I'm concerned about how obscure the "knock" would need to be. If this feature were to catch on, it would soon implemented as part of a standard distribution. There would likely be a default knock that could be changed in a config file. Natually, you'd need to change the default with a config file if you wanted to be reasonably secure (the common complaint with Windows security). That means telling your users the secret knock in some way...
Which, of course, is the same way you'd get them the encryption keys in the first place. If you're going to that much trouble but still risk exposing your keys through distribution to users, why not just add a few more bits to your keys.
Unless, of course, each "knock" was a SSH session with a unique key, each of which was preceded by eight nonecrypted knocks on other ports...
...Falcon5768. I thought of that when I was writing that sentence and tried to find a witty way to work it in, but realized it'd be too self referential and indulgent. I'm glad you caught it. Hope someone throws a few "funny" mod points your way.
And, yes, lurking and posting on my own article is indeed self referential and indulgent. I have no defense...
If you only count the official "submission to pro fiction magazines", I've been uncannily lucky. Not being too prolific, I've only sent out a half dozen formal submissions over the years and got this one sale last year.
For several years, though, I submitted three or more times a year to an amateur short-short contest in the Orange County Register and placed in the top ten half the time (meriting being put on their website) and scored first twice (to wind up in their newspaper). One of those grew into the Black Gate piece.
On the (nominally) nonfiction front, I wrote several articles for Dragon. In would pitch, say, twenty different articles at a sentence a piece before the editor would tell me he liked one and asked me to write the article. Perhaps one in five of those I liked enough to actually carry out and complete a full article. Of those articles that were "preapproved" that were submitted, he only turned down two - one of which was by an assistant editor in a very unprofessional manner that convinced me to end my relationship with Dragon.
So, my ratio is either very high (about 80% for "preapproved" Dragon articles), good (16% for "submission to pro fiction magazines"), or rather low (about 1% for total Dragon pitches).
If you're not bored yet with my ramblings and want to see the total tally of pieces that saw print, check out my site.
the list is so massive, there's actually almost no point to it
I agree it's unwieldy, but the Locus List has to be big to accomodate all Locus'es editorial staff. I mean, the magazine is basically nothing but reviews. If you want to thin the herd a little, try looking at some of the stuff nominated for the various awards or better yet at various reviewers personal best lists (sorry - couldn't find any links offhand).
Just saw the moderation, bomb_number_20. As the guy who actually used 'completist" in the article I don't think you were trolling. I thought post was a valid observation phrased in a civil manner. A shame the moderator thought otherwise.
Then again, maybe I'm just caving into peer pressure.;)
First: Yes, I'm lurking. I always do when I get an article up on slashdot.
On to business: When I submitted the article, I wanted to use the word, but found (as you did) that it does not appear to be defined anywhere (I was actually trying to check the spelling). In checking around, though, I saw that nevertheless it was being used.
So, like a good little sheep, I caved into peer pressure and used it. No doubt, my English teachers would be ashamed of me ("Hey, all the cool kids are saying 'completist'. You should, too. The first one is free, you know...")
Don't fear. I haven't read any of the 2003 novels and I'm the guy who submitted the article. I find I read mostly short fiction these days: I was happy to see so many short stories from F&SF, the only magazine to which I currently subscribe. Between it, Black Gate (which I highly and selfishly recommend - see below), my day job, and my own writing, I only read 2-3 novels a year. I'm still going through 2002 paperbacks, but the Locus list will be handy come (say) June.
Shameless plug: If you want to find something that's got shorter fiction and you can find it at Borders, my first professional sale is in Black Gate #6 and excerpted here.
I find it interesting that Pixar made this decision right after Disney decided to close its Florida animation studio (here and here). The general concensus was that shuttering Florida was so that Disney could concentrate on digital animation out of Pixar. There are still Disney animation facilities in Burbank, but you've got to wonder what chaos must be going on in Eisners' office today.
While this could concievably just be a negotiating tactic by Pixar, it's more likely to be a simple case of Disney needing Pixar more than Pixar needed Disney.
I've seen a few layouts done that are supposed to recreate actual rail lines and I've always been puzzled by one thing. Given the geography of the room where someone sets up their layout and also the necesity of accessing the layout (if only to observe the fruits of all that hard work), I've always presumed such layouts are not attempts to faithfully duplicate the layout of the rail line but to represent the scenery through which a traveler would pass. That is, there's no attempt to duplicate or scale "Then this spur goes east for 24 miles before it turns north for three more..." just do something like "and after we pass through the pine forest here near the bedroom door, we hit the town of Pidegeonville, which I placed next to the window..."
A silly question, but wanted to make sure I understood the "ground rules" of these recreations.
Personally, I never got past an oval under the Christmas tree and trying to scare the cat, although I did work as a waiter on the Southwest Chief one summer in college. I don't think most modelmakers would care to recreate the Leavenworth prison or the vagrant we ran over near L.A. Union Station, though.
I recall that there is only one word (well, pair of words) in English that changes not only its meaning but also its pronunciation when it changes case: "polish" vs. "Polish"
Of course, the fact that this merits mention in a trivia book (where I found this tidbit) indicates how in general English is case insensitive.
I forgot to mention the obvious: You can do this with any authoring tool or even with MS Word (which I'd suggest over teaching him to manipulate an HTML file with a text editor at this stage).
Also, the kid can upload the pages to a Geocities site and share it with his friends, generate some web traffic, start a company, go public, become a millionarie, and buy for a villa in Tuscany for his parents!
Sorry. I had a 1999 dot-com flashback there for a moment. This is stronger coffee than I thought...
For an experiment, see how he feels about putting together a puzzle/"choose your own adventure" style game in HTML. Have each page represent a new location or result from an action and link them all together ("Click here to turn left down the corridor or here to drink the potion on the table"). This will teach him a bit about game structure and let him throw in a few (admittedly, static) graphics, all with a very low technical knowledge threshold. It will also introduce the idea of scripts, embedded objects, and hyperlinking (which, naturally, are useful in many other endevors beyond game construction).
If he does well (e.g. actually finishes the dang thing), you should look at Macromedia Flash (as others have suggested). Newgrounds has a ton of flash games & cartoons that are unsuitable for a nine year old, but there are two stop motion lego cartoons that I suspect will fire up your son: a basic Lego pirate movie (no sound, very short) and a Lego Treasure Hunt Game (which is an incredible bit of work - I've wanted to do one myself for a while now). I personally like the stop motion animation aspect of both as they level the playing ground for the artistically impaired (such as myself).
An interesting thought. I presume similar notions (using a miniseries to test the water for a possible new series) was the motivation for the recent Galatcia remake.
With that said, I have no idea if the Galactica revival was considered a commerical (ratings) success. Is anyone aware if it carried its own? If so, then perhaps this would be a good model for ST. If not... oh, well.
For the record, I know other posters have flamed GIMP for usability, but I find it adaquate for my occasional (perhaps once a month) phot manipulation needs.
No, but you have tapped into the crux of the humor. worst thing that could've happened is that you wouldn't be able to light a reading or call light that's off or turn one off that was already on. See original post for disclaimers about how it never reached the palne, etc.
The 2290 jobs come from reducing her salary ($115M - $0.5M = $114.5M = 2290 jobs @ $50K), not from the money she gets to keep (which is 10 times $50K = $0.5M).
Slashdot Mirror
Which, of course, is the same way you'd get them the encryption keys in the first place. If you're going to that much trouble but still risk exposing your keys through distribution to users, why not just add a few more bits to your keys.
Unless, of course, each "knock" was a SSH session with a unique key, each of which was preceded by eight nonecrypted knocks on other ports...
I love recursion.
And, yes, lurking and posting on my own article is indeed self referential and indulgent. I have no defense...
If you only count the official "submission to pro fiction magazines", I've been uncannily lucky. Not being too prolific, I've only sent out a half dozen formal submissions over the years and got this one sale last year.
For several years, though, I submitted three or more times a year to an amateur short-short contest in the Orange County Register and placed in the top ten half the time (meriting being put on their website) and scored first twice (to wind up in their newspaper). One of those grew into the Black Gate piece.
On the (nominally) nonfiction front, I wrote several articles for Dragon. In would pitch, say, twenty different articles at a sentence a piece before the editor would tell me he liked one and asked me to write the article. Perhaps one in five of those I liked enough to actually carry out and complete a full article. Of those articles that were "preapproved" that were submitted, he only turned down two - one of which was by an assistant editor in a very unprofessional manner that convinced me to end my relationship with Dragon.
So, my ratio is either very high (about 80% for "preapproved" Dragon articles), good (16% for "submission to pro fiction magazines"), or rather low (about 1% for total Dragon pitches).
If you're not bored yet with my ramblings and want to see the total tally of pieces that saw print, check out my site.
I agree it's unwieldy, but the Locus List has to be big to accomodate all Locus'es editorial staff. I mean, the magazine is basically nothing but reviews. If you want to thin the herd a little, try looking at some of the stuff nominated for the various awards or better yet at various reviewers personal best lists (sorry - couldn't find any links offhand).
Then again, maybe I'm just caving into peer pressure. ;)
On to business: When I submitted the article, I wanted to use the word, but found (as you did) that it does not appear to be defined anywhere (I was actually trying to check the spelling). In checking around, though, I saw that nevertheless it was being used.
So, like a good little sheep, I caved into peer pressure and used it. No doubt, my English teachers would be ashamed of me ("Hey, all the cool kids are saying 'completist'. You should, too. The first one is free, you know...")
Don't fear. I haven't read any of the 2003 novels and I'm the guy who submitted the article. I find I read mostly short fiction these days: I was happy to see so many short stories from F&SF, the only magazine to which I currently subscribe. Between it, Black Gate (which I highly and selfishly recommend - see below), my day job, and my own writing, I only read 2-3 novels a year. I'm still going through 2002 paperbacks, but the Locus list will be handy come (say) June.
Shameless plug: If you want to find something that's got shorter fiction and you can find it at Borders, my first professional sale is in Black Gate #6 and excerpted here.
Not updated regularly for obvious reasons, but one of my favorite hidden gems on the web nevertheless.
While this could concievably just be a negotiating tactic by Pixar, it's more likely to be a simple case of Disney needing Pixar more than Pixar needed Disney.
I've seen a few layouts done that are supposed to recreate actual rail lines and I've always been puzzled by one thing. Given the geography of the room where someone sets up their layout and also the necesity of accessing the layout (if only to observe the fruits of all that hard work), I've always presumed such layouts are not attempts to faithfully duplicate the layout of the rail line but to represent the scenery through which a traveler would pass. That is, there's no attempt to duplicate or scale "Then this spur goes east for 24 miles before it turns north for three more..." just do something like "and after we pass through the pine forest here near the bedroom door, we hit the town of Pidegeonville, which I placed next to the window..."
A silly question, but wanted to make sure I understood the "ground rules" of these recreations.
Personally, I never got past an oval under the Christmas tree and trying to scare the cat, although I did work as a waiter on the Southwest Chief one summer in college. I don't think most modelmakers would care to recreate the Leavenworth prison or the vagrant we ran over near L.A. Union Station, though.
I recall that there is only one word (well, pair of words) in English that changes not only its meaning but also its pronunciation when it changes case: "polish" vs. "Polish"
Of course, the fact that this merits mention in a trivia book (where I found this tidbit) indicates how in general English is case insensitive.
No wonder the damn weeds keep coming back so fast - they must be overclocked.
I forgot to mention the obvious: You can do this with any authoring tool or even with MS Word (which I'd suggest over teaching him to manipulate an HTML file with a text editor at this stage).
Also, the kid can upload the pages to a Geocities site and share it with his friends, generate some web traffic, start a company, go public, become a millionarie, and buy for a villa in Tuscany for his parents!
Sorry. I had a 1999 dot-com flashback there for a moment. This is stronger coffee than I thought...
For an experiment, see how he feels about putting together a puzzle/"choose your own adventure" style game in HTML. Have each page represent a new location or result from an action and link them all together ("Click here to turn left down the corridor or here to drink the potion on the table"). This will teach him a bit about game structure and let him throw in a few (admittedly, static) graphics, all with a very low technical knowledge threshold. It will also introduce the idea of scripts, embedded objects, and hyperlinking (which, naturally, are useful in many other endevors beyond game construction).
If he does well (e.g. actually finishes the dang thing), you should look at Macromedia Flash (as others have suggested). Newgrounds has a ton of flash games & cartoons that are unsuitable for a nine year old, but there are two stop motion lego cartoons that I suspect will fire up your son: a basic Lego pirate movie (no sound, very short) and a Lego Treasure Hunt Game (which is an incredible bit of work - I've wanted to do one myself for a while now). I personally like the stop motion animation aspect of both as they level the playing ground for the artistically impaired (such as myself).
Good luck!
</My Two cents>
Forget lie detection. What I need is a pair of Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses so I can develop a relaxed attitude to danger (A working model of which can be found here).
With that said, I have no idea if the Galactica revival was considered a commerical (ratings) success. Is anyone aware if it carried its own? If so, then perhaps this would be a good model for ST. If not... oh, well.
My bad. Thanks.
Thanks for the catch.
For the record, I know other posters have flamed GIMP for usability, but I find it adaquate for my occasional (perhaps once a month) phot manipulation needs.
Yeah. I guess that'd do...
Like this?
...because it assumes the user will actually go outside in the sun.
No, but you have tapped into the crux of the humor. worst thing that could've happened is that you wouldn't be able to light a reading or call light that's off or turn one off that was already on. See original post for disclaimers about how it never reached the palne, etc.
Thank you for the catch. I stand corrected.
The 2290 jobs come from reducing her salary ($115M - $0.5M = $114.5M = 2290 jobs @ $50K), not from the money she gets to keep (which is 10 times $50K = $0.5M).