Isn't it obvious? GOOD SF doesn't sell. Cheap commercialized tripe does.
Did you just call Andromeda and Mutant X good sci-fi?
Andromeda has spaceships making race car noises, and Mutant X had its Xavier-wannabe use communication satellites to download the DNA needed to stop an epidemic in mutants!
Not that I'm defending Enterprise, I think Rick Berman should be stoned to death, but Andromeda? Mutant X? Good riddance!
We at one time had a small empire in Israel which we controlled using FUD. We forced our religion on others, performed extensive ethnic cleansing, built palaces (sort of), and even enslaved entire countries
"At one time"? Dude, you might want to turn on the news...
this was something never mentioned at least in my primary and secondary education.
If that education was done in the U.S.A., that's not surprising. Remember all that swearing to a flag they had you do? That's what "education" is in the states: indoctrination.
To the U.S., socialism is evil (I believe that the United States of America indeed has a state religion, and that it is called Capitalism). Therefore there will be no talk associating something evil to someone called a genius. (Genius good, socialism bad. Must not link those.)
Not that the rest of the world is filled with pure educational systems, but the U.S. keeps telling themselves they're the land of the free and all that fallacious jazz. That propaganda reinforces the indoctrination. Its a really well oiled machine, and it works.
Anyway, that opened my mind a bit (mostly because the notion of Einstein we are lead to believe is one of a absent-minded nonchalant apolitical genius...if I could know so little about the core of such a major figure what else wasn't I taught?).
Is it bad for the earth to be warmer than it is today???
Maybe you've been too be using using triple punctuation in every sentence you make to learn these words, so I'll educate you:
Hurricanes
Tornadoes
Droughts
Floods
El Nino
We do not know the exact consequences of global warming, but we know one thing: We are currently dependant on the fragile balance of the earth's climate for many of our activities, such as growing our food.
If the temperature goes up, things will melt, pour into other things, make the second thing colder, less salty. Things will move around...
Remember the El Nino talk of the late 90's? All those violent destructive meteorological happenings were caused by a temperature shift in the ocean. A natural, cyclical shift like that causes us puny humans a lot of trouble. So its quite resonable to expect another temperature shift to cause us more of the same kinds of troubles.
would the Earth still be getting warmer even if we weren't creating manmade polution? It may just be that even if were we able to eliminate all of the anti-ozone polution in the world, the global average temerature might still go up anyway
Sigh, the ozone issue and greenhouse gasses that cause global warming are 2 different environmenal issues. They are both atmospheric pollutant issues, but they are not the same.
Ozone stops ultraviolet rays from reaching the surface, greenhouse gasses stop infrared heat from escaping to space.
Archer attacked and stormed a totally innocent ship because he needed their warp coil; T-Pol turns out to be a drug addict! These are things that NEVER would have happend on the original Trek or on TNG. The writers are finally writing morally fallible characters, and I for one am thrilled.
Man I'm glad I'm not watching that show. Everthing I read about is absolutly horrible. Even from the fan boys!
You might enjoy seeing the current U.S. values of might makes right in space, but I liked that Star Trek used to have a message of hope about humanity's future. Enterprise seems to say nothing but despair.
Its new storyline is "war in reaction to an unprovoked attack by foreigners" and the enterprise's mission is, surprise, to "go into enemy territory and find weapons of mass destruction"....golly gee, I'm surprise they don't advertise "ripped straight from today's* headlines".
If I want to watch pro-war propaganda I'll watch Fox News, thank you very much.
Who in TOS was Chinese? If you're thinking of Uhura, then you're wrong. She's African.
Wow, you mean that the swahili speaking black woman isn't chineese? Incredible!
Now, look in your mind's eye...
You have the bridge of the enterprise, the captain is sitting in his big raised chair in the middle of the room, asserting his dominance. Behind him is a woman in red with a huge earing, she's fiddling with some dials. Next to her is a tall guy with pointy ears in a blue shirt, he's looking logical and emotionless. In front the captain, are 2 people. One is a russian with big hair, the other is freakin' Sulu, the chineese character.
He's the asian guy with the yellow shirt.
Don't confuse him with Bones now! That's the old guy in blue, usually seen bickering with the guy with the pointy ears.
Speaking in issue #117, Berman confirms for the first time that he is now developing a STAR TREK feature film project: "I am involved in the very early stages of what could be the next STAR TRKE movie," reveals Berman, in an excerpt provided by Dreamwatch. "It's something I will be producing with two other producers."
Unwilling to offer many details he cryptically describes it as "a prequel" without any further elaboration. The names of his producing cohorts will have to remain unknown for now, as well.
We allready know the names of his accomplices: Bragga and the Devil.
Rick Berman has been turning Star Trek into a distilled form of crap ever since Gene Rodenberry passed away. First he took out the technological eutopia element, because, who wants to watch a show abuot a future where humanity has learned to live in harmony with itself. Then he added religion, turned StarFleet from a para-military space exploration outfit into a facist military government, turned a formally edgy show (first interracial kiss on america TV, a russian and chineese working with a U.S. born captain, etc) into a steaming pile of politically correct drivel, etc.
I used to be a trekkie, but the things that are called Star Trek nowadays aren't Star Trek anymore. He took the brand name and threw away the substance.
That movie won't be Star Trek, it will be the Rick Berman Time-Travel-Reset-Button Hot Alien Chick Spectacular. He should call it that.
With the amount of parking space that is there I have no sympathy for anyone who drives in circles around the St. Catherines St Laurent area looking for a spot.
People drive on St-Laurent?! I thought that was just a long, narrow parking area...
So you think a serial killer who tortured countless people deserves to just fall asleep and never wake up? Doesn't sound like much retribution for what they have done.
Sadists enjoy making others suffer.
That includes serial killers, and people who want to make serial killers suffer.
This is also a problem we're facing in the "War on Terror". Those who subscribe to the terrorist-corrupted version of Islam believe that if they die while attacking non-believers they'll be taken to the happiest possible afterlife. Therefore, they design attacks in which they are sure to die, and we have nobody left to prosecute.
The 19 worst offenders in the Sept. 11 attacks died, therefore our criminal justice system is totally ineffective against them.
Timothy McVeigh wasn't affraid of the death penalty either. What version of Islam did he believe in?
Deterants do not work on fanatics, Islamists or otherwise.
This is also my main argument against the death penalty in practise - if someone does something truly terrible then death is not punishment since they are not around to suffer.
Back when MGS2 was being devellopped, the thinking was that the future of gaming lay in merging games and movies (on account of cinematics were so important to square, and they were making a movie, etc).
but Final Fantasy was too much like a game, and sucked as a movie, and MGS2 was too much like a movie, and that distracted a lot of people from its awsome gameplay.
If you'll read the article, Hideo says he thinks games should be games, and not try to be movies. He learned his lesson.
Read Diamond Age. You might get annoyed by some parts (there was a side story I found mostly confusing), but I read it as though it was the sequel to Snow Crash.
Then I read Cryptonomicon as though it was the prequel to Snow Crash.
I really think most people are just drooling over Neal because he can (supposedly) use EMACS and because he knows what Perl is. But who cares? As a CS dork, I really don't care about these things when it comes to book authors.
I didn't know any of that before I read his books, someone just lent me Snow and Diamond.
As a computer nerd, you need to read cryptonomicon, it has (near the end) a great scene of heroic computer hacking. There's many Waterhouse computer hacking moments, but the thing he does with the "scroll lock" light...that was awsome.
Despite loving Snowcrash and Cryptonomicon, I couldn't find a way to like this book.
I didn't enjoy it as much as the rest of his work, but I still liked it and am anxious to get my hands on the sequels.
There's a lot of good stuff in there, and the promise of more good stuff to come.
[...] forced historical situations, where the author has a historical figure preciently hint at something in the modern day. Canal-rage, indeed.
I saw that more as a "nothing new under the sun" thing.
How many people enjoy reading about scooping feces out of baby mouths inside the womb with ones hand?
Lets see... Zodiac: Diarrhea Snow Crash: Diarrhea Diamond Age: Diarrhea, rape, and a victorian man getting "buggered". Cryptonomicon: Diarrhea (90's Waterhouse, Shaftoe, and the japanese dude) and getting covered in pig feces, mouth open.
Face it, Stephenson has gastric issues. Its in all his books.
Loose ends left dangling everywhere
Hello? Part one of a trilogy...ring a bell?
Underwhelming end, even for the first part of a trilogy
What? That was the most powerfull and memorable end to a Stephenson novel, ever. He usually doesn't end his stories as much as stop writing them suddenly. And the description of what poor Waterhouse was about to go through chilled me...
and then his male protagonist tries to talk to a woman. And that is where his novels fall apart. His dialog does not ring true. Every conversation sounds contrived.
Well, he writes geeks talking to hot girls...of COURSE the conversations sound contrived!;-)
Both books feature sympathetic and heroic characters (Isaac Newton and Alan Turing) that are homosexuals (although I think Stephenson is speculating about Newton.) However, their homosexuality has nothing to do with the story. Why mention it at all? Instead, Stephenson goes out of his way to talk about it, especially in the case of Turing. If Stephenson doesn't have a personal issue with "gay" people, fine, but he doesn't have to turn his books into an advertisement for homosexuality. I notice that he doesn't lavish similar praise and attention on Christian characters.
Turing makes a pass at a character, and then has a fight with his ex. That's pretty much all I remember about his sex life.
Newton is girly, and teased a young boy for being girly, and then its assumed (wrongly) that his best friend and concerned roomate was his lover, and he has secret meetings with this other gay character. The book is, what, 800, 900 pages long?
Yeah...that was such an advertisement for homosexuality! Sheesh... You didn't like it because you want homo characters to be either not in there at all, or punished for their sins. Fine, let the rest of us read books and not care about wether some character is gay or not.
P.S. Whatever you do, don't read American Gods by Neil Gaiman.
Yorda was a pathetic character, useless in every possible way.
Yorda is super cool. She glows in the dark and can make giant stones move by shooting electric arcs from her body.
Also, when the shadows are coming to kidnap her (and therefore turn you to stone), if she gets close to the green doors her electric arcs vaporise the shadow ghosts. Yeah, those guys you have to beat forever with a big stick to kill them? She can zap 'em all in an instant.
Ico needs Yorda and Yorda needs Ico. She can unlock the doors, he can jump and fight.
Just when you start getting up to a good jog, she slows you down by jerking on your arm.
That is because you are a jerk.
If you pull her along gently and give her time to get running too, she'll run as fast as you. If you start running and forcibly pull her along, yeah, she'll slow you down. But you obviously never even tried to be gentle, or else you would know that.
Slashdot Mirror
But it is a worry that a show only as tenth as good as DS9 could go on for half as long.
;-)
Yikes! Lesse, a tenth of utterly crappy would be..."teh l@m3"?
Enterprise gets picked up for another season.
Isn't it obvious? GOOD SF doesn't sell. Cheap commercialized tripe does.
Did you just call Andromeda and Mutant X good sci-fi?
Andromeda has spaceships making race car noises, and Mutant X had its Xavier-wannabe use communication satellites to download the DNA needed to stop an epidemic in mutants!
Not that I'm defending Enterprise, I think Rick Berman should be stoned to death, but Andromeda? Mutant X? Good riddance!
We at one time had a small empire in Israel which we controlled using FUD. We forced our religion on others, performed extensive ethnic cleansing, built palaces (sort of), and even enslaved entire countries
"At one time"? Dude, you might want to turn on the news...
this was something never mentioned at least in my primary and secondary education.
If that education was done in the U.S.A., that's not surprising.
Remember all that swearing to a flag they had you do? That's what "education" is in the states: indoctrination.
To the U.S., socialism is evil (I believe that the United States of America indeed has a state religion, and that it is called Capitalism). Therefore there will be no talk associating something evil to someone called a genius.
(Genius good, socialism bad. Must not link those.)
Not that the rest of the world is filled with pure educational systems, but the U.S. keeps telling themselves they're the land of the free and all that fallacious jazz. That propaganda reinforces the indoctrination. Its a really well oiled machine, and it works.
Anyway, that opened my mind a bit (mostly because the notion of Einstein we are lead to believe is one of a absent-minded nonchalant apolitical genius...if I could know so little about the core of such a major figure what else wasn't I taught?).
Attaboy!
That would require a "radical interpretation of the text".
Phew! Guess its lucky that the U.S. isn't run by a bunch of radicals then.
</sarcasm>
Ask the dinosaures.
Is it bad for the earth to be warmer than it is today???
Maybe you've been too be using using triple punctuation in every sentence you make to learn these words, so I'll educate you:
We do not know the exact consequences of global warming, but we know one thing: We are currently dependant on the fragile balance of the earth's climate for many of our activities, such as growing our food.
If the temperature goes up, things will melt, pour into other things, make the second thing colder, less salty. Things will move around...
Remember the El Nino talk of the late 90's? All those violent destructive meteorological happenings were caused by a temperature shift in the ocean. A natural, cyclical shift like that causes us puny humans a lot of trouble.
So its quite resonable to expect another temperature shift to cause us more of the same kinds of troubles.
would the Earth still be getting warmer even if we weren't creating manmade polution? It may just be that even if were we able to eliminate all of the anti-ozone polution in the world, the global average temerature might still go up anyway
Sigh, the ozone issue and greenhouse gasses that cause global warming are 2 different environmenal issues. They are both atmospheric pollutant issues, but they are not the same.
Ozone stops ultraviolet rays from reaching the surface, greenhouse gasses stop infrared heat from escaping to space.
Hikaru Sulu?
He was just "Sulu" in TOS, he got a last name in ST:VI
Archer attacked and stormed a totally innocent ship because he needed their warp coil; T-Pol turns out to be a drug addict! These are things that NEVER would have happend on the original Trek or on TNG. The writers are finally writing morally fallible characters, and I for one am thrilled.
Man I'm glad I'm not watching that show. Everthing I read about is absolutly horrible. Even from the fan boys!
You might enjoy seeing the current U.S. values of might makes right in space, but I liked that Star Trek used to have a message of hope about humanity's future. Enterprise seems to say nothing but despair.
Its new storyline is "war in reaction to an unprovoked attack by foreigners" and the enterprise's mission is, surprise, to "go into enemy territory and find weapons of mass destruction"....golly gee, I'm surprise they don't advertise "ripped straight from today's* headlines".
If I want to watch pro-war propaganda I'll watch Fox News, thank you very much.
*Ok, last year's headlines, actually.
Who in TOS was Chinese? If you're thinking of Uhura, then you're wrong. She's African.
Wow, you mean that the swahili speaking black woman isn't chineese? Incredible!
Now, look in your mind's eye...
You have the bridge of the enterprise, the captain is sitting in his big raised chair in the middle of the room, asserting his dominance. Behind him is a woman in red with a huge earing, she's fiddling with some dials. Next to her is a tall guy with pointy ears in a blue shirt, he's looking logical and emotionless.
In front the captain, are 2 people. One is a russian with big hair, the other is freakin' Sulu, the chineese character.
He's the asian guy with the yellow shirt.
Don't confuse him with Bones now! That's the old guy in blue, usually seen bickering with the guy with the pointy ears.
Speaking in issue #117, Berman confirms for the first time that he is now developing a STAR TREK feature film project: "I am involved in the very early stages of what could be the next STAR TRKE movie," reveals Berman, in an excerpt provided by Dreamwatch. "It's something I will be producing with two other producers."
Unwilling to offer many details he cryptically describes it as "a prequel" without any further elaboration. The names of his producing cohorts will have to remain unknown for now, as well.
We allready know the names of his accomplices: Bragga and the Devil.
Rick Berman has been turning Star Trek into a distilled form of crap ever since Gene Rodenberry passed away.
First he took out the technological eutopia element, because, who wants to watch a show abuot a future where humanity has learned to live in harmony with itself. Then he added religion, turned StarFleet from a para-military space exploration outfit into a facist military government, turned a formally edgy show (first interracial kiss on america TV, a russian and chineese working with a U.S. born captain, etc) into a steaming pile of politically correct drivel, etc.
I used to be a trekkie, but the things that are called Star Trek nowadays aren't Star Trek anymore. He took the brand name and threw away the substance.
That movie won't be Star Trek, it will be the Rick Berman Time-Travel-Reset-Button Hot Alien Chick Spectacular. He should call it that.
With the amount of parking space that is there I have no sympathy for anyone who drives in circles around the St. Catherines St Laurent area looking for a spot.
People drive on St-Laurent?! I thought that was just a long, narrow parking area...
So you think a serial killer who tortured countless people deserves to just fall asleep and never wake up? Doesn't sound like much retribution for what they have done.
Sadists enjoy making others suffer.
That includes serial killers, and people who want to make serial killers suffer.
This is also a problem we're facing in the "War on Terror". Those who subscribe to the terrorist-corrupted version of Islam believe that if they die while attacking non-believers they'll be taken to the happiest possible afterlife. Therefore, they design attacks in which they are sure to die, and we have nobody left to prosecute.
The 19 worst offenders in the Sept. 11 attacks died, therefore our criminal justice system is totally ineffective against them.
Timothy McVeigh wasn't affraid of the death penalty either. What version of Islam did he believe in?
Deterants do not work on fanatics, Islamists or otherwise.
This is also my main argument against the death penalty in practise - if someone does something truly terrible then death is not punishment since they are not around to suffer.
You are one sadistic individual.
Microsoft. Apple shouldn't be so arrogent when they are in the same position in a different field.
Well, the native version of open office will be out really fast if Microsoft decides to stop accepting mac user's money...
Or iLife gets an office suite baby sister.
Back when MGS2 was being devellopped, the thinking was that the future of gaming lay in merging games and movies (on account of cinematics were so important to square, and they were making a movie, etc).
but Final Fantasy was too much like a game, and sucked as a movie, and MGS2 was too much like a movie, and that distracted a lot of people from its awsome gameplay.
If you'll read the article, Hideo says he thinks games should be games, and not try to be movies.
He learned his lesson.
I think Snowcrash was very promising.
Read Diamond Age.
You might get annoyed by some parts (there was a side story I found mostly confusing), but I read it as though it was the sequel to Snow Crash.
Then I read Cryptonomicon as though it was the prequel to Snow Crash.
I really think most people are just drooling over Neal because he can (supposedly) use EMACS and because he knows what Perl is. But who cares? As a CS dork, I really don't care about these things when it comes to book authors.
I didn't know any of that before I read his books, someone just lent me Snow and Diamond.
As a computer nerd, you need to read cryptonomicon, it has (near the end) a great scene of heroic computer hacking. There's many Waterhouse computer hacking moments, but the thing he does with the "scroll lock" light...that was awsome.
Prince of Persia: So you save the Princess. But once you do (and she kind of saves you, the male), she's forthwright, mostly capable, and witty.
;-)
She's useless and keeps shooting you in the back with her stupid bow! I hate her.
Prince of Persia: So you save the Princess. But once you do (and she kind of saves you, the male), she's forthwright, mostly capable, and witty. And
There's a lesbian sex joke somewhere in there...
Despite loving Snowcrash and Cryptonomicon, I couldn't find a way to like this book.
I didn't enjoy it as much as the rest of his work, but I still liked it and am anxious to get my hands on the sequels.
There's a lot of good stuff in there, and the promise of more good stuff to come.
[...] forced historical situations, where the author has a historical figure preciently hint at something in the modern day. Canal-rage, indeed.
I saw that more as a "nothing new under the sun" thing.
How many people enjoy reading about scooping feces out of baby mouths inside the womb with ones hand?
Lets see...
Zodiac: Diarrhea
Snow Crash: Diarrhea
Diamond Age: Diarrhea, rape, and a victorian man getting "buggered".
Cryptonomicon: Diarrhea (90's Waterhouse, Shaftoe, and the japanese dude) and getting covered in pig feces, mouth open.
Face it, Stephenson has gastric issues. Its in all his books.
Loose ends left dangling everywhere
Hello? Part one of a trilogy...ring a bell?
Underwhelming end, even for the first part of a trilogy
What? That was the most powerfull and memorable end to a Stephenson novel, ever. He usually doesn't end his stories as much as stop writing them suddenly. And the description of what poor Waterhouse was about to go through chilled me...
And BTW, The Penny-Arcade guys liked ico .
Hehehe..."who might be blind or something..." : )
I've read a hundred pages or so (...) What's so exciting about Shaftoe?
;-)
2 words: Giant Lizard.
I don't get it.
I know
and then his male protagonist tries to talk to a woman. And that is where his novels fall apart. His dialog does not ring true. Every conversation sounds contrived.
;-)
Well, he writes geeks talking to hot girls...of COURSE the conversations sound contrived!
MILD SPOILER WARNINGS
BEWARE
Both books feature sympathetic and heroic characters (Isaac Newton and Alan Turing) that are homosexuals (although I think Stephenson is speculating about Newton.) However, their homosexuality has nothing to do with the story. Why mention it at all?
Instead, Stephenson goes out of his way to talk about it, especially in the case of Turing. If Stephenson doesn't have a personal issue with "gay" people, fine, but he doesn't have to turn his books into an advertisement for homosexuality. I notice that he doesn't lavish similar praise and attention on Christian characters.
Turing makes a pass at a character, and then has a fight with his ex. That's pretty much all I remember about his sex life.
Newton is girly, and teased a young boy for being girly, and then its assumed (wrongly) that his best friend and concerned roomate was his lover, and he has secret meetings with this other gay character.
The book is, what, 800, 900 pages long?
Yeah...that was such an advertisement for homosexuality! Sheesh...
You didn't like it because you want homo characters to be either not in there at all, or punished for their sins. Fine, let the rest of us read books and not care about wether some character is gay or not.
P.S. Whatever you do, don't read American Gods by Neil Gaiman.
Yorda was a pathetic character, useless in every possible way.
Yorda is super cool. She glows in the dark and can make giant stones move by shooting electric arcs from her body.
Also, when the shadows are coming to kidnap her (and therefore turn you to stone), if she gets close to the green doors her electric arcs vaporise the shadow ghosts. Yeah, those guys you have to beat forever with a big stick to kill them? She can zap 'em all in an instant.
Ico needs Yorda and Yorda needs Ico. She can unlock the doors, he can jump and fight.
Just when you start getting up to a good jog, she slows you down by jerking on your arm.
That is because you are a jerk.
If you pull her along gently and give her time to get running too, she'll run as fast as you. If you start running and forcibly pull her along, yeah, she'll slow you down. But you obviously never even tried to be gentle, or else you would know that.