Speaking of fishing, when the two yokels were finishing in the stream, the one idiot was casting, upstream, with a bobber. A bobber. In a stream. Someone shoot him and put him out of his misery.
I noticed that, too. The goombah would probably see a fly rod and call it a "pole". Then the fisherman slashdotters would really have something to complain about! <grin>
Those who dismiss Gibson out of hand really should check out Burning Chrome. It's a collection of short stories that range from being highly emotional ("Fragments of a Hologram Rose") to straightaway Cyberpunk ("Burning Chrome") to sort of in-between stuff, like "Dogfight," that is one of my favorites. I've always thought Gibson was pretty good at portraying those down-on-their luck characters who eke their way through in pretty non-conventional ways. While speculating about technology (which he acknowledges he knows little about -- which makes it fun for him and the reader, I think), Gibson really wrote spy stories and tragic love stories.
Some may think I'm overanalyzing, but go read some of the stories and give them a fair shake.
David Brin also comes to mind as an author of pretty technially-grounded, yet imaginative, sci-fi. His Earth was a pretty striking read, with lots of speculation about environmental destruction, framed in a world in which there is an extremely high-tech analogue of the web -- a world Brin imagined, like Brunner did in Shockwave Rider, far before it really existed.
However, there are some books by Brin that didn't do much for me, so pick carefully.
Right on. Shockwave Rider is indeed a classic. Brunner hit so much of the paranoia and social surroundings of the net right on the head, before most of it even existed. When I ran a BBS back in the day, I named it PRECIPICE, after the town in Brunner's book.
-Alan
Re:We don't need no stinking unions
on
GEEK Unions?
·
· Score: 1
"low level grunts"? Physicians all over the country are forming unions to show giant HMOs that the insurance industry does not necessarily have the answers to the problems of the health care industry.
Although I'm not sure if a tech workers' union would fly, let's do keep out of the dark ages by acknowledging that the collective power of a group of individuals is something important and useful.
(Rather than a union, I'm attracted to the idea of some kind of truth advocacy organization -- sort of like the union of concerned scientists, perhaps.)
Member Web Pages: c) By submitting a Member Web Page to Tripod, you grant Tripod and its affiliates a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive, worldwide, unrestricted license to use, copy, modify, transmit, distribute, and publicly perform or display the submitted Member Web Page, as well as portions thereof and content and material thereon.
It appears that this certainly isn't limited to Yahoo/Geocities. I think it does have implications for anyone putting original material, especially things like art or music, on "free" web spaces. Whether companies like Tripod or Yahoo would actually try to make use of that content is probably questionable, but the fact that it's in the license, which few people actually read, makes me uneasy. I also wonder if the clause can be applied to content put on a geocities or tripod site and later moved to another host. Do they retain any sort of "legacy" rights?
When I was eight years old, my grandparents sent me, in the mail, for my birthday, this tome-like book on how to automate my home from my PC.
At the time I didn't much care for it, because I'd rather play Defender on the IBM, but my parents still hid the book, for fear that I would break something/electrocute myself/burn down the house.
In answer to your question: Yes,IMHO, it is important. One of the things that the OSS movement is going to have to overcome is the image that some people have (and I mean decision-making people) of anything created by ``hackers''. If the news media insists on confusing ``hacker'' and ``cracker'' when reporting on criminal activity performed by ``crackers'', we'll never get past the issue of trust that these people need to have. It's great that you don't have a problem with the misuse of the term. If the general public has the idea that hackers engage in breaking into systems and other illegal activity, I would not want to run around calling myself a hacker except to a carefully selected few who understand the difference. If you are at all about your professional reputation you might wish to avoid calling yourself a hacker.
I think you're putting too much into the association between OSS and "hacker". I think people will accept good quality, whoever gives it to them. You have the idea that most computer users are fairly ignorant about what OSS is, but you feel you can safely assume that they know enough to believe it's all built by hackers?
Although I think you do have a really good point, and that is that image does matter, I think that the least of the worries for OSS is that the public will even consider the cultural identity of its creators.
It seems around here that the "professionals" to whom you refer are all too eager to champion the "hacker" name, as if they become noble and good by association. That's the kind of image problem I was really addressing -- but I do think you're saying something really sensible, though maybe overstating its strength.
Is it really so important for the computer community to get all foamy at the mouth when people use "hacker" and "cracker" synonymously?
It's such an incredibly self-referential and arrogant response to something that just doesn't seem all that important. For all their posturing of strength, "hackers/crackers" get all bent out of shape when someone calls them the wrong freakin' word, as if their efforts for Good Things and Truth were instantly diluted when an outsider refers to them incorrectly.
Ever since computing hit the media, the word "hacker" has had lots of uses, as has "cracker." (I still think "cracker" just sounds silly, as it makes me envision some overall-clad hayseed saying, "Wimmin, fix me a sammich.") Now for hell's sake, are we so insecure that we have to fly off the handle when we think the general public might be misinformed?
If that's the case, we should all calm down and just pass around some beers, because the general public already has its perception.
[ now, before you flame me saying I would say there's no difference between, say, "nigger" and "african-american," let me just pre-empt you with a response: are you really that daft? ]
-schoitz
Emotional rewards of work (Re:First comment? Why )
on
The Dark Side of IT
·
· Score: 1
I think you've got it: if a job isn't emotionally rewarding, how long will it really last?
I'm systems administrator for a small environmental organization, with four offices and 15-20 staff, depending on ongoing projects. I have lots of resources to draw upon (like some talented and computer-skilled staff), but for the most part, I'm it. When I interviewed for the job I told them I wanted to work with them because I want to work for the organization, not because I want to work in computers.
So I got the job, and now I work with a small group of fantastic, passionate people, for a cause that I care about a great deal, doing work that is interesting, varied, and Good.
all over the world, in england for example (with their surviving aristocracy), many people are 'born into' money; in america, people get lucky, or win the lottery, or get a huge lawsuit settlement, or otherwise just manage to land a six-figure-salary job involving virtually no work whatsoever. in reality there's very little correlation between amount of wealth / quantity of possessions and personal worth / effort / time invested.
That reminds me of a saying: You can take the girl out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of the girl. Old money is a very different kind of status than new money.
However, I disgree that there's no correlation between wealth/effort/work invested. Sure, in a fair world, the correlation would be equal across the board, but that's not really my point. Even in UO, when someone buys a character for $2,000, that's real money, reflecting real work. What I really wonder about in an online world like UO is how other players perceive the characters who are "bought and paid for" -- does a high-level character owned by a relative newbie have the same sort of social status as a high-level character in which a player has invested lots of his/her own time and effort, beyond just a payment?
It sort of reminds me of ski towns. Locals don't always look very highly on the rich lawyers from Los Angelos who buy their way into the community.
I've never played UO, so I wonder if that situations translates across. Can anybody explain that one for me? Can other players even perceive when a character has been bought?
I haven't decided if I think the virtual property idea is all that new and huge, but the topic of inflation and devaluation in a virtual world is fascinating.
It has really precise real-world counterparts; As cities grow and sprawl they build new "downtown" areas. If the UO administrators were to create gobs of new land, the existing, densely-populated areas would lose value as players would expand to stake their claim on the new land (I have a vision of homesteaders rushing madly into Oklahoma).
I guess game dynamics would dictate what really happens to the new land; does it become the hip new region to settle, or is it like a new cookie-cutter urban sprawl subdivision? If players controlled areas of undeveloped land, can they cut it up and sell it off? What happens when groups of players want to preserve open space -- can they even do that? It's like the Wal-Mart vs. small towns crises that are popping up all over the U.S.
There are all sorts of implications for communities in there. Aside from all that, I have to wonder if it's any fun to play the game anymore. Do I really want to be a blacksmith in an imaginary world where I still have to pay rent?
Another reference I picked up on was at the very beginning: Neo stashes money in, and pulls a disk out of, a cut-out book of "Simulation and Simulacra". Is that one by Baudrillard? Maybe Foucault? It's one of those crazy French postmodern author types, I think. In any case, it was pretty apropos for the movie. At least I got a kick out of it.
Slashdot Mirror
I noticed that, too. The goombah would probably see a fly rod and call it a "pole". Then the fisherman slashdotters would really have something to complain about! <grin>
-alan
Some may think I'm overanalyzing, but go read some of the stories and give them a fair shake.
-Alan
However, there are some books by Brin that didn't do much for me, so pick carefully.
-Alan
-Alan
Although I'm not sure if a tech workers' union would fly, let's do keep out of the dark ages by acknowledging that the collective power of a group of individuals is something important and useful.
(Rather than a union, I'm attracted to the idea of some kind of truth advocacy organization -- sort of like the union of concerned scientists, perhaps.)
- Alan
-alan
At the time I didn't much care for it, because I'd rather play Defender on the IBM, but my parents still hid the book, for fear that I would break something/electrocute myself/burn down the house.
I wonder where that book went?
I think you're putting too much into the association between OSS and "hacker". I think people will accept good quality, whoever gives it to them. You have the idea that most computer users are fairly ignorant about what OSS is, but you feel you can safely assume that they know enough to believe it's all built by hackers?
Although I think you do have a really good point, and that is that image does matter, I think that the least of the worries for OSS is that the public will even consider the cultural identity of its creators.
It seems around here that the "professionals" to whom you refer are all too eager to champion the "hacker" name, as if they become noble and good by association. That's the kind of image problem I was really addressing -- but I do think you're saying something really sensible, though maybe overstating its strength.
-schoitz
It's such an incredibly self-referential and arrogant response to something that just doesn't seem all that important. For all their posturing of strength, "hackers/crackers" get all bent out of shape when someone calls them the wrong freakin' word, as if their efforts for Good Things and Truth were instantly diluted when an outsider refers to them incorrectly.
Ever since computing hit the media, the word "hacker" has had lots of uses, as has "cracker." (I still think "cracker" just sounds silly, as it makes me envision some overall-clad hayseed saying, "Wimmin, fix me a sammich.") Now for hell's sake, are we so insecure that we have to fly off the handle when we think the general public might be misinformed?
If that's the case, we should all calm down and just pass around some beers, because the general public already has its perception.
[ now, before you flame me saying I would say there's no difference between, say, "nigger" and "african-american," let me just pre-empt you with a response: are you really that daft? ]
-schoitz
I'm systems administrator for a small environmental organization, with four offices and 15-20 staff, depending on ongoing projects. I have lots of resources to draw upon (like some talented and computer-skilled staff), but for the most part, I'm it. When I interviewed for the job I told them I wanted to work with them because I want to work for the organization, not because I want to work in computers.
So I got the job, and now I work with a small group of fantastic, passionate people, for a cause that I care about a great deal, doing work that is interesting, varied, and Good.
Right on.
-Alan
That reminds me of a saying: You can take the girl out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of the girl. Old money is a very different kind of status than new money.
However, I disgree that there's no correlation between wealth/effort/work invested. Sure, in a fair world, the correlation would be equal across the board, but that's not really my point. Even in UO, when someone buys a character for $2,000, that's real money, reflecting real work. What I really wonder about in an online world like UO is how other players perceive the characters who are "bought and paid for" -- does a high-level character owned by a relative newbie have the same sort of social status as a high-level character in which a player has invested lots of his/her own time and effort, beyond just a payment?
It sort of reminds me of ski towns. Locals don't always look very highly on the rich lawyers from Los Angelos who buy their way into the community.
I've never played UO, so I wonder if that situations translates across. Can anybody explain that one for me? Can other players even perceive when a character has been bought?
-Alan
It has really precise real-world counterparts; As cities grow and sprawl they build new "downtown" areas. If the UO administrators were to create gobs of new land, the existing, densely-populated areas would lose value as players would expand to stake their claim on the new land (I have a vision of homesteaders rushing madly into Oklahoma).
I guess game dynamics would dictate what really happens to the new land; does it become the hip new region to settle, or is it like a new cookie-cutter urban sprawl subdivision? If players controlled areas of undeveloped land, can they cut it up and sell it off? What happens when groups of players want to preserve open space -- can they even do that? It's like the Wal-Mart vs. small towns crises that are popping up all over the U.S.
There are all sorts of implications for communities in there. Aside from all that, I have to wonder if it's any fun to play the game anymore. Do I really want to be a blacksmith in an imaginary world where I still have to pay rent?
Another reference I picked up on was at the very beginning: Neo stashes money in, and pulls a disk out of, a cut-out book of "Simulation and Simulacra". Is that one by Baudrillard? Maybe Foucault? It's one of those crazy French postmodern author types, I think. In any case, it was pretty apropos for the movie. At least I got a kick out of it.
-Alan