Thank you, again. You have done an excellent job of showing that you are so sure you are right that you don't want to even entertain other ideas. My point is that at both extremes, the closed-mindness is the same, it is just justified differently, and, in both cases, justified within that system's own laws of reasoning. What you don't want to deal with you label as "bullshit" and spend the rest of your post calling names and denigrating other ideas.
Thank you for helping to prove that science fundamentalists are just as obtuse as religious fundamentalists.
I think both replies help to prove my original point -- that many people who back science are just as blind to alternatives as fundamentalist Christians.
By the way, as far as the line about double blind studies -- there have been double blind studies done on groups of patients with outsiders praying for them. Yes, as I said, they were double blind studies. Results? Patients who were prayed for by others (even in double blind studies) healed much faster than those who were not. (I'd post a URL, but I can't remember the name of the group without wading through a few books here.)
But, it doesn't matter. Science is sure they have all the answers and that religion is worthless. It's the same old story of projection -- get all in a huff at people who react exactly the way you do, without realizing you're doing the same thing.
I've worked as a science and math teacher, I've been on both sides of the fence. Both sides are equally arrogant and equally ignorant of the other side.
I don't remember the name of the theorem, but I remember (from when I used to teach Alg. 1 & 2), that it was proven that there will always be theorems that cannot be proven or derived from any existing body of knowledge.
While scientists insist that something must be proven, this overlooks the fact that science is merely a tool to understand the Universe around us. Religion and spirituality is also a tool. It is a completely different type of tool.
There is NO PROOF that ESP and other such things do NOT exist. I, personally, know several people that work as professional full time psychics. What they can tell you about a person they have never met is astounding.
Just as fundamentalist Christians knock on doors and tell people "We are right, and if you disagree with us, you are wrong and will suffer for it," people on the other end of the spectrum often do the same thing -- claim full justification for their beliefs and state that their rules for understanding the world describe everything and that there is no other possible interpertation of their evidence.
I've worked with many people involved in science, spirituality, and religion. I've always worked at keeping an open mind. I've seen no difference between Christian fundamentalists and dogmatic athiestic scients, both of whom claim only their way is right and all others are wrong.
While there may be no proof of ESP and alien abductions, there are many things science has never disproven and there is strong evidence in remote viewing (as conducted in intelligence experiments) and other "psychic" events.
Science, like religion, does not have a monopoly on Truth and does not have all the answers. It's about time scientists became open minded enough to realize there are things they do not know.
"There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, then are dreamt of in your philosophies..." (Hamlet, by William Shakespeare)
Didn't some people from Dreamworks buddy up to Bill and testify that they needed an OS monopoly so they had the consistancy they needed to make movies?
I guess times change. Funny how people will look at things differently if they can save a few bucks. Not that Dreamworks would have gone with Windoze, but now they're firmly in the camp of the "enemy."
1) I would think that a EULA that states you cannot have certain programs on your computer if you use this program (or any program) is illegal -- due to the Sherman anti-trust act. (Kind of like Ford saying you void the warranty on the entire car if you use tires from JCPenny.) Since IANAL, I'd love to hear from one on this.
2) There's a difference between adware and spyware, a difference some people like to ignore in their "rightous" anger. To be blunt, companies need to make money to pay bills and stay in business. I have no problems with adware, if I can pay for a non-adware version. For example, I used Eudora in adware mode for a long time -- it wasn't obnoxious, and it's a great e-mail client (I wish they'd port it to Linux). I got a free program and the company stayed in business. Polite and reasonable adware seems only fair -- it helps the user and the company. Rude adware -- well, if you don't like it, don't use it. Heaven forbid companies actually make enough on their software to stay in business. Spyware -- now that's a completely different topic. I didn't see anything in the article or the Radlight website to justify the headline calling this program spyware instead of adware. Mangleware, maybe, but not spyware.
I've never used VNC, but was planning to use it in a current project-- thought I'd download it and start experimenting with it next week sometime. When I saw this, I went to the site and downloaded all the files I'd need. When I first got there, the downloads were quick, but just in the time it took me to download 4-8 files, the response time slowed quite a bit.
"Look how smart I am - I can bash a popular movie"
on
Star Wars as Pulp Sci-Fi
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I find it hard to believe that the author of the Salon article, or the authors of many of the "me too" responses about the problems of Star Wars, or of the lack of respect to the original source, have ever sat down and worked on creating more than just a short story. Creating a world, like Lucas has, is not easy. There are MANY influences, operating on many different levels. To believe otherwise is as simplistic as believing that Santa Claus must exist, since there are presents around the tree on Christmas morning. George Lucas has long acknolwedged the sources of his inspiration, such as comic books and pulp novels. But something as complex as a series of movies based in a consistant world does not have one source or inspiration.
While Lucas may have been inspired by the Lensmen, that is not to rule out other levels of inspiration. As J. Michael Straczynski has said, in regards to his creating and writing most of Babylon 5, you can't consciously think on an archetypal level, otherwise, you keep second guessing yourself. Many writers who are strongly focused on creating a universe of their own are often, consciously, or unconsciously, in touch with the archetypal structures and characters which show up in Star Wars, Babylon 5, and even in other movies and books.
I don't see why it is impossible for Lucas to draw inspiration from multiple sources. To suggest otherwise is silly. I couldn't help feeling that the author of the Salon article, and several posters here, are doing nothing more than showing a snob attitude, as if to say, "Hey, this is no good." It's as if people can "prove" their elitist tastes in culture, art, and intellectualism by arguing against something popular.
Star Wars is what it is -- a series of movies that is a heck of a lot of fun. It is also a thinly veiled morality play. The fact that it is one does not deny the ability for it to be the other as well. Look at Hamlet. It was written to make money, to compete with The Spanish Revenge Tragedy. MacBeth was similar -- on one level these plays are to give people a sense of fun and adventure. MacBeth, at a simple level, is also little more than swords and ghosts, at a deeper level, it is a morality play, and even deeper it is a fascinationg insight into the workings of the human mind. Shakespeare had to make his plays popular so people would pay to see them. His plays work on many levels. The same is true with Hitchcock's best movies, and the same is true of Star Wars.
I think the bashers, both here and on Salon, are more interested in showing off by bashing something everyone else likes, than they are in just getting a life.
I don't think Lucas was focusing on the action to downplay romance.
If you look at the Episode 1 trailers, and look at how Lucas does things, you'll see he likes to create a different effect with each trailer. The other trailer was a "love story" trailer, this one is an action trailer. I would not be surprised if there are one or two more that each emphasize a different theme or plot.
I never even heard about his book (The Road Ahead). It reminds me of Mein Kampf -- where Hitler said exactly what he was going to do and how he would rule Germany, and Europe, and the world.
Nobody paid attention until it was too late. (Maybe that's yet another similarity between the two...)
(If you feel the need to flame this post -- you're taking it too seriously -- get a life!)
FWIW -- In our area (Richmond, VA), they've been spreading the word that there won't be any downtime. Since AT&T is starting with the northwest in creating their own network, I didn't want to believe them (even though their e-mail assured me their one goal is to provide us with great service -- yeah, right).
There was a story on the evening news today that explained what was happening. For those AT&T customers who were Mediaone customers (a company that actually cared about customer satisfaction before AT&T bought them!), AT&T is using the old Mediaone net -- they never changed those regions over. In other words, if you were a Mediaone customer, you were never on the Excite net and yoru service should remain intact.
Yes, there is much more to video production than flashy equipment, but without the "flashy" equipment, one cannot produce video and make a living. There are the independent filmmakers, who may or may not be making a profit. Then there are the people who are making a living on video.
For such a person or company, moving from video equipment (which can be VERY expensive) to computers can save a lot of money and time (except for download/rendering/upload time). Video production time costs A LOT of money. (I'm not in a major market, yet I've been called cheap for paying videographers and editors less than $30/hour!) So suppose I'm using BC2K on my systems. It's 3 am and we've been working 24 hours straight and, due to some previously unknown bug, we do something with BC2K and lose 24 hours of work. With one editor at $25/hour, that's $600 of work.
Maybe GPL says I don't have grounds to sue, but if I can make a case and say this bug cost me 3 days work in editing, graphics work, and videography, then I might claim much more. While GPL or any other license may say I give up any claims, I can still sue. By the time it is decided I have a groundless lawsuit, the programmer and company -- who let me get the program for free -- have spent quite a chunk of change to do nothing more than get the court to rule I can't sue.
It has nothing to do with other players. To me it makes sense. Video production costs A LOT of money and most production companies will get into quite a snit if something they expect to work screws up and ruins a lot of work.
When I was first married and moved into a new apartment, I spent a good while designing what I thought would be the perfect computer desk. (It fit around an Apple//e -- I guess that dates me.) It turned out to be a desktop with lots of drawers in the supports and a bookcase for reference books that was basically an inverted U, with the computer and monitor in the middle. I got fed up with it in a year.
Then I designed a bigger one, with a custom shelf system and even designed it to fit the computer right into a custom space with built in disk storage drawers (shielded from the CPU) right near the computer. That lasted another year.
Now I'm using a heavy 6 foot (or longer?!) door. It's on two units from Ikea -- one is drawers, the other is two shelves with a door (the door is removed and it is now a bookshelf only). I have shelves next to my desk but not as part of the desk. I've been using this simple door-as-a-desktop for about 15 years. Without extra shelves or anything else, I find I can arrange things any way I want and I just use shelving units for books, CD-ROMs, and even to hold my CPU's. The shelves are to my right and I have my desk set up so I am much closer to the right end than the left.
Since both of the carefully designed desks became confining as my habits changed, and the door desktop solution worked fine, I haven't bothered to try to come up with anything fancy or custom done in years.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you, again. You have done an excellent job of showing that you are so sure you are right that you don't want to even entertain other ideas. My point is that at both extremes, the closed-mindness is the same, it is just justified differently, and, in both cases, justified within that system's own laws of reasoning. What you don't want to deal with you label as "bullshit" and spend the rest of your post calling names and denigrating other ideas.
Thank you for helping to prove that science fundamentalists are just as obtuse as religious fundamentalists.
I think both replies help to prove my original point -- that many people who back science are just as blind to alternatives as fundamentalist Christians.
By the way, as far as the line about double blind studies -- there have been double blind studies done on groups of patients with outsiders praying for them. Yes, as I said, they were double blind studies. Results? Patients who were prayed for by others (even in double blind studies) healed much faster than those who were not. (I'd post a URL, but I can't remember the name of the group without wading through a few books here.)
But, it doesn't matter. Science is sure they have all the answers and that religion is worthless. It's the same old story of projection -- get all in a huff at people who react exactly the way you do, without realizing you're doing the same thing.
I've worked as a science and math teacher, I've been on both sides of the fence. Both sides are equally arrogant and equally ignorant of the other side.
I don't remember the name of the theorem, but I remember (from when I used to teach Alg. 1 & 2), that it was proven that there will always be theorems that cannot be proven or derived from any existing body of knowledge.
While scientists insist that something must be proven, this overlooks the fact that science is merely a tool to understand the Universe around us. Religion and spirituality is also a tool. It is a completely different type of tool.
There is NO PROOF that ESP and other such things do NOT exist. I, personally, know several people that work as professional full time psychics. What they can tell you about a person they have never met is astounding.
Just as fundamentalist Christians knock on doors and tell people "We are right, and if you disagree with us, you are wrong and will suffer for it," people on the other end of the spectrum often do the same thing -- claim full justification for their beliefs and state that their rules for understanding the world describe everything and that there is no other possible interpertation of their evidence.
I've worked with many people involved in science, spirituality, and religion. I've always worked at keeping an open mind. I've seen no difference between Christian fundamentalists and dogmatic athiestic scients, both of whom claim only their way is right and all others are wrong.
While there may be no proof of ESP and alien abductions, there are many things science has never disproven and there is strong evidence in remote viewing (as conducted in intelligence experiments) and other "psychic" events.
Science, like religion, does not have a monopoly on Truth and does not have all the answers. It's about time scientists became open minded enough to realize there are things they do not know.
"There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, then are dreamt of in your philosophies..." (Hamlet, by William Shakespeare)
Didn't some people from Dreamworks buddy up to Bill and testify that they needed an OS monopoly so they had the consistancy they needed to make movies?
I guess times change. Funny how people will look at things differently if they can save a few bucks. Not that Dreamworks would have gone with Windoze, but now they're firmly in the camp of the "enemy."
1) I would think that a EULA that states you cannot have certain programs on your computer if you use this program (or any program) is illegal -- due to the Sherman anti-trust act. (Kind of like Ford saying you void the warranty on the entire car if you use tires from JCPenny.) Since IANAL, I'd love to hear from one on this.
2) There's a difference between adware and spyware, a difference some people like to ignore in their "rightous" anger. To be blunt, companies need to make money to pay bills and stay in business. I have no problems with adware, if I can pay for a non-adware version. For example, I used Eudora in adware mode for a long time -- it wasn't obnoxious, and it's a great e-mail client (I wish they'd port it to Linux). I got a free program and the company stayed in business. Polite and reasonable adware seems only fair -- it helps the user and the company. Rude adware -- well, if you don't like it, don't use it. Heaven forbid companies actually make enough on their software to stay in business. Spyware -- now that's a completely different topic. I didn't see anything in the article or the Radlight website to justify the headline calling this program spyware instead of adware. Mangleware, maybe, but not spyware.
I've never used VNC, but was planning to use it in a current project-- thought I'd download it and start experimenting with it next week sometime. When I saw this, I went to the site and downloaded all the files I'd need. When I first got there, the downloads were quick, but just in the time it took me to download 4-8 files, the response time slowed quite a bit.
I find it hard to believe that the author of the Salon article, or the authors of many of the "me too" responses about the problems of Star Wars, or of the lack of respect to the original source, have ever sat down and worked on creating more than just a short story. Creating a world, like Lucas has, is not easy. There are MANY influences, operating on many different levels. To believe otherwise is as simplistic as believing that Santa Claus must exist, since there are presents around the tree on Christmas morning. George Lucas has long acknolwedged the sources of his inspiration, such as comic books and pulp novels. But something as complex as a series of movies based in a consistant world does not have one source or inspiration.
While Lucas may have been inspired by the Lensmen, that is not to rule out other levels of inspiration. As J. Michael Straczynski has said, in regards to his creating and writing most of Babylon 5, you can't consciously think on an archetypal level, otherwise, you keep second guessing yourself. Many writers who are strongly focused on creating a universe of their own are often, consciously, or unconsciously, in touch with the archetypal structures and characters which show up in Star Wars, Babylon 5, and even in other movies and books.
I don't see why it is impossible for Lucas to draw inspiration from multiple sources. To suggest otherwise is silly. I couldn't help feeling that the author of the Salon article, and several posters here, are doing nothing more than showing a snob attitude, as if to say, "Hey, this is no good." It's as if people can "prove" their elitist tastes in culture, art, and intellectualism by arguing against something popular.
Star Wars is what it is -- a series of movies that is a heck of a lot of fun. It is also a thinly veiled morality play. The fact that it is one does not deny the ability for it to be the other as well. Look at Hamlet. It was written to make money, to compete with The Spanish Revenge Tragedy. MacBeth was similar -- on one level these plays are to give people a sense of fun and adventure. MacBeth, at a simple level, is also little more than swords and ghosts, at a deeper level, it is a morality play, and even deeper it is a fascinationg insight into the workings of the human mind. Shakespeare had to make his plays popular so people would pay to see them. His plays work on many levels. The same is true with Hitchcock's best movies, and the same is true of Star Wars.
I think the bashers, both here and on Salon, are more interested in showing off by bashing something everyone else likes, than they are in just getting a life.
Reading this topic made me sick to my stomach. I just don't know if I can take such bad news.
Last I heard Celine Dion was in retirement.
Oh, Gawd...say it ain't so, Joe.
As for the copy protection problem -- that's a different story.
I don't think Lucas was focusing on the action to downplay romance.
If you look at the Episode 1 trailers, and look at how Lucas does things, you'll see he likes to create a different effect with each trailer. The other trailer was a "love story" trailer, this one is an action trailer. I would not be surprised if there are one or two more that each emphasize a different theme or plot.
I never even heard about his book (The Road Ahead). It reminds me of Mein Kampf -- where Hitler said exactly what he was going to do and how he would rule Germany, and Europe, and the world.
Nobody paid attention until it was too late. (Maybe that's yet another similarity between the two...)
(If you feel the need to flame this post -- you're taking it too seriously -- get a life!)
The Wandering Hermit
FWIW -- In our area (Richmond, VA), they've been spreading the word that there won't be any downtime. Since AT&T is starting with the northwest in creating their own network, I didn't want to believe them (even though their e-mail assured me their one goal is to provide us with great service -- yeah, right).
There was a story on the evening news today that explained what was happening. For those AT&T customers who were Mediaone customers (a company that actually cared about customer satisfaction before AT&T bought them!), AT&T is using the old Mediaone net -- they never changed those regions over. In other words, if you were a Mediaone customer, you were never on the Excite net and yoru service should remain intact.
--WH
Yes, there is much more to video production than flashy equipment, but without the "flashy" equipment, one cannot produce video and make a living. There are the independent filmmakers, who may or may not be making a profit. Then there are the people who are making a living on video.
For such a person or company, moving from video equipment (which can be VERY expensive) to computers can save a lot of money and time (except for download/rendering/upload time). Video production time costs A LOT of money. (I'm not in a major market, yet I've been called cheap for paying videographers and editors less than $30/hour!) So suppose I'm using BC2K on my systems. It's 3 am and we've been working 24 hours straight and, due to some previously unknown bug, we do something with BC2K and lose 24 hours of work. With one editor at $25/hour, that's $600 of work.
Maybe GPL says I don't have grounds to sue, but if I can make a case and say this bug cost me 3 days work in editing, graphics work, and videography, then I might claim much more. While GPL or any other license may say I give up any claims, I can still sue. By the time it is decided I have a groundless lawsuit, the programmer and company -- who let me get the program for free -- have spent quite a chunk of change to do nothing more than get the court to rule I can't sue.
It has nothing to do with other players. To me it makes sense. Video production costs A LOT of money and most production companies will get into quite a snit if something they expect to work screws up and ruins a lot of work.
When I was first married and moved into a new apartment, I spent a good while designing what I thought would be the perfect computer desk. (It fit around an Apple //e -- I guess that dates me.) It turned out to be a desktop with lots of drawers in the supports and a bookcase for reference books that was basically an inverted U, with the computer and monitor in the middle. I got fed up with it in a year.
Then I designed a bigger one, with a custom shelf system and even designed it to fit the computer right into a custom space with built in disk storage drawers (shielded from the CPU) right near the computer. That lasted another year.
Now I'm using a heavy 6 foot (or longer?!) door. It's on two units from Ikea -- one is drawers, the other is two shelves with a door (the door is removed and it is now a bookshelf only). I have shelves next to my desk but not as part of the desk. I've been using this simple door-as-a-desktop for about 15 years. Without extra shelves or anything else, I find I can arrange things any way I want and I just use shelving units for books, CD-ROMs, and even to hold my CPU's. The shelves are to my right and I have my desk set up so I am much closer to the right end than the left.
Since both of the carefully designed desks became confining as my habits changed, and the door desktop solution worked fine, I haven't bothered to try to come up with anything fancy or custom done in years.