This article [washingtonmonthly.com] outlines the compromises that were made, and is an overall interesting read.
Oh god, that was depressing. I knew the shuttle sucked, but I didn't know it sucked that much. We really have been dicking around, doing nothing, for the past 2 decades.
So much money wasted on such a stupid, bureacratic-minded, committee-designed contraption. Well, now is the time to use all the badass technology the last 2 decades have brought us, and end the misguided shuttle program.
The reason that generally only dedicated individuals go to the trouble of using a water-cooling system in their case is because water conducts electricity, right? And air doesn't, which is why air is much safer -- well, risk free. Spilling water on the innards of one's computer would short it out, or cause a surge, or some electrical-type thing; but no amount of air flowing through a case is going to cause any damage, unless we're talking hurricane-force winds.
So why don't liquid water-cooling systems use some liquid with the useful thermal properties of water, but without its ability to conduct electricity? In other l33t cooling stories on/. I've read about liquid nitrogen being used, but I imagine it's so cold that the damage from a leak there would be largely from temperature. Surely there is some easily-obtainable liquid, oil or something, that wouldn't cause damage to computer components if it came into contact with them, but would be effective at cooling the system.
Agreed. Rick Berman and Brannon Braga are singularly and solely responsible for the downfall of Star Trek. As time has gone on, it has become blindingly obvious that the greatness of TNG after its first few crappy seasons was more of a fluke than anything else; Berman hadn't taken total control of the franchise yet. Once he had, we were fed the steaming piles of shit that were Voyager, and now Enterprise. Thankfully, DS9 was given over to Michael Piller, and because of it, DS9 was a great show.
Firing him is the solution.
Frankly, I don't think a solution is appropriate. Star Trek has been good when... it was a forum for good SF. As other posters have commented, TOS had episodes written by real SF writers like Harlan Ellison, Theodore Sturgeon, et al., and it had a lot of original, interesting ideas. TNG continued in the same vein, finding ways to make interesting episodes. DS9 introduced a continuing, compelling storyline that didn't end when the closing credits came on.
OTOH, Voyager and Enterprise were and are dreck. What's the point of continuing to make Star Trek shows? I've loved Trek in the past, but I also love SF, and all I really want is a good show. Trek shows haven't been good because they were Trek, but because they were good. Babylon 5 didn't need to be Trek to be a good show... can everyone see where I'm going with this? If there are any people working on Trek for Paramount who actually care about SF, for god's sakes, leave the sinking ship, and make us some good SF shows.
I have great memories of Star Trek; I hate having them ruined by Berman and Braga's need to drag out a dead horse and beat it, year after year. They keep (trying) to make movies and TV shows because they have secure positions at Paramount, and they need to produce content. But we don't need content from Paramount. We just need SFnal content, period, and hopefully someone more talented then Berman (not that that's difficult...) will step in and fill this need.
Back in high school, my English teacher senior year once had us compare 2 pieces of writing. One was some essay or something by William Styron, best known as the author of Sophie's Choice. The other was a column by Dave Barry -- the column he wrote after his father died.
That column was one of the most poignant things I've ever read. I don't think a single person in that class thought the Styron piece was better, or as good, as what Dave Barry had written. It's rather odd, for someone who writes funny but unsophisticated columns in a newspaper to be so talented at crafting serious prose. Or rather, it's not odd that Dave is capable of writing so well, but that he chooses to spend most of his time on humor, when he is so clearly talented at "serious" writing.
Back in high school, I neglected to turn down the sound on one memorable occasion when I was at home, and an unruly popup blasted one of those out while my parents were in the room.
I think I shut the speakers off fast enough so they didn't know what it was.... Unless they'd been surfing porn sites, and didn't want me to know that they knew what it was... urgh.
"Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly".
I forget who said it, but it's just how I see both Linux and AIX.
I'm not sure I understand.... You're saying that you see both Linux and AIX as poor reinventions of Unix? Why? Do you see HP-UX and Solaris as good reinventions of Unix? Why?
Now watch me get modded down for having an opinion that doesn't jive with the party-line.
Well, you didn't offer any evidence in support of your opinion -- I see that as a more likely source of negative moderations. However, you actually already have one positive moderation, so we'll see.
If you're one of those that reads comments before following the link, be aware that Dyson's review basically enscapsulates the entire book, and gives away the end.
Thanks man, but too late! If this was someone less eminent then Dyson, I'd go ahead and CALL HIM AN ASSMONKEY, but since it isn't, I won't.
This review appeared in the NY Review of Books? I've never seen a review in the Washington Post Book World that spoiled the entire novel before.
Warnings would have been appreciated, both in the/. writeup and the review itself.
Re:Who Is the Greatest Programmer?
on
Immortal Code
·
· Score: 1
According to some of our great computer programmers, nobody. That's right, the program just happened. It was the random jumbling of atoms and molecules over millions of years that finally resulted in the greatest program and the greatest computer of all kind. We call this evolution.
You call it evolution -- an intelligent person calls it a strawman.
Do yourself a favor: take half the time it took for you to write that screed, and spend it educating yourself.
Come back with a convincing argument they don't have an answer for at talk.origins, and I'll send your trolling ass a check for $1000.
Re:SlashWired
on
Immortal Code
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Sure, they're all interesting, but do we really need the editors to hold our hand and lead us to the biggest and most famous computer/culture magazine?
At the upper-left corner of http://slashdot.org/, it says "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters."/. receives submissions on news stories the editors believe will be of interest to readers, and posts those stories. These stories come from many different sources, and save readers the task of browsing dozens or scores of websites to get content.
READ WIRED!
I read/. so that I won't have to read Wired... and Ars Technica, and C|Net, and any other online news source.
woo!!! That's exactly what's been lacking in the industry!!! a video game site with 84 pt fonts!!!
No.
You see, for your post to have been funny, it would have had to use, as the originator said, "84 pt fonts!!!". He was not slyly mocking the use of bold and italic highlights, but AICN's use of very large font sizes.
So, in conclusion, I don't think your post succeeds at "jumping on the bandwagon" of the originator while working through the constraints of/.'s allowable HTML tags. Good effort, though.
First I'd like to thank you for your well-thought out and insightful post. Unfortunately, I'm actually about to scale up the pessimism of your post to dangerously-depressing levels.
Look at prohibition. It didn't work in this country. Granted, it took crime, death, and scandal to prove, but prove it did, and here we are.
Yes, the failure of Prohibition was proved, and where are we? In almost the exact same situation, as we have been now for more than a half-century.
I'm referring, of course, to the web of draconian and unconstitutional laws that criminalize the use of drugs by consenting adults in this country. (Ordinarily, I also incorporate gambling, prostitution, etc., in these posts, but I'll remain focused on drugs.)
Congress was finally forced to repeal the XVIIIth Amendment 14 years after it took effect, but they were forced into it by the upheaval of American society in the intervening years -- no one's thoughts on the matter had changed. It was simply that those in power were unable to force Prohibition down the throats of the general populace. Today, even with the example of Prohibition staring us in the face, the same fascist elements in the government continue to blindly fight to keep the intolerable status quo on drugs. They decry the problems of crime they associate with drugs, that are in truth caused only by the illegality of drugs.
But even with exploding prison populations, and the increasing numbers of medical marijuana laws being passed by local jurisdictions, the anti-drug establishment in this country will stop at no lengths to keep themselves in power -- even to the point of arresting citizens using marijuana legally in accordance with the laws passed in their locality. Instead of communicating with the jurisdictions responsible for the laws, which groups like the Drug Enforcement Administration claim are superseded by federal law, these jack-booted thugs attack individuals, continuing their practice of tactics of fear and intimidation to perpetuate their unwinnable "War on Drugs".
So we can see that, as you say, "it will all be sorted out afterwards" -- afterwards, time and time again, on issues that change infinitesimably from cycle to cycle. Nothing is ever solved.
The Party doesn't allow you to block the viewscreen.
Speaking of viewscreens, I noticed a certain item mentioned in recent newsreports from North Korea -- inside every residential home is an audio speaker that announces messages from the Party, 24/7.
I mean, it's already the most nightmarish State on the planet, but the fact that they actually have a poor-state's version of the 1984 viewscreens... I find that quite frightening.
No, I believe the criterion for judging when speciation has occurred is when a specimen of one species can no longer successfully interbreed with a specimen of its progenitor species. So since mutants can have offspring with normal humans, mutants aren't really a different species.
At least I seem to recall reading that in some nitpicking flamewar on talk.origins.
Deepness in the Sky is the most boring, unprofessional, unimaginative Sci-fi novel I've read in the past 4 years. In fact, it's the only book I've checked out from the library in the past 4 years and *didn't finish*.
Gack. I can understand different tastes, but "unprofessional"? It won the fucking Hugo for best novel in 2000.
He's some prof at a no-name university where he has time to write junk like this, and trust me, it's not worth your time to read.
He just retired from San Diego State University to write full-time. I'm sure you're a Harvard graduate, but no need to be snobby.
In EverQuest, the license agreement must be accepted each time you start up the game.
[...]
I'd say that makes it pretty binding.
Well, no. A contract forced on one party by another, with no negotiation whatsoever, is never a real legally-binding contract, no matter how many times the powerless party is forced to click "I Agree".
Also, I'd just like to say that having to click through an EULA every time one uses EverQuest is, ah... extremely fucked-up.
On the contrary. We know that the Speed of light is not uniform and depends on the local condtions of the spacetime frame.
That statement is confusingly-phrased enough to make it impossible for me to just say "Wrong", but it's still misleading. This page does a good job explaining stuff.
Besides, the effects of Gravity act with sppeds much faster than light.
Is this true? Does anyone else remember an article here on/. a several months back saying that some astronomical objects were aligning in a certain way, and they would be analyzing the data to find out once and for all if gravity waves propagate instantaneously or at lightspeed?
Slashdot Mirror
So much money wasted on such a stupid, bureacratic-minded, committee-designed contraption. Well, now is the time to use all the badass technology the last 2 decades have brought us, and end the misguided shuttle program.
The reason that generally only dedicated individuals go to the trouble of using a water-cooling system in their case is because water conducts electricity, right? And air doesn't, which is why air is much safer -- well, risk free. Spilling water on the innards of one's computer would short it out, or cause a surge, or some electrical-type thing; but no amount of air flowing through a case is going to cause any damage, unless we're talking hurricane-force winds.
So why don't liquid water-cooling systems use some liquid with the useful thermal properties of water, but without its ability to conduct electricity? In other l33t cooling stories on /. I've read about liquid nitrogen being used, but I imagine it's so cold that the damage from a leak there would be largely from temperature. Surely there is some easily-obtainable liquid, oil or something, that wouldn't cause damage to computer components if it came into contact with them, but would be effective at cooling the system.
OTOH, Voyager and Enterprise were and are dreck. What's the point of continuing to make Star Trek shows? I've loved Trek in the past, but I also love SF, and all I really want is a good show. Trek shows haven't been good because they were Trek, but because they were good. Babylon 5 didn't need to be Trek to be a good show... can everyone see where I'm going with this? If there are any people working on Trek for Paramount who actually care about SF, for god's sakes, leave the sinking ship, and make us some good SF shows.
I have great memories of Star Trek; I hate having them ruined by Berman and Braga's need to drag out a dead horse and beat it, year after year. They keep (trying) to make movies and TV shows because they have secure positions at Paramount, and they need to produce content. But we don't need content from Paramount. We just need SFnal content, period, and hopefully someone more talented then Berman (not that that's difficult...) will step in and fill this need.
Back in high school, my English teacher senior year once had us compare 2 pieces of writing. One was some essay or something by William Styron, best known as the author of Sophie's Choice. The other was a column by Dave Barry -- the column he wrote after his father died.
That column was one of the most poignant things I've ever read. I don't think a single person in that class thought the Styron piece was better, or as good, as what Dave Barry had written. It's rather odd, for someone who writes funny but unsophisticated columns in a newspaper to be so talented at crafting serious prose. Or rather, it's not odd that Dave is capable of writing so well, but that he chooses to spend most of his time on humor, when he is so clearly talented at "serious" writing.
[pedant]Many of us use square equivalence class brackets instead of angled vector brackets.[/]
That sucks a nut, dude.
Back in high school, I neglected to turn down the sound on one memorable occasion when I was at home, and an unruly popup blasted one of those out while my parents were in the room.
I think I shut the speakers off fast enough so they didn't know what it was.... Unless they'd been surfing porn sites, and didn't want me to know that they knew what it was... urgh.
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/johnglenn/rightstuff/faq/s huttle.htm
This review appeared in the NY Review of Books? I've never seen a review in the Washington Post Book World that spoiled the entire novel before.
Warnings would have been appreciated, both in the /. writeup and the review itself.
Holy shit, my vote for funniest misspelling of all time! ... All right, funniest misspelling in this thread! So far!
(I'd link to The Encyclopedia of Arda, but their servers have been bitchslapped since The Two Towers came out, and their site is slower than hell.)
Do yourself a favor: take half the time it took for you to write that screed, and spend it educating yourself.
Come back with a convincing argument they don't have an answer for at talk.origins, and I'll send your trolling ass a check for $1000.
Not as sexy, but... oh, fuck it. This post sucks ass.
jesus christ, that guy is one scary-looking motherfucker. Looks like a hideously-obese, extra-ugly version of Carrot Top.
You see, for your post to have been funny, it would have had to use, as the originator said, "84 pt fonts!!!". He was not slyly mocking the use of bold and italic highlights, but AICN's use of very large font sizes.
So, in conclusion, I don't think your post succeeds at "jumping on the bandwagon" of the originator while working through the constraints of /.'s allowable HTML tags. Good effort, though.
I'm referring, of course, to the web of draconian and unconstitutional laws that criminalize the use of drugs by consenting adults in this country. (Ordinarily, I also incorporate gambling, prostitution, etc., in these posts, but I'll remain focused on drugs.)
Congress was finally forced to repeal the XVIIIth Amendment 14 years after it took effect, but they were forced into it by the upheaval of American society in the intervening years -- no one's thoughts on the matter had changed. It was simply that those in power were unable to force Prohibition down the throats of the general populace. Today, even with the example of Prohibition staring us in the face, the same fascist elements in the government continue to blindly fight to keep the intolerable status quo on drugs. They decry the problems of crime they associate with drugs, that are in truth caused only by the illegality of drugs.
But even with exploding prison populations, and the increasing numbers of medical marijuana laws being passed by local jurisdictions, the anti-drug establishment in this country will stop at no lengths to keep themselves in power -- even to the point of arresting citizens using marijuana legally in accordance with the laws passed in their locality. Instead of communicating with the jurisdictions responsible for the laws, which groups like the Drug Enforcement Administration claim are superseded by federal law, these jack-booted thugs attack individuals, continuing their practice of tactics of fear and intimidation to perpetuate their unwinnable "War on Drugs".
So we can see that, as you say, "it will all be sorted out afterwards" -- afterwards, time and time again, on issues that change infinitesimably from cycle to cycle. Nothing is ever solved.
I mean, it's already the most nightmarish State on the planet, but the fact that they actually have a poor-state's version of the 1984 viewscreens... I find that quite frightening.
ROFL... Thanks, man. Best laugh I've had all day.
At least I seem to recall reading that in some nitpicking flamewar on talk.origins.
Also, I'd just like to say that having to click through an EULA every time one uses EverQuest is, ah... extremely fucked-up.