There are plenty of worthwhile SF series out there which would make for far more intersting, exciting and challenging TV series and/or films. Let's hope that next time they pick one.
I'm always looking for a good read, why don't you name a few good, current SF series.
I'll admit, I really liked Dune. When I first read the trilogy, in 8th grade, I lovd teh first book, and thought the second and third dragged. I've since reread the second and third, and appreciate them more, now that I've experienced life a bit.
Anyhow, things that I loved about Dune.
1) The Machavellian Politics. It's refreshing to see corrupt, machavellian political machinations, with various factions plotting against each other, hiding their true motives. Too much science fiction is full of well meaning, pure at heart politicoes, it's nice to see some evil, greedy folks for a change (cf. Larry Niven, is there anyone in his books who isn't motivated by good intentions?)
2) The level of detail. I really dig the level of detail and backstory in the books, though I can understand the MEGO affect for other readers. The glossaries, the appendices, I love them. This does backfire though, as the latest books in the Dune series (I'm thinking of House Atriedes here) are just a verbatim retelling of the backstory, lame, lame, lame.
3) The flaws the main characters have. It's nie to see main characters with personality defects, it makes Dune fit right intothe Greek Tragedy genre.
4) Dune, the planet. Dune just sticks with me, Herbert described it so well I could write a hundred stories there.
Okay, the flaws, there are a few.
1) The warfare. Okay, Herbert was trying to make a realistic explanation for the lack of guns due to sheilds. But then you can't use shields on Dune. In my mind, a platoon of Marines with M-16's should have been able to take out the planet then, wasting Fremen at 500 yards who were only armed with those pesky zip guns.
And no one has come up with a technology to take out shield armed opponents at a distance besides the lasgun? Here's one, a cannon that shoots nets. You do it today to capture birds, why not Sardaurkar. Once their safely entangled in your nets, smash their heads with a sledgehammer.
2) The later books. They lose the magic. Book 4 is okay, then they go downhill. As fasr as the new one, they should dig up Herbert's body, wrap him in copper wire and make a generator out of it, his body should be spinning sop fast.
What if we could find that place in our brains the generates the pictures we "see" in our mind's eye, and then piped it to a television screen? Suddenly, there'd be no more need for special effects. For a good movie, you'd just need to hire someone who can stay focused for a few minutes at a time.
Hmm, sounds a lot like Wim Wenders Until the End of the World.
I watched this Y2K day, and was amazed that I wasn't bored by such a long, (2 1/2 hours +) movie. The cinematography was gorgeous, the whole movie had a dreamlike state, though it was odd as it started out as a crime/chase caper and ended up as science fiction.
Maybe I's just ignert, but does a spacecraft really need air conditioning? Think about it -- the temperature outside the orbiting craft is somewhere around absolute zero. Would any heat from the ship not be radiated away à la laws of entropy?
It's more a matter of heat transfer being needed, and for the propellants.
Remember the old pictures from Mercury, the astronaut in his heavy silver suit, carrying a suitcase? The suitcase was portable air conditioner, keeping him somewhat cool as he walked to his capsule.
Then he's in his capsule, about the size of a telephone booth, crammed full of 1960's era electronic equipment. That waste heat has to go somewhere, and air conditioning is one way to transfer it.
The top two reasons may have been surmountable without airconditioning/refrigeration, but did you ever think about what propels a rocket? Most manned rockets are liquid fueled, and the best performance comes with cryogenic liquids, ie. liquid oxygen and hyrdrogen. Now, how are you going to make liquid oxygen and hydrogen without refrigeration technology? Adiabatic cooling and compression would talk a long, long time.
I wonder if you could set off small explosives to stablilize that slope, generating lots of little tsunamis at low tide, but averting a catastrophic one. Start here for more info. George
May I suggest that you use EMACS rather than vi? That way, you can compile in a second window and watch for faults. On the other hand, you could always go the true 1337 route and use ed!
Who is ed?
vi, EMACS, what are those? I'm typing it in notepad, and plan to use QuickC to compile it.
Or even earlier, what with tea from India, and coffeehouses springing up (of course, the Chinese, Ethiopeans and Arabs were indulging much before, but their not white Europeans, from which we measure all history).
Some people thought it quite the drug scourge, all these radicals clustering in dank, smoky coffeehouses, getting buzzed and plotting revolution.
Check out McKenna's Food of the Gods for a chapter on how caffeine affected society.
Also check out Pynchon's Mason & Dixon, several coffee house scenes.
Hmmm... Maybe you North-Americans are getting a bit *too* attached to your creature comforts?
Airco is not nearly as widely spread here in Europe, and still people live, work and play just as you do. Sometimes it gets hot, yes, but then you just open a window or dress lightly. Or use a fan instead of a full-flegded air conditioner. Saves energy and does not cause respiratory diseases...
Cheers//Frank
Um, did you read any of the previous posts?
Or maybe you grow all your own food, and milk your own cows?
Or perhaps you don't buy any groceries that require refrigeration, including from the farm/meat packing plant to your store.
It's not just about being comfortable, it's about refrigeration being used in industrial processes, cooling computers, and cooling produce.
Yes, you could argue, that they weren't very widely used then. But neither are spacecrafts today (ever been at a space trip?).
Yeah man, I have, it was 7/10/87, Dylan and the Dead in Philly, got some fresh, clean blotter, I sucked on one, then a second fifteen minutes later, woo-hoo, off to the cosmos,
Whereas now, you're taking up valuable medical resources which could be better used in keeping healthy people alive for longer. The burden on the taxpayer of the elderly is enormous, and this sector contributes nothing at all to society. Thanks to the liberals decent hard-working people like myself have to support people we've never met, never will meet, who contribute nothing and will die anyway in a few years? How is this fair?
Sorry troll, today I'm healthier than a horse. I'm at a normal weight, watch my diet, exercise, don't smoke tobacco, have lower than normal blood pressure, incredibly low cholestorel, wear my seat-belt and drive a Volvo.
I don't consider 34 elderly, and probably pay twice what you do in taxes.
You might want to look up the definition of decent, also.
Oh yeah, mounds of dead horses, streets lined with road apples, count me in.
Bikes?
Not in the northeast US where I live, at least for 6 months of the year. I can't imagine biking 15 miles each way in below freezing temps on a snow and ice covered pathway.
Mass transit?
Better, but we'd have to really increase the population density.
Unfortunately, the US is hooked on cars, and it would take some massive real estate and lifestyle changes to make it possible to live without cars. Not that it wouldn't be interesting, it would just take quite a few years (or gasoline going to $10 a gallon).
Think about the first time you went into a room with big iron, the raised floor, the chilly air, yeap, those mainframe monsters needed cool air to run.
They wouldn't be much use if they could only run North of the Mason-Dixon line, and then only for 3 seasons.
I support huge printers (DocuTech 135 and 6135), and recommend running them above 100 degrees F.
Think about a spacecraft without air conditioning.
"Houston, it's 120 degrees in here"
"Roger, can you open a window?"
I'm not a chemical engineer, but from just browsing a few recipes, it seems that cooling a solution is a very common procedure. Hard to do without a/c.
Typical short sighted slashdot reader, what if everyone followed your lead?
You can throw away anything that will fit in the trash can with no trouble at all: mercury, radioactive iodine, Plutonium powder
Yeah, yeah, and can't you just see one of those bulldozers pushing together a few garbage truck loads of plutonium powder and starting a critical reaction!
Austin would get nuked, the Gulf of Mexico would glow, and Dubya would take credit for the unique environmental niches he's created for radioactive mutant beasties.
Do what I do, fill film containers with your waste plutonium and drop them in the film developing boxes.
Hell, at my university the "pranksters" went around one night and stole all the mouse balls from every unprotected computer terminal, and attached a "work order in progress" card to each one.
We sure didn't have those fancy mouse driver computers when I was at school.
The best the pranksters could do was to take the type belts off those mainframe printers and put them on upside down.
Oh yeah, and take thin sheets of steel, cut them in the shape of punch cards, and slip them into card puncher.
Slashdot Mirror
There are plenty of worthwhile SF series out there which would make for far more intersting, exciting and challenging TV series and/or films. Let's hope that next time they pick one.
I'm always looking for a good read, why don't you name a few good, current SF series.
Thanks,
George
I'll admit, I really liked Dune. When I first read the trilogy, in 8th grade, I lovd teh first book, and thought the second and third dragged. I've since reread the second and third, and appreciate them more, now that I've experienced life a bit.
Anyhow, things that I loved about Dune.
1) The Machavellian Politics. It's refreshing to see corrupt, machavellian political machinations, with various factions plotting against each other, hiding their true motives. Too much science fiction is full of well meaning, pure at heart politicoes, it's nice to see some evil, greedy folks for a change (cf. Larry Niven, is there anyone in his books who isn't motivated by good intentions?)
2) The level of detail. I really dig the level of detail and backstory in the books, though I can understand the MEGO affect for other readers. The glossaries, the appendices, I love them. This does backfire though, as the latest books in the Dune series (I'm thinking of House Atriedes here) are just a verbatim retelling of the backstory, lame, lame, lame.
3) The flaws the main characters have. It's nie to see main characters with personality defects, it makes Dune fit right intothe Greek Tragedy genre.
4) Dune, the planet. Dune just sticks with me, Herbert described it so well I could write a hundred stories there.
Okay, the flaws, there are a few.
1) The warfare. Okay, Herbert was trying to make a realistic explanation for the lack of guns due to sheilds. But then you can't use shields on Dune. In my mind, a platoon of Marines with M-16's should have been able to take out the planet then, wasting Fremen at 500 yards who were only armed with those pesky zip guns.
And no one has come up with a technology to take out shield armed opponents at a distance besides the lasgun? Here's one, a cannon that shoots nets. You do it today to capture birds, why not Sardaurkar. Once their safely entangled in your nets, smash their heads with a sledgehammer.
2) The later books. They lose the magic. Book 4 is okay, then they go downhill. As fasr as the new one, they should dig up Herbert's body, wrap him in copper wire and make a generator out of it, his body should be spinning sop fast.
George
Anyone know of more giant hollow asteroid stories?
Larry Niven discusses hollowed asteroids at great length in the Known Space series, particularly the Belter stories.
Oh yeah, and in Protector the Brennan Monster has hollows in his asteroid, IIRC.
Then Niven and Pournelle's The Mote In God's Eye talks about old hollowed out asteroids, filed with mummified Moties.
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series talks about hollowing out Phobos, which may have been an asteroid at one time before it was captured by Mars.
Arthur C. Clarke's Earthlight is about a war between Earth and the other planets, I think they mention asteroids in it.
Bester's The Stars My Destination has Joseph and the Scientific People holed up in some sort of asteroid.
George
I looked up some of the DNS names, I wasn't sure what I would find, but it looks like lots of dial ups and DHCP addresses.
Host Name: <lsanca1-ar8-048-168.dsl.gtei.net> IP Address: <4.35.48.168>
Host Name: <ci697303-a.lusvil1.ky.home.com> IP Address: <24.2.227.10>
Host Name: <PPPa86-ResalePhoenix6-2R7219.saturn.bbn.com> IP Address: <4.54.182.211>
Host Name: <cachef1-v105.kolumbus.fi> IP Address: <193.229.159.211>
Host Name: <tayhou-229-217.ev1.net> IP Address: <207.218.229.217>
Host Name: <du13055.blo.ptd.net> IP Address: <204.186.13.55>
Host Name: <CHCGB511-10.splitrock.net> IP Address: <209.254.67.10>
Host Name: <annex32.su.ic.ac.uk> IP Address: <155.198.152.42>
Host Name: <proxy2-external.snvl1.sfba.home.com> IP Address: <24.4.254.99>
Host Name: <w098.z208177014.dfw-tx.dsl.cnc.net> IP Address: <208.177.14.98>
Host Name: <host001083.arnet.com.ar> IP Address: <200.43.1.83>
Host Name: <dhcp93101233.columbus.rr.com> IP Address: <24.93.101.233>
Host Name: <c05-148.012.popsite.net> IP Address: <64.24.48.148>
Host Name: <52.atlanta-48-49rs.ga.dial-access.att.net> IP Address: <12.77.19.52>
Host Name: <5-168.casl.du.edu> IP Address: <130.253.5.168>
Host Name: <a24b31n93client144.hawaii.rr.com> IP Address: <24.31.93.144>
Host Name: <b12.med.pcpros.net> IP Address: <208.198.6.12>
Host Name: <p3E9B96E2.dip0.t-ipconnect.de> IP Address: <62.155.150.226>
Host Name: <slkc6400gw1poolC60.slkc.uswest.net> IP Address: <63.226.102.60>
Host Name: <adsl-77-226-243.atl.bellsouth.net> IP Address: <216.77.226.243>
Host Name: <ip229.dayton11.oh.pub-ip.psi.net> IP Address: <38.31.203.229>
Host Name: <dhcp-letts-158-219.american.edu> IP Address: <147.9.158.219>
George
What if we could find that place in our brains the generates the pictures we "see" in our mind's eye, and then piped it to a television screen?
Suddenly, there'd be no more need for special effects. For a good movie, you'd just need to hire someone who can stay focused for a few minutes at a time.
Hmm, sounds a lot like Wim Wenders
Until the End of the World.
I watched this Y2K day, and was amazed that I wasn't bored by such a long, (2 1/2 hours +) movie. The cinematography was gorgeous, the whole movie had a dreamlike state, though it was odd as it started out as a crime/chase caper and ended up as science fiction.
If you ever get a chance, I'd recommend it.
George
Maybe I's just ignert, but does a spacecraft really need air conditioning? Think about it -- the temperature outside the orbiting craft is somewhere around absolute zero. Would any heat from the ship not be radiated away à la laws of entropy?
It's more a matter of heat transfer being needed, and for the propellants.
Remember the old pictures from Mercury, the astronaut in his heavy silver suit, carrying a suitcase? The suitcase was portable air conditioner, keeping him somewhat cool as he walked to his capsule.
Then he's in his capsule, about the size of a telephone booth, crammed full of 1960's era electronic equipment. That waste heat has to go somewhere, and air conditioning is one way to transfer it.
The top two reasons may have been surmountable without airconditioning/refrigeration, but did you ever think about what propels a rocket? Most manned rockets are liquid fueled, and the best performance comes with cryogenic liquids, ie. liquid oxygen and hyrdrogen. Now, how are you going to make liquid oxygen and hydrogen without refrigeration technology? Adiabatic cooling and compression would talk a long, long time.
George
I wonder if you could set off small explosives to stablilize that slope, generating lots of little tsunamis at low tide, but averting a catastrophic one. Start here for more info. George
Rochester, New York, and I'd like to apologize for any basement flooding my yankee brethren have caused in the past.
George
May I suggest that you use EMACS rather than vi? That way, you can compile in a second window and watch for faults. On the other hand, you could always go the true 1337 route and use ed!
Who is ed?
vi, EMACS, what are those? I'm typing it in notepad, and plan to use QuickC to compile it.
George
I was thinking more of how their heart goes out right after the 60 month, 6000 mile warranty is up.
And if you can't get a jump start within minutes, you're looking at a big pile of dog food.
George
Or even earlier, what with tea from India, and coffeehouses springing up (of course, the Chinese, Ethiopeans and Arabs were indulging much before, but their not white Europeans, from which we measure all history).
Some people thought it quite the drug scourge, all these radicals clustering in dank, smoky coffeehouses, getting buzzed and plotting revolution.
Check out McKenna's Food of the Gods for a chapter on how caffeine affected society.
Also check out Pynchon's Mason & Dixon, several coffee house scenes.
George
So a book like this is a blessing.
Though typing the kernel code in all by hand, so that I can compile the kernel and boot Linux on my CDless 486 is a bit of a bother.
Let's see, I'm up to 137 lines, only 39863 to go!
George
Hmmm... Maybe you North-Americans are getting a bit *too* attached to your creature comforts?
Airco is not nearly as widely spread here in Europe, and still people live, work and play just as you do. Sometimes it gets hot, yes, but then you just open a window or dress lightly. Or use a fan instead of a full-flegded air conditioner. Saves energy and does not cause respiratory diseases...
Cheers//Frank
Um, did you read any of the previous posts?
Or maybe you grow all your own food, and milk your own cows?
Or perhaps you don't buy any groceries that require refrigeration, including from the farm/meat packing plant to your store.
It's not just about being comfortable, it's about refrigeration being used in industrial processes, cooling computers, and cooling produce.
George
Yes, you could argue, that they weren't very widely used then. But neither are spacecrafts today (ever been at a space trip?).
Yeah man, I have, it was 7/10/87, Dylan and the Dead in Philly, got some fresh, clean blotter, I sucked on one, then a second fifteen minutes later, woo-hoo, off to the cosmos,
ah, what were we talking about?
Whereas now, you're taking up valuable medical resources which could be better used in keeping healthy people alive for longer. The burden on the taxpayer of the elderly is enormous, and this sector contributes nothing at all to society. Thanks to the liberals decent hard-working people like myself have to support people we've never met, never will meet, who contribute nothing and will die anyway in a few years? How is this fair?
Sorry troll, today I'm healthier than a horse. I'm at a normal weight, watch my diet, exercise, don't smoke tobacco, have lower than normal blood pressure, incredibly low cholestorel, wear my seat-belt and drive a Volvo.
I don't consider 34 elderly, and probably pay twice what you do in taxes.
You might want to look up the definition of decent, also.
George
Horses?
Oh yeah, mounds of dead horses, streets lined with road apples, count me in.
Bikes?
Not in the northeast US where I live, at least for 6 months of the year. I can't imagine biking 15 miles each way in below freezing temps on a snow and ice covered pathway.
Mass transit?
Better, but we'd have to really increase the population density.
Unfortunately, the US is hooked on cars, and it would take some massive real estate and lifestyle changes to make it possible to live without cars. Not that it wouldn't be interesting, it would just take quite a few years (or gasoline going to $10 a gallon).
George
Bullshit.
I'm alive because of technology, I was sickly as a kid, and in an earlier century I would have been the one dragging mean mortality down to 30 years.
Oh yeah, I'm over 30, in an earlier century I'd be considered middle aged, have fewer teeth, and be in generally poor health.
Go back to reading your Rousseau and living in an unheated cabin, wearing bear skins if you're so against technology.
George
Though not just for comfort.
Think about the first time you went into a room with big iron, the raised floor, the chilly air, yeap, those mainframe monsters needed cool air to run.
They wouldn't be much use if they could only run North of the Mason-Dixon line, and then only for 3 seasons.
I support huge printers (DocuTech 135 and 6135), and recommend running them above 100 degrees F.
Think about a spacecraft without air conditioning.
"Houston, it's 120 degrees in here"
"Roger, can you open a window?"
I'm not a chemical engineer, but from just browsing a few recipes, it seems that cooling a solution is a very common procedure. Hard to do without a/c.
George
mr. anonymous IT consultant trolling for one of teh top names in the software industry.
George
Why did you pick 42 for the answer to everything?
Show your work for extra credit.
George
Typical short sighted slashdot reader, what if everyone followed your lead?
You can throw away anything that will fit in the trash can with no trouble at all: mercury, radioactive iodine, Plutonium powder
Yeah, yeah, and can't you just see one of those bulldozers pushing together a few garbage truck loads of plutonium powder and starting a critical reaction!
Austin would get nuked, the Gulf of Mexico would glow, and Dubya would take credit for the unique environmental niches he's created for radioactive mutant beasties.
Do what I do, fill film containers with your waste plutonium and drop them in the film developing boxes.
George
Hell, at my university the "pranksters" went around one night and stole all the mouse balls from every unprotected computer terminal, and attached a "work order in progress" card to each one.
We sure didn't have those fancy mouse driver computers when I was at school.
The best the pranksters could do was to take the type belts off those mainframe printers and put them on upside down.
Oh yeah, and take thin sheets of steel, cut them in the shape of punch cards, and slip them into card puncher.
puncha, puncha, puncha, KLANG!!
George
This might have been somewhat funny when Letterman first did it, decades ago, but it isn't now, and it sure isn't much of a prank.
Removing someone's door and plastering over the opening, that's a prank.
Replacing the card section at a football game, that's a prank.
Bankrupting the Soviet Union with vaporware, that's one heck of a prank.
Not telling the refugees in your attic that the war has been over for 40 years, that's a heck of prank.
Dropping stuff down a stairwell? Boring.
George
Too bad the moderators have no sense of humor.
George
So I think I'll pass.
Though it would barely nudge the value of my Volvo.
George