Yes, I agree. Much better. The Zahn books in particular are quite good IMO. Maybe Lucas ought to turn over the franchise to him and let him make some feature films. (Yes, I know, icicles on Beelzebub's nose and all that.)
Screw the final three episodes that Lucas imagined. Let a new writer (an actual sci-fi writer) give us some offshoot films. It's a huge universe. It's a cool universe.
There's a million stories in the naked streets of Coruscant...
I actually went to one of those two schools (albeit a few years ago) and I can tell you a short story.
For two years in the late '80s, the admissions office started looking for more "well rounded" people and not paying so much attention to standardized scores. I'm sure you can see where I'm going here.
It was a dismal failure. These classes performed significantly less well than other classes (as measured by test scores) and the policy was quickly reversed as MIT considered them an embarassment.
I can also tell you that the "introverts" weren't locked away in their dorm rooms. They were everywhere. It's quite a surreal place, actually.
That's not to say that everyone at these schools is a social pariah and that the school "actively" recruits introverts. (So I agree with you.) They just don't have admission policies that might exclude such people (like Stanford does).
The stereotype of the uber-nerd slaving away in a dim industrial basement to the exclusion of showers and any food not found in a vending machine is alive and well there. It's the rule, rather than the exception.
I have been to Stanford and had friends who attended and I think that it's a much more (psychologically) healthy place to go to school. Had I to do it all over again, I probably would have considered Stanford as an option. (I Don't know if they would have considered me an an option!:])
Seriously, I was responding more to the thread than to you. Having been involved in D&D I can say from my own experience that it was the sole social group of many of the people I played with, though not all. For them it was a trap. It can be lighthearted and fun. It can also become an excuse to escape from reality in an unhealthy way.
Yes, if you have no social group then D&D can be a step in the right direction - the people that play D&D are usually quite receptive to new people. That said, I wouldn't recommend it as the way to begin a social life. Each to his own and all that, but I think getting into something that tends less toward fantasy would be a better idea.
On a similar note, I think well-rounded high school students have a much better shot at getting into a good college/university. Colleges don't want pathologically introverted nerds (except maybe for MIT and CalTech). I strongly believe that you greatly increase your chances of getting into a good school if, in addition to good grades and academic achievements, you have music, sports (traditional or non-traditional) and/or non-technical hobbies in your "permanent record".
BTW, that's the first time anyone's ever called me a "well-rounded socialite". Though I know you meant it as a thinly veiled insult, I think I'll take it as a compliment.
I'm sorry, but I personally think that it's funny. I played D&D in high school. Later on I played a RPG called Space Opera which I thought was even cooler. I was on the Knowledge Bowl team. I participated in Model UN. I wrote computer dating software for Valentine's day on an Apple II. I founded the chess club. I was valedictorian of my class. I studied too much and partied not enough. I got accepted into one of the two nerdiest schools in the country and I went.
I also played football, wreslted and went out for track (even though I sucked at it!). I was involved in student council through all of high school and was President of my Senior Class. I partied too much. I was a photographer for yearbook. I played a musical instrument (though not in band). I dated. I married my high school sweetheart. I drove a '67 Camaro which I tricked out myself.
(Whew! Sorry for the resume.)
The point is, to be super smart is NOT ENOUGH. You have to be well rounded to be successful. You have to be able to get along with everyone. The jocks, the stoners, the band folks, the chess club. Proclaiming your social group to be complete when it consists of an elf, a dwarf and two battle gnomes is just deluding yourself (even if you married the elf).
It takes energy to compress hydrogen (or to create a vacuum). The energy you expend to do this translates directly into the buoyancy you will achieve and thus the height you will expend.
In order to recover all of that energy you must transfer ALL of it back into the compression of the hydrogen. This is impossible as there are NO 100% efficient "wind turbines" to recover that energy.
Forget about the fact that the plane glides forward - that's just smoke and mirrors. Look at the simpler case where the "plane" falls straight down and doesn't glide at all then ask yourself if it can recover the energy required to get it back to its original altitude. Obviously it can't.
There's a huge collection that was put out by Activision (Infocom) called Classic Text Adventure Masterpieces of Infocom . They don't publish it any more AFAIK but you can pick it up on ebay for $60 to $80 bucks. It includes:
Arthur: the Quest for Excalibur
Ballyhoo
Beyond Zork
Border Zone
Bureaucracy
Cutthroats
Deadline
Enchanter
Hollywood Hijinx
Infidel
Journey
Leather Goddesses of Phobos
The Lurking Horror
A Mind Forever Voyaging
MoonMist
Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It
Planetfall
Plundered Hearts
Seastalker
Sherlock in the Riddle of the Crown Jewels
Sorcerer
Spellbreaker
Starcross
Stationfall
Suspect
Suspended
Trinity
Wishbringer
The Witness
Zork I
Zork II
Zork III
Zork Zero
You're still missing my point. Maybe a bit too subtle for you?
You said:
...that the set of rules one must play by becomes more and more restricted as you enter into new markets...
and that was what I was challenging. Just because MS is (potentially) found to be a monopoly in Japan does not mean that they will be found to be a monopoly in some other country or that they will change their behavior when penetrating new markets based on any such ruling.
One of the benefits of the new trend towards global companies is that the set of rules one must play by becomes more and more restricted as you enter into new markets.
You imply that just because one country has restrictive (or just different) laws and regulations, that a company must play by these same rules in all other markets. This is just simply not true.
I'm sure MS has enough lawyers to sort out the regulations from one country to the next and is completely capable of playing by more than one set of rules!
We built a fireplace and I wanted something cool for the kids so I took one of the kid-high rocks and drilled a hole in it then epoxied in a brass "peep hole". I put a geode behind the rock and ran some fiber optic cable to it then mortared the whole thing up.
The other ends of the fiber optic cables went to a hidden box which contains the guts of one of these fiber optic Xmas trees (including the spinning color wheel).
Push a secret rock near the peep hole rock and the whole thing turns on - cool crystally color changing happiness. The kids love it. Now on the other side of the fireplace I installed a "peep show" but that's a different story...
Yes, yes. We all know you've built a girl robot for the prom. Haven't we all? But it's not really hacking if you built it yourself. Now can we stay on topic?
While I agree with most of what you said, I do see one difference to the "bridge" analogy and that is fault tolerance.
Bridges are built to be extremely fault tolerant. MechEs and CivEs use safety factors - big ones. Multiple bolts must fail before the structure becomes critical. Adding safety factors in mechanical structures is relatively cheap and easy.
In most software, nearly everything is critical in some way due to the logical step-by-step nature of code execution. It's possible to write good fault tolerant software (i.e. w/ exception handlers) but that's one of the first things to suffer under the deadline as it's very expensive. I've never done a study but I would guess that at least 70% of good code writing is designing for all the non-standard cases!
I think software is a bit closer to a chain than it is to a bridge.
This is all well and good, but I think there are two primary reasons software continues to be buggy:
The first is the intense pressure to get the product to market. This is especially true for custom code, written specifically for one client. They want it fast and cheap and in order to satisfy this desire, code invariably gets released/installed before it's ready. Then the "month of hell" starts as the client starts complaining about bugs, "bugs" and other problems and we bend over backwards to get it right.
As a ISV, we have no choice but to do it this way. If we don't quote the project with this in mind, the client will hire somebody else with a better "can-do attitude".
The second big reason software is buggy is because all the underlying tools (e.g. code bases, code objects,.dlls, etc.) are buggy as hell. I spend more time working around inherent bugs than I do debugging my own code.
Most programmers are perfectly capable of making their own code solid, given enough time.
...you would find the fascism is basically the elevation of the state above all else...
And this is exactly why it drives me crazy to hear Fascists and Nazis labeled as "right-wing radicals" and Communists labeled as "left-wing radicals"! Both Fascists and Communists (as well as Socialists) believe in the total control of the people by the government. Communists just shelac it with the notion of equality. But someone has to force the "redistribution" of wealth. People don't voluntarily give their Beemers to the poor (well, at least not most people).
A right wing radical is a "Libertarian" or even an "Anarchist". In other words, people who believe in very little or no government control.
0506 GMT (12:06 a.m. EST)
After a short loss of signal from the rover, a strong signal is now being received as Opportunity arrives on Mars!
0508 GMT (12:08 a.m. EST)
A good signal is still being received! Unlike the Spirit landing where signal was lost immediately after touchdown, Opportunity continues to talk to Earth.
0508 GMT (12:08 a.m. EST)
Complete joy and relief in Mission Control as Opportunity has landed at Meridiani Planum.
0510 GMT (12:11 a.m. EST)
Former Vice President Al Gore is in Mission Control.
We vicariously travel 300 million miles and spend $400+ million dollars to hit a speck of dust with an 11,000+ MPH bullet to see if, just maybe, we can find a Martian... and then one shows up in mission control!
Zoiks!
Congrats NASA!
Re:Small Scale Death Star II? As opposed to what?
on
Han Solo in Lego Carbonite
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
When I was a little squeaker, my aunt worked at a lego factory. The legos that would fall off the line would be swept up, put in bags, and sold to the employees for next to nothing. I have a whole trunk full of 'em!
They were all mismatched, every color and shape, but they were all just blocks (1s, 2s, 4s, etc.) along with a few of those angled roof blocks and some wheels, the old kind you pushed into the special blocks with holes on the side. I built EVERYTHING with them (except doll furniture).
Later on, I got a police station for Christmas and I was all WTF! (or the analogous six year old phrase). I just couldn't understand what all those little special pieces were for. I built the station once, took out all the basic blocks and threw them in the trunk, then put the kit away and haven't touched it since.
I still have them. My kids love them. And I have no doubt their kids will too!
Well, I know I'm posting this way to late for anyone to actually read it. Hell, the story is almost off the front page. But this must be said.
Introducing the Borg queen, which was done in FC, was what turned the Borg into pussies.
It wasn't Voyager that killed the Borg. It wasn't FC. It was HUGH. Have we all forgotten Hugh?
The entire ST universe is flawed because of one basic premise. It pervaded Voyager to such an extent that I can't watch it at all. And that premise?
"All conflict arises because we don't take the time to understand each other."
The ST universe will not allow anyone or anything to be truly evil. Oh they try, like with the Borg, and for a while they were big, callous and scary. But they just couldn't hold onto the wickedness of it all. It just couldn't be that the Borg were beyond redemption. Let's meet one up close and learn to understand. Let's find Hugh and discover that "Borg are people too". Later on we'll give him a sex change and call him 7 of 9.
Super easy online sign up. In fact, you can sign up any phone number, not just yours, so it's good for when you're feeling bored and vindictive, such as after reading this article.
It can take a few months for it to take effect (it's updated quarterly), but it's significantly reduced the number of calls I get at home.
Slashdot Mirror
Screw the final three episodes that Lucas imagined. Let a new writer (an actual sci-fi writer) give us some offshoot films. It's a huge universe. It's a cool universe.
There's a million stories in the naked streets of Coruscant...
If you're need quick karma, do the following:
1. Post only to new discussions - those with less than 30 comments.
2. Do not reply to main story - instead reply to the first highly modded post.
3. Quote lots of facts or say something political (but keep it loosely on topic and don't use inflammatory statements or you'll get modded a troll).
4. Make your posts long. Long posts are always "Interesting". It's axiomatic.
This will probably get modded Offtopic but since I've got karma to burn and I know how to get it back - I don't think I really care.
spambucket1@DOMAIN.com (for all ecommerce stuff)
webmaster1@DOMAIN.com
admin1@DOMAIN.com
When they get spammed out, I increment the number and the old one goes to the pit forevermore.
Works great. Takes about 6 months for the s/n rato to get too high for an email published on the website.
For two years in the late '80s, the admissions office started looking for more "well rounded" people and not paying so much attention to standardized scores. I'm sure you can see where I'm going here.
It was a dismal failure. These classes performed significantly less well than other classes (as measured by test scores) and the policy was quickly reversed as MIT considered them an embarassment.
I can also tell you that the "introverts" weren't locked away in their dorm rooms. They were everywhere. It's quite a surreal place, actually.
That's not to say that everyone at these schools is a social pariah and that the school "actively" recruits introverts. (So I agree with you.) They just don't have admission policies that might exclude such people (like Stanford does).
The stereotype of the uber-nerd slaving away in a dim industrial basement to the exclusion of showers and any food not found in a vending machine is alive and well there. It's the rule, rather than the exception.
I have been to Stanford and had friends who attended and I think that it's a much more (psychologically) healthy place to go to school. Had I to do it all over again, I probably would have considered Stanford as an option. (I Don't know if they would have considered me an an option! :])
Seriously, I was responding more to the thread than to you. Having been involved in D&D I can say from my own experience that it was the sole social group of many of the people I played with, though not all. For them it was a trap. It can be lighthearted and fun. It can also become an excuse to escape from reality in an unhealthy way.
Yes, if you have no social group then D&D can be a step in the right direction - the people that play D&D are usually quite receptive to new people. That said, I wouldn't recommend it as the way to begin a social life. Each to his own and all that, but I think getting into something that tends less toward fantasy would be a better idea.
On a similar note, I think well-rounded high school students have a much better shot at getting into a good college/university. Colleges don't want pathologically introverted nerds (except maybe for MIT and CalTech). I strongly believe that you greatly increase your chances of getting into a good school if, in addition to good grades and academic achievements, you have music, sports (traditional or non-traditional) and/or non-technical hobbies in your "permanent record".
BTW, that's the first time anyone's ever called me a "well-rounded socialite". Though I know you meant it as a thinly veiled insult, I think I'll take it as a compliment.
I also played football, wreslted and went out for track (even though I sucked at it!). I was involved in student council through all of high school and was President of my Senior Class. I partied too much. I was a photographer for yearbook. I played a musical instrument (though not in band). I dated. I married my high school sweetheart. I drove a '67 Camaro which I tricked out myself.
(Whew! Sorry for the resume.)
The point is, to be super smart is NOT ENOUGH. You have to be well rounded to be successful. You have to be able to get along with everyone. The jocks, the stoners, the band folks, the chess club. Proclaiming your social group to be complete when it consists of an elf, a dwarf and two battle gnomes is just deluding yourself (even if you married the elf).
Ah, yes... documentation. You must not be a programmer! [g]
Nevertheless, I tell the truth. I can't prove it but I can't let you call me a liar either.
Get him into dungeons and dragons. Find a group at a local shop or a campus club that will allow him to join as a newbie.
Most experienced DM's enjoy seeing new players grown and mature while learning and playing the game.
You know, I have a feeling you didn't write that intending to be funny... ...which is funny so I modded you Funny.
Last mod point so now I get to post too!
Funny that.
In order to recover all of that energy you must transfer ALL of it back into the compression of the hydrogen. This is impossible as there are NO 100% efficient "wind turbines" to recover that energy.
Forget about the fact that the plane glides forward - that's just smoke and mirrors. Look at the simpler case where the "plane" falls straight down and doesn't glide at all then ask yourself if it can recover the energy required to get it back to its original altitude. Obviously it can't.
http://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archiveXstarte r s.html
It's got two of the most popular interpreters and about 50 games. It's a great place to start if you want to get back into the IF scene.
I recommend "Curses" as a first start. It's big, has good puzzles and a great dry wit.
Arthur: the Quest for Excalibur
Ballyhoo
Beyond Zork
Border Zone
Bureaucracy
Cutthroats
Deadline
Enchanter
Hollywood Hijinx
Infidel
Journey
Leather Goddesses of Phobos
The Lurking Horror
A Mind Forever Voyaging
MoonMist
Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head or Tail of It
Planetfall
Plundered Hearts
Seastalker
Sherlock in the Riddle of the Crown Jewels
Sorcerer
Spellbreaker
Starcross
Stationfall
Suspect
Suspended
Trinity
Wishbringer
The Witness
Zork I
Zork II
Zork III
Zork Zero
Zork I, II and III are available for free here:
http://www.infocom-if.org/download s/downloads.html
Way to turn a poorly worded cliche into a +5 Insightful post.
My little red karma whore purse is off to you. :]
You said:
and that was what I was challenging. Just because MS is (potentially) found to be a monopoly in Japan does not mean that they will be found to be a monopoly in some other country or that they will change their behavior when penetrating new markets based on any such ruling.
You imply that just because one country has restrictive (or just different) laws and regulations, that a company must play by these same rules in all other markets. This is just simply not true.
I'm sure MS has enough lawyers to sort out the regulations from one country to the next and is completely capable of playing by more than one set of rules!
We built a fireplace and I wanted something cool for the kids so I took one of the kid-high rocks and drilled a hole in it then epoxied in a brass "peep hole". I put a geode behind the rock and ran some fiber optic cable to it then mortared the whole thing up.
The other ends of the fiber optic cables went to a hidden box which contains the guts of one of these fiber optic Xmas trees (including the spinning color wheel).
Push a secret rock near the peep hole rock and the whole thing turns on - cool crystally color changing happiness. The kids love it. Now on the other side of the fireplace I installed a "peep show" but that's a different story...
Yes, yes. We all know you've built a girl robot for the prom. Haven't we all? But it's not really hacking if you built it yourself. Now can we stay on topic?
In fact, it was the first thing I thought of! How will I know whether the email I got was really from the candidate who supposedly sent it?
Bridges are built to be extremely fault tolerant. MechEs and CivEs use safety factors - big ones. Multiple bolts must fail before the structure becomes critical. Adding safety factors in mechanical structures is relatively cheap and easy.
In most software, nearly everything is critical in some way due to the logical step-by-step nature of code execution. It's possible to write good fault tolerant software (i.e. w/ exception handlers) but that's one of the first things to suffer under the deadline as it's very expensive. I've never done a study but I would guess that at least 70% of good code writing is designing for all the non-standard cases!
I think software is a bit closer to a chain than it is to a bridge.
The first is the intense pressure to get the product to market. This is especially true for custom code, written specifically for one client. They want it fast and cheap and in order to satisfy this desire, code invariably gets released/installed before it's ready. Then the "month of hell" starts as the client starts complaining about bugs, "bugs" and other problems and we bend over backwards to get it right.
As a ISV, we have no choice but to do it this way. If we don't quote the project with this in mind, the client will hire somebody else with a better "can-do attitude".
The second big reason software is buggy is because all the underlying tools (e.g. code bases, code objects, .dlls, etc.) are buggy as hell. I spend more time working around inherent bugs than I do debugging my own code.
Most programmers are perfectly capable of making their own code solid, given enough time.
And this is exactly why it drives me crazy to hear Fascists and Nazis labeled as "right-wing radicals" and Communists labeled as "left-wing radicals"! Both Fascists and Communists (as well as Socialists) believe in the total control of the people by the government. Communists just shelac it with the notion of equality. But someone has to force the "redistribution" of wealth. People don't voluntarily give their Beemers to the poor (well, at least not most people).
A right wing radical is a "Libertarian" or even an "Anarchist". In other words, people who believe in very little or no government control.
0506 GMT (12:06 a.m. EST)
After a short loss of signal from the rover, a strong signal is now being received as Opportunity arrives on Mars!
0508 GMT (12:08 a.m. EST)
A good signal is still being received! Unlike the Spirit landing where signal was lost immediately after touchdown, Opportunity continues to talk to Earth.
0508 GMT (12:08 a.m. EST)
Complete joy and relief in Mission Control as Opportunity has landed at Meridiani Planum.
0510 GMT (12:11 a.m. EST)
Former Vice President Al Gore is in Mission Control.
We vicariously travel 300 million miles and spend $400+ million dollars to hit a speck of dust with an 11,000+ MPH bullet to see if, just maybe, we can find a Martian... and then one shows up in mission control!
Zoiks!
Congrats NASA!
They were all mismatched, every color and shape, but they were all just blocks (1s, 2s, 4s, etc.) along with a few of those angled roof blocks and some wheels, the old kind you pushed into the special blocks with holes on the side. I built EVERYTHING with them (except doll furniture).
Later on, I got a police station for Christmas and I was all WTF! (or the analogous six year old phrase). I just couldn't understand what all those little special pieces were for. I built the station once, took out all the basic blocks and threw them in the trunk, then put the kit away and haven't touched it since.
I still have them. My kids love them. And I have no doubt their kids will too!
Well, like... Duh!
Geez! Who doesn't know that?!?! Why even mention it.
Introducing the Borg queen, which was done in FC, was what turned the Borg into pussies.
It wasn't Voyager that killed the Borg. It wasn't FC. It was HUGH. Have we all forgotten Hugh?
The entire ST universe is flawed because of one basic premise. It pervaded Voyager to such an extent that I can't watch it at all. And that premise?
"All conflict arises because we don't take the time to understand each other."
The ST universe will not allow anyone or anything to be truly evil. Oh they try, like with the Borg, and for a while they were big, callous and scary. But they just couldn't hold onto the wickedness of it all. It just couldn't be that the Borg were beyond redemption. Let's meet one up close and learn to understand. Let's find Hugh and discover that "Borg are people too". Later on we'll give him a sex change and call him 7 of 9.
Phhht!
Super easy online sign up. In fact, you can sign up any phone number, not just yours, so it's good for when you're feeling bored and vindictive, such as after reading this article.
It can take a few months for it to take effect (it's updated quarterly), but it's significantly reduced the number of calls I get at home.