The researcher noted that making them sterile greatly reduced whatever risk there might be for problems later on.
...not to mention greatly reducing the risk that potential customers might steal the company's intellectual property by taking seeds from these trees and planting their own instead of buying licensed seedlings.
It's an ironic point for you to be making, given your sig: 'Abolish "intellectual property"'
No, it was clearly stated that the subway station was a "portal between your (Neo's) world and the matrix".
I'm pretty sure the line I heard was "...between your world and ours".
You could take that to mean "between the real world and the Matrix". If you want to fall for the trick, that is.
How would that be supposed to make any sense? The tunnel's supposed to be virtual reality on one end and exist physically on the other? And how and why why would programs ever be travelling between the two worlds, if those were the two that were meant?
But those aren't the worlds to which "your" and "our" referred. Think about it a bit more. The correct substitutions are:
"your world" ==> "the VR world that was created for, and is inhabited by, humans"
"our world" ==> "the VR world that is home to, and inhabited by, programs"
See, the AIs have their own VR world where they do whatever it is they do for fun, completely separate from the Matrix, which they created for captive humans. We never saw anything of their VR world, since nobody ever actually went there, but we can assume everything (the sights, sounds, smells, etc.) is completely different because it's tailored to the aesthetics of beings with a completely different psychology from ours. And by the way, that's what Smith was complaining about in Part 1: he resented that his job required him to spend time in our sensory environment (which he found so unpleasant) instead of his own.
This interpretation at least makes some semblance of sense, though it still doesn't explain how/why Neo got sent there, let alone how/why he had powers in (what was supposed to be?) the real world, but I'm not touching that one.
From the lead-in to your post, I thought you were worried that you'd be walking by the laser, minding your own business, and it would suddenly start up and vaporize you, and download you to the Game Grid, or something.
But it does replate to the original post's criticism of MOSX in that he probably felt as I do that that post went beyond factual criticism and seemed to take a tone / imply a sub-text that said "MOSX IS NOTHING BUT CRAP!!! IT SUCKS! IT SUCKS! IT SUCKS!". He probably felt as I do that that level of criticism was unwarranted and unfair, in view of the typical quality level of similar product releases.
And by the way, speaking of good argument technique (staying on-topic, avoiding juvenile attacks, etc.) he didn't say anything about Steve Jobs being God, either. Not sure where you got that from, or what it has to do with the points to which you were responding.
Sounds a little on the ambitious side. You should try using the same principle but start smaller. Once you've perfected the technique of lifting yourself off the ground by pulling on your shoelaces, the engineering obstacles involved in making a light sail accelerate toward its own light source shouldn't be much harder.
Why, why, why did I have to go and post on this thread already, so I can't give you a "Funny" mod? Oh, well.
And about the cats-and-dogs thing: you could probably even say "...if your cat was your dog's size...". Just being "bigger"'s not enough -- it's only with our 15-to-1 weight advantage that we're able to keep cats in their place. Well, that and the abiltity to open doors, open cans, etc.
Aaaahhhhg! Whenever I think of the Randy/Amy scene, I get dizzy! Even there, Stephenson is playing more of his little reader mind-games.
You know what I'm talking about by now, right?
At the end of it, she "patted his cheek, said 'Shave,' and exited stage left". Left? Huh? I thought he'd been sleeping in the passenger seat of the SUV... Wait a seond... AAAAAHHHHHRRRGH! IT'S AN SUV BUILT TO DRIVE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD! THE DRIVER SEAT IS ON THE RIGHT AND THEY WERE ON THE LEFT THE WHOLE TIME!
My entire mental image of the scene, from her knocking on the door to her leaving, was INVERTED! I'd had such a vivid picture of how they were positioned -- right knee and shoulder leaning against the door, steering column to the left, etc., and then I had to go back in time, tear it all apart, and try to reconstruct it the other way around. It's just so... disorienting.
...
(Now where's my medication...?)
Re:Looking forward... mostly
on
Quicksilver
·
· Score: 1
The thing about Stephenson and accuracy is that he has this ability to make the transition from well-researched, accurate facts to pure horseshit on a dime, and yet completely undetectably.
You all know what I'm talking about, right? In his other books, in the sections that do happen to be about a subject on which I'm knowledgeable (computers, cryptology, philosophy), I'm able to see where he goes on and on in perfectly technically-accurate detail -- so much so that it starts to seem like he's just showing off the quality of his research -- and then there'll be something so glaringly wrong that I have to suspect he did it deliberately -- maybe as a sort of game or inside joke or something. Sharing a wink with the readers like us at the expense of those who won't know the difference? Just keeping us on our toes? Giving us something to nitpick about, because he knows how much we love that?
But speculation aside, the point is that I totally know that I'm only noticing it because it concerns a bit of specialized knowledge that I happen to possess. The writing continues to sound every bit as authoritative and believable as the other parts, whether it's a single wrong detail in the middle of an accurate section or a complete departure into Never-Never Land.
I only notice the transition because I already know the fact. I'm sure a reader who doesn't know the fact would have no clue. And it freaks me out, when I think about all those other parts, where he expounds so authoritatively and believably on other subjects, about which I know much less (war history, Sumerian mythology, economic theory). He is, no doubt, mixing fact and fiction in the same way, and now the joke's on me, because I'm the one who's completely helpless to tell the difference.
You're probably right about the thing on the window, the foil on the popcorn tub, etc., being carefully designed to make everyhting work right, but that's nowhere close to the whole answer.
When they snuck onto the base and reprogrammed the system, they didn't just change the target coordinates to the Doc's house. They also changed the firing parameters from a short, high-intensity pulse to a longer, much-lower-intensity burst, just right for popcorn. That's why the Air Force folks were freaking out, pounding their consoles, and shouting "It's not shutting off!", "Well, shut if OFF!", "I can't!", etc., for a few seconds.
Also, it took me a few viewings to realize why, after it was done, Lazslo looked at the house and said "I think we used too much". It's not what I first though, that he was squeamish about having caused so much damage. Just the opposite: he meant it was a shame that the house had burst because he was picturing a different result that would have been even better. I thought what happened was exactly what they intended until, when I heard that line again, it occurred to me that if the popcorn had filled the house but not spilled out at all, then the Doc would have come home not knowing what had happened, and opened the front door...
I'm so glad everyone else seems to feel this way too. I was wondering if I'd gone crazy, or if my reading-comprehension skills had gone on the fritz. I mean, what the hell is this guy complaining about?
So you go to register a domain, but haven't yet supplied a server for it to point to. They establish the domain, which consists of creating the appropriate DNS records associating the domain with an address. It has to point somewhere, so, since you haven't supplied yours yet, they initialize it with something of theirs as a placeholder and give you access to the tools to change it. How else could one even imagine the process working?
It sounds almost like one of those 'stupid-tech-support-call' jokes where the caller complains that his system isn't working, when in fact it's working perfectly and the problem is not just that he doesn't know how to use it, but -- get this -- he has no idea what "it" is actually supposed to be! I.e., he doesn't even realize that he has no goal in mind for what he's trying to do, let alone knowing how to actually use it.
Or, slightly less extreme, it sounds like those people who expect the computer to magically do everything for them and fail to realize that there's still work that they have to do.
"I installed MS Word, but my dissertation didn't pop out!"
"I'm on the Information Superhighway, but I don't feel any smarter!"
"I installed TurboTax, and I just got a screen asking for my name and address! Where's my refund?"
"I registered a domain, and they pointed it to a 'coming soon' page! Where's my web site?"
Errmmmm, yeah, sorta... buth there are some problems with that.
For one thing, you're starting to limit lots of (arguably) desirable functionality. For example, I'm hardly a fan of online stores that pop up a customer survey at the same time as you finalize your order, but it's not quite fair to put those in the same category as pop-up ads.
But more generally speaking, the fact that these proposed solutions are getting less and less simple/elegant should be a warning sign. This one sounds like it was designed specifically to counter a particular exploit, rather than simply coming from following some sensible general principles.
As soon as you get into that territory, you'll be playing "whack-a-mole" with the bad guys forever. And the rules for what a script is or is not allowed to do will become increasingly (and, before long, absurdly) complicated.
Somehow, they could hack JavaScript to THINK there was a mouse click
If so, that would at least be a genuine "bug" in JS, not a Broken As Designed "feature". What I had in mind was simply that as soon as you do click (on anything), there's an entry point for JavaScript code to run in an environment with "window.open()" enabled. I can think of at least two ways that this could be used, one that's more overtly nasty and one that's more insidious:
1. Haven't you ever clicked a link that appeared to be to something you wanted to see, but that in fact took you to something completely different? (Don't view much pr0n, do you?)
2. Even if the link does go to the apparent (desired) target, the page could be set up so that it would also open a pop-up (or pop-under) window as a side-effect. What makes this so insidious is that it is an action that you really, legitimately want to do that enables it, so how can you stop it?
Slashdot Mirror
I've been a member for a long time, and the content seems to be degenerating into a groupthink zealot factory with its own set of dogmas and censors.
No matter how low your UID, the standard answer to a comment like this is:
You're new here, aren't you? Welcome to Slashdot.
Granted, I'm one of the relatively few qualified to call you on it, but:
(a) you say that as if it's something new and surprising -- how can you have been around so long and only now be noticing this?
(b) this goes double for everyone who modded you "Insighful"
(c) oh yeah, and, if you don't like the stories, use your filter prefs
The researcher noted that making them sterile greatly reduced whatever risk there might be for problems later on.
It's an ironic point for you to be making, given your sig: 'Abolish "intellectual property"'
if not, the universe really is a waste of space.
And what else were you going to use that space for?
Those of us who use a one-button mouse have had to learn to do so much more with that one button than the rest of you could ever imagine.
iPod. We'll show you why 2004 won't be like 1984.
I still can't believe they missed the chance to do another one in '01:
Mac OS X: The reason why 2001 will be like 2001
No, it was clearly stated that the subway station was a "portal between your (Neo's) world and the matrix".
I'm pretty sure the line I heard was "...between your world and ours".
You could take that to mean "between the real world and the Matrix". If you want to fall for the trick, that is.
How would that be supposed to make any sense? The tunnel's supposed to be virtual reality on one end and exist physically on the other? And how and why why would programs ever be travelling between the two worlds, if those were the two that were meant?
But those aren't the worlds to which "your" and "our" referred. Think about it a bit more. The correct substitutions are:
"your world" ==> "the VR world that was created for, and is inhabited by, humans"
"our world" ==> "the VR world that is home to, and inhabited by, programs"
See, the AIs have their own VR world where they do whatever it is they do for fun, completely separate from the Matrix, which they created for captive humans. We never saw anything of their VR world, since nobody ever actually went there, but we can assume everything (the sights, sounds, smells, etc.) is completely different because it's tailored to the aesthetics of beings with a completely different psychology from ours. And by the way, that's what Smith was complaining about in Part 1: he resented that his job required him to spend time in our sensory environment (which he found so unpleasant) instead of his own.
This interpretation at least makes some semblance of sense, though it still doesn't explain how/why Neo got sent there, let alone how/why he had powers in (what was supposed to be?) the real world, but I'm not touching that one.
Yeah, the danger's past for now, but Great Scott, that was close!
Guess we've got until about 2015.
Why do I suddenly feel like making backups of all my important data... and why do I think it will be of absolutely no use at all?!
"I heard you're supposed to put a bag over your head. Should we do that?"
"Sure, if it makes you feel better."
"Will it help?"
"No."
Not a bad policy in general, but in this case you're missing out.
And never mind the uses this guy might be able to find for it.
Oh, is that all?
From the lead-in to your post, I thought you were worried that you'd be walking by the laser, minding your own business, and it would suddenly start up and vaporize you, and download you to the Game Grid, or something.
What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?
Very little. (I think you want this thread.)
But it does replate to the original post's criticism of MOSX in that he probably felt as I do that that post went beyond factual criticism and seemed to take a tone / imply a sub-text that said "MOSX IS NOTHING BUT CRAP!!! IT SUCKS! IT SUCKS! IT SUCKS!". He probably felt as I do that that level of criticism was unwarranted and unfair, in view of the typical quality level of similar product releases.
And by the way, speaking of good argument technique (staying on-topic, avoiding juvenile attacks, etc.) he didn't say anything about Steve Jobs being God, either. Not sure where you got that from, or what it has to do with the points to which you were responding.
But not Europa. Attempt no landings there.
All these base are belong to you. Except Europa -- take off no ZIGs there.
Hmm...
Sounds a little on the ambitious side. You should try using the same principle but start smaller. Once you've perfected the technique of lifting yourself off the ground by pulling on your shoelaces, the engineering obstacles involved in making a light sail accelerate toward its own light source shouldn't be much harder.
Why, why, why did I have to go and post on this thread already, so I can't give you a "Funny" mod? Oh, well.
And about the cats-and-dogs thing: you could probably even say "...if your cat was your dog's size...". Just being "bigger"'s not enough -- it's only with our 15-to-1 weight advantage that we're able to keep cats in their place. Well, that and the abiltity to open doors, open cans, etc.
Yes, and it's also less technically known as an "invisible laser".
Example: 1992 DAT-tax
Yes, and witness the resulting dramatic success of DAT as a consumer audio medium.
What if someone invented a 'Gravity reflector'
Well, then they'd be able to make a perpetual motion machine / infinite energy source.
Aaaahhhhg! Whenever I think of the Randy/Amy scene, I get dizzy! Even there, Stephenson is playing more of his little reader mind-games.
You know what I'm talking about by now, right?
At the end of it, she "patted his cheek, said 'Shave,' and exited stage left". Left? Huh? I thought he'd been sleeping in the passenger seat of the SUV... Wait a seond... AAAAAHHHHHRRRGH! IT'S AN SUV BUILT TO DRIVE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD! THE DRIVER SEAT IS ON THE RIGHT AND THEY WERE ON THE LEFT THE WHOLE TIME!
My entire mental image of the scene, from her knocking on the door to her leaving, was INVERTED! I'd had such a vivid picture of how they were positioned -- right knee and shoulder leaning against the door, steering column to the left, etc., and then I had to go back in time, tear it all apart, and try to reconstruct it the other way around. It's just so... disorienting.
...
(Now where's my medication...?)
The thing about Stephenson and accuracy is that he has this ability to make the transition from well-researched, accurate facts to pure horseshit on a dime, and yet completely undetectably.
You all know what I'm talking about, right? In his other books, in the sections that do happen to be about a subject on which I'm knowledgeable (computers, cryptology, philosophy), I'm able to see where he goes on and on in perfectly technically-accurate detail -- so much so that it starts to seem like he's just showing off the quality of his research -- and then there'll be something so glaringly wrong that I have to suspect he did it deliberately -- maybe as a sort of game or inside joke or something. Sharing a wink with the readers like us at the expense of those who won't know the difference? Just keeping us on our toes? Giving us something to nitpick about, because he knows how much we love that?
But speculation aside, the point is that I totally know that I'm only noticing it because it concerns a bit of specialized knowledge that I happen to possess. The writing continues to sound every bit as authoritative and believable as the other parts, whether it's a single wrong detail in the middle of an accurate section or a complete departure into Never-Never Land.
I only notice the transition because I already know the fact. I'm sure a reader who doesn't know the fact would have no clue. And it freaks me out, when I think about all those other parts, where he expounds so authoritatively and believably on other subjects, about which I know much less (war history, Sumerian mythology, economic theory). He is, no doubt, mixing fact and fiction in the same way, and now the joke's on me, because I'm the one who's completely helpless to tell the difference.
No, no, no, no, no.
You're probably right about the thing on the window, the foil on the popcorn tub, etc., being carefully designed to make everyhting work right, but that's nowhere close to the whole answer.
When they snuck onto the base and reprogrammed the system, they didn't just change the target coordinates to the Doc's house. They also changed the firing parameters from a short, high-intensity pulse to a longer, much-lower-intensity burst, just right for popcorn. That's why the Air Force folks were freaking out, pounding their consoles, and shouting "It's not shutting off!", "Well, shut if OFF!", "I can't!", etc., for a few seconds.
Also, it took me a few viewings to realize why, after it was done, Lazslo looked at the house and said "I think we used too much". It's not what I first though, that he was squeamish about having caused so much damage. Just the opposite: he meant it was a shame that the house had burst because he was picturing a different result that would have been even better. I thought what happened was exactly what they intended until, when I heard that line again, it occurred to me that if the popcorn had filled the house but not spilled out at all, then the Doc would have come home not knowing what had happened, and opened the front door...
I'm so glad everyone else seems to feel this way too. I was wondering if I'd gone crazy, or if my reading-comprehension skills had gone on the fritz. I mean, what the hell is this guy complaining about?
So you go to register a domain, but haven't yet supplied a server for it to point to. They establish the domain, which consists of creating the appropriate DNS records associating the domain with an address. It has to point somewhere, so, since you haven't supplied yours yet, they initialize it with something of theirs as a placeholder and give you access to the tools to change it. How else could one even imagine the process working?
It sounds almost like one of those 'stupid-tech-support-call' jokes where the caller complains that his system isn't working, when in fact it's working perfectly and the problem is not just that he doesn't know how to use it, but -- get this -- he has no idea what "it" is actually supposed to be! I.e., he doesn't even realize that he has no goal in mind for what he's trying to do, let alone knowing how to actually use it.
Or, slightly less extreme, it sounds like those people who expect the computer to magically do everything for them and fail to realize that there's still work that they have to do.
"I installed MS Word, but my dissertation didn't pop out!"
"I'm on the Information Superhighway, but I don't feel any smarter!"
"I installed TurboTax, and I just got a screen asking for my name and address! Where's my refund?"
"I registered a domain, and they pointed it to a 'coming soon' page! Where's my web site?"
Sheesh!
Errmmmm, yeah, sorta... buth there are some problems with that.
For one thing, you're starting to limit lots of (arguably) desirable functionality. For example, I'm hardly a fan of online stores that pop up a customer survey at the same time as you finalize your order, but it's not quite fair to put those in the same category as pop-up ads.
But more generally speaking, the fact that these proposed solutions are getting less and less simple/elegant should be a warning sign. This one sounds like it was designed specifically to counter a particular exploit, rather than simply coming from following some sensible general principles.
As soon as you get into that territory, you'll be playing "whack-a-mole" with the bad guys forever. And the rules for what a script is or is not allowed to do will become increasingly (and, before long, absurdly) complicated.
Somehow, they could hack JavaScript to THINK there was a mouse click
If so, that would at least be a genuine "bug" in JS, not a Broken As Designed "feature". What I had in mind was simply that as soon as you do click (on anything), there's an entry point for JavaScript code to run in an environment with "window.open()" enabled. I can think of at least two ways that this could be used, one that's more overtly nasty and one that's more insidious:
1. Haven't you ever clicked a link that appeared to be to something you wanted to see, but that in fact took you to something completely different? (Don't view much pr0n, do you?)
2. Even if the link does go to the apparent (desired) target, the page could be set up so that it would also open a pop-up (or pop-under) window as a side-effect. What makes this so insidious is that it is an action that you really, legitimately want to do that enables it, so how can you stop it?