I've often thought the same thing, though along slightly different lines.
Someone -- more or less anonymous -- should come up with some kind of protest cartoon involving Mickey Mouse. Preferably, it shouldn't be too hard for moderately artistic people to draw. Then, everyone who cares should sport this cartoon on T-shirts, bumper stickers, and whatever. The design should not be sold; rather, people should reproduce it themselves, or reproduce it and share it with others.
Web pages are a little dicey -- at least at first. You can be tracked and sent cease-and-desist letters. But, shirts and bumper stickers and homemade greeting cards will escape censure.
What I'm really talking about is a grass roots movement. All the "Free Mitnick" graffiti has worn off by now -- it's time to replace it with "Free Mickey!"
Well, there are independent movie theaters around, but you don't find them everywhere. That too, however, may change as distribution changes to some sort of disk-based process (high quality DVD's) or secure Internet delivery over high-speed, commercial lines. The economics of running smaller theaters may become affordable.
From what I've heard, the price of movies has gone up largely because the production studios basically rape the theater owners, who, I've heard, make most of their money at the concession stand.
The future of the film industry is going to be amazing as filmmakers are finally unshackled...
I agree, though I believe it goes far beyond special effects.
A lot of people would point to the "Old Hollywood" as the golden age of movie making, but I believe we are on the threshold of what will be seen as the real golden age.
Movie making, special effects or not, is becoming much, much cheaper. What we're going to see in the coming years is an explosion of non-Hollywood movies (U.S. and non-U.S.) that are first-rate in terms of polish. So-called "independent" films are going to look as good as any other and have far more impact than they do now. Hollywood will no longer enjoy the position it has enjoyed since its inception.
There is a wealth of talent out there -- actors, writers, directors, cinematographers, makeup and set designers, computer graphics artists -- that exist on the fringes (especially the actors, writers and directors), ignored by the money-chasing, unimagintative, group-think of the Hollywood studios. The talents of these professionals will finally be able to find a vehicle for their expression that will have a world-wide impact.
Even more amazing than filmakers being unshackled from the laws of physics will be the results of filmakers being unshackled from the "laws" of MGM, Newline, UA and so forth.
[T]he Earthsea books spend time on internal character development.
The first one, especially, is a kind of Once and Future King with a touch of Harry Potter (though of course it predates H.P.). I'm thinking about the old wizard tutoring Ged a la Merlin, before sending him off to wizard school.
The whole way to make this successful would be to concentrate on character and philosophy. These were the most enjoyable parts of the book, as I recall.
I still remember being fascinated with the idea that Ged, having transformed himself into a bird to effect an escape, might lose himself in the bird's nature and not be able to transform himself back. (The old wizard eventually had to lend him a hand.)
Television might have a hard time carrying this off without a lot of boring exposition. (Of course, well-written dialog and charismatic casting would avoid all that.)
The average person is simply mesmerized by technology. As the observation goes, it is, to many of them, "indistinguishable from magic." Put this together with "patriotism" (or to put it more exactly, the deference to authority inculcated by public schools, mass media, and so forth), and what have you got?
Avi's observations are scary! What we have is people ready to assume that because government and technology (read: "some very smart people) are behind all this e-voting stuff, it must be okay. Most people wouldn't even think to question, and as many would fall asleep listening to a discussion of the security issues.
As it stands, it seems likely that insecure machines will become the norm, and the majority is happy to remain in its stupor.
Slash (and burn) dot!
on
Borg Cube Case
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Great! We've only just gotten through bringing the iPod story's server to its knees, and now we've trashed this site as well.
I just knew when I read the word, "Borg," that this would be the case. We geeks are too predictable.
All we need now is a "Natalie Portman enrolls in the CS department at Harvard" story, and the whole east coast will go black once again!
The BBC is run in the interests of its viewers and listeners. Twelve governors act as trustees of the public interest and regulate the BBC. They are appointed by the Queen on advice from ministers. [1]
Sorry, my misunderstanding. I guess the accurate term would be fiefdom.
In all seriousness, I'm sure I'm not being "technically" accurate when I lump the BBC and the British government together. However, as I understand it, it's a completely socialistic enterprise. So, who owns it if not the government?
...hiding file extensions by default, still! All that does is ensure that everyone and their dog clicks on hot_sex.jpg.exe and gets the latest virus...
I guess they could make it so that extensions denoting executables are never hidden. That would be a start.
But, the saying goes: "As soon as you idiot-proof something, they will build a better idiot.";-)
I always wonder how governments can complain about monopoly and unfair advantage on one hand, and then purchase from these "monopolies" on the other. Isn't that what's going on here?
Take U.S. v Microsoft. The United States government is a huge customer. If they decide to place a bunch of PC's on the desks of their departments, and all those PC's run Windows, that more than anything helps foster Microsoft's continued dominance. Why don't they standardize all documents in XML, or plaintext. No! See how many times you're asked to submit something in Word format.
Goverments could just as easily begin converting to open source, or begin a Linux initiative; they could require a certain number of computers be Macintosh; or they could choose to buy something other than the Microsoft Office suite. Now, the British government is going to switch to MS, dumping Real. All these actions encourage the same company they complain about.
Am I the only one who sees conflict and hypocrisy?
Just to weigh in with a different opinion, I had high hopes for this book and bought it, but wound up being disappointed. I think it's excellent to begin by using the standard library right away. However, I would have preferred a book that wasn't trying to teach programming, especially in so pedantic a manner.
An example from page 40:
Understanding the invariant for this loop requires special care, because the condition in the
while loop has side effects. Those side effects affect the truth of the invariant: Successfully executing cin >> x makes the first part of the invariant -- the part that says we have read count grades -- false. Accordingly, we must change our analysis to account for the effect that the condition itself might have on the invariant.
It doesn't stop there, but goes on for three more paragraphs over this nonsense!
A better approach -- and this isn't just my opinion -- would have been to talk about side effects, and then proceed to write code without side effects.
Much of the book is in this academic-holier-than-thou tone, and it is distracting and tedious. Moreover, you don't define your own classes until chapter 9, so you're writing procedural code in the meantime.
[...] Watson himself was quite an admirer of Hitler and praised him endlessly during the thirties. Not that he was unique in this regard among American businessman [...]
No doubt it's because most people make no distinction between society and politics. During the thirties, if you were a businessman reading reports of Hitler "turning Germany around," you might have thought he was a good leader. Of course, no one in Nazi Germany could tell Hitler "take this country and shove it," quit, and take themselves and their resume to the country across the street.
Business and politics are two totally different worlds. Ultimately, no one who "leads" by being on the right side of a gun is worthy of admiration. It takes a little thoughtful reflection, however, to come to that conclusion.
You can't be surprised though when FDR, here in this country, was "leading" the same way -- forcing business and individuals to do his bidding at gunpoint. "Lucky" for him a far bigger, badder, and crazier leader across the pond stole the spotlight.
It's just moronic fun to gang up on the white man. Really!
It all started under the auspices of "intellectualism," with the whole post modernist movement; but the snideness has filtered down to the unwashed masses.
Certainly more boring than any "dead white man" are people who espouse the mentality described above.
I'm willing to grant the author of the review the benefit of the doubt and assume he thought he was being funny. But, it's not funny -- thank you just the same for the review.
See if you can sit in on an education class at your local college -- you'll see where the madness starts. If you can't be bothered (and I don't blame you), pick up a syllabus from one or two, and see if you can check out one of the assigned readings from the library.
On average, you teach 5 classes, which usually comprises 2 "preps" -- say, 9th grade English and 11th grade English. That means you are responsible for planning at least 2 lessons a night (and creating tests and quizzes for these classes from time to time), plus correcting the work of roughly 125 students.
If you're correcting essays or other involved projects, you're shot.
Add to this the special reports that need to be filled out for all the "special" children they're throwing in with the rest, plus the parent-teacher meetings, meetings with your department chair, school-wide meetings, afternoon detentions, and staying after to help the few motivated-but-clueless students, and it adds up to a lot of work.
It's like a lot of other jobs: sometimes you can't believe they pay you to do this; other times you wonder why the fuck you do this.
I agree one hundred percent. I think it would make teaching a better job, since private schools could just toss chronically disrespectful and disruptive students out; and students who weren't interested in the curriculum at one school (say liberal arts/college prep) could change to another school with a curriculumn that suits them.
And if I recall correctly, he received his Ph.D. without ever attending any classes, because the quality of his frequent papers was so high that Caltech risked embarrassment that another university might snap him up and grant him a Ph.D. first.
Whatever this "new kind of science" turns out to be, the guy is an indisputable example of rare genius.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow! No sooner did I post the above than I thought to check if a domain had been registered. It has -- and guess whose it is? ;-)
I've often thought the same thing, though along slightly different lines.
Someone -- more or less anonymous -- should come up with some kind of protest cartoon involving Mickey Mouse. Preferably, it shouldn't be too hard for moderately artistic people to draw. Then, everyone who cares should sport this cartoon on T-shirts, bumper stickers, and whatever. The design should not be sold; rather, people should reproduce it themselves, or reproduce it and share it with others.
Web pages are a little dicey -- at least at first. You can be tracked and sent cease-and-desist letters. But, shirts and bumper stickers and homemade greeting cards will escape censure.
What I'm really talking about is a grass roots movement. All the "Free Mitnick" graffiti has worn off by now -- it's time to replace it with "Free Mickey!"
Dude! Get a hold of that kid and tell him he's wasting his time in school. What he needs is a resume describing his skills.
Well, there are independent movie theaters around, but you don't find them everywhere. That too, however, may change as distribution changes to some sort of disk-based process (high quality DVD's) or secure Internet delivery over high-speed, commercial lines. The economics of running smaller theaters may become affordable.
From what I've heard, the price of movies has gone up largely because the production studios basically rape the theater owners, who, I've heard, make most of their money at the concession stand.
And someday I'll enter my golden age of spelling, and not misspell "filmmakers" twice, after having it spelled correctly in the parent post!
I agree, though I believe it goes far beyond special effects.
A lot of people would point to the "Old Hollywood" as the golden age of movie making, but I believe we are on the threshold of what will be seen as the real golden age.
Movie making, special effects or not, is becoming much, much cheaper. What we're going to see in the coming years is an explosion of non-Hollywood movies (U.S. and non-U.S.) that are first-rate in terms of polish. So-called "independent" films are going to look as good as any other and have far more impact than they do now. Hollywood will no longer enjoy the position it has enjoyed since its inception.
There is a wealth of talent out there -- actors, writers, directors, cinematographers, makeup and set designers, computer graphics artists -- that exist on the fringes (especially the actors, writers and directors), ignored by the money-chasing, unimagintative, group-think of the Hollywood studios. The talents of these professionals will finally be able to find a vehicle for their expression that will have a world-wide impact.
Even more amazing than filmakers being unshackled from the laws of physics will be the results of filmakers being unshackled from the "laws" of MGM, Newline, UA and so forth.
The first one, especially, is a kind of Once and Future King with a touch of Harry Potter (though of course it predates H.P.). I'm thinking about the old wizard tutoring Ged a la Merlin, before sending him off to wizard school.
The whole way to make this successful would be to concentrate on character and philosophy. These were the most enjoyable parts of the book, as I recall.
I still remember being fascinated with the idea that Ged, having transformed himself into a bird to effect an escape, might lose himself in the bird's nature and not be able to transform himself back. (The old wizard eventually had to lend him a hand.)
Television might have a hard time carrying this off without a lot of boring exposition. (Of course, well-written dialog and charismatic casting would avoid all that.)
Right at the bottom of the home page are these words:
Now, how can anybody with any brains put in motion a legislature without first double-checking the veracity of the content?!
It's a disgrace!
The average person is simply mesmerized by technology. As the observation goes, it is, to many of them, "indistinguishable from magic." Put this together with "patriotism" (or to put it more exactly, the deference to authority inculcated by public schools, mass media, and so forth), and what have you got?
Avi's observations are scary! What we have is people ready to assume that because government and technology (read: "some very smart people) are behind all this e-voting stuff, it must be okay. Most people wouldn't even think to question, and as many would fall asleep listening to a discussion of the security issues.
As it stands, it seems likely that insecure machines will become the norm, and the majority is happy to remain in its stupor.
Great! We've only just gotten through bringing the iPod story's server to its knees, and now we've trashed this site as well.
I just knew when I read the word, "Borg," that this would be the case. We geeks are too predictable.
All we need now is a "Natalie Portman enrolls in the CS department at Harvard" story, and the whole east coast will go black once again!
Sorry, my misunderstanding. I guess the accurate term would be fiefdom.
In all seriousness, I'm sure I'm not being "technically" accurate when I lump the BBC and the British government together. However, as I understand it, it's a completely socialistic enterprise. So, who owns it if not the government?
I guess they could make it so that extensions denoting executables are never hidden. That would be a start.
But, the saying goes: "As soon as you idiot-proof something, they will build a better idiot." ;-)
I always wonder how governments can complain about monopoly and unfair advantage on one hand, and then purchase from these "monopolies" on the other. Isn't that what's going on here?
Take U.S. v Microsoft. The United States government is a huge customer. If they decide to place a bunch of PC's on the desks of their departments, and all those PC's run Windows, that more than anything helps foster Microsoft's continued dominance. Why don't they standardize all documents in XML, or plaintext. No! See how many times you're asked to submit something in Word format.
Goverments could just as easily begin converting to open source, or begin a Linux initiative; they could require a certain number of computers be Macintosh; or they could choose to buy something other than the Microsoft Office suite. Now, the British government is going to switch to MS, dumping Real. All these actions encourage the same company they complain about.
Am I the only one who sees conflict and hypocrisy?
I think the word you're looking for is "gumshoed."
It's sad, but American schools have deemphasized spelling over the years. As a result, everyone depends on their computer's spell chequer.
Just to weigh in with a different opinion, I had high hopes for this book and bought it, but wound up being disappointed. I think it's excellent to begin by using the standard library right away. However, I would have preferred a book that wasn't trying to teach programming, especially in so pedantic a manner.
An example from page 40:
It doesn't stop there, but goes on for three more paragraphs over this nonsense!
A better approach -- and this isn't just my opinion -- would have been to talk about side effects, and then proceed to write code without side effects.
Much of the book is in this academic-holier-than-thou tone, and it is distracting and tedious. Moreover, you don't define your own classes until chapter 9, so you're writing procedural code in the meantime.
Respectfully, I just don't like it.
Hats off to you! That is "+10 Insightful."
What unreadable format are you talking about, parenthetical citations as opposed to footnotes?
No doubt it's because most people make no distinction between society and politics. During the thirties, if you were a businessman reading reports of Hitler "turning Germany around," you might have thought he was a good leader. Of course, no one in Nazi Germany could tell Hitler "take this country and shove it," quit, and take themselves and their resume to the country across the street.
Business and politics are two totally different worlds. Ultimately, no one who "leads" by being on the right side of a gun is worthy of admiration. It takes a little thoughtful reflection, however, to come to that conclusion.
You can't be surprised though when FDR, here in this country, was "leading" the same way -- forcing business and individuals to do his bidding at gunpoint. "Lucky" for him a far bigger, badder, and crazier leader across the pond stole the spotlight.
(Perhaps I'm off-topic. Pardon me.)
It's just moronic fun to gang up on the white man. Really!
It all started under the auspices of "intellectualism," with the whole post modernist movement; but the snideness has filtered down to the unwashed masses.
Certainly more boring than any "dead white man" are people who espouse the mentality described above.
I'm willing to grant the author of the review the benefit of the doubt and assume he thought he was being funny. But, it's not funny -- thank you just the same for the review.
See if you can sit in on an education class at your local college -- you'll see where the madness starts. If you can't be bothered (and I don't blame you), pick up a syllabus from one or two, and see if you can check out one of the assigned readings from the library.
On average, you teach 5 classes, which usually comprises 2 "preps" -- say, 9th grade English and 11th grade English. That means you are responsible for planning at least 2 lessons a night (and creating tests and quizzes for these classes from time to time), plus correcting the work of roughly 125 students.
If you're correcting essays or other involved projects, you're shot.
Add to this the special reports that need to be filled out for all the "special" children they're throwing in with the rest, plus the parent-teacher meetings, meetings with your department chair, school-wide meetings, afternoon detentions, and staying after to help the few motivated-but-clueless students, and it adds up to a lot of work.
It's like a lot of other jobs: sometimes you can't believe they pay you to do this; other times you wonder why the fuck you do this.
I agree one hundred percent. I think it would make teaching a better job, since private schools could just toss chronically disrespectful and disruptive students out; and students who weren't interested in the curriculum at one school (say liberal arts/college prep) could change to another school with a curriculumn that suits them.
Thanks! Your post is the one that ought to be modded up +5.
And if I recall correctly, he received his Ph.D. without ever attending any classes, because the quality of his frequent papers was so high that Caltech risked embarrassment that another university might snap him up and grant him a Ph.D. first.
Whatever this "new kind of science" turns out to be, the guy is an indisputable example of rare genius.