Harry Potter is hardly a literary achievement
on
Harry Potter Wins Hugo
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I think it's a big marketing thing. There are lots of better childrens' stories. The only difference is that Harry Potter somehow got a spark early on and picked up a strange momentum, which the marketers wisely jumped on and milked for all it was worth. Maybe the magic stuff does have a kind of allure, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the author could have done a much, much better job with the stories themselves.
I've read all of the Potter books released to date, mostly as light reading for the bus ride when heavier material can't hold my attention. These books just zip by - it's like a cartoon series in novel form. I read them because I kept hearing so much about them - and because once the Christians started being horrified by "the Occult" descriptions, and I saw this Onion article, I couldn't not read them.
But a literary award? The only reason I'd do that would be to piss off the Christians (and it'd almost be worth it...)
They are very cartoony. The four books released so far have an Episode One feel to them, like when the kid yells "now THIS is pod racing!" Harry's arch-enemy is this brat named Draco Malfoy from a family of evil wizards, but he never seems to be a threat. Like Biff in Back to the Future, every scrape ends in Malfoy under the proverbial shitpile moaning "I hate manure". It's like, can't something bad happen to the hero? Shouldn't he have to face some challenge and get a victory he truely earns, rather than simply lucking out because he was born "the One"? Maybe the next three books will get a little darker as he gets older, I dunno.
The Hoopiest Frood of them all is in the resturant at the end of the universe.
And you don't need to believe in an afterlife to use such phrases.
From an atheist heathen to a much-missed fellow atheist heathen, thanks for all the books, hope you know where your towel is, etc...
This is a depressing day:(
-- "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
Trolling, as is now well-known, has been the defining attribute and most worthwhile activity on Slashdot for some time now. The people who were here when it started have either left or fill the ranks of the best trollers for the wave of idiots that followed.
Now, it has a kind of official stamp of approval because CmdrTaco is getting in on the act.
-- "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
It would seem more likely, but there are many simple games you could devise where the second player can force a win. I've had problems like that in "math challenges" back in high school.
-- "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
"ooga also wonder why oog not have to buy special cave-keyboard with lowercase letters!"
Well, why don't we go ahead and have a look at OOG's html shall we?
OOG SEE INACCURATE CAVEMAN REFERENCE POSTED ON HERE AND TAKE ISSUE!!!<a HREF="oogoogoogoogoog"> </a> OOG NEVER ACTUALLY PAY FOR SEX, OOG JUST CLUB CAVE-HO WITH CLUB AND DRAG BACK TO CAVE REGARDLESS OF WHAT OTHER CAVEMAN THINK!!!<a HREF="oogoogoogoogoog"> </a> OOG ALSO REMIND YOU THAT CURENCY OF DAY BE EITHER FISH HEADS OR FAT SACKS OF CAVE-WEED, NOT BOAR'S TEETH!!!<a HREF="oogoogoogoogoog"> </a> OOG KNOW BOAR'S TEETH ONLY USED FOR SEX AMONG GAY CAVEMEN AND CAVE-BONDAGE FREAKS (OOG NORMAL)!!!<a HREF="oogoogoogoogoog"> </a> OOG ALSO REMIND YOU THAT IN OLD CAVE LANGUAGE "UNF UNGA BOOG OOG LOOGA" ACTUALLY MEAN "I HAVE SMALL PENIS AND LIKE RECIEVING ANAL SEX TO POINT OF BLEEDING!!!"<a HREF="oogoogoogoogoog"> </a> OOG NOW HAVE REASON TO QUESTION POSTER'S SEXUALITY!!!
ooga wish ooga was as clever as oog!!!
-- "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
Do you have any idea how much memorization medical students have to do? It's why I'm not a medical student. To many it's interesting though, and it's definitely useful.
-- "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
Deep Blue does not exhaustively search the entire move tree. It uses a recursive search, but trims it to manageable levels using heuristics designed by humans. For the opening, it has a database of classic chess openings to follow depending on the play of the opponent. For the midgame, it has a database of practically every master-level game on record for those common board positions. For the endgame, raw calculation is probably enough to solve it outright.
If chess gets to the point where a computer can literally find a way for either white or black to win no matter how the other plays before the game even starts, that will kill a lot of interest in chess. I suspect though that if neither player makes a mistake the game will always be a draw like in tic tac toe.
-- "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
and the chiiiiilllldren. won't somebody please think of the chiiiillllldren?
-- "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
Re:Public education has serious problems
on
Sean In The Middle
·
· Score: 1
Did you know that the philosophy and religion of Atheism and Evolution says that murder, theft, rape, etc. are okay? Atheism and Evolution cannot have morals and ethics, and with this belief there is no wrong or right. Let me explain why: The first reason is because they do not believe in a God, who created everything, and therefore there are no absolutes. The second reason is because we are all descendents of pond scum and therefore no better then all the other animals on this earth. Finally Atheism and Evolution attack Creation (and Christianity) which are fundamental to everything we as Christians believe.
Let me begin with the reason that Atheism and Evolution don?t allow for morals, ethics, and the simple idea of right and wrong is that there is no God and no creator, they say there are no absolutes. First, I want to point out that the statement that there are no absolutes is an absolute statement. Now let me explain why without God and a creator there are no moral and ethical absolutes. Without God the creator we are the result of a cosmic accident, you have all probably heard of the big bang, you know; time, chance, and natural matter created everything that we now see around us. Which leads us to believe that we are all accidents of nature and so it doesn?t matter what we do. If we are all accidents then why shouldn?t I go out and do anything I want to anyone and/or anything? The only reason we would not want to hurt others would be the result of personal decision and there would be no foundation for thinking that way. A very good example of this would be Communism, which is based on Atheism. In fact one of Hitler?s role models was a man named Darwin. Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and many other Communists where atheist and much of Communism was based on the view that there was no God. I will finish this point with a quote by V.I. Lenin-?Our propaganda necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism??1
The second reason that Atheism and Evolution does not allow for moral and ethical absolutes is because they say we are descendents of pond scum and we are therefore no better then other animals, not humans created by God in His own image. If we hold to the belief of Evolution then there is no difference between us and our ?ape brothers.? We often use the term ?dog eat dog? without realizing that evolutionists mean the same thing when they say ?survival of the fittest.? The only difference is that we use it to describe the animal world where the evolutionists include us in their saying. From their viewpoint what is the difference between barbarians eating each other and a dogfight, or even a black widow eating her mate? My Dad recently reminded me of a quote from someone that said, ?Some people love their neighbors, and some people eat them.? If we are all animals what is wrong with that?
My third and last point will only make sense to the Christians. Atheism and Evolution attack Creation, as well as Christianity; and without Creation we have no bases for everything else we believe. Every thing else in the Bible, from why Jesus died for us, to why we wear clothes, is based directly or indirectly on Genesis 1-11. This includes is the Creation story, the origin of language at the tower of Babel, and the global flood. Without creation we don?t have an all-powerful God who created us. Without Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit, we don?t have sin. This is a cornerstone for everything we as Christians believe.
Atheism and Evolution are philosophies that tell us that life is meaningless. Atheists and Evolutionists are attacking our faith, a faith that provides meaning and purpose. That in-and-of-it?s-self is enough for us to defend our faith against Atheism and Evolution. But when you add the other arguments that I have mentioned, and the many I have not mentioned, then you have an even stronger case against this worldview. We need to learn and defend our own faith and expose the problems of Atheism and Evolution, or America and the rest of the world will be headed down the same road as the communists. People say that ?history repeats itself,? that is why we learn history in school, so we can learn from the mistakes of others. Let us look back and realize we are headed for communism all over again, and stop it in its tracks.
Oh, I agree with the sentiment. I'm just saying Dogma was a half-baked movie. If you want one that makes you think, try Network or something like that.
Dogma actually started out pretty promising but it devolved into something idiotic. I liked the scene at the beginning when Matt talks a nun right out of her belief. But by the time a shit demon came out of a toilet, I knew my hopes had been too high.
-- "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
yes encryption IS a good thing for people like NIST to put resources into. You need people at the top of the field, and it helps that the organization's interests fall right in line with having an open, secure encryption system.
However, on most of the more frivolous stuff, he was right on the mark about academia.
-- "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
And instead of orbiting the planet, a huge monolith was standing upright on one of Saturn's moons, like a big skyscraper. It was standing in the middle of a large white oval.
The odd thing was, as a probe went by Saturn and sent back photos, a photo of that moon revealed a large white oval on the surface. A scientist who saw it remarked, (ttbomr) "if there's a black spot in the middle, I'm killing Arthur C Clarke!"
-- "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
Well, everybody saw it coming anyway. It's not like/.ers would have been taken in no matter what. Days beforehand, people were wondering what stupid 4/1 stories there would be.
This was just there way of saying "fuck it" and putting up the crap from the bottom of the submission barrel.
-- "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
You go to the doctor for a test to see whether you have a certain very deadly disease. One in a hundred thousand people have this disease. This test is 99% accurate and NEVER gives a false negative.
Unfortunately (horrors) you test positive.
Given these dismal odds, how will you spend your last days on Earth? Put another way, which of your coding projects will you scramble to finish?
-- "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
when has anybody ever posted a "cry for help" to slashdot? Not as in "help! my employer wants me to sign this and I don't want to!" but as in "help! I need somebody to come to my aid in meatspace!"
-- "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
the "things that can't for some reason be released in such an environment" part is kindof a biggie. That precludes just about every copyrighted work in print. Yes, lots of it is there illegally and can be found. But the Library of Congress it ain't. For people at my school doing research for a paper, MOST of their material is available only in physical form.
Yes, this article is probably a stupid 4/1 thing but hey.
-- "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
They were incredibly efficient, but Thompson couldn't understand why they worked. (He suspected such things as electromagnetic coupling and communication through the power supply.
I think I remember reading about something like that - a guy removed "islands" from the circuit and it stopped working, and when he put them back in it worked. Crazy:-)
-- "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
As for it's multimedia stuff, Mac had that market cinched up good too. Music, Audio, and video were taken up with Mac.
Um, MacOS (before OS X) never even had anything resembling preemptive multitasking. This is BeOS's raison d'être - fine-grained multitasking and multithreading so as to smoothly handle many high-bandwidth tasks (ie games, music, movies) and take advantage of several CPUs. That and a completely OO UI and the most painless development you ever did see.
-- "May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
Slashdot Mirror
I think it's a big marketing thing. There are lots of better childrens' stories. The only difference is that Harry Potter somehow got a spark early on and picked up a strange momentum, which the marketers wisely jumped on and milked for all it was worth. Maybe the magic stuff does have a kind of allure, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the author could have done a much, much better job with the stories themselves.
I've read all of the Potter books released to date, mostly as light reading for the bus ride when heavier material can't hold my attention. These books just zip by - it's like a cartoon series in novel form. I read them because I kept hearing so much about them - and because once the Christians started being horrified by "the Occult" descriptions, and I saw this Onion article, I couldn't not read them.
But a literary award? The only reason I'd do that would be to piss off the Christians (and it'd almost be worth it...)
They are very cartoony. The four books released so far have an Episode One feel to them, like when the kid yells "now THIS is pod racing!" Harry's arch-enemy is this brat named Draco Malfoy from a family of evil wizards, but he never seems to be a threat. Like Biff in Back to the Future, every scrape ends in Malfoy under the proverbial shitpile moaning "I hate manure". It's like, can't something bad happen to the hero? Shouldn't he have to face some challenge and get a victory he truely earns, rather than simply lucking out because he was born "the One"? Maybe the next three books will get a little darker as he gets older, I dunno.
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
That's irony.
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
Now, it has a kind of official stamp of approval because CmdrTaco is getting in on the act.
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
Well, why don't we go ahead and have a look at OOG's html shall we?
OOG SEE INACCURATE CAVEMAN REFERENCE POSTED ON HERE AND TAKE ISSUE!!!<a HREF="oogoogoogoogoog"> </a> OOG NEVER ACTUALLY PAY FOR SEX, OOG JUST CLUB CAVE-HO WITH CLUB AND DRAG BACK TO CAVE REGARDLESS OF WHAT OTHER CAVEMAN THINK!!!<a HREF="oogoogoogoogoog"> </a> OOG ALSO REMIND YOU THAT CURENCY OF DAY BE EITHER FISH HEADS OR FAT SACKS OF CAVE-WEED, NOT BOAR'S TEETH!!!<a HREF="oogoogoogoogoog"> </a> OOG KNOW BOAR'S TEETH ONLY USED FOR SEX AMONG GAY CAVEMEN AND CAVE-BONDAGE FREAKS (OOG NORMAL)!!!<a HREF="oogoogoogoogoog"> </a> OOG ALSO REMIND YOU THAT IN OLD CAVE LANGUAGE "UNF UNGA BOOG OOG LOOGA" ACTUALLY MEAN "I HAVE SMALL PENIS AND LIKE RECIEVING ANAL SEX TO POINT OF BLEEDING!!!"<a HREF="oogoogoogoogoog"> </a> OOG NOW HAVE REASON TO QUESTION POSTER'S SEXUALITY!!!
ooga wish ooga was as clever as oog!!!
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
Do you have any idea how much memorization medical students have to do? It's why I'm not a medical student. To many it's interesting though, and it's definitely useful.
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
If chess gets to the point where a computer can literally find a way for either white or black to win no matter how the other plays before the game even starts, that will kill a lot of interest in chess. I suspect though that if neither player makes a mistake the game will always be a draw like in tic tac toe.
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
Let me begin with the reason that Atheism and Evolution don?t allow for morals, ethics, and the simple idea of right and wrong is that there is no God and no creator, they say there are no absolutes. First, I want to point out that the statement that there are no absolutes is an absolute statement. Now let me explain why without God and a creator there are no moral and ethical absolutes. Without God the creator we are the result of a cosmic accident, you have all probably heard of the big bang, you know; time, chance, and natural matter created everything that we now see around us. Which leads us to believe that we are all accidents of nature and so it doesn?t matter what we do. If we are all accidents then why shouldn?t I go out and do anything I want to anyone and/or anything? The only reason we would not want to hurt others would be the result of personal decision and there would be no foundation for thinking that way. A very good example of this would be Communism, which is based on Atheism. In fact one of Hitler?s role models was a man named Darwin. Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and many other Communists where atheist and much of Communism was based on the view that there was no God. I will finish this point with a quote by V.I. Lenin-?Our propaganda necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism??1
The second reason that Atheism and Evolution does not allow for moral and ethical absolutes is because they say we are descendents of pond scum and we are therefore no better then other animals, not humans created by God in His own image. If we hold to the belief of Evolution then there is no difference between us and our ?ape brothers.? We often use the term ?dog eat dog? without realizing that evolutionists mean the same thing when they say ?survival of the fittest.? The only difference is that we use it to describe the animal world where the evolutionists include us in their saying. From their viewpoint what is the difference between barbarians eating each other and a dogfight, or even a black widow eating her mate? My Dad recently reminded me of a quote from someone that said, ?Some people love their neighbors, and some people eat them.? If we are all animals what is wrong with that?
My third and last point will only make sense to the Christians. Atheism and Evolution attack Creation, as well as Christianity; and without Creation we have no bases for everything else we believe. Every thing else in the Bible, from why Jesus died for us, to why we wear clothes, is based directly or indirectly on Genesis 1-11. This includes is the Creation story, the origin of language at the tower of Babel, and the global flood. Without creation we don?t have an all-powerful God who created us. Without Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit, we don?t have sin. This is a cornerstone for everything we as Christians believe.
Atheism and Evolution are philosophies that tell us that life is meaningless. Atheists and Evolutionists are attacking our faith, a faith that provides meaning and purpose. That in-and-of-it?s-self is enough for us to defend our faith against Atheism and Evolution. But when you add the other arguments that I have mentioned, and the many I have not mentioned, then you have an even stronger case against this worldview. We need to learn and defend our own faith and expose the problems of Atheism and Evolution, or America and the rest of the world will be headed down the same road as the communists. People say that ?history repeats itself,? that is why we learn history in school, so we can learn from the mistakes of others. Let us look back and realize we are headed for communism all over again, and stop it in its tracks.
1 V.I. Lenin, Complete Collected Works, forty-five volumes (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1978), vol. 10, p. 86
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
Dogma actually started out pretty promising but it devolved into something idiotic. I liked the scene at the beginning when Matt talks a nun right out of her belief. But by the time a shit demon came out of a toilet, I knew my hopes had been too high.
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
oh, sorry, I just get a little orgasmic when I read a masterful troll.
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
However, on most of the more frivolous stuff, he was right on the mark about academia.
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
but, he underestimated the advancement of computer calculation speed and memory.
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
And instead of orbiting the planet, a huge monolith was standing upright on one of Saturn's moons, like a big skyscraper. It was standing in the middle of a large white oval.
The odd thing was, as a probe went by Saturn and sent back photos, a photo of that moon revealed a large white oval on the surface. A scientist who saw it remarked, (ttbomr) "if there's a black spot in the middle, I'm killing Arthur C Clarke!"
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
Stay away from the computer and set up a good meatspace prank instead. They're far better.
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
This was just there way of saying "fuck it" and putting up the crap from the bottom of the submission barrel.
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
You go to the doctor for a test to see whether you have a certain very deadly disease. One in a hundred thousand people have this disease. This test is 99% accurate and NEVER gives a false negative.
Unfortunately (horrors) you test positive.
Given these dismal odds, how will you spend your last days on Earth? Put another way, which of your coding projects will you scramble to finish?
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
Yes, this article is probably a stupid 4/1 thing but hey.
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
But could anyone tell us what DOES imply should?
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
I think I remember reading about something like that - a guy removed "islands" from the circuit and it stopped working, and when he put them back in it worked. Crazy
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"
Um, MacOS (before OS X) never even had anything resembling preemptive multitasking. This is BeOS's raison d'être - fine-grained multitasking and multithreading so as to smoothly handle many high-bandwidth tasks (ie games, music, movies) and take advantage of several CPUs. That and a completely OO UI and the most painless development you ever did see.
--
"May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house"