try anymore, he knows millions of fandroids will flock to the next SW even if it's two hours of still shots of gungan droppings.
Yeah, but maybe not as many times. I saw Episode IV and V about a dozen times each in the theaters, and ROTJ twice. But I only felt like seeing Phantom Menace once. Thought it was okay, but not enough to see again before video. Lucas's attempt to put DC Comics-style "science" into the story with those milimitawhatchamacallitochondria really grated on my nerves. The whole Luke storyline seemed to make clear that the Force was something cosmic, all-encompassing, and basically unmeasurable except in the vaguest way. Turns out everybody just forgot to bring batteries for their Force tricorder!
I'm seriously hoping at least one of the next two movies is comparable to Empire. This one gave me horrible flashbacks of the first Star Trek movie...
See the heroes you Know and Love, in a two hour rehashing of a 45 minute episode from a decade earlier, but with more expensive special effects and worse lines!
Oh wait, I just figured out what turns Anakin to the Dark Side. Red Kryptonite. Just wait. See if I'm wrong.
...but I agree. Hollywood directors arn't well known for their ability to deal with intellectual subtley. The Uplift stories will get mauled, and the viewing audience will sit there asking each other "are we supposed to laugh right now or this supposed to be serious?".
The problem is that there are rather a lot of people who are taking the whole star wars series *very* seriously. For a disturbingly large number of people, it has an almost religious focus.
Because of this, it is perfectly valid for Dr Brin ( or anyone else ) to critisise, since it presents an essentially elitist view of society.
His critisisms are not directed at those who regard it as being only entertainment - his critisisms are directed at those who regard it as "divinly inspired", and who seek to elevate it to such a level.
Neither is this irrelevent issue within our contemporary society. As we continue to develop more and more sophisticated methods for the manipulation of the human genome, the temptation to create the "Ubersmench" ( the Super-human ) is gradually leaving the realm of fiction and begining to emerge within the realm of actual possibility.
In this respect, Star Wars is very much a moral tale, and one which tells a very questionable lesson.
As someone who grew up in the early sixties, the concept of the Ubersmench was very much present for me. It's central position within Nazi ideology and their experiments in eugenics were very much within peoples minds.
Sadly, this is no longer the case. Recent surveys have indicated that many people today would utilise genetic modification on their own future children if such techniques were available, and that the traits that they would select for would simply be in accordance with their own particular racial and/or ethnic prejudices.
It has been said that those who do not learn the lessons of the past will inevitably make those mistakes again in the future.
My own suspicion is that the Ubersmench is very much alive and well, and living next door to George Lucas.
Hate to tell you this 'd00d', but your showing way too much attachment to your childhood here.
In case you haven't heard - Santa Claus is currently doing a twenty year stretch for the production and distribution of kiddy-porn. The Easter Bunny was terminated with extreme prejudice when it was positively proven that it was a vector for the transmission of BSE and the tooth-fairy is currently about to go to trial for practicing dental surgery without a licence.
And yeah, I remember when star wars came out. At the time, I couldn't understand what the fuss was about. I very quickly learn't to keep this opinion to myself as a result of all the people who shouted at me for doubting that it was the greatest art-work of modern civilisation.
What a pity it is that in the twenty odd years since then that so many of those idiots still haven't managed to *grow* *up*.
Um, not as such. From what I have been able to work out, Dr Brin's main objection began with an interview with GL who who blathered away at some considerable length about "the joy of benevolent despots".
It's the contempt that Lucas expressed for the entire nature of the democratic process, and the fact that this is the perspective that underlies the Star Wars movies, that is pissing him off.
So it's as much the publicly stated attitudes of the director, and the way that these have been presented, that Dr Brin is taking offense to.
OK, the supposed "holes" in the plot here really get my goat...I didn't flame him the first time, but his nitpicking excuses against hoardes of SW fans who are obviously right are kind of obnoxious. How influential were Jedi Knights in saving the day in ROTJ and TPM? Well, besides the obvious reason Darth Maul would probably have chopped the Queens head off had Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon not been there (yes, Sidious wanted her dead at that point in the movie. The goal of sending Maul to Tatooine was to kill the Jedi and bring her back to sign the treaty, after which she would be killed. Maul arrived too late, so instead he used her to gain power in the senate, then let her go back to Naboo where she could more easily be gotten rid of), the two Jedi went back in order to learn more about Maul and the return of the Sith (albeit at the expense of one Jedi). If there was any flaw in Lucas' storytelling, it's that Maul just stood there pacing while the force fields were closed, instead of ranting a little bit and revealing some useful information...all Yoda and Windu managed to discover was that Maul was indeed a Sith...well DUH, Qui-Gon died for THAT?
Anyway, getting back to ROTJ, I think it's pretty obvious that Luke's killing of the Emperor was instrumental to the rebellion's long-term victory. If Luke hadn't been there, the Emperor would have easily escaped from the Death Star before it was completely destroyed. If you think about the scope of the entire series, the Emperor is really the head baddy...present in ALL SIX movies. Vader was just a sorry, crippled old man underneath a scary exoskeleton. How could Brin have watched the movie and missed that?
Anyway, to sum up: Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon helped the queen capture the Viceroy and helped the good side of the force (arguably a more important cause than anything else). Luke turned a rebel victory into a rebel triumph. Vader was a complex character who doesn't deserve to be typecast the way Brin sees him. Basically I think Brin should just back down and stop trying to see non-existent holes in good (well, good if you take out Jar-Jar) movies.
I suppose if someone stole your car and dumped it in the next state (that's just mischief, not malice, right?), thereby proving the locks on it aren't reliable, the rest of us would be justified in laughing our asses off at you for having insufficient security.
Wow...so we should respect everyone's right to free speech except the people we disagree with? That is what you are implying and I have to disagree. Even if you and the rest of the world believe that a groups views are wrong, you should be mature enough to either listen or simply ignore them. There is absolutly no need to attack them. Though I personally think that the groups you referred to don't have a positive influence on society, there are too many examples of when a person or group has been persicuted because of beliefs that were later accepted.
okay AMD has fast Level 1 and level 2 cache. Okay up to a meg i think that runs at 200mhz in the K7. Then the Level 3 cache which is another meg runs at 100mhz or 200 i forget which.
Now the FSB runs at 100(but i bet you could get it up to 133 without any problem). I'm a serious overclocker and can't wait to get my hands on this. The memory will run at 100mhz. The on board Cache will run at 200mhz. It won't be any problem for the memory.
btw there is 200mhz memory. That's what the voodoo 3500 is gonna have on it. I think it runs at 5ns. 133mhz memory runs at 7.5ns
Why don't they do something constructive and hack the assholes on the KKK site???? White power, nazi, and anti any religion sites should all be hacked!
I just worry that if the whole address space isn't properly allocated then we could end up with a true nightmare. I place 90% odds that it won't be done in a very practical manner initially (which makes it even harder to fix later).
It would be cool if IPv6 were modified in a DNS kind of way. Instead of 128-bit numbers, I would much prefer the option of something like:
where the subdivisions aren't necessarily 8-bit, but are instead scaled to need, and there aren't necessarily 8 of them. Each blank could be filled by either a name or a number, as appropriate. This could also allow more than one path to the same site when appropriate. It's potentially long, but could be significantly abbreviated in a local context (which IPv6 is going to do anyway). I've always thought normal DNS naming is rather worthless, anyway. (something being under.COM or.ORG tells me absolutely nothing)
Linux has been ready for IPv6 for quite a while. Why are we waiting?
Here's how: 1) Ask your ISP if they use Linux (or other IPv6-aware OS) on their servers. If not, find a new ISP. 2) Tell them to get on the 6bone. 3) Get on the 6bone yourself. 4) Ride the wave of the future.
I'll have to dig out my old copy of Computer Lib / Dream Machines to see if it's there. It most certainly was in the later Literary Machines, and perhaps in intermediate stuff as well.
Agreed. This was indicative of three main factors in why we had to put up with mediocre technology for ten years:
1) The researcher might be greedy (possible; he's been collaborating in a managerial position with NEC since the 80's) or a show-off (common in researchers, especially when, like him, they're looking for a full professorship (which he has since obtained in France)).
2) NEC has way too restrictive nondisclosure requirements. This is almost guaranteed. He's been working with them for over ten years, and has a managerial position. My boss did a internship once with them a few years ago, and they all but prohibited from ever touching a computer again in his NDA. Like the rest, they're _very_ greedy (hiding desperately needed technology for _10_ years!?), immoral in achieving their goals.
3) Research universities set unrealistic requirements on their professors for both jaw-dropping publications and for high-income research projects. I have seen this far too many times. All they ever think in the administration of any research university is "show me the money!". One of the greatest enemies of invention and application of new technology has long been college administrators. If they don't see serious corporate sponsorship coming out of a project, the project can get canned. Wonderful professors are frequently denied tenure because they're too busy actually teaching students (which, I had mistakenly assumed, is part of their job) or advancing science in things that matter (instead of worthless projects which are sexy to corporations who want a tax write-off for their large donations). I saw it happen to a friend of mine. He was a great teacher, plus his research was in real-life applications involving medical imaging. But, no, it wasn't a quick buck, it was _usefull_ research. And, no, he didn't have a ton of publications (though he, at a young age, was already one of the main references in graphics textbooks), because he was busier inventing and applying than writing. Now that they didn't let him do useful research, he's off at a government lab figuring out better ways to blow up the planet instead of curing its inhabitants.
Once something is done, schools are sometimes overly restrictive on its use in commercial products (or clueless on how to get it there), and many wonderful new technologies rot away on paper. Linux would surely be far better than it is now if universities would give us the technologies they have already invented and will probably never get another dime out of. For that matter, I bet AIDS and cancer would have been cured by now if research universities weren't so overly protective of their results.
And in this particular instance, we've been putting up with some pretty pathetic LCD screens for a decade because of the petty concerns of some a**holes in universities and corporations.
How many times have we seen the legal system BEND PEOPLE OVER? I'm sorry, but I personally think that it's time we trimmed the SCUM out of it, and return it to it's original intended state.
Australia is not the USA. We are not neck deep in garbage with religious fundementalists the way the USA often seems to be.
After the legislation is shown to be unworkable, it will be thrown out ( like your "no flag-burning" ). Everyone will have a good laugh at the expense of the idiots who proposed the legislation and we will all settle back over a few cold beers.
When are you going to understand - the way that things get done in the USA is not the way that they get done in other places?
And when that day comes, I will scream very loudly ( and so will thousands of other Aussie hackers ).
Likewise, I will scream at my political representatives if they are dumb enough to block my favorite astronomy sites if they contain "naked eye astronomy" on the banner page.
And aussie doctors will scream if they are not allowed to access the latest information on "breast cancer".
Some people are upset about this situation. I'm not. I'm grinning from ear to ear over the fact that this legislation is going to be a major embaresment. Most of all, I'm grinning over the fact that I'm inevitably going to get to make politicians look like complete and utter idiots in front of the voting public.
I'm really looking forward to this. Better than any flame-war here at/..
Slashdot Mirror
Posted by !ErrorBookmarkNotDefined:
Must be because it's good news about MS.
Half the so-called 'funny' comments get a 2.
-----------------------------
Computers are useless. They can only give answers.
Posted by Faithless the Wonder Boy:
I regard restarting WinNT at work as a regular, unavoidable task. Some people seem to get away with never having to reboot, whereas I just seem to crash computers whenever I go near them. I even managed to crash my pocket calculator once...
--------------------------------------
GL has gotten much sloppier. He doesn't even have to try anymore, he knows millions of fandroids will flock to the next SW even if it's two hours of still shots of gungan droppings.
Yeah, but maybe not as many times. I saw Episode IV and V about a dozen times each in the theaters, and ROTJ twice. But I only felt like seeing Phantom Menace once. Thought it was okay, but not enough to see again before video. Lucas's attempt to put DC Comics-style "science" into the story with those milimitawhatchamacallitochondria really grated on my nerves. The whole Luke storyline seemed to make clear that the Force was something cosmic, all-encompassing, and basically unmeasurable except in the vaguest way. Turns out everybody just forgot to bring batteries for their Force tricorder!
I'm seriously hoping at least one of the next two movies is comparable to Empire. This one gave me horrible flashbacks of the first Star Trek movie...
Oh wait, I just figured out what turns Anakin to the Dark Side. Red Kryptonite. Just wait. See if I'm wrong.
Posted by AnnoyingMouseCoward:
...but I agree. Hollywood directors arn't well known for their ability to deal with intellectual subtley. The Uplift stories will get mauled, and the viewing audience will sit there asking each other "are we supposed to laugh right now or this supposed to be serious?".
Hollywood - a great place to do nuclear testing.
Posted by AnnoyingMouseCoward:
The problem is that there are rather a lot of people who are taking the whole star wars series *very* seriously. For a disturbingly large number of people, it has an almost religious focus.
Because of this, it is perfectly valid for Dr Brin ( or anyone else ) to critisise, since it presents an essentially elitist view of society.
His critisisms are not directed at those who regard it as being only entertainment - his critisisms are directed at those who regard it as "divinly inspired", and who seek to elevate it to such a level.
Neither is this irrelevent issue within our contemporary society. As we continue to develop more and more sophisticated methods for the manipulation of the human genome, the temptation to create the "Ubersmench" ( the Super-human ) is gradually leaving the realm of fiction and begining to emerge within the realm of actual possibility.
In this respect, Star Wars is very much a moral tale, and one which tells a very questionable lesson.
As someone who grew up in the early sixties, the concept of the Ubersmench was very much present for me. It's central position within Nazi ideology and their experiments in eugenics were very much within peoples minds.
Sadly, this is no longer the case. Recent surveys have indicated that many people today would utilise genetic modification on their own future children if such techniques were available, and that the traits that they would select for would simply be in accordance with their own particular racial and/or ethnic prejudices.
It has been said that those who do not learn the lessons of the past will inevitably make those mistakes again in the future.
My own suspicion is that the Ubersmench is very much alive and well, and living next door to George Lucas.
Posted by AnnoyingMouseCoward:
Hate to tell you this 'd00d', but your showing way too much attachment to your childhood here.
In case you haven't heard - Santa Claus is currently doing a twenty year stretch for the production and distribution of kiddy-porn. The Easter Bunny was terminated with extreme prejudice when it was positively proven that it was a vector for the transmission of BSE and the tooth-fairy is currently about to go to trial for practicing dental surgery without a licence.
And yeah, I remember when star wars came out. At the time, I couldn't understand what the fuss was about. I very quickly learn't to keep this opinion to myself as a result of all the people who shouted at me for doubting that it was the greatest art-work of modern civilisation.
What a pity it is that in the twenty odd years since then that so many of those idiots still haven't managed to *grow* *up*.
Posted by AnnoyingMouseCoward:
Sure. But the question is - which type of hero?
Do you prefer a down to Earth kind of guy like Linus Torvalds ( or Han Solo ).
Or do you prefer aristocratic hero's like Bill Gates, ( or Luke Skywalker ) who, like the mitochondria enhanced Jedi, was "born to rule"?
I realise that I have posed this question in a deliberatly inflamatory manner, but this is exactly the point that Dr Brin is making.
The Jedi were born with "powers and abilities beyond those of ordinary mortals". Bill Gates was born with millionair parents.
Think about it for at least 30 seconds before you pick up your BFG9000 to flame me.
Posted by AnnoyingMouseCoward:
Um, not as such. From what I have been able to work out, Dr Brin's main objection began with an interview with GL who who blathered away at some considerable length about "the joy of benevolent despots".
It's the contempt that Lucas expressed for the entire nature of the democratic process, and the fact that this is the perspective that underlies the Star Wars movies, that is pissing him off.
So it's as much the publicly stated attitudes of the director, and the way that these have been presented, that Dr Brin is taking offense to.
Posted by rolandpj:
... is exactly a split-pane based diff'er.
Now, when was ediff written?
Roland
Posted by OGL:
OK, the supposed "holes" in the plot here really get my goat...I didn't flame him the first time, but his nitpicking excuses against hoardes of SW fans who are obviously right are kind of obnoxious. How influential were Jedi Knights in saving the day in ROTJ and TPM? Well, besides the obvious reason Darth Maul would probably have chopped the Queens head off had Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon not been there (yes, Sidious wanted her dead at that point in the movie. The goal of sending Maul to Tatooine was to kill the Jedi and bring her back to sign the treaty, after which she would be killed. Maul arrived too late, so instead he used her to gain power in the senate, then let her go back to Naboo where she could more easily be gotten rid of), the two Jedi went back in order to learn more about Maul and the return of the Sith (albeit at the expense of one Jedi). If there was any flaw in Lucas' storytelling, it's that Maul just stood there pacing while the force fields were closed, instead of ranting a little bit and revealing some useful information...all Yoda and Windu managed to discover was that Maul was indeed a Sith...well DUH, Qui-Gon died for THAT?
Anyway, getting back to ROTJ, I think it's pretty obvious that Luke's killing of the Emperor was instrumental to the rebellion's long-term victory. If Luke hadn't been there, the Emperor would have easily escaped from the Death Star before it was completely destroyed. If you think about the scope of the entire series, the Emperor is really the head baddy...present in ALL SIX movies. Vader was just a sorry, crippled old man underneath a scary exoskeleton. How could Brin have watched the movie and missed that?
Anyway, to sum up: Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon helped the queen capture the Viceroy and helped the good side of the force (arguably a more important cause than anything else). Luke turned a rebel victory into a rebel triumph. Vader was a complex character who doesn't deserve to be typecast the way Brin sees him. Basically I think Brin should just back down and stop trying to see non-existent holes in good (well, good if you take out Jar-Jar) movies.
-W.W.
Who sits around childishly posting flamebait and then following each response up with a "I know you are but what am I"?
Someone here needs to get a life, and it ain't me.
Posted by stodge:
EXACTLY! It's only a film! And an average one at that.
Posted by 2B||!2B:
I suppose if someone stole your car and dumped it in the next state (that's just mischief, not malice, right?), thereby proving the locks on it aren't reliable, the rest of us would be justified in laughing our asses off at you for having insufficient security.
Posted by kenmcneil:
Wow...so we should respect everyone's right to free speech except the people we disagree with? That is what you are implying and I have to disagree. Even if you and the rest of the world believe that a groups views are wrong, you should be mature enough to either listen or simply ignore them. There is absolutly no need to attack them. Though I personally think that the groups you referred to don't have a positive influence on society, there are too many examples of when a person or group has been persicuted because of beliefs that were later accepted.
Posted by Napalm4u:
okay AMD has fast Level 1 and level 2 cache. Okay up to a meg i think that runs at 200mhz in the K7. Then the Level 3 cache which is another meg runs at 100mhz or 200 i forget which.
Now the FSB runs at 100(but i bet you could get it up to 133 without any problem). I'm a serious overclocker and can't wait to get my hands on this. The memory will run at 100mhz. The on board Cache will run at 200mhz. It won't be any problem for the memory.
btw there is 200mhz memory. That's what the voodoo 3500 is gonna have on it. I think it runs at 5ns. 133mhz memory runs at 7.5ns
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
I have heard of it, but I don't exactly how it's done.
LK
Posted by Napalm4u:
Why don't they do something constructive and hack the assholes on the KKK site???? White power, nazi, and anti any religion sites should all be hacked!
This pisses me off!
Posted by JPFunk:
They moved the original index.html to index.html.old, so at least they were nice about the hack. Amusing, anyway...
Posted by 2B||!2B:
a ny].[division].[department].[machine/user]
.COM or .ORG tells me absolutely nothing)
I just worry that if the whole address space isn't properly allocated then we could end up with a true nightmare. I place 90% odds that it won't be done in a very practical manner initially (which makes it even harder to fix later).
It would be cool if IPv6 were modified in a DNS kind of way. Instead of 128-bit numbers, I would much prefer the option of something like:
[country].[region].[industry].[specialty].[comp
where the subdivisions aren't necessarily 8-bit, but are instead scaled to need, and there aren't necessarily 8 of them. Each blank could be filled by either a name or a number, as appropriate. This could also allow more than one path to the same site when appropriate. It's potentially long, but could be significantly abbreviated in a local context (which IPv6 is going to do anyway). I've always thought normal DNS naming is rather worthless, anyway. (something being under
Comments?
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
Linux has been ready for IPv6 for quite a while. Why are we waiting?
Here's how:
1) Ask your ISP if they use Linux (or other IPv6-aware OS) on their servers. If not, find a new ISP.
2) Tell them to get on the 6bone.
3) Get on the 6bone yourself.
4) Ride the wave of the future.
---
Put Hemos through English 101!
Posted by Ungrounded Lightning Rod:
I believe he called it "Parallel Text Face"
I'll have to dig out my old copy of
Computer Lib / Dream Machines to see if
it's there. It most certainly was in
the later Literary Machines, and perhaps
in intermediate stuff as well.
Posted by 2B||!2B:
Agreed. This was indicative of three main factors in why we had to put up with mediocre technology for ten years:
1) The researcher might be greedy (possible; he's been collaborating in a managerial position with NEC since the 80's) or a show-off (common in researchers, especially when, like him, they're looking for a full professorship (which he has since obtained in France)).
2) NEC has way too restrictive nondisclosure requirements. This is almost guaranteed. He's been working with them for over ten years, and has a managerial position. My boss did a internship once with them a few years ago, and they all but prohibited from ever touching a computer again in his NDA. Like the rest, they're _very_ greedy (hiding desperately needed technology for _10_ years!?), immoral in achieving their goals.
3) Research universities set unrealistic requirements on their professors for both jaw-dropping publications and for high-income research projects. I have seen this far too many times. All they ever think in the administration of any research university is "show me the money!". One of the greatest enemies of invention and application of new technology has long been college administrators. If they don't see serious corporate sponsorship coming out of a project, the project can get canned. Wonderful professors are frequently denied tenure because they're too busy actually teaching students (which, I had mistakenly assumed, is part of their job) or advancing science in things that matter (instead of worthless projects which are sexy to corporations who want a tax write-off for their large donations). I saw it happen to a friend of mine. He was a great teacher, plus his research was in real-life applications involving medical imaging. But, no, it wasn't a quick buck, it was _usefull_ research. And, no, he didn't have a ton of publications (though he, at a young age, was already one of the main references in graphics textbooks), because he was busier inventing and applying than writing. Now that they didn't let him do useful research, he's off at a government lab figuring out better ways to blow up the planet instead of curing its inhabitants.
Once something is done, schools are sometimes overly restrictive on its use in commercial products (or clueless on how to get it there), and many wonderful new technologies rot away on paper. Linux would surely be far better than it is now if universities would give us the technologies they have already invented and will probably never get another dime out of. For that matter, I bet AIDS and cancer would have been cured by now if research universities weren't so overly protective of their results.
And in this particular instance, we've been putting up with some pretty pathetic LCD screens for a decade because of the petty concerns of some a**holes in universities and corporations.
Posted by Dr. Dabbles (255.255.255.255):
Ammm, hello?
How many times have we seen the legal system BEND PEOPLE OVER? I'm sorry, but I personally think that it's time we trimmed the SCUM out of it, and return it to it's original intended state.
Just a thought.
Posted by AnnoyingMouseCoward:
Australia is not the USA. We are not neck deep in garbage with religious fundementalists the way the USA often seems to be.
After the legislation is shown to be unworkable, it will be thrown out ( like your "no flag-burning" ). Everyone will have a good laugh at the expense of the idiots who proposed the legislation and we will all settle back over a few cold beers.
When are you going to understand - the way that things get done in the USA is not the way that they get done in other places?
Posted by AnnoyingMouseCoward:
/..
And when that day comes, I will scream very loudly ( and so will thousands of other Aussie hackers ).
Likewise, I will scream at my political representatives if they are dumb enough to block my favorite astronomy sites if they contain "naked eye astronomy" on the banner page.
And aussie doctors will scream if they are not allowed to access the latest information on "breast cancer".
Some people are upset about this situation. I'm not. I'm grinning from ear to ear over the fact that this legislation is going to be a major embaresment. Most of all, I'm grinning over the fact that I'm inevitably going to get to make politicians look like complete and utter idiots in front of the voting public.
I'm really looking forward to this. Better than any flame-war here at