Perhaps this can be seen as a demise of their program, but it is offering more and more commercialization.
I don't agree that this trend represents any demise of their program. Rather the Russians are just doing whatever they can to get the funding they need. During the cold war, the space race was largely propaganda for both the US and USSR. The space agencies in both countries got the funding they wanted because politicians were eager to "show off" to the rest of the world. After the end of the cold war, politicians decided that science wasn't worth funding anymore. The Russian science program, eager to continue their work, simply looked for non-state-sponsered funding sources. They feel no shame in accepting an ad from Pizza Hut on the side of their rocket or selling defunct machinery. Most Russians probably think it's funny. In the meantime, the American space program still longs for the good ol' days when they were considered a source of national pride. For them, they simply cannot bear the thought of begging the public for money. They would rather get by with less but "maintain their pride". In the meantime, lots of important scientific work goes undone because of their refusal to swallow their pride and ask for money from the private sector.
I think the Russians have the right idea. It's time for NASA to realize that the glory days are over and they have to find new funding sources to continue their work.
Whenever I find an interesting story that I want to send to a friend, I always cut and paste the story into an email address rather than giving them the URL. Why? Because I've been stung one too many times by reading a version 1.0 of an article, telling my friends about it and my reaction to it, and then having them complain that my comments were off base. I double check the story and, whatta-ya-know, the story has been changed to version 1.1 so that my comments do seem pretty off base, NOW. So then I have to explain to my friend that the original story had a different tone and so on and so forth. And lord knows whether my friends believe me or think I'm making excuses.
I suppose that by doing a cut-and-paste of the article that I'm violating the copyright but I just don't trust online news sources to preserve an article between the time I read it and my friend gets around to seeing it.
The thing that pisses me off the most is when I catch a obvious error in an article and send an email to the website informing them of this. I figure it takes me a minute to do and will help hundreds or thousands of other people who will read the article after me. Usually the error gets corrected between the time that I send my message and someone reads my correction. So you can guess what happens next: I get a condescending response telling me that I am in error and that I should double check the article. That's usually about the time that I quit reading that website and look for another source of news...
GMD
Re:slashdot have special interest in good reviews
on
Agile Modeling
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· Score: 2, Interesting
It doesn't personally offend me as much as it does you (some could argue that slashdot has the right to get some credit for referring interested readers to the book) but I realize a lot of people feel a little red flag go up inside their heads when they see something like this. Personally, I don't see why the BN link couldn't be replaced to a search-engine query at pricescan.com or AskJeeves or something like that. With a click on a single link, slashdotters can compare prices at numerous bookstores. Hell, why not just a google search box with some choice keywords already filled in. Click on the search button and it automatically does a google search on "price Agile Modeling Effective Practices Extreme Programming Unified Process"? That way slashdot wouldn't face any criticism for getting referral points.
I'd suggest reading AffectiveComputing by Rosalind Picard from MIT Press, her homepage is here [mit.edu] and interview on First Monday [firstmonday.dk] and the MIT homepage at MIT [mit.edu]
Thanks for posting this. For the LA Times' article, one gets the feeling that Movellan is leading a one-man renaissance in AI. Like most articles about far-future technologies, the article is heavy on the "gee-whiz" and "what will they think of next?" stuff and light on any sort of in-depth examination of the issues involved. First, I don't understand why the media (newspapers especially) don't take the time to do a thoughtful, in-depth story about non-time-critical issues like Affective Computing. Secondly, I wish that if they were going to do a half-assed job of it, they would at least cite other, more detailed sources of information so interested readers could learn more on their own. Yeah, I suppose someone can do a web search to find this out. And thank god for slashdot where the readers usually know more about the subject matter than the article authors. But it's common curtosy to cite important people in a scientific field. At least it is when writing a scientific paper -- why should the mass media be exempt from this little niceity? Suppose you were a researcher at MIT's program in this field and saw this article. Wouldn't you be kind of pissed off? The LA Times could have replaced that paragraph about the Golem with a paragraph about the MIT program.
I'm troubled by the slipshod coverage that science and technology gets in the mass media. Do the newspaper authors think we don't care to know the details? Do they themselves not care?
GMD
Hollywood doesn't respect fringe genres, yet
on
Review: Spiderman
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· Score: 1
I think it requires someone to make a breakthrough, well-done crossover film (comic2movie, videogame2movie, martialarts2movie) for the studio execs to see the possibilities. I made this point in a post to an earlier story and I actually cited "SFII, the Animated Movie" just like you did. My gut feeling is that the studio execs are so closed minded that if a filmmaker approaches them with an idea to make an intelligent comic2movie film (or videogame2movie, etc.) they'll liable to laugh the guy right out of their office. Untill someone else actually makes a movie (e.g., "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon") and they see a concrete example, showing that it can actually work. So here's hoping that a box-office success for Spider-Man opens the door to other well-done, intelligent, thoughtful comic2movie adaptations. As for the videogame2movie, we're going to have to wait for that one good film before the studio execs green-light too many more of those given the recent failures of videogame2movie films.
Eratosthenes accurately estimated the diameter and circumference of the earth with a stick. That's beauty.
Quite right. This beautiful experiment is explained and recreated in Carl Sagan's Cosmos series. Not only that, but Eratosthenes did this many years Before Christ. By the time that Christopher Columbus petitioned the royal court for funding for three ships to sail westward from Portugal to India, scientists already knew the circumference of the earth pretty damn well. Well enough to know there was no way in hell Columbus would ever make it. But in 1492 -- and this is still true today, unfortunately -- the intelligent advice of scientists was disregarded by the rulers were blinded by visions of wealth and power and the Queen funded Columbus' journey. Turns out, unbeknownst to anyone, that Columbus' ass was saved because there was a land mass closer than halfway. Columbus decided that since he had sailed west to get to India, and ran into some land, had indeed reached India and proclaimed the inhabitants Indians -- a misnomer which exists to this day.
Although Eratosthenes was a true genius the world hails Christopher Columbus as a hero even though his accomplishment was sheer accident. What does this tell you about how the world views science and scientists?
I'm pretty sure the media has mentioned this, beyond those two media links you already posted, I mean. The issue has been debated since the first Patriot experiences during the Gulf War.
I guess I'll have to take your word for it but I think all the mass media has done is "mention" it. Pretty much everyone I tell about the failure of patriots is either in shock or replies with "That's not true! I know they work! I saw them destroying scuds on CNN!"
It certainly isn't easy to do, and there may be better ways to accomplish the same goal or things more worthy of our limited resources, but to claim that it's somehow physically impossible is both disingenuous and incorrect.
I never said that it was physically impossible. Four minutes before your post I made a reply to another's comments. I realize that you probably didn't get to see my 2nd post before posting yours. So at the risk of being modded Redundant, here's my answer:
"My comment about the Patriot failure being a bad sign for our upcoming missle defense shield was to point out that if we can't hit relatively-slow-flying scuds, how are we possibly going to hit speedy ICBMs? We haven't even solved the theatre ballistic missle problem yet. So we're years away from being able to intercept WMD-bearing ICBMs."
I'm sorry you didn't find either link I provided to be convincing. There are many other sources of info. I suggested (and still do suggest) that interested readers do their own web search.
Dropping "debris" is a bad thing, and it's only a matter of time before doing so results in an uncorrectable failure of the missiles flight aerodynamics. Why weren't most of them failing earlier?
If your point is that a missle so unreliable doesn't make a good miliary weapon, I completely agree. The Iraqis were desperate to increase the range of the scuds and simply took the missles apart, stuck in some more fuel, and tried to put them back together. I doubt they tested the modifications thoroughly. Scuds in general are thought to be "joke" weapons. Most military planners felt this way prior to the Gulf War and had so little respect for the scuds that they didn't bother to factor search-and-destroy missions into their planning. Unfortunately the scuds, while poor military weapons, are reasonably good terror weapons. They have crap accuracy but can hit an Israeli city well enough. When the problem became apparent, the US had to divert significant aerial resources to search-and-destroy missions. So, in a way, the laughable scud actually was a successful weapon, if you consider that terror was Saddam's goal.
Even if the patriots did fail, why would that have grave implications for our anti ballistic missile shield? SCUDs are cruise missiles, not ballistic missiles.
As others have already pointed out, your statement is in error. Scuds are certainly not sophisticated cruise missles. My comment about the Patriot failure being a bad sign for our upcoming missle defense shield was to point out that if we can't hit relatively-slow-flying scuds, how are we possibly going to hit speedy ICBMs? We haven't even solved the theatre ballistic missle problem yet. So we're years away from being able to intercept WMD-bearing ICBMs.
Note: I am NOT a regular reader of the Christian Science Monitor. I included that link because the author is from MIT. And before you mod my previous post as off-topic, I'm just pointing out that it's easy to dismiss something as a software bug. It's much harder to do some real thinking and make sure that the concept is valid to begin with.
The Patriot missle defense system never worked -- the bug mentioned in the article is a red herring. The main problem was that the Iraqis had modified the scud with additional fuel tanks. The resulting missle was unstable and would start to break apart in flight. The Patriot couldn't lock on to the missle because it of all the schrapnel. In addition, the scuds are poor missles to begin with. When they fly, they do so with a wobble -- like a poorly thrown football. The Patriots had been tested prior to the war on good-quality American missles which flew in a smooth trajectory. The Patriots simply couldn't deal with a missle that "danced around" in midflight. Bottom line: the Patriots simply do not protect against scuds because of poor design -- not some floating point error. The floating point explanation is analogus to that Coriolis-effect-causes-water-to-swirl-in-the-toile t myth that you find in so many physics textbooks (the Coriolis effect only works on planetary scales). It looks good on paper but if the "experts" had bothered to perform a test they would see that the explanation is dead wrong. The failure of the Patriots to intercept scuds (and the fact that the media never mentions this) has grave implications for our anti ballistic missle shield.
Don't take my word for it. Do a web search and see for yourself. Here are some references to get you started:
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/docops/rp911024.ht m
Once they lost Connan, they started steadily going downhill.
I agree with you except I would replace "steadily" with "rapidly". It was painful enough to watch one of my favorite shows go from brilliant to awful but I finally decided to switch the TV off on the episode where I&S Corp decides to change The Itchy & Scratchy Show (was that the Poochy the Dog episode?). Near the end, Lisa tells the animators that there isn't anything "wrong" with Itchy & Scratchy, the reason their ratings are down is because people have gotten used to such great programming or some such nonesense. She goes on to say that the fans should be thankful that Itchy & Scratchy has been great for so many years. That speech was obviously directed towards fans of the Simpsons who were posting negative comments about the shows on the Internet. Rather than listening to the feedback from their most loyal fans, the people running The Simpsons decided to have Lisa berate the viewers! I thought that was too offensive and decided that there was no longer any hope that The Simpsons would realize they were making a mistake with their new direction.
So I gave up hope that the Simpsons would return to greatness a long time ago...
So, if you separate the Jar Jar "design" from the actual character (admitted it's very hard), he's a pretty cool looking character.
He might look okay when he's standing still but his movements all seemed very unnatural to me. He almost seems like a rubbery, elastic creature in the movie. His walk is not smooth, his motions are not very crisp. I remember thinking to myself that "that frog-dude must have tendons of steel" to avoid being constantly injured just from everyday motions. Everyone ooh-ed and ahh-ed about the fact that Lucas was able to make a 100% computer-animated character fit in with the movie. But for me, it was just one more example why CGI should be limited to non-lifeform effects.
Thanks for asking this question. I, myself, was wondering how he was doing. You are correct that those of us who don't live in MN never hear how Ventura is doing unless it's shocking. I was disappointed to hear so many here describe that he's acting like a wildman. When he got elected, I was hoping that this was a man who you could trust to be honest and straightforward. I disregarded all the ex-wrestler, ex-moviestar criticism as elitist crap and hoped that he was a "man of the people" dispite his freakish appearance. Apparently that is not the case.
Making the assumption that most in MN see Ventura in the same light that the above slashdotters do, I submit that this videogame is a BAD idea for him. It sounds like he needs to project a more responsible, serious public image. Putting out a videogame starring him is inconsistent with that goal. If his constitutents feel he is "throwing a tantrum" as one slashdotter put it, he needs to do some serious "growing up" in the public eye. Most people do view videogames as fluff and would not take his appearance in such as a sign of maturity.
One last point, and this is somewhat off-topic. I admit that I don't know very much about Ventura. But in his book he mentions somewhere (so I've been told) that he makes the statement that he finds athesists to be decent, hardworking people. For most of us here on slashdot, this is an obvious statement. But when was the last time you heard a politician saying something like this? Probably never. Most politicians have no qualms about bashing the non-religious in public forums. I'm not saying that Ventura's maturity to recognize non-religious peoples as decent should excuse the screw-ups he's apparently made in office. But it's something to keep in mind. It's going to be a very long time before we hear another politician come out and openly support non-religious people.
I agree with you and would like to add that license plates don't have to symbolize some proud moment or accomplishment. I see a lot of comments here along the lines of "can't Nevada find something else to be proud of?" Pride is irrelevant. The tests are something that happened and involved their state. It's a piece of history. Therefore it's worth putting on a license plate. There's a lot of postal stamps that simply represent history without trying to make some kind of "pride" statement.
And the fact that the opposition to the license plates seems to love citing the current Yucca Mountain plan is annoying to me. That's confusing two different issues. If you're against nuclear weapons, fine. If you're against nuclear energy and the waste produced, fine. But don't start mixing the two issues. I understand that many of the people against the weapons are against the storage facility as well. But the plates commerate the weapons and the testing -- not nuclear energy. The objectors should keep their objections focused on the correct issue. To not do so muddles their argument and allows people (such as myself) to dismiss them as uninformed anti-nuke-reactionists.
Who said anythign about the Pentagon? I'm talking about global government.
No, I know you didn't say anything about the Pentagon. Most of my comment was directed towards the article and not your post. Sorry for the confusion.
Here's your link [infowars.com]
Aw, come on, Man. Can't you give us a link to the actual article you read/heard this from? I'm not gonna sift through 10+ articles to try to find a statistic that I highly doubt in the first place. No offense NickRob, but you should really try to make it easy for your fellow/. readers.
"In a post-9/11 and post-Columbine era, nanotech is one of the most significant issues of our time, second only to globalism. Thanks to the myopic media, most Americans do not grasp the ways in which this new technology is changing the world, or the degree in which such technology is being subverted by opportunistic, short-sighted politicians."
The UN has mentioned that idealy 80% of the world's population would be killed.
Do you have some kind of reference for this statistic or are you just scare-mongering? When you post something far-fetched like that you should include a hyperlink to some corroborating evidence on the web.
From my perspective the entire article by Reynolds was largely hype and scare-mongering. He makes references to rumors and whispers of a military crackdown on nanotech but never mentions where he's getting this stuff from. For all I know, he could have overheard a bunch of tie-dye shirt wearing hippies down at the local coffee-shop/pseudo-intellectual-hangout.
That having been said, I ask is it even possible for the government to suppress something as big as nanotech? A recent issue of Scientific American had a multi-article feature on nanotech and the possible uses. It just seems that this is going to be too big and wide-ranging for even the Pentagon to be able to control. Yeah, he cites some examples in past history of how militaries have tried to suppress "essential" technologies but things are different now. It was easier in "the old days" for the government to control information. With the amount of free-flowing data that we have today I doubt that the government would be able to do a very good job of controlling any exciting new technology. Yes, I understand the important role the Pentagon plays in determining what research gets done. But these people aren't idiots. They realize the best way for the US to gain the lead in nanotech is to just let scientists run for awhile. Maybe in the future they'll try to steer the direction of research. But until I start seeing some evidence of this, I disregard Reynolds and all the rest as revving up the hype machine
I wouldn't even go as far as to say "ignorant". Getting hit with a virus can happen to anyone under the right circumstances. I goofed the other day and opened a message in Outlook Express (I turned off the preview pane) and almost got hit with a virus. Norton AntiVirus caught it so it didn't do any damage. I'm usually careful about messages from people I don't know and I certainly never click on attachments. It was just that I had a bunch of emails to go through and was careless in opening each one without thinking. I don't think that qualifies me as stupid -- we all have our momentary goofs. Spend enough time on a computer and everyone makes a mistake sooner or later.
I suppose you could argue that because I've set up LiveUpdate! to run on my desktop every damn day that I'm protecting myself but this could have easily happened to a laptop that doesn't run LiveUpdate every day. Or maybe I get hit with a virus the day it hits the web (before my LiveUpdate! runs and I get the virus definition).
I confess that HCI does not hold much interest for me personally but I would like to see a very simple "popular science" treatment of what types of HCIs are being considered for future generations. Not completely content-free but something very basic that would communicate to the public that HCI is an active field of research and that they shouldn't expect that tomorrow's UI will look anything like today's. The public at large thinks that the way we interact with computers today is representative of how we will tomorrow as well and so parents are forking over big bucks to make sure their kids get "computer training". It always breaks my heart whenever I see one of those news stories where they interview some low-income single-mother-of-three who is wasting good money on computer classes for her 10 year old kids. She makes the sacrifice because she thinks she's giving her kids a head-start on the supposedly-valuable computer skills they'll need to compete in the job market. What she doesn't realize is that by the time her kids enter the workforce, most of the stuff her kids learned will be obsolete.
A book that makes parents think twice about the value of modern-day computer "training" and applicability to future systems is seriously needed, in my view.
I love the Star Wars movies with a great passion, but Lucas is, basically, a consumer whore.
I'll believe it when I see it...
I happen to share your opinion about Lucas but it's for exactly this reason that I'm willing to entertain the notion that Lucas may indeed have gotten the message that TPM sucked. My personal theory is that Lucas doesn't care about the Star Wars story anymore and that he's using the movies now to finance CGI technology improvements. And a large portion of his money comes from merchandising. So he has to pay attention to the criticism. He might believe in his heart that TPM was a great film and that everyone who didn't like it is an idiot. But because all "those idiots" didn't buy as many Jar-Jar ties as he hoped, I think he has to make a more grown-up film, whether he wants to or not! Again, this relies on my theory that Lucas doesn't really care about the movies -- he's just using them to finance his true love of CGI.
The show also delves into the complex relationship between the gaming community and Hollywood. Comparing film posters, screenings, and playable versions of franchises like James Bond and Final Fantasy, it becomes clear that what makes a good game doesn't always make a good film and vice versa (think Tomb Raider).
Well I guess that's true but I think a lot of that is just Hollywood being lazy and not putting any real effort into making a good videogame-based movie. Take Street Fighter for example. The Hollywood movie with Van Damme is beyond awful. But Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie is actually reasonably well done, for what it is. The problem is that Hollywood just doesn't have respect for the gaming industry yet. They realize there's tons of money floating around but they don't recognize games as anything more than flashing lights and crazy sounds. I would argue that there SHOULD be a "complex relationship between the gaming community and Hollywood" but that's still hasn't happened yet. Ideally, a videogame-based movie would develop the characters to a degree that can't be done in a videogame. This, in turn, would make the game more interesting and complex than the original designers ever intended.
I didn't say I wrote code professionally -- I said I wrote professionally, as in "a professional writer". Of text. That people read.
Fair enough. My mistake.
About some professionals being very good: I never said they weren't. See my other reply to this thread.
No, I know you never said that. What you said is that amateurs care more about their work than professionals. And I'm calling that into question. As I said before, I know some professionals (not me) who are in love with their jobs. I don't see how you can state that amateurs "care more" than professionals.
> I'm convinced that amateurs are usually better at most things than professionals, for the simple reason that they care more.
> As an example: I write professionally. This is a Friday afternoon -- my productivity level is dropping toward zero. But I am taking the time to make (semi-)intelligent comments on slashdot. Why? Because at slashdot, I'm an amateur. I'm in this because I feel like it, not because I'm being paid to do it.
At first I thought your first statement was somewhat interesting but on second thought, I think you haven't given it a second thought! First of all, I know a lot of professionals who care a hell of a lot about their job -- to the point where they put in unpaid overtime. Second, your example isn't very good. You didn't specify exactly what kind of code you are writing but I would wager that the Slashdot forum stimulates your thinking in new ways more often than your job does. Again, I'm stepping out on a limb here but I'm guessing that you're probably working on some software project that will take weeks or months of the same kind of work to complete. In comparison, Slashdot changes quite a bit from day to day. The fact that your productivity drops on Friday seems to indicate that you are looking for a change (i.e., the weekend).
> OT: perhaps that's why Taco et al are so unproductive at their jobs? Because it is just "a job" for them? Hmmm... interesting concept.
I was going to make a Katz joke here but I think just dropping his name is joke enough...
I agree with most of your statement but I think the scientific community can continue with BOTH opinions rather than having to choose. Yes, we need to do research on alternative medicine. It's possible that there is really something to some of it. If any successes are due to the plecibo effect, that that is useful information also.
But these studies are going to take years. While we're waiting for the results, we need to be vocal about your opinion #1. People who are sick are quite desperate and lack the understanding of why these therapies are not mainstream/accepted. People always hope to find some kind of "mystery" cure to their problems. I think it's part of the American culture that's closely tied to conpiracy theories. We need to explain to people that when they take alternative medicine, they're taking a big risk. Most people I talk to usually try alternative medicine "because I don't have anything to lose!" Wrong-o! Just because something is billed as "natural" doesn't mean it's safe. If you eat a couple of toadstools, I guarantee you won't be feeling too hot!
I don't get upset at people who try alternative medicine anymore, or even those who encourage friends and strangers to try it. I'm upset at alternative medicine supporters for refusing to do high-quality scientific studies and I'm upset at the mainstream medical establishment for refusing to publically explain why these therapies are not accepted.
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps this can be seen as a demise of their program, but it is offering more and more commercialization.
I don't agree that this trend represents any demise of their program. Rather the Russians are just doing whatever they can to get the funding they need. During the cold war, the space race was largely propaganda for both the US and USSR. The space agencies in both countries got the funding they wanted because politicians were eager to "show off" to the rest of the world. After the end of the cold war, politicians decided that science wasn't worth funding anymore. The Russian science program, eager to continue their work, simply looked for non-state-sponsered funding sources. They feel no shame in accepting an ad from Pizza Hut on the side of their rocket or selling defunct machinery. Most Russians probably think it's funny. In the meantime, the American space program still longs for the good ol' days when they were considered a source of national pride. For them, they simply cannot bear the thought of begging the public for money. They would rather get by with less but "maintain their pride". In the meantime, lots of important scientific work goes undone because of their refusal to swallow their pride and ask for money from the private sector.
I think the Russians have the right idea. It's time for NASA to realize that the glory days are over and they have to find new funding sources to continue their work.
GMD
Whenever I find an interesting story that I want to send to a friend, I always cut and paste the story into an email address rather than giving them the URL. Why? Because I've been stung one too many times by reading a version 1.0 of an article, telling my friends about it and my reaction to it, and then having them complain that my comments were off base. I double check the story and, whatta-ya-know, the story has been changed to version 1.1 so that my comments do seem pretty off base, NOW. So then I have to explain to my friend that the original story had a different tone and so on and so forth. And lord knows whether my friends believe me or think I'm making excuses.
I suppose that by doing a cut-and-paste of the article that I'm violating the copyright but I just don't trust online news sources to preserve an article between the time I read it and my friend gets around to seeing it.
The thing that pisses me off the most is when I catch a obvious error in an article and send an email to the website informing them of this. I figure it takes me a minute to do and will help hundreds or thousands of other people who will read the article after me. Usually the error gets corrected between the time that I send my message and someone reads my correction. So you can guess what happens next: I get a condescending response telling me that I am in error and that I should double check the article. That's usually about the time that I quit reading that website and look for another source of news...
GMD
It doesn't personally offend me as much as it does you (some could argue that slashdot has the right to get some credit for referring interested readers to the book) but I realize a lot of people feel a little red flag go up inside their heads when they see something like this. Personally, I don't see why the BN link couldn't be replaced to a search-engine query at pricescan.com or AskJeeves or something like that. With a click on a single link, slashdotters can compare prices at numerous bookstores. Hell, why not just a google search box with some choice keywords already filled in. Click on the search button and it automatically does a google search on "price Agile Modeling Effective Practices Extreme Programming Unified Process"? That way slashdot wouldn't face any criticism for getting referral points.
GMD
I'd suggest reading AffectiveComputing by Rosalind Picard from MIT Press, her homepage is here [mit.edu] and interview on First Monday [firstmonday.dk] and the MIT homepage at MIT [mit.edu]
Thanks for posting this. For the LA Times' article, one gets the feeling that Movellan is leading a one-man renaissance in AI. Like most articles about far-future technologies, the article is heavy on the "gee-whiz" and "what will they think of next?" stuff and light on any sort of in-depth examination of the issues involved. First, I don't understand why the media (newspapers especially) don't take the time to do a thoughtful, in-depth story about non-time-critical issues like Affective Computing. Secondly, I wish that if they were going to do a half-assed job of it, they would at least cite other, more detailed sources of information so interested readers could learn more on their own. Yeah, I suppose someone can do a web search to find this out. And thank god for slashdot where the readers usually know more about the subject matter than the article authors. But it's common curtosy to cite important people in a scientific field. At least it is when writing a scientific paper -- why should the mass media be exempt from this little niceity? Suppose you were a researcher at MIT's program in this field and saw this article. Wouldn't you be kind of pissed off? The LA Times could have replaced that paragraph about the Golem with a paragraph about the MIT program.
I'm troubled by the slipshod coverage that science and technology gets in the mass media. Do the newspaper authors think we don't care to know the details? Do they themselves not care?
GMD
I think it requires someone to make a breakthrough, well-done crossover film (comic2movie, videogame2movie, martialarts2movie) for the studio execs to see the possibilities. I made this point in a post to an earlier story and I actually cited "SFII, the Animated Movie" just like you did. My gut feeling is that the studio execs are so closed minded that if a filmmaker approaches them with an idea to make an intelligent comic2movie film (or videogame2movie, etc.) they'll liable to laugh the guy right out of their office. Untill someone else actually makes a movie (e.g., "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon") and they see a concrete example, showing that it can actually work. So here's hoping that a box-office success for Spider-Man opens the door to other well-done, intelligent, thoughtful comic2movie adaptations. As for the videogame2movie, we're going to have to wait for that one good film before the studio execs green-light too many more of those given the recent failures of videogame2movie films.
GMD
Eratosthenes accurately estimated the diameter and circumference of the earth with a stick. That's beauty.
Quite right. This beautiful experiment is explained and recreated in Carl Sagan's Cosmos series. Not only that, but Eratosthenes did this many years Before Christ. By the time that Christopher Columbus petitioned the royal court for funding for three ships to sail westward from Portugal to India, scientists already knew the circumference of the earth pretty damn well. Well enough to know there was no way in hell Columbus would ever make it. But in 1492 -- and this is still true today, unfortunately -- the intelligent advice of scientists was disregarded by the rulers were blinded by visions of wealth and power and the Queen funded Columbus' journey. Turns out, unbeknownst to anyone, that Columbus' ass was saved because there was a land mass closer than halfway. Columbus decided that since he had sailed west to get to India, and ran into some land, had indeed reached India and proclaimed the inhabitants Indians -- a misnomer which exists to this day.
Although Eratosthenes was a true genius the world hails Christopher Columbus as a hero even though his accomplishment was sheer accident. What does this tell you about how the world views science and scientists?
GMD
I'm pretty sure the media has mentioned this, beyond those two media links you already posted, I mean. The issue has been debated since the first Patriot experiences during the Gulf War.
I guess I'll have to take your word for it but I think all the mass media has done is "mention" it. Pretty much everyone I tell about the failure of patriots is either in shock or replies with "That's not true! I know they work! I saw them destroying scuds on CNN!"
It certainly isn't easy to do, and there may be better ways to accomplish the same goal or things more worthy of our limited resources, but to claim that it's somehow physically impossible is both disingenuous and incorrect.
I never said that it was physically impossible. Four minutes before your post I made a reply to another's comments. I realize that you probably didn't get to see my 2nd post before posting yours. So at the risk of being modded Redundant, here's my answer:
"My comment about the Patriot failure being a bad sign for our upcoming missle defense shield was to point out that if we can't hit relatively-slow-flying scuds, how are we possibly going to hit speedy ICBMs? We haven't even solved the theatre ballistic missle problem yet. So we're years away from being able to intercept WMD-bearing ICBMs."
GMD
I'm sorry you didn't find either link I provided to be convincing. There are many other sources of info. I suggested (and still do suggest) that interested readers do their own web search.
Dropping "debris" is a bad thing, and it's only a matter of time before doing so results in an uncorrectable failure of the missiles flight aerodynamics. Why weren't most of them failing earlier?
If your point is that a missle so unreliable doesn't make a good miliary weapon, I completely agree. The Iraqis were desperate to increase the range of the scuds and simply took the missles apart, stuck in some more fuel, and tried to put them back together. I doubt they tested the modifications thoroughly. Scuds in general are thought to be "joke" weapons. Most military planners felt this way prior to the Gulf War and had so little respect for the scuds that they didn't bother to factor search-and-destroy missions into their planning. Unfortunately the scuds, while poor military weapons, are reasonably good terror weapons. They have crap accuracy but can hit an Israeli city well enough. When the problem became apparent, the US had to divert significant aerial resources to search-and-destroy missions. So, in a way, the laughable scud actually was a successful weapon, if you consider that terror was Saddam's goal.
Even if the patriots did fail, why would that have grave implications for our anti ballistic missile shield? SCUDs are cruise missiles, not ballistic missiles.
As others have already pointed out, your statement is in error. Scuds are certainly not sophisticated cruise missles. My comment about the Patriot failure being a bad sign for our upcoming missle defense shield was to point out that if we can't hit relatively-slow-flying scuds, how are we possibly going to hit speedy ICBMs? We haven't even solved the theatre ballistic missle problem yet. So we're years away from being able to intercept WMD-bearing ICBMs.
GMD
I don't understand why there are spaces in the URLs I wrote in my message, but here they are, sans spaces:
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/docops/rp911024.ht m
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1997/09/08/opin/l etters.1.html
Note: I am NOT a regular reader of the Christian Science Monitor. I included that link because the author is from MIT. And before you mod my previous post as off-topic, I'm just pointing out that it's easy to dismiss something as a software bug. It's much harder to do some real thinking and make sure that the concept is valid to begin with.
GMD
Don't take my word for it. Do a web search and see for yourself. Here are some references to get you started:
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/docops/rp911024.ht m
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1997/09/08/opin/l etters.1.html
GMD
Once they lost Connan, they started steadily going downhill.
I agree with you except I would replace "steadily" with "rapidly". It was painful enough to watch one of my favorite shows go from brilliant to awful but I finally decided to switch the TV off on the episode where I&S Corp decides to change The Itchy & Scratchy Show (was that the Poochy the Dog episode?). Near the end, Lisa tells the animators that there isn't anything "wrong" with Itchy & Scratchy, the reason their ratings are down is because people have gotten used to such great programming or some such nonesense. She goes on to say that the fans should be thankful that Itchy & Scratchy has been great for so many years. That speech was obviously directed towards fans of the Simpsons who were posting negative comments about the shows on the Internet. Rather than listening to the feedback from their most loyal fans, the people running The Simpsons decided to have Lisa berate the viewers! I thought that was too offensive and decided that there was no longer any hope that The Simpsons would realize they were making a mistake with their new direction.
So I gave up hope that the Simpsons would return to greatness a long time ago...
GMD
So, if you separate the Jar Jar "design" from the actual character (admitted it's very hard), he's a pretty cool looking character.
He might look okay when he's standing still but his movements all seemed very unnatural to me. He almost seems like a rubbery, elastic creature in the movie. His walk is not smooth, his motions are not very crisp. I remember thinking to myself that "that frog-dude must have tendons of steel" to avoid being constantly injured just from everyday motions. Everyone ooh-ed and ahh-ed about the fact that Lucas was able to make a 100% computer-animated character fit in with the movie. But for me, it was just one more example why CGI should be limited to non-lifeform effects.
GMD
Thanks for asking this question. I, myself, was wondering how he was doing. You are correct that those of us who don't live in MN never hear how Ventura is doing unless it's shocking. I was disappointed to hear so many here describe that he's acting like a wildman. When he got elected, I was hoping that this was a man who you could trust to be honest and straightforward. I disregarded all the ex-wrestler, ex-moviestar criticism as elitist crap and hoped that he was a "man of the people" dispite his freakish appearance. Apparently that is not the case.
Making the assumption that most in MN see Ventura in the same light that the above slashdotters do, I submit that this videogame is a BAD idea for him. It sounds like he needs to project a more responsible, serious public image. Putting out a videogame starring him is inconsistent with that goal. If his constitutents feel he is "throwing a tantrum" as one slashdotter put it, he needs to do some serious "growing up" in the public eye. Most people do view videogames as fluff and would not take his appearance in such as a sign of maturity.
One last point, and this is somewhat off-topic. I admit that I don't know very much about Ventura. But in his book he mentions somewhere (so I've been told) that he makes the statement that he finds athesists to be decent, hardworking people. For most of us here on slashdot, this is an obvious statement. But when was the last time you heard a politician saying something like this? Probably never. Most politicians have no qualms about bashing the non-religious in public forums. I'm not saying that Ventura's maturity to recognize non-religious peoples as decent should excuse the screw-ups he's apparently made in office. But it's something to keep in mind. It's going to be a very long time before we hear another politician come out and openly support non-religious people.
GMD
I agree with you and would like to add that license plates don't have to symbolize some proud moment or accomplishment. I see a lot of comments here along the lines of "can't Nevada find something else to be proud of?" Pride is irrelevant. The tests are something that happened and involved their state. It's a piece of history. Therefore it's worth putting on a license plate. There's a lot of postal stamps that simply represent history without trying to make some kind of "pride" statement.
And the fact that the opposition to the license plates seems to love citing the current Yucca Mountain plan is annoying to me. That's confusing two different issues. If you're against nuclear weapons, fine. If you're against nuclear energy and the waste produced, fine. But don't start mixing the two issues. I understand that many of the people against the weapons are against the storage facility as well. But the plates commerate the weapons and the testing -- not nuclear energy. The objectors should keep their objections focused on the correct issue. To not do so muddles their argument and allows people (such as myself) to dismiss them as uninformed anti-nuke-reactionists.
GMD
Who said anythign about the Pentagon? I'm talking about global government.
No, I know you didn't say anything about the Pentagon. Most of my comment was directed towards the article and not your post. Sorry for the confusion.
Here's your link [infowars.com]
Aw, come on, Man. Can't you give us a link to the actual article you read/heard this from? I'm not gonna sift through 10+ articles to try to find a statistic that I highly doubt in the first place. No offense NickRob, but you should really try to make it easy for your fellow /. readers.
GMD
"In a post-9/11 and post-Columbine era, nanotech is one of the most significant issues of our time, second only to globalism. Thanks to the myopic media, most Americans do not grasp the ways in which this new technology is changing the world, or the degree in which such technology is being subverted by opportunistic, short-sighted politicians."
Ah well, you guys can fill in the rest of this...
GMD
The UN has mentioned that idealy 80% of the world's population would be killed.
Do you have some kind of reference for this statistic or are you just scare-mongering? When you post something far-fetched like that you should include a hyperlink to some corroborating evidence on the web.
From my perspective the entire article by Reynolds was largely hype and scare-mongering. He makes references to rumors and whispers of a military crackdown on nanotech but never mentions where he's getting this stuff from. For all I know, he could have overheard a bunch of tie-dye shirt wearing hippies down at the local coffee-shop/pseudo-intellectual-hangout.
That having been said, I ask is it even possible for the government to suppress something as big as nanotech? A recent issue of Scientific American had a multi-article feature on nanotech and the possible uses. It just seems that this is going to be too big and wide-ranging for even the Pentagon to be able to control. Yeah, he cites some examples in past history of how militaries have tried to suppress "essential" technologies but things are different now. It was easier in "the old days" for the government to control information. With the amount of free-flowing data that we have today I doubt that the government would be able to do a very good job of controlling any exciting new technology. Yes, I understand the important role the Pentagon plays in determining what research gets done. But these people aren't idiots. They realize the best way for the US to gain the lead in nanotech is to just let scientists run for awhile. Maybe in the future they'll try to steer the direction of research. But until I start seeing some evidence of this, I disregard Reynolds and all the rest as revving up the hype machine
GMD
I wouldn't even go as far as to say "ignorant". Getting hit with a virus can happen to anyone under the right circumstances. I goofed the other day and opened a message in Outlook Express (I turned off the preview pane) and almost got hit with a virus. Norton AntiVirus caught it so it didn't do any damage. I'm usually careful about messages from people I don't know and I certainly never click on attachments. It was just that I had a bunch of emails to go through and was careless in opening each one without thinking. I don't think that qualifies me as stupid -- we all have our momentary goofs. Spend enough time on a computer and everyone makes a mistake sooner or later.
I suppose you could argue that because I've set up LiveUpdate! to run on my desktop every damn day that I'm protecting myself but this could have easily happened to a laptop that doesn't run LiveUpdate every day. Or maybe I get hit with a virus the day it hits the web (before my LiveUpdate! runs and I get the virus definition).
GMD
I confess that HCI does not hold much interest for me personally but I would like to see a very simple "popular science" treatment of what types of HCIs are being considered for future generations. Not completely content-free but something very basic that would communicate to the public that HCI is an active field of research and that they shouldn't expect that tomorrow's UI will look anything like today's. The public at large thinks that the way we interact with computers today is representative of how we will tomorrow as well and so parents are forking over big bucks to make sure their kids get "computer training". It always breaks my heart whenever I see one of those news stories where they interview some low-income single-mother-of-three who is wasting good money on computer classes for her 10 year old kids. She makes the sacrifice because she thinks she's giving her kids a head-start on the supposedly-valuable computer skills they'll need to compete in the job market. What she doesn't realize is that by the time her kids enter the workforce, most of the stuff her kids learned will be obsolete.
A book that makes parents think twice about the value of modern-day computer "training" and applicability to future systems is seriously needed, in my view.
GMD
I love the Star Wars movies with a great passion, but Lucas is, basically, a consumer whore.
I'll believe it when I see it...
I happen to share your opinion about Lucas but it's for exactly this reason that I'm willing to entertain the notion that Lucas may indeed have gotten the message that TPM sucked. My personal theory is that Lucas doesn't care about the Star Wars story anymore and that he's using the movies now to finance CGI technology improvements. And a large portion of his money comes from merchandising. So he has to pay attention to the criticism. He might believe in his heart that TPM was a great film and that everyone who didn't like it is an idiot. But because all "those idiots" didn't buy as many Jar-Jar ties as he hoped, I think he has to make a more grown-up film, whether he wants to or not! Again, this relies on my theory that Lucas doesn't really care about the movies -- he's just using them to finance his true love of CGI.
GMD
The show also delves into the complex relationship between the gaming community and Hollywood. Comparing film posters, screenings, and playable versions of franchises like James Bond and Final Fantasy, it becomes clear that what makes a good game doesn't always make a good film and vice versa (think Tomb Raider).
Well I guess that's true but I think a lot of that is just Hollywood being lazy and not putting any real effort into making a good videogame-based movie. Take Street Fighter for example. The Hollywood movie with Van Damme is beyond awful. But Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie is actually reasonably well done, for what it is. The problem is that Hollywood just doesn't have respect for the gaming industry yet. They realize there's tons of money floating around but they don't recognize games as anything more than flashing lights and crazy sounds. I would argue that there SHOULD be a "complex relationship between the gaming community and Hollywood" but that's still hasn't happened yet. Ideally, a videogame-based movie would develop the characters to a degree that can't be done in a videogame. This, in turn, would make the game more interesting and complex than the original designers ever intended.
Just my two cents...
GMD
Fair enough. My mistake.
About some professionals being very good: I never said they weren't. See my other reply to this thread.
No, I know you never said that. What you said is that amateurs care more about their work than professionals. And I'm calling that into question. As I said before, I know some professionals (not me) who are in love with their jobs. I don't see how you can state that amateurs "care more" than professionals.
GMD
> I'm convinced that amateurs are usually better at most things than professionals, for the simple reason that they care more.
> As an example: I write professionally. This is a Friday afternoon -- my productivity level is dropping toward zero. But I am taking the time to make (semi-)intelligent comments on slashdot. Why? Because at slashdot, I'm an amateur. I'm in this because I feel like it, not because I'm being paid to do it.
At first I thought your first statement was somewhat interesting but on second thought, I think you haven't given it a second thought! First of all, I know a lot of professionals who care a hell of a lot about their job -- to the point where they put in unpaid overtime. Second, your example isn't very good. You didn't specify exactly what kind of code you are writing but I would wager that the Slashdot forum stimulates your thinking in new ways more often than your job does. Again, I'm stepping out on a limb here but I'm guessing that you're probably working on some software project that will take weeks or months of the same kind of work to complete. In comparison, Slashdot changes quite a bit from day to day. The fact that your productivity drops on Friday seems to indicate that you are looking for a change (i.e., the weekend).
> OT: perhaps that's why Taco et al are so unproductive at their jobs? Because it is just "a job" for them? Hmmm... interesting concept.
I was going to make a Katz joke here but I think just dropping his name is joke enough...
GMD
All the crap they did to Worf was just too much! The Empire is better off without them.
i must admit i'll kinda miss the klingon-cleavage of Lursa, tho...
GMD
I agree with most of your statement but I think the scientific community can continue with BOTH opinions rather than having to choose. Yes, we need to do research on alternative medicine. It's possible that there is really something to some of it. If any successes are due to the plecibo effect, that that is useful information also.
But these studies are going to take years. While we're waiting for the results, we need to be vocal about your opinion #1. People who are sick are quite desperate and lack the understanding of why these therapies are not mainstream/accepted. People always hope to find some kind of "mystery" cure to their problems. I think it's part of the American culture that's closely tied to conpiracy theories. We need to explain to people that when they take alternative medicine, they're taking a big risk. Most people I talk to usually try alternative medicine "because I don't have anything to lose!" Wrong-o! Just because something is billed as "natural" doesn't mean it's safe. If you eat a couple of toadstools, I guarantee you won't be feeling too hot!
I don't get upset at people who try alternative medicine anymore, or even those who encourage friends and strangers to try it. I'm upset at alternative medicine supporters for refusing to do high-quality scientific studies and I'm upset at the mainstream medical establishment for refusing to publically explain why these therapies are not accepted.
GMD