One of my favorite episodes actually. To Serve Man was the title. As for a parallel to Childhood's End it would be my guess that whoever wrote the episode had just read the book and decided it needed a bit of 'artistic expression' in order to be show on TV. Very good and disturbing twist to the theme though. =) I like both stories, but for seperate reasons of course.
I hate to jump on the 'me-too' bandwagon but I agree very much with your assessment. Let's give them some time to work out all of the bugs. I find it interesting that we jump down the throats of a non-profit organization for the comments made by one member regarding what to him must be a serious headache.
And as for his comments against this community, I think he has every right to complain. If I had servers crashing left and right and complaints flying in faster than prunes through and old man, the last thing I would want to deal with is a hacked result saying that an analysis that should be taking at least a day to process is only taking some people 20 minutes. Lets all just let them do what they need to do so we can get back to scanning the skies.
This project ultimately means more than just searching for signs of life in the universe. It's a statement of our culture as a whole, and it's need to believe in something greater and bigger than us all. For once in human history we have at our fingertips the ability to reach out to the stars together. Granted this is a very small step towards it, but it is, never-the-less, a step in the right direction.
I was just perusing some old RPG books and I came across West End Games Star Wars. They call malicious crackers Slicers....because they cut their way into a computer and do whatever it is they need to do. It's just different enough from Hacker but close enough....just a thought. Any comments?
I haven't read every post, but I figured I would toss my own currency into the fray. I personally think that we should go with a term that is something the media might pick up and go with. Something simple and straightforward, if a bit tolkien-esque. Dark hacker and Light hacker perhaps. I dunno, maybe there is no term for it that will work well because too many people still don't understand the technology that is before them. Unfortunately we live in an increasingly lazy society. Everything must be automated and easy with pretty pictures (eg AOL). It's very much like the first real scientists. They were branded witches and heretics because they knew things no one else did and it scared people. Until society understands computers (which at this rate will be never) then perhaps we should just let them think what they want and use the terms we have always used. Although I still think that tabloid shows would go nuts over 'Dark Hacker' in reference to those few who maliciously crack sites for amusement, it's probably too late to change the addled minds of the media.
Slashdot Mirror
One of my favorite episodes actually. To Serve Man was the title. As for a parallel to Childhood's End it would be my guess that whoever wrote the episode had just read the book and decided it needed a bit of 'artistic expression' in order to be show on TV. Very good and disturbing twist to the theme though. =) I like both stories, but for seperate reasons of course.
I hate to jump on the 'me-too' bandwagon but I agree very much with your assessment. Let's give them some time to work out all of the bugs. I find it interesting that we jump down the throats of a non-profit organization for the comments made by one member regarding what to him must be a serious headache.
And as for his comments against this community, I think he has every right to complain. If I had servers crashing left and right and complaints flying in faster than prunes through and old man, the last thing I would want to deal with is a hacked result saying that an analysis that should be taking at least a day to process is only taking some people 20 minutes. Lets all just let them do what they need to do so we can get back to scanning the skies.
This project ultimately means more than just searching for signs of life in the universe. It's a statement of our culture as a whole, and it's need to believe in something greater and bigger than us all. For once in human history we have at our fingertips the ability to reach out to the stars together. Granted this is a very small step towards it, but it is, never-the-less, a step in the right direction.
-The Mythril Dragon
I was just perusing some old RPG books and I came across West End Games Star Wars. They call malicious crackers Slicers....because they cut their way into a computer and do whatever it is they need to do. It's just different enough from Hacker but close enough....just a thought. Any comments?
I haven't read every post, but I figured I would toss my own currency into the fray. I personally think that we should go with a term that is something the media might pick up and go with. Something simple and straightforward, if a bit tolkien-esque. Dark hacker and Light hacker perhaps. I dunno, maybe there is no term for it that will work well because too many people still don't understand the technology that is before them. Unfortunately we live in an increasingly lazy society. Everything must be automated and easy with pretty pictures (eg AOL). It's very much like the first real scientists. They were branded witches and heretics because they knew things no one else did and it scared people. Until society understands computers (which at this rate will be never) then perhaps we should just let them think what they want and use the terms we have always used. Although I still think that tabloid shows would go nuts over 'Dark Hacker' in reference to those few who maliciously crack sites for amusement, it's probably too late to change the addled minds of the media.
-The Mythril Dragon