The BBC radio play is really a hack job. Entire places and people that are pivotal to the book are removed, and of what remains, the people in the story have different motivations for their actions. It was like a bad 15th-generation copy of something brilliant: You could still make it out from under the smudges and corruption, but it was no longer the same thing at all.
Gibson didn't have cell phones, but he did have something even more interesting:1 When Molly goes to inquire about the Panther Moderns for the Sense/Net run, her contact thumbs a new 'soft into his socket and discovers that she's got "a rider".
Essentially, Molly was wired and Case could sense everything she did while he was plugged into his deck at home. Sure, Gibson had pay phones, but he had some sort of wireless communications channel too for Molly and Case that's better than any cell phone to date.
I read Neuromancer as an impressionable teen. I have to admit that it has been one of the two best books to prepare me for the world of today. Computers, AI, biotechnology, governments, multinationals, political disenfranchisement, reproductive technology, networking, drugs, poverty, wealth, history, and the human condition all spring to mind. I would be a very different person if I had not read this book (again and again) and not one for the better. Thank you William Gibson.
I have an admission to make. Whenever I was sent to work for a few months or more in a foreign country, I would always seek out the local translation of Neuromancer. I already knew the English original down pat, so it was an easy way to get a feel for a new language. So far, this has worked incredibly well in German and in French, both of which have translations. I have not been so successful in Dutch: Is there a Dutch translation? I have the sinking feeling that the Dutch (with their excellent language skills) just read it in the original.
Since Opera 9.5, the browser has a new 'smooth scroll' feature that behaves as you describe. It may even be the default setting on the build you tried.
It's easily disabled from the opera:config page. Do a search for "smooth scrolling" from opera:config, then remove the check from the checkmark box.
Not only can you buy a cheap external monitor, but depending on how the built-in monitor is connected, then you can also remove that too.
If you do this, you are left with a very small form factor computer with integrated keyboard. This is something like a modern-day Commodore 64.
I speak from experience. Circa 2001 my Compaq Armada 1700's monitor broke at work. The "temporary" solution was to hook me up to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Since I preferred the internal touchpad and keyboard, a helpful coworker found a screwdriver and together we removed the monitor.
At first, I doubted that it would boot without the integrated monitor, but it did. The same could be true for you.
From a cursory look around the Internet today, there is a lot of advice on what kind of face mask to wear to help cut down on transmission. Apparently even simple surgical masks are good enough for the flu virus (although better version are also available).
This post is more about eye protection: Next to the nose and mouth, your eyes are the next best method for transmission. Are thick, wrap-around glasses or goggles a good idea? I know that people in Japan with allergies have such equipment. Can anyone provide links to them or their medical efficacy?
On [sic] the long run it makes us more resistant to disease.
Yes, on the species level we will all benefit. Unfortunately for you, depending on your particular genome and how it's currently being expressed, you might be personally in for a little bit of trouble, which is why some people prefer to worry (or panic).
From the article: Flu viruses are named after the two main proteins on their surfaces, abbreviated H and N. They are also differentiated by what animal they usually infect. The H in the new virus comes from pigs, but some of its other genes come from bird and human flu viruses, a mixture that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls "very unusual". ====
When people start making comments like this, I can't help wondering if this was someone's science project that got out into the open instead of a strain that occurred naturally.
True. Their more-informed brethren are watching to see if Win7 can fail harder.
Alas, most people seem to be believing that a few tweaks to the GUI is what OS development is all about. No one seems to question much less get upset about some of the crazy design decisions that are being made in the iceberg of invisible code that is Windows. Just one random example of what I have read online about Win7: Apparently the "record everything" that's been a feature of audio cards for ages now will become a thing of the past. This is DRM expanding its scope from Vista, taking more of my user rights away. Is it just me, or is anyone else freaked out about Operating Systems that *must* phone home and *must* be authenticated by their creators before they run on your computer? As far as I can see, this is setting us up for disaster. What happens when PCs the world over phone Microsoft only to find no one answers? This bothers me greatly and I have lead by personal example. Windows 2000 was the last OS I ever used. Windows XP phoned home and that was the deal breaker. I know I am posting long after the initial rush, but for the three people who read my post, I hope you have enjoyed it. Just remember, there's so much more to an OS than what meets the eye.
Nicholas Dawidoff obviously is some sort of journalist graduate who doesn't know enough science to work on a story like this.
I read the first dozen or so paragraphs and then in frustration skimmed the rest actually looking for something that resembled arguments for or against global warming or climate change. I didn't find them. They're not there.
Instead we get a few quotes about what his conclusions were, a few quotes about how his opponents are wrong, and some meandering anecdotes about his wife and his background as a physicist.
I thought the New York Times knew better than this. This article is a catastrophe. Of course, science education is bad in the U.S., so those that agree with him only need to know his name, and those that disagree with him will reject him out of hand. It's quite disappointing.
Slashdot should have a delay of a few hours on stories like this, to allow people to RTFB before posting. (I promise not to post again until I've followed my own advice.)
Well, Christians have been waiting for about 2000 years for some guy to come back to earth somehow. How many years have the Linux faithful been announcing the immanent Year of the Linux Desktop? Less than 20 years. That's over a factor of 100 less. Go Linux.
I really hope the programmers behind KisMAC are reading this thread.
We MacBook users are really hoping that we can run injections and other advanced features using our built-in network cards now. Until now, all our packets were trash and we couldn't work out the SSID.
Sad days they have been, but now we have reason to be optimistic!
I tried the M2 client when it first came out in Opera. I stuck with it for about a year, hoping that terms like "revolutionary" and "bold re-imagining of e-mail" would actually take hold within my brain. It didn't.
If someone ever wanted a brief summary of M2, I'd say it's like GMail's retarded little brother.
No but they can be handed a monopoly (by another near monopoly). If you bothered to do even a cursory study of Microsoft, you will learn what I experienced first hand in the 1970s: Microsoft DOS was it's second success story. The first was Microsoft BASIC. Seriously, for the early years of Microsoft's existence, they were known as the language company. If you had a new microcomputer, then you were really happy if you got Microsoft BASIC in ROM when you powered up. Microsoft was able to parlay this first success into their success with DOS and then on to the current dual money makers of Windows and Office.
I personally dislike Microsoft software. I think it is unimaginative, poorly-written, bloated, slow, and responsible for holding back personal computer innovation for the last fifteen years. But don't say that Microsoft was handed everything. Give credit where it is due.
We can only hope that people will not promote these plastic-eating bacteria. I sort of like the fact that we have -- other than metals -- a material that has no shelf date. Laptop cases don't decompose right now. I hope I don't live long enough to see a time when they do.
Windows 2000 was Microsoft's best operating system, from an end-user's perspective. There was never any compelling reason to switch to XP for me, which just seemed like Win2K with horrible hacks to get all the legacy Win9x code to run (which some of us didn't miss). All the release of Windows Vista told me was that I am now officially two major Windows revs behind.
Please note that I said that Windows 2000 was the best OS for the end user. If you are a SysAdmin, maybe ActiveDirectory and all those new hidden services are the best thing ever. But for end users, that kind of stuff doesn't matter.
Slashdot Mirror
The BBC radio play is really a hack job. Entire places and people that are pivotal to the book are removed, and of what remains, the people in the story have different motivations for their actions. It was like a bad 15th-generation copy of something brilliant: You could still make it out from under the smudges and corruption, but it was no longer the same thing at all.
Gibson didn't have cell phones, but he did have something even more interesting:1 When Molly goes to inquire about the Panther Moderns for the Sense/Net run, her contact thumbs a new 'soft into his socket and discovers that she's got "a rider".
Essentially, Molly was wired and Case could sense everything she did while he was plugged into his deck at home. Sure, Gibson had pay phones, but he had some sort of wireless communications channel too for Molly and Case that's better than any cell phone to date.
Yes, the reference to memory size in Neuromancer is horribly dated. But I can't think of another case where the book still doesn't seem fresh.
I read Neuromancer as an impressionable teen. I have to admit that it has been one of the two best books to prepare me for the world of today. Computers, AI, biotechnology, governments, multinationals, political disenfranchisement, reproductive technology, networking, drugs, poverty, wealth, history, and the human condition all spring to mind. I would be a very different person if I had not read this book (again and again) and not one for the better. Thank you William Gibson.
I have an admission to make. Whenever I was sent to work for a few months or more in a foreign country, I would always seek out the local translation of Neuromancer. I already knew the English original down pat, so it was an easy way to get a feel for a new language.
So far, this has worked incredibly well in German and in French, both of which have translations. I have not been so successful in Dutch: Is there a Dutch translation? I have the sinking feeling that the Dutch (with their excellent language skills) just read it in the original.
Since Opera 9.5, the browser has a new 'smooth scroll' feature that behaves as you describe. It may even be the default setting on the build you tried.
It's easily disabled from the opera:config page. Do a search for "smooth scrolling" from opera:config, then remove the check from the checkmark box.
Not only can you buy a cheap external monitor, but depending on how the built-in monitor is connected, then you can also remove that too.
If you do this, you are left with a very small form factor computer with integrated keyboard. This is something like a modern-day Commodore 64.
I speak from experience. Circa 2001 my Compaq Armada 1700's monitor broke at work. The "temporary" solution was to hook me up to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Since I preferred the internal touchpad and keyboard, a helpful coworker found a screwdriver and together we removed the monitor.
At first, I doubted that it would boot without the integrated monitor, but it did. The same could be true for you.
From a cursory look around the Internet today, there is a lot of advice on what kind of face mask to wear to help cut down on transmission. Apparently even simple surgical masks are good enough for the flu virus (although better version are also available).
This post is more about eye protection: Next to the nose and mouth, your eyes are the next best method for transmission. Are thick, wrap-around glasses or goggles a good idea? I know that people in Japan with allergies have such equipment. Can anyone provide links to them or their medical efficacy?
On [sic] the long run it makes us more resistant to disease.
Yes, on the species level we will all benefit. Unfortunately for you, depending on your particular genome and how it's currently being expressed, you might be personally in for a little bit of trouble, which is why some people prefer to worry (or panic).
What? This article isn't about a .1 release of your favorite open source software package?
Despite that fact, it really is Slashdot's purview. Biology, migration, politics, computer models, projections, population studies ...
New Scientist Magazine also has a good introductory article about it:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17025-deadly-new-flu-virus-in-us-and-mexico-may-go-pandemic.html
From the article:
Flu viruses are named after the two main proteins on their surfaces, abbreviated H and N. They are also differentiated by what animal they usually infect. The H in the new virus comes from pigs, but some of its other genes come from bird and human flu viruses, a mixture that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls "very unusual".
====
When people start making comments like this, I can't help wondering if this was someone's science project that got out into the open instead of a strain that occurred naturally.
Before this spreads unnecessarily, this would be an ideal time to limit air flight in and out of the Americas.
We as a species are putting everyone at risk by allowing unlimited, unrestricted, near-instantaneous travel from point to point on the globe.
Shipping cargo can continue of course; if the crew get sick en route, they can always be quarantined off the coast of wherever they arrive.
True. Their more-informed brethren are watching to see if Win7 can fail harder.
Alas, most people seem to be believing that a few tweaks to the GUI is what OS development is all about.
No one seems to question much less get upset about some of the crazy design decisions that are being made in the iceberg of invisible code that is Windows.
Just one random example of what I have read online about Win7: Apparently the "record everything" that's been a feature of audio cards for ages now will become a thing of the past. This is DRM expanding its scope from Vista, taking more of my user rights away.
Is it just me, or is anyone else freaked out about Operating Systems that *must* phone home and *must* be authenticated by their creators before they run on your computer?
As far as I can see, this is setting us up for disaster. What happens when PCs the world over phone Microsoft only to find no one answers? This bothers me greatly and I have lead by personal example. Windows 2000 was the last OS I ever used. Windows XP phoned home and that was the deal breaker.
I know I am posting long after the initial rush, but for the three people who read my post, I hope you have enjoyed it. Just remember, there's so much more to an OS than what meets the eye.
Nicholas Dawidoff obviously is some sort of journalist graduate who doesn't know enough science to work on a story like this.
I read the first dozen or so paragraphs and then in frustration skimmed the rest actually looking for something that resembled arguments for or against global warming or climate change. I didn't find them. They're not there.
Instead we get a few quotes about what his conclusions were, a few quotes about how his opponents are wrong, and some meandering anecdotes about his wife and his background as a physicist.
I thought the New York Times knew better than this. This article is a catastrophe. Of course, science education is bad in the U.S., so those that agree with him only need to know his name, and those that disagree with him will reject him out of hand. It's quite disappointing.
Privoxy is powerful, but it's easy to bypass. In a home setting, point your web browser directly to the web instead of pointing it to the proxy.
Slashdot should have a delay of a few hours on stories like this, to allow people to RTFB before posting.
(I promise not to post again until I've followed my own advice.)
Well, Christians have been waiting for about 2000 years for some guy to come back to earth somehow. How many years have the Linux faithful been announcing the immanent Year of the Linux Desktop? Less than 20 years. That's over a factor of 100 less. Go Linux.
I really hope the programmers behind KisMAC are reading this thread.
We MacBook users are really hoping that we can run injections and other advanced features using our built-in network cards now. Until now, all our packets were trash and we couldn't work out the SSID.
Sad days they have been, but now we have reason to be optimistic!
I tried the M2 client when it first came out in Opera. I stuck with it for about a year, hoping that terms like "revolutionary" and "bold re-imagining of e-mail" would actually take hold within my brain. It didn't.
If someone ever wanted a brief summary of M2, I'd say it's like GMail's retarded little brother.
Opera 9.5 broke the "noko" feature in 4chan which forced me to revert to 9.27.
Is noko fixed in Opera 9.6? Does anyone know?
Microsoft was able to parlay this first success into their success with DOS and then on to the current dual money makers of Windows and Office.
I personally dislike Microsoft software. I think it is unimaginative, poorly-written, bloated, slow, and responsible for holding back personal computer innovation for the last fifteen years. But don't say that Microsoft was handed everything. Give credit where it is due.
We can only hope that people will not promote these plastic-eating bacteria. I sort of like the fact that we have -- other than metals -- a material that has no shelf date.
Laptop cases don't decompose right now. I hope I don't live long enough to see a time when they do.
Generally:
Universities do research.
Corporations do design.
You might be pleasantly distracted by the shiny toys that corporations make, but those toys rely on the knowledge gained in university labs.
Windows 2000 was Microsoft's best operating system, from an end-user's perspective. There was never any compelling reason to switch to XP for me, which just seemed like Win2K with horrible hacks to get all the legacy Win9x code to run (which some of us didn't miss). All the release of Windows Vista told me was that I am now officially two major Windows revs behind.
Please note that I said that Windows 2000 was the best OS for the end user. If you are a SysAdmin, maybe ActiveDirectory and all those new hidden services are the best thing ever. But for end users, that kind of stuff doesn't matter.
Really, this is a non-news item. Why waste our time with rumors?
If you read what the people behind Demonoid say, they're not sure what is happening right now.
Just because one site on the Internet decides to post non-sense, Slashdot shouldn't chase after it.