Are any of you under 30? (Not that I am!) That was a great show in its day, but is it even on cable anywhere in the US (or in the world, for that matter)?
I don't know what about the Gaia hypothesis, beyond the above statement, isn't flawed; and the above statement isn't well written, because I can't imagine when modern science would have found such a statement controversial.
The posting to which I responded held up the notion that human beings are a kind of "AIDS virus" on poor planet Earth. This is just the kind of nonsense I'm talking about: Gaia as a means of awing human beings into accepting some kind of self-sacrificial stewardship of "the planet" -- a stewardship under the direction of those who can divine Mother Earth's goal of "terrestrial harmony."
If you have the chance, I'd love to hear about the so-called "half-truths" in which Ayn Rand submersed herself. I promise to pay "close attention."
I can't remember who said that Gaia (the planet Earth considered a complex living entity) has a form of AIDS disease that's running amok and depleting its resources from within, and it's called Humanity.
Some freak no doubt!
Seriously, all of that New Age, man-hating "philosophy" is a lot of garbage. There is no "planet Earth" existing as a complex living organism; there is no "great plan"; there is no "natural harmony." Things simply are what they are. Existence is just that, and there is nothing more to be said about it, howsoever groovy it may seem to be mesmerized by "Mother Nature."
There's no reason to feel one has to apologize for being human and living on this Earth.
No, I'm sorry, but good ideas, unlike fish, do not lose their "freshness." Jefferson's quote is backed by the principal of liberty -- an eternal condition necessary for man's proper existence and moral life.
It's only a free society that deserves to survive, and the more free it is the more it deserves its perpetuation. No one in his right mind is in love with someplace simply because of its geographical location or the fact that he was born there. This country is worth saving only if it remains free! To paraphrase another founder: Give this country liberty, or give it death!
Can the US survive as a free society when threatened by the enemy you describe? Of course it can. It can survive by bringing the war to the enemy. It won't survive as the "land of the free" however by bringing the war to the people of the United States.
The great fault of the war on terrorism -- apart from the attack on liberty here at home -- has been the half-handed nature with which we have gone after terrorism and the countries who back it.
We should instead be vigorously and viciously exterminating terrorists, their training camps, and breaking up their schools which indoctrinate the young. We should be occupying any country we take over in the same manner in which we initially occupied Japan: as victors who will now make the rules, rather than as "liberators" with our "so sorry to inconvenience you with our presence; we'll be leaving shortly" nonsense.
Moreover, we should be denying these countries the money they've been earning and using against us. We should immediately begin off-shore drilling all around the United States, the drilling of Alaska, and so forth, and repeal the ban on building nuclear reactors. Damn the caribou and the spotted owls! (And while I'm at it, damn those who think we should be waiting for the bus instead of driving, and turning our heat down to 64 degrees in the winter.)
What the US should offer to all countries is peaceful trade. When some decide that the US is a "devil" because our women dance half naked on MTV, and our children talk back to their parents and marry whomever they want -- fuck them! Let them live in some sort of arrested middle ages; but when they decide that we can no longer live in peace, there is only one proper response any self-respecting free country can make.
You don't necessarily need to run to be a predator. You just need to move (in whatever way) faster than your prey.
You also don't need to be faster than a predator to avoid becoming its next meal, which reminds me of a joke about two people being chased by a bear: "The trick isn't being able to outrun the bear; the trick is being able to outrun the other guy!"
I made the faux pas of not scrolling down far enough and posted the same thing six minutes after you. I think the above sentiment describes the situation perfectly.
Blame Jimmy Stewart, I suppose. But, his stuttering is so intertwined with his folksy, everyman style of acting that it's impossible to imagine him without it. The rest are just pale imitations.
I agree! The Visitor I refer to as the "Father's Day episode." That's a terrific, very human story that only science fiction can deliver. To me, that's the hallmark of great science fiction (and fantasy): to explore a facet of being human that rings true, but could not happen in the "real world." That's my favorite episode.
Up there with The Visitor, are two episodes worth mentioning, both featuring Miles (the engineer) as the protagonist. The first is sort of a reverse Rip Van Winkle, where Miles is punished as a criminal by some alien race and forced to serve an accelerated prison term of 20 years. In real time it lasts 6 hours, but mentally he comes out a changed man who has suffered from imprisonment and must reintegrate with his family and friends who haven't changed at all. The second episode is when Miles and Keiko's (his wife) daughter is lost in some kind of alternate time and is returned to them as a teen who has spent the last 10 years living as a wilding.
Deep Space Nine is great Star Trek and great science fiction television!
I agree! To take what I think is a perfect example, the real breakout character on Voyager was Robert Picardo (the doctor). Here was someone capable of over-the-top acting -- just like Worf, just like Picard, just like Sisko, just Kirk.
To tell you the truth, I'm sick of all these "modern style" actors who think every intense emotion should be conveyed either by tense whispers or hoarse shouting. Give me someone with a real stage voice -- an instrument -- any day over these childish actors.
DS9 had the most human stories of all, and is in many ways the most original of all the shows following TOS. The scripts were terrific: well written and thought provoking; and the acting was most of the time really quite good.
Microsoft's tools are a Trojan horse (in the original sense of the term). Certainly, there are many above-standard, thoughtful developers for the Windows platform. What I'm talking about are the Web applications -- meant for the public -- that use proprietary Javascript hooks and other IE "features" which more or less break on anything but Windows-IE. It's the developers of these applications using the "features" built into Microsoft's tools, operating system, and browser that undermine non-Microsoft platforms.
The public -- including the schools and companies that purchase these applications -- is sent the subtle message that "you really need Windows and IE; other platforms can't seem to handle it." In their minds it's the other platforms with the problem.
Wait until AXML and the other new wave of "goodies" from Redmond come out. That's when the "fun" will really begin.
Just as they tried to do with Java, Javascript, and to some degree HTML, Microsoft will do the same with the Internet at large. With the installed base they have, they rule. Write your Web applications to conform to standards; but if they don't conform to Internet Explorer's quirks, you're in trouble. The average user will think something is wrong with you.
Look at some of the Web sites or Web applications out there that are developed with Microsoft's tools. What I mean is, look at them with a browser other than IE, or a platform other than Windows. I think we've all seen where the substandard, Microsoft-Kool-Aid-drinking developer has thoughtlessly developed with Microsoft's tools, leaving the application broken for non-Windows/non-IE platforms. Hell, I'm sure such developers don't even test them on anything else but Windows-IE. In there minds, Windows and Internet Explorer is "everybody."
Microsoft absolutely counts on this behavior and how it makes anything but the Windows-IE combination look bad. They'll be sure to give the world more of the same with any "solutions" they concoct in the the future.
Microsoft's next generation of development tools and languages may run on the 'Net, and profess to work with any browser or platform; the practical truth of the matter will be different, however. The will again corral a herd of substandard developers within their API's and development tools, and send them stampeding over the World Wide Web to trample all other platforms and browswers.
You're right. "Stick-to-it-iveness" is just salesman-speak. It's the kind of nonsense business people come up with all the time -- making up words, or misusing words. (Take, for example, paradigm; or, a recent classified ad I saw: "Excite your career!")
Please -- give us all a break from that kind of nonsense!
Because only "nuttily suspicious" "freak" would be upset to find out there was voting fraud!!!
Here in the U.S. today is Memorial Day, the day we remember all the "nutty freaks" who fought and died for our country -- very many of whom fought to protect our freedoms. Some, in fact, even died to ensure the right to vote for those that had been denied.
There's a kind of haughty cynicism among those who write opinions like that in the NYT op-ed.
You make a good point, but let me point out that there are already "realistic and honest depictions." Take for example All Quiet on the Western Front. This book however proved itself to be too realistic and educational for some.
In the times before a country goes to war that book and others like it have been censored by governments worrying that such depictions might distract the populace -- especially the young -- from all the propagandizing and patriotic ferver the government is trying to inculcate in its future soldiers.
I wonder if some countries might at some time start censoring realistic video games for the same reason. It'll be books like the above, movies like Saving Private Ryan, and video games like you describe that will no doubt be censored.
Well, I'm glad I posted, because I'm glad to read your response. Can I ask, if you're running it on Linux, what distribution? I run Debian (and alternately RedHat), and I'm wondering if the Debian package is just too old (I'm running stable).
I am now (again) interested in giving it a try. I would love to be able to use it to develop Linux apps.
[I]n the beginning of the first edition's Java chapter, Hillegass basically says this about programming Cocoa using Java: "DON'T."
I was browsing the second edition at a bookstore (I own the first edition), and the the Java chapter seems to be replaced with a chapter on GnuStep. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it seems he basically has the same advice, saying something about GnuStep being announced 10 years ago and still not at a 1.0 version, and also being both difficult to install and a bit buggy.
I think he puts these chapters in his book only to answer the question, "I wonder what Hillegass thinks about coding in such-and-such."
You've absolutely hit on the head what the original Star Trek was about and why especially the character of Captain Kirk still lives on in popular culture: he's the guy you want to be.
Kirk is right up there with James Bond, Rocky and Rambo (though those last two are a little dumb to my taste, Zorro, and John Wayne. Kirk is the image of a hero.
The problem with the new series (and Voyager) is when I ask myself who would I want to be, I have no answer. I'm not sure anyone else does either.
I guess Sun deserves what it gets, but I think the reviewer was a bit irresponsible. Perhaps he had a deadline and couldn't wait around for replacement media (assuming that you still couldn't rule out defective media) or for Sun support to resolve the issue. I think however that it would have been a much more useful review if the reader found out exactly why the reviewer couldn't get it installed on all but one machine and couldn't get it to run on the machine on which it did install.
I'm left wondering if it wasn't in fact defective media, and just how bad Sun's support is: meaning, what does it take to get a problem resolved.
For what it's worth, I remember some years ago attending a paper conference for undergraduate papers in history. One person gave a paper on this author, specifically How the Irish Saved Civilization. The gist of the paper, and the discussion afterwards (which included professors), was that this author is more about selling books than writing good history.
The criticism went as follows. Pick an affluent ethnic group in a major book market, and pander to them, writing about how great they are. For example, think of all the Irish in the area of Boston and New York (major book markets), pick up your pen, and start writing. After that success, try the Jews.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
I actually haven't read any of his books (and for the record, I've nothing against either the Irish or the Jews!), I just remembered this criticism of the author and wanted to know from those who feel themselves capable of commenting whether this criticism holds water or not.
Slashdot Mirror
Are any of you under 30? (Not that I am!) That was a great show in its day, but is it even on cable anywhere in the US (or in the world, for that matter)?
I don't know what about the Gaia hypothesis, beyond the above statement, isn't flawed; and the above statement isn't well written, because I can't imagine when modern science would have found such a statement controversial.
The posting to which I responded held up the notion that human beings are a kind of "AIDS virus" on poor planet Earth. This is just the kind of nonsense I'm talking about: Gaia as a means of awing human beings into accepting some kind of self-sacrificial stewardship of "the planet" -- a stewardship under the direction of those who can divine Mother Earth's goal of "terrestrial harmony."
If you have the chance, I'd love to hear about the so-called "half-truths" in which Ayn Rand submersed herself. I promise to pay "close attention."
Well, you'd better be good, for goodness sake, because I hear your new neighbor is the nosy type.
Some freak no doubt!
Seriously, all of that New Age, man-hating "philosophy" is a lot of garbage. There is no "planet Earth" existing as a complex living organism; there is no "great plan"; there is no "natural harmony." Things simply are what they are. Existence is just that, and there is nothing more to be said about it, howsoever groovy it may seem to be mesmerized by "Mother Nature."
There's no reason to feel one has to apologize for being human and living on this Earth.
Some people turn violently ill when it comes time to compose a resume!
No, I'm sorry, but good ideas, unlike fish, do not lose their "freshness." Jefferson's quote is backed by the principal of liberty -- an eternal condition necessary for man's proper existence and moral life.
It's only a free society that deserves to survive, and the more free it is the more it deserves its perpetuation. No one in his right mind is in love with someplace simply because of its geographical location or the fact that he was born there. This country is worth saving only if it remains free! To paraphrase another founder: Give this country liberty, or give it death!
Can the US survive as a free society when threatened by the enemy you describe? Of course it can. It can survive by bringing the war to the enemy. It won't survive as the "land of the free" however by bringing the war to the people of the United States.
The great fault of the war on terrorism -- apart from the attack on liberty here at home -- has been the half-handed nature with which we have gone after terrorism and the countries who back it.
We should instead be vigorously and viciously exterminating terrorists, their training camps, and breaking up their schools which indoctrinate the young. We should be occupying any country we take over in the same manner in which we initially occupied Japan: as victors who will now make the rules, rather than as "liberators" with our "so sorry to inconvenience you with our presence; we'll be leaving shortly" nonsense.Moreover, we should be denying these countries the money they've been earning and using against us. We should immediately begin off-shore drilling all around the United States, the drilling of Alaska, and so forth, and repeal the ban on building nuclear reactors. Damn the caribou and the spotted owls! (And while I'm at it, damn those who think we should be waiting for the bus instead of driving, and turning our heat down to 64 degrees in the winter.)
What the US should offer to all countries is peaceful trade. When some decide that the US is a "devil" because our women dance half naked on MTV, and our children talk back to their parents and marry whomever they want -- fuck them! Let them live in some sort of arrested middle ages; but when they decide that we can no longer live in peace, there is only one proper response any self-respecting free country can make.
Curtailing our liberty isn't it.
You also don't need to be faster than a predator to avoid becoming its next meal, which reminds me of a joke about two people being chased by a bear: "The trick isn't being able to outrun the bear; the trick is being able to outrun the other guy!"
I made the faux pas of not scrolling down far enough and posted the same thing six minutes after you. I think the above sentiment describes the situation perfectly.
Any landing you can walk away from is a good one!
Blame Jimmy Stewart, I suppose. But, his stuttering is so intertwined with his folksy, everyman style of acting that it's impossible to imagine him without it. The rest are just pale imitations.
I agree! The Visitor I refer to as the "Father's Day episode." That's a terrific, very human story that only science fiction can deliver. To me, that's the hallmark of great science fiction (and fantasy): to explore a facet of being human that rings true, but could not happen in the "real world." That's my favorite episode.
Up there with The Visitor, are two episodes worth mentioning, both featuring Miles (the engineer) as the protagonist. The first is sort of a reverse Rip Van Winkle, where Miles is punished as a criminal by some alien race and forced to serve an accelerated prison term of 20 years. In real time it lasts 6 hours, but mentally he comes out a changed man who has suffered from imprisonment and must reintegrate with his family and friends who haven't changed at all. The second episode is when Miles and Keiko's (his wife) daughter is lost in some kind of alternate time and is returned to them as a teen who has spent the last 10 years living as a wilding.
Deep Space Nine is great Star Trek and great science fiction television!
I agree! To take what I think is a perfect example, the real breakout character on Voyager was Robert Picardo (the doctor). Here was someone capable of over-the-top acting -- just like Worf, just like Picard, just like Sisko, just Kirk.
To tell you the truth, I'm sick of all these "modern style" actors who think every intense emotion should be conveyed either by tense whispers or hoarse shouting. Give me someone with a real stage voice -- an instrument -- any day over these childish actors.
DS9 had the most human stories of all, and is in many ways the most original of all the shows following TOS. The scripts were terrific: well written and thought provoking; and the acting was most of the time really quite good.
I'm with you -- it's the best of all.
Microsoft's tools are a Trojan horse (in the original sense of the term). Certainly, there are many above-standard, thoughtful developers for the Windows platform. What I'm talking about are the Web applications -- meant for the public -- that use proprietary Javascript hooks and other IE "features" which more or less break on anything but Windows-IE. It's the developers of these applications using the "features" built into Microsoft's tools, operating system, and browser that undermine non-Microsoft platforms.
The public -- including the schools and companies that purchase these applications -- is sent the subtle message that "you really need Windows and IE; other platforms can't seem to handle it." In their minds it's the other platforms with the problem.
Wait until AXML and the other new wave of "goodies" from Redmond come out. That's when the "fun" will really begin.
Just as they tried to do with Java, Javascript, and to some degree HTML, Microsoft will do the same with the Internet at large. With the installed base they have, they rule. Write your Web applications to conform to standards; but if they don't conform to Internet Explorer's quirks, you're in trouble. The average user will think something is wrong with you.
Look at some of the Web sites or Web applications out there that are developed with Microsoft's tools. What I mean is, look at them with a browser other than IE, or a platform other than Windows. I think we've all seen where the substandard, Microsoft-Kool-Aid-drinking developer has thoughtlessly developed with Microsoft's tools, leaving the application broken for non-Windows/non-IE platforms. Hell, I'm sure such developers don't even test them on anything else but Windows-IE. In there minds, Windows and Internet Explorer is "everybody."
Microsoft absolutely counts on this behavior and how it makes anything but the Windows-IE combination look bad. They'll be sure to give the world more of the same with any "solutions" they concoct in the the future.
Microsoft's next generation of development tools and languages may run on the 'Net, and profess to work with any browser or platform; the practical truth of the matter will be different, however. The will again corral a herd of substandard developers within their API's and development tools, and send them stampeding over the World Wide Web to trample all other platforms and browswers.
You're right. "Stick-to-it-iveness" is just salesman-speak. It's the kind of nonsense business people come up with all the time -- making up words, or misusing words. (Take, for example, paradigm; or, a recent classified ad I saw: "Excite your career!")
Please -- give us all a break from that kind of nonsense!
Because only "nuttily suspicious" "freak" would be upset to find out there was voting fraud!!!
Here in the U.S. today is Memorial Day, the day we remember all the "nutty freaks" who fought and died for our country -- very many of whom fought to protect our freedoms. Some, in fact, even died to ensure the right to vote for those that had been denied.
There's a kind of haughty cynicism among those who write opinions like that in the NYT op-ed.
You make a good point, but let me point out that there are already "realistic and honest depictions." Take for example All Quiet on the Western Front. This book however proved itself to be too realistic and educational for some.
In the times before a country goes to war that book and others like it have been censored by governments worrying that such depictions might distract the populace -- especially the young -- from all the propagandizing and patriotic ferver the government is trying to inculcate in its future soldiers.
I wonder if some countries might at some time start censoring realistic video games for the same reason. It'll be books like the above, movies like Saving Private Ryan, and video games like you describe that will no doubt be censored.
Well, I'm glad I posted, because I'm glad to read your response. Can I ask, if you're running it on Linux, what distribution? I run Debian (and alternately RedHat), and I'm wondering if the Debian package is just too old (I'm running stable).
I am now (again) interested in giving it a try. I would love to be able to use it to develop Linux apps.
I was browsing the second edition at a bookstore (I own the first edition), and the the Java chapter seems to be replaced with a chapter on GnuStep. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it seems he basically has the same advice, saying something about GnuStep being announced 10 years ago and still not at a 1.0 version, and also being both difficult to install and a bit buggy.
I think he puts these chapters in his book only to answer the question, "I wonder what Hillegass thinks about coding in such-and-such."
Don't get me wrong -- the Nazis were bad, bad men. But raising the "Nazi bogeyman" at every turn is really the sign of intellectual laziness.
You've absolutely hit on the head what the original Star Trek was about and why especially the character of Captain Kirk still lives on in popular culture: he's the guy you want to be.
Kirk is right up there with James Bond, Rocky and Rambo (though those last two are a little dumb to my taste, Zorro, and John Wayne. Kirk is the image of a hero.The problem with the new series (and Voyager) is when I ask myself who would I want to be, I have no answer. I'm not sure anyone else does either.
I guess Sun deserves what it gets, but I think the reviewer was a bit irresponsible. Perhaps he had a deadline and couldn't wait around for replacement media (assuming that you still couldn't rule out defective media) or for Sun support to resolve the issue. I think however that it would have been a much more useful review if the reader found out exactly why the reviewer couldn't get it installed on all but one machine and couldn't get it to run on the machine on which it did install.
I'm left wondering if it wasn't in fact defective media, and just how bad Sun's support is: meaning, what does it take to get a problem resolved.
For what it's worth, I remember some years ago attending a paper conference for undergraduate papers in history. One person gave a paper on this author, specifically How the Irish Saved Civilization. The gist of the paper, and the discussion afterwards (which included professors), was that this author is more about selling books than writing good history.
The criticism went as follows. Pick an affluent ethnic group in a major book market, and pander to them, writing about how great they are. For example, think of all the Irish in the area of Boston and New York (major book markets), pick up your pen, and start writing. After that success, try the Jews.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
I actually haven't read any of his books (and for the record, I've nothing against either the Irish or the Jews!), I just remembered this criticism of the author and wanted to know from those who feel themselves capable of commenting whether this criticism holds water or not.
Any comments?
Perhaps this is off topic, but that's a bitingly witty signature you have there. Bravo!