I see, once again, that MS is coming under fire, and probably for good reason (the address book thing is simply an error on the part of microsoft, I admit, and it shouldn't be so easily used by outside applications), but they're not the sole part of this blame.
The visual basic script is equivelent to an executable file in Windows. Most users don't see the vbs on the end, which is partly the "funny" naming convention of the file. (All bold til the extention.) People will learn from this, I hope, but then again, many people still run.exe files they get in the mail, too.
I would say that if I got a file and I activated the contents, no matter what operating system I'm using. If I ran the.exe equivlent on my mac or GNU/Linux system, then I would expect SOMETHING to happen. Think of the Windows scripting stuff as the old batch files (or scripts). They do stuff, but people don't know how much damage they CAN do.
The blame for this falls on the shoulders of the virus (?) writer(s) and the users stupid enough to activate it. Microsoft should fix the address book thing in Outlook, but there's no security hole unless it's the one where the users brain shoulda been.
Don't gimme that "Well, if they're using windows, they're stupid users and MS should have anticipated that." They have no responsiblity if someone's a complete screw up, no more than Saturn is responsible for the girl that nearly ran me over yesterday (SEE THE STOP SIGN!)
As an atheist, where do you feel your inspiration comes from? Some atheists have definite political and philosophical goals (like Ayn Rand), however, I don't know if you have any of these goals (maybe I'm not reading that well).
Say you run a buisiness and, well, you're not under the protection of a corperation. Suppose someone comes along and is a really bad worker, doesn't pay their bills, or whatever. That person leaves, and you recieve a phone call asking about that employee and/or creditor. You tell them the truth. "They were always late." "I still haven't been fully repayed." etc. The worker hears about this and sues you and wins because you defaced him in some manner.
Now, no corperate charter means that they can take your house, your kids college fund, your grandma's retirement fund, etc. No private assets are protected.
Now, you have a corperate charter, the buisiness is only at fault. Your house, kids college fund, and grandma are all safe.
While I agree that this sometimes may be a bad thing, so's a lot of laws. Murder laws can be bad, for example.
The seperation of buisiness from individuals is really a good thing, I feel. But then again, I don't get jobs that require me to think about them once I've left the building. Such seperations are important to me.
Well, she certainly is in no possition to do anything about it. She has no authority over me, and if I want to write something based on her works, I'm going to.
"The characters are copyrighted. "
If she copyrights her characters, then she only has a flat thing that can be defined, not dynamic. Oh, sure, she might have that Lestat (c) fellow's name copyrighted, but, in reality, a character (SHOULD BE!) is more than a name, and the attempt to copyright an attempt at a real person only makes me think she's more in it for the money than art.
Anne Rice says: "It upsets me terribly to even think about fan fiction with my characters. I advise my readers to write your own original stories with your own characters. "
I would agree, mostly, but what she does is very standard fiction. If I want Lestat (c) and Kenny from South Park to meet one night and Kenny bites off Lestat's (c) head and drinks his blood, well, then that's my perogative, and, like Bobby Brown, I can rape culture for samples and so on to do what I want to do in my art. (Oh yeah, anyone that wants the above storyline can have at it.)
Anne Rice says: "It is absolutely essential that you respect my wishes."
Or what? You'll cry, Anne? Get over it. Once you release what you have to the world, people are going to read it and come away with different things. Some might have a great storyline for that one whore that Lestat(c) killed one night. It might be on her fall into prostitution or whatever . . . other people vomit, it's usually the same thing.
"To Anne, her characters are a part of herself."
Ah, like a method actor for writers. I have one character that is based loosely off myself. One. Singular. There's a reason for that. Otherwise, all the remainder bare little resemblance to me. They're all tools. Even me.
"For someone that's not her to write situations and events involving those characters that for all we know may completely destroy the chracterization set up for them is almost like abuse. "
So what? What does it matter. They're not real, and no-one's ever proved to me that she [Anne Rice] is either. I've been to New Orleans, and I'll be damned if that city doesn't reek of falseness all around, but I digress. Regardless, my argument above still stands. Her intentions are irrelevent to a story or characters.
"Are they going to come after you with a team of lawyers if you write something using the characters? Maybe, maybe not. I'd hope so. "
You'd hope they'd attack with lawyers, or you hope not?
"Would you disappoint, dismay, and disturb the author you're supposedly paying homage to with your ripoff? Almost certainly. "
I beg to differ. I'd be honored if someone took my work and tried to use that in their creative endevors. Scratch that, I have been honored. It's odd, really, but it's empowering.
"It's really not that difficult to make up your own characters within the genre, if you really want to write fan fiction. It allows for far more breadth and development...you can choose where the path leads, not someone else. "
Yes, but is there the same effect if your character gets killed by a plain ordinary vampire or Lestat (c) (the famous one from all those books!)? No, of course not. What one belongs in a story? Well, that I can't tell you.
"Sometimes the debate is more than just laws."
Agreed. There's art there, somewhere, maybe, maybe it's just pop-art, who knows?
"Sometimes you have to consider the people who poured their souls into their characters...and how the person might be affected. "
Why must I consider them? What about the art, man, what about the art? Feelings are vital and irrelevent to artists. If I want you to be angry, I'm gonna fucking do it and I'm gonna beat up your mother to prove it, and if I want you to fall in love, you're going to sense yourself doing precisely that. You're going to look at someone's pale white skin and black hair and blue azure eyes and you're gonna know it. Your gonna feel for her, you are going to love her. And nothing, not Anne Rice, not Uncle Sam, not Jehovah above is going to stop me in doing that.
/me choaks on some pizza. /me clutches his throat. /me dies.
Art is a journey. If you don't like where some people might drive it, don't make the vehicle.
"Isn't now time to start confuting the legend that "no real musician will ever play or compose for free"? "
I will play for free when I can eat for free.
Programmers have real jobs outside or they go to school. These help support their hobbies.
Music is more time consuming. Now, hear me out. I can see the hours in the recording studio being rougly equivlent to hours of programming, but when you're done, you're done. And so is the musician, unless they want to get their music out there, then they go on tour.
Going on tour, obviously, can take up to months (even years, if I may). There's no job that I know of that lets you go cross country and pays you well enough to finance your travels.
When bands can eat and sleep and drive for free, they'll be more likely to play for free.
How many programmers go on tour (unless they're giving talks, and it's assumed that they're old school or whatever and have something to say).
Music is a time consuming activity, capable of taking months to complete one round of touring. You can't say programming is like that, even if you spend months doing a certain thing, you still can have a job or school outside that puts food on the table.
In an ideal world, everone would work for free because everything they need would be free too. But that ain't here.
You know, it's rough. I want to, I really really really want to support the Free Music For Everybody thing, I really really really do. But there's something else I like to do, too. It's called eating.
Seriously.
Now, it's entirely possible for me to get another job where this isn't a problem. But then my art suffers.
Yes, I could sell T-Shirt and stuff when I'm on tour. Guess what. Doing that, musicians only break even. The tour is there to support the salve of CD's.
Of course there's the big companies and the restructuring of distrtibution channels. And if a few artists starve, well, omelet, eggs, you get the picture.
Right?
As an artist, part of my heart lies with them. Dealing with the companies isn't that bad when you look at the alternatives.
As an idealist, I don't even know why we have to pay for this kinda stuff.
I feel that this battle will be kinda reeled out in a lot of peoples heads (at least those who've thought out both sides of the arguments) for a long time.
Until such a time when physical things are free, music and other arts CANNOT be free.
Someone who can't believe he just wrote something pro-Communist(at least an ideal version thereof):
No, I've seen/heard/smelt it happen, though not to a CPU, it was a video chip.
A rather clueless (hardware wise, he was a programming type) plugged in an old VLB(!!!) card, plugged in the machine, plugged in the monitor, and BOOM! (Actually, it was closer to a loud pop, firecracker like.)
Evidiently, something kinda fed back through the cable (I don't know for sure). The monitor was a brand new Gateway EV700 (~17"). I'm not sure of the exact reasons, but the (very small) chip had flew off in the case and rattled around and flew out (open case on one side). It smelled slightly like burnt plastic.
If anyone has a better idea what could have happened, let me know.
This is, of course, totally dependant if we could direct the thing in such a way.
If it nuked out all gravity, there's still be inertia and friction (both air[fluid] or whatnot, right?
It could save on gas, at least if you were going west.:-)
Can anyone else imagine lifting off from a pole and watching the earth rotate under you? I sometimes feels small looking at huge buildings, but the whole world. Man, what a trip it'd be. I still want to be an astronaut.
"Apparently you missed the whole Darth Sidious/Senator Palpatine bid to set into motion the events which would eventually form the Empire and bring the entire galaxy under his absolute domination. "
Yawn, it's time, Pinky, to take over the world.
Still, while there was material motivation the character remained flat and materialistic. Simple greed isn't really a motivation, I don't think, and I can't recall when Sith actually used any power. He followed orders.
Of couse, it has been over a year since I've seen it.
I have a different version of a similar rant on my web site, if you care, but the guts are all here:
Star Wars sucked not because of the ungodly amount spent on advertising and endorsements and whatnot, but because it was a bad movie.
The backgrounds, wow, very amazing. The movie, while nothing new, was still wonderful to look at. Unfortunatly, that's all.
I have no qualms with completely CGI characters. I have no problems with monster characters. However, they do leave an impression of "what was that?"
The reason the first (middle???) Star Wars movies were so great was that evil was personified. There was a man under the plastic and behind the light saber, yadda yadda. A real tortured soul. Darth Vader had that. Darth Sith, well, doesn't. He's flat and we can't (as humans) identify with him as easily (if at all, I think he was there just as a scary face). Jar-Jar was the same way. Aside from the uncomfortable feeling I got with his stupidity, he was very flat. There was nothing there. There were no motivations for Sith. Jar-Jar was too stupid to have motivations. Bah!
There is no movement to any of the characters internally. Yeah, Obi-Wan takes over to train Anikin, so what. There's nothing there, he does it out of duty, a friend and master's dying wish, I suppose. All the characters in TPM were flat. The most interesting character was Queen Amadala, only because I was wondering who was really the queen for security reasons and who was the slave girl.
So, while Star Wars was a movie I didn't walk out on, it didn't sit with me like a movie that I cared for (admittedly American Beauty) would. Star Wars was pretty. Wow. Mindless evil, again, boring. Give me evil with motivations. You can imagine what the motivations are in the Marine in American Beauty (not 100% evil). In the Matrix, Agent Smith comes out and tells Neo (the audience) what his motivations are. They're still computers, but there is something more there. Fight Club: there was no evil, just primal.
". Not because they are "evil" -- just because they are usually an indicator of low intelligence and an unsupported (or unsupportable) position. "
Man, I fuckin' can't believe that shit, really.
Seriously, though, the use of so-called bad words is really very interesting to me. I think there is a place for the words. If you listen to nearly any good commedian, you're gonna hear a few "fuck" and "shit". Bill Hicks, George Carlin (sp), Sam Kinoson (sp), etc.
The reason those words affect and effect you so much is that you let them, they're just words, man. Neither inherantly good nor bad.
Fuck is like DeCSS. It's inherant evilness or goodness depends who you are.
dude, would it be quite as ironically funny if it were a.org?
blowthedotoutyourass.com -- all the companies blowthedotoutyourass.org -- all the organizations
Yeah, I see.org advertizements all the time and it makes me sick. All the kkk.org advertisments and the naacp.org and the slashdot.org, man, or the HOTSEX.org those commercials are really getting on my nerves.
Now, I've never been there, but, can someone tell me:
Why the hell is everyone moving to San Francisco?
In the "new" economy, where location is pretty irrelevent as long as you've got a lot of bandwidth, why are people cramming into little penninsulas on the West Coast? I'm sure there's more land north and south of there . . .
Yeah, there are companies in Silcon Valley (is this the same as San Francisco? I dunno.) But there is no reason why you can't start a company in, say, the middle of nowhere (like where I live). Or, god forbid, in another country.
As for the ads, I think they're funny and point out some serious troubles with the new types of non-profit buisiness (as opposed to non-profit orginizations). I don't need my toothpaste delivered for damn sure, because UPS would likely break it.
Actually, it's a normal part of academic (and scientific) discourse to remove personal referents and so on. While you may quote (Hawking 42), you don't say "I found this . . . " you say "it has been found that". And often there are multiple people looking for the same thing, working as a team, so they write it together.
That is your first (bad) lesson on academic and scientific discourse. Thank you.
"Q: Will I have to repartition my hard drive to install BeOS 5 Free Version? A: No. If you're currently using Windows (currently Windows 98 or Windows 95), you'll be able to download BeOS 5 via a Web browser and store it as a file within the Windows file system. "
Notice the "if you're currently using"
"Downloading BeOS 5 Free Version will be no
"Q: Does this mean BeOS 5 Free Version runs "under" Windows? A: No. Although you can launch BeOS via a file within Windows, BeOS does not run as a Windows application. Double-clicking the file will exit Windows and boot BeOS from a large file in the FAT file system which contains within it a BFS volume. "
Which follows that you can run it on a real BFS volume
"Q: Will I be able to install BeOS 5 Free Version within operating systems other than Windows? A: Not at this time. "
Note the within.
If I remember correctly, and I may not, you can download the file and burn it to a CD, creating a bootable installation CD.
Of course, it'd be stupid to remove the ability of Be to boot to it's own system.
All signs point to Yes, but there is no official word.
"ironic considering how each of us is what keeps said corporate world running and in control"
I think you have too much faith in your fellow Geek. There is no such thing as a universal geek ethic. Many of us, sadly, are in it for the money not because they (necessaarily) enjoy it. (Though, we have to admit, it can be frustrating sometimes.:)
A mass geek exodus (or any other movement) is impossible because there is too much variety in our group.
Of course, I think it would be interesting to watch. (see Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, it's interesting, as it describes an exodus of those who make the world go 'round, but watch out for some of the off-kilter philosophy.)
"What people need to teach the next generation of game makers is dramatic construct and basic fictional writing abilities, "
I don't know if that's possible. A lot of people don't want that, and a lot of people who think they can, well, can't. I've seen this a lot. People (in general) take 200 or 300 level Creative Writing workshop type courses and think they can write. It's more than simple grammar and punctuation (though the basics of writing are important). It's passion.
I don't have a passion for programming. I do it when I need something, otherwise I avoid it. I write because I love it. I make video-game levels because I love that, too.
Maybe it's just me, as a writer, but programmers might want to stick to programming and writers stick to their field.
Half-life and it's add on was a great game, but I think it's because of the process they used to create it (a lot of brainstorming in groups and so on, there was an article on a gaming page somewhere that had all that information.) If one person is sufficiantly talented, then he or she could guide a team to make a game as good as half life (doing what it does). This is part of why id software works so well, because it's centered around Carmack.
Even if the others give boatloads of support to the game as well, the big thing about id is their engines and pure adrenaline gaming. Unreal has something similar (though, IMO is very tedious because there isn't really a goal, just "Survive").
That is why Duke3d (okay, the plot was lacking, but it had plenty of "other" stuff) or Half-life were good games, there was so much more. Quake(s) and Doom(s) were good for the same reasons as a Stallone or Swarzenegger flick.
Should id hire a writer? I'm biased, but I say "yes," if they ever make a single player game again.
If not, they should avoid bothering with a story at all, I think what they did with Q3A was cheesy.
Of course, Half-Life looks rather dated now. I love the game, don't get me wrong, but I think you're wrong when you say that we don't need better engine's. I want to see every petal of a flower, and then I want to look off the balcony at a town-square.
And I've seen engines that do that. And something like thhat is what I want to design for.
"'Have you ever read a novel called A Clockwork Orange? '
Yes. Kubric rules. "
Nitpick, sorry.
Anthony Burgess wrote a book called A Clockwork Orange. It's, of course, better than the book, and there are, of course, added scenes and such. It's really quite interesting, and, unfortunately for Burgess, probbly the only book anyone will remember by him when he's dead.
"First, why is Slashdot linking to the Inquirer? I know it's gotten bad here, but... Oh well, there's always the Weekly World News, right? "
I'm assuming you're joking and that you do know that the Philidelphia Inquirer (spelling) is different then the National Enquirer.
You never can be too sure.
Onwards
"What could be stupider than letting a word-matching computer with the brains of a spell-checker on prozac decide what content you allow yourself and others to see? "
Beurocratic (sp) legislation regarding Library filtering these legit sites. Lazy parents. Republicans (sorry, just kidding, kinda). Stupider things abound. I have to deal with stupid people every day.
They're called normal people.
What should happen is for another debate. I, of course, think these programs are ineffective and of questionable morality. But what this school decides is important.
I mean, if I'm doing a report on beaver migration and dam building, is the library going to block that? What about my (hypothetical) lazy parents who bought SurfWatch(or whatever) in leiu of spending time with me. Or what if I'm looking for the TV schedule of Two Angry Beavers? Whatever.
Changing the name of the college may allow them to get back on the "Good" side of a bad-site-blocker program, but it sets a bad example.
Do we change our names every time something bad can be made of them? Should we?
It's just another "proof" against filtering software which is something stupid people want.
So, is there anything stupider than the program? Yes. The people who want it.
Slashdot Mirror
{sigh}
.exe files they get in the mail, too.
.exe equivlent on my mac or GNU/Linux system, then I would expect SOMETHING to happen. Think of the Windows scripting stuff as the old batch files (or scripts). They do stuff, but people don't know how much damage they CAN do.
I see, once again, that MS is coming under fire, and probably for good reason (the address book thing is simply an error on the part of microsoft, I admit, and it shouldn't be so easily used by outside applications), but they're not the sole part of this blame.
The visual basic script is equivelent to an executable file in Windows. Most users don't see the vbs on the end, which is partly the "funny" naming convention of the file. (All bold til the extention.) People will learn from this, I hope, but then again, many people still run
I would say that if I got a file and I activated the contents, no matter what operating system I'm using. If I ran the
The blame for this falls on the shoulders of the virus (?) writer(s) and the users stupid enough to activate it. Microsoft should fix the address book thing in Outlook, but there's no security hole unless it's the one where the users brain shoulda been.
Don't gimme that "Well, if they're using windows, they're stupid users and MS should have anticipated that." They have no responsiblity if someone's a complete screw up, no more than Saturn is responsible for the girl that nearly ran me over yesterday (SEE THE STOP SIGN!)
Fully anticipating "flamebait."
As an atheist, where do you feel your inspiration comes from? Some atheists have definite political and philosophical goals (like Ayn Rand), however, I don't know if you have any of these goals (maybe I'm not reading that well).
Thank you.
Corperate charters are a good thing, here's why.
Say you run a buisiness and, well, you're not under the protection of a corperation. Suppose someone comes along and is a really bad worker, doesn't pay their bills, or whatever. That person leaves, and you recieve a phone call asking about that employee and/or creditor. You tell them the truth. "They were always late." "I still haven't been fully repayed." etc. The worker hears about this and sues you and wins because you defaced him in some manner.
Now, no corperate charter means that they can take your house, your kids college fund, your grandma's retirement fund, etc. No private assets are protected.
Now, you have a corperate charter, the buisiness is only at fault. Your house, kids college fund, and grandma are all safe.
While I agree that this sometimes may be a bad thing, so's a lot of laws. Murder laws can be bad, for example.
The seperation of buisiness from individuals is really a good thing, I feel. But then again, I don't get jobs that require me to think about them once I've left the building. Such seperations are important to me.
later
Uhh, if I remember my sociology correctly, basic political opinions are made by the time a child enters school.
Which is, of course, not to say these can't change.
Anne Rice:
"I do not allow fan fiction. "
Well, she certainly is in no possition to do anything about it. She has no authority over me, and if I want to write something based on her works, I'm going to.
"The characters are copyrighted. "
If she copyrights her characters, then she only has a flat thing that can be defined, not dynamic. Oh, sure, she might have that Lestat (c) fellow's name copyrighted, but, in reality, a character (SHOULD BE!) is more than a name, and the attempt to copyright an attempt at a real person only makes me think she's more in it for the money than art.
Anne Rice says:
"It upsets me terribly to even think about fan fiction with my characters. I advise my readers to write your own original stories with your own characters. "
I would agree, mostly, but what she does is very standard fiction. If I want Lestat (c) and Kenny from South Park to meet one night and Kenny bites off Lestat's (c) head and drinks his blood, well, then that's my perogative, and, like Bobby Brown, I can rape culture for samples and so on to do what I want to do in my art. (Oh yeah, anyone that wants the above storyline can have at it.)
Anne Rice says:
"It is absolutely essential that you respect my wishes."
Or what? You'll cry, Anne? Get over it. Once you release what you have to the world, people are going to read it and come away with different things. Some might have a great storyline for that one whore that Lestat(c) killed one night. It might be on her fall into prostitution or whatever . . . other people vomit, it's usually the same thing.
"To Anne, her characters are a part of herself."
Ah, like a method actor for writers. I have one character that is based loosely off myself. One. Singular. There's a reason for that. Otherwise, all the remainder bare little resemblance to me. They're all tools. Even me.
"For someone that's not her to write situations and events involving those characters that for all we know may completely destroy the chracterization set up for them is almost like abuse. "
So what? What does it matter. They're not real, and no-one's ever proved to me that she [Anne Rice] is either. I've been to New Orleans, and I'll be damned if that city doesn't reek of falseness all around, but I digress. Regardless, my argument above still stands. Her intentions are irrelevent to a story or characters.
"Are they going to come after you with a team of lawyers if you write something using the characters? Maybe, maybe not. I'd hope so. "
You'd hope they'd attack with lawyers, or you hope not?
"Would you disappoint, dismay, and disturb the author you're supposedly paying homage to with your ripoff? Almost certainly. "
I beg to differ. I'd be honored if someone took my work and tried to use that in their creative endevors. Scratch that, I have been honored. It's odd, really, but it's empowering.
"It's really not that difficult to make up your own characters within the genre, if you really want to write fan fiction. It allows for far more breadth and development...you can choose where the path leads, not someone else. "
Yes, but is there the same effect if your character gets killed by a plain ordinary vampire or Lestat (c) (the famous one from all those books!)? No, of course not. What one belongs in a story? Well, that I can't tell you.
"Sometimes the debate is more than just laws."
Agreed. There's art there, somewhere, maybe, maybe it's just pop-art, who knows?
"Sometimes you have to consider the people who poured their souls into their characters...and how the person might be affected. "
Why must I consider them? What about the art, man, what about the art? Feelings are vital and irrelevent to artists. If I want you to be angry, I'm gonna fucking do it and I'm gonna beat up your mother to prove it, and if I want you to fall in love, you're going to sense yourself doing precisely that. You're going to look at someone's pale white skin and black hair and blue azure eyes and you're gonna know it. Your gonna feel for her, you are going to love her. And nothing, not Anne Rice, not Uncle Sam, not Jehovah above is going to stop me in doing that.
/me choaks on some pizza.
/me clutches his throat.
/me dies.
Art is a journey. If you don't like where some people might drive it, don't make the vehicle.
Thank you for your time.
"Isn't now time to start confuting the legend that "no real musician will ever play or compose for free"? "
I will play for free when I can eat for free.
Programmers have real jobs outside or they go to school. These help support their hobbies.
Music is more time consuming. Now, hear me out. I can see the hours in the recording studio being rougly equivlent to hours of programming, but when you're done, you're done. And so is the musician, unless they want to get their music out there, then they go on tour.
Going on tour, obviously, can take up to months (even years, if I may). There's no job that I know of that lets you go cross country and pays you well enough to finance your travels.
When bands can eat and sleep and drive for free, they'll be more likely to play for free.
How many programmers go on tour (unless they're giving talks, and it's assumed that they're old school or whatever and have something to say).
Music is a time consuming activity, capable of taking months to complete one round of touring. You can't say programming is like that, even if you spend months doing a certain thing, you still can have a job or school outside that puts food on the table.
In an ideal world, everone would work for free because everything they need would be free too. But that ain't here.
later
You know, it's rough. I want to, I really really really want to support the Free Music For Everybody thing, I really really really do. But there's something else I like to do, too. It's called eating.
Seriously.
Now, it's entirely possible for me to get another job where this isn't a problem. But then my art suffers.
Yes, I could sell T-Shirt and stuff when I'm on tour. Guess what. Doing that, musicians only break even. The tour is there to support the salve of CD's.
Of course there's the big companies and the restructuring of distrtibution channels. And if a few artists starve, well, omelet, eggs, you get the picture.
Right?
As an artist, part of my heart lies with them. Dealing with the companies isn't that bad when you look at the alternatives.
As an idealist, I don't even know why we have to pay for this kinda stuff.
I feel that this battle will be kinda reeled out in a lot of peoples heads (at least those who've thought out both sides of the arguments) for a long time.
Until such a time when physical things are free, music and other arts CANNOT be free.
Someone who can't believe he just wrote something pro-Communist(at least an ideal version thereof):
No, I've seen/heard/smelt it happen, though not to a CPU, it was a video chip.
A rather clueless (hardware wise, he was a programming type) plugged in an old VLB(!!!) card, plugged in the machine, plugged in the monitor, and BOOM! (Actually, it was closer to a loud pop, firecracker like.)
Evidiently, something kinda fed back through the cable (I don't know for sure). The monitor was a brand new Gateway EV700 (~17"). I'm not sure of the exact reasons, but the (very small) chip had flew off in the case and rattled around and flew out (open case on one side). It smelled slightly like burnt plastic.
If anyone has a better idea what could have happened, let me know.
This is, of course, totally dependant if we could direct the thing in such a way.
:-)
If it nuked out all gravity, there's still be inertia and friction (both air[fluid] or whatnot, right?
It could save on gas, at least if you were going west.
Can anyone else imagine lifting off from a pole and watching the earth rotate under you? I sometimes feels small looking at huge buildings, but the whole world. Man, what a trip it'd be. I still want to be an astronaut.
Well, I thought that went without saying. As, ya know, a bonus.
Later
"Apparently you missed the whole Darth Sidious/Senator Palpatine bid to set into motion the events which would eventually form the Empire and bring the entire galaxy under his absolute domination. "
Yawn, it's time, Pinky, to take over the world.
Still, while there was material motivation the character remained flat and materialistic. Simple greed isn't really a motivation, I don't think, and I can't recall when Sith actually used any power. He followed orders.
Of couse, it has been over a year since I've seen it.
later
I have a different version of a similar rant on my web site, if you care, but the guts are all here:
Star Wars sucked not because of the ungodly amount spent on advertising and endorsements and whatnot, but because it was a bad movie.
The backgrounds, wow, very amazing. The movie, while nothing new, was still wonderful to look at. Unfortunatly, that's all.
I have no qualms with completely CGI characters. I have no problems with monster characters. However, they do leave an impression of "what was that?"
The reason the first (middle???) Star Wars movies were so great was that evil was personified. There was a man under the plastic and behind the light saber, yadda yadda. A real tortured soul. Darth Vader had that. Darth Sith, well, doesn't. He's flat and we can't (as humans) identify with him as easily (if at all, I think he was there just as a scary face). Jar-Jar was the same way. Aside from the uncomfortable feeling I got with his stupidity, he was very flat. There was nothing there. There were no motivations for Sith. Jar-Jar was too stupid to have motivations. Bah!
There is no movement to any of the characters internally. Yeah, Obi-Wan takes over to train Anikin, so what. There's nothing there, he does it out of duty, a friend and master's dying wish, I suppose. All the characters in TPM were flat. The most interesting character was Queen Amadala, only because I was wondering who was really the queen for security reasons and who was the slave girl.
So, while Star Wars was a movie I didn't walk out on, it didn't sit with me like a movie that I cared for (admittedly American Beauty) would. Star Wars was pretty. Wow. Mindless evil, again, boring. Give me evil with motivations. You can imagine what the motivations are in the Marine in American Beauty (not 100% evil). In the Matrix, Agent Smith comes out and tells Neo (the audience) what his motivations are. They're still computers, but there is something more there. Fight Club: there was no evil, just primal.
later
Man, I care about what they're wearing. I'm sorry to say. Go here to see why:
http://www.oscars.com/redcarpet/red_026.html
". Not because they are "evil" -- just because they are usually an indicator of low intelligence and an unsupported (or unsupportable) position. "
Man, I fuckin' can't believe that shit, really.
Seriously, though, the use of so-called bad words is really very interesting to me. I think there is a place for the words. If you listen to nearly any good commedian, you're gonna hear a few "fuck" and "shit". Bill Hicks, George Carlin (sp), Sam Kinoson (sp), etc.
The reason those words affect and effect you so much is that you let them, they're just words, man. Neither inherantly good nor bad.
Fuck is like DeCSS. It's inherant evilness or goodness depends who you are.
dude, would it be quite as ironically funny if it were a .org?
.org advertizements all the time and it makes me sick. All the kkk.org advertisments and the naacp.org and the slashdot.org, man, or the HOTSEX.org those commercials are really getting on my nerves.
blowthedotoutyourass.com -- all the companies
blowthedotoutyourass.org -- all the organizations
Yeah, I see
.com? Never heard of it.
Now, I've never been there, but, can someone tell me:
Why the hell is everyone moving to San Francisco?
In the "new" economy, where location is pretty irrelevent as long as you've got a lot of bandwidth, why are people cramming into little penninsulas on the West Coast? I'm sure there's more land north and south of there . . .
Yeah, there are companies in Silcon Valley (is this the same as San Francisco? I dunno.) But there is no reason why you can't start a company in, say, the middle of nowhere (like where I live). Or, god forbid, in another country.
As for the ads, I think they're funny and point out some serious troubles with the new types of non-profit buisiness (as opposed to non-profit orginizations). I don't need my toothpaste delivered for damn sure, because UPS would likely break it.
later
Actually, it's a normal part of academic (and scientific) discourse to remove personal referents and so on. While you may quote (Hawking 42), you don't say "I found this . . . " you say "it has been found that". And often there are multiple people looking for the same thing, working as a team, so they write it together.
That is your first (bad) lesson on academic and scientific discourse. Thank you.
Maybe you're boycotting. Most others really don't care.
"who owns words? "
"Nobody owns the fucking words, man." -- James Dean
From http://free.be.com
"Q: Will I have to repartition my hard drive to install BeOS 5 Free Version?
A: No. If you're currently using Windows (currently Windows 98 or Windows 95), you'll be able to download BeOS 5 via a Web browser and store it as a file within the Windows file system. "
Notice the "if you're currently using"
"Downloading BeOS 5 Free Version will be no
"Q: Does this mean BeOS 5 Free Version runs "under" Windows?
A: No. Although you can launch BeOS via a file within Windows, BeOS does not run as a Windows application. Double-clicking the file will exit Windows and boot BeOS from a large file in the FAT file system which contains within it a BFS volume. "
Which follows that you can run it on a real BFS volume
"Q: Will I be able to install BeOS 5 Free Version within operating systems other than Windows?
A: Not at this time. "
Note the within.
If I remember correctly, and I may not, you can download the file and burn it to a CD, creating a bootable installation CD.
Of course, it'd be stupid to remove the ability of Be to boot to it's own system.
All signs point to Yes, but there is no official word.
later
"ironic considering how each of us is what keeps said corporate world running and in control"
:)
I think you have too much faith in your fellow Geek. There is no such thing as a universal geek ethic. Many of us, sadly, are in it for the money not because they (necessaarily) enjoy it. (Though, we have to admit, it can be frustrating sometimes.
A mass geek exodus (or any other movement) is impossible because there is too much variety in our group.
Of course, I think it would be interesting to watch. (see Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, it's interesting, as it describes an exodus of those who make the world go 'round, but watch out for some of the off-kilter philosophy.)
later
"What people need to teach the next generation of game makers is dramatic construct and basic fictional writing abilities, "
I don't know if that's possible. A lot of people don't want that, and a lot of people who think they can, well, can't. I've seen this a lot. People (in general) take 200 or 300 level Creative Writing workshop type courses and think they can write. It's more than simple grammar and punctuation (though the basics of writing are important). It's passion.
I don't have a passion for programming. I do it when I need something, otherwise I avoid it. I write because I love it. I make video-game levels because I love that, too.
Maybe it's just me, as a writer, but programmers might want to stick to programming and writers stick to their field.
Half-life and it's add on was a great game, but I think it's because of the process they used to create it (a lot of brainstorming in groups and so on, there was an article on a gaming page somewhere that had all that information.) If one person is sufficiantly talented, then he or she could guide a team to make a game as good as half life (doing what it does). This is part of why id software works so well, because it's centered around Carmack.
Even if the others give boatloads of support to the game as well, the big thing about id is their engines and pure adrenaline gaming. Unreal has something similar (though, IMO is very tedious because there isn't really a goal, just "Survive").
That is why Duke3d (okay, the plot was lacking, but it had plenty of "other" stuff) or Half-life were good games, there was so much more. Quake(s) and Doom(s) were good for the same reasons as a Stallone or Swarzenegger flick.
Should id hire a writer? I'm biased, but I say "yes," if they ever make a single player game again.
If not, they should avoid bothering with a story at all, I think what they did with Q3A was cheesy.
Of course, Half-Life looks rather dated now. I love the game, don't get me wrong, but I think you're wrong when you say that we don't need better engine's. I want to see every petal of a flower, and then I want to look off the balcony at a town-square.
And I've seen engines that do that. And something like thhat is what I want to design for.
insommnia, please release me:
"A Clockwork Orange. It's, of course, better than the book"
Err, sorry, better than the movie.
Doh. Is that freud talking to me?
"'Have you ever read a novel called A Clockwork Orange? '
Yes. Kubric rules. "
Nitpick, sorry.
Anthony Burgess wrote a book called A Clockwork Orange. It's, of course, better than the book, and there are, of course, added scenes and such. It's really quite interesting, and, unfortunately for Burgess, probbly the only book anyone will remember by him when he's dead.
Trying not to feed the troll:
"First, why is Slashdot linking to the Inquirer? I know it's gotten bad here, but... Oh well, there's always the Weekly World News, right? "
I'm assuming you're joking and that you do know that the Philidelphia Inquirer (spelling) is different then the National Enquirer.
You never can be too sure.
Onwards
"What could be stupider than letting a word-matching computer with the brains of a spell-checker on prozac decide what content you allow yourself and others to see? "
Beurocratic (sp) legislation regarding Library filtering these legit sites. Lazy parents. Republicans (sorry, just kidding, kinda). Stupider things abound. I have to deal with stupid people every day.
They're called normal people.
What should happen is for another debate. I, of course, think these programs are ineffective and of questionable morality. But what this school decides is important.
I mean, if I'm doing a report on beaver migration and dam building, is the library going to block that? What about my (hypothetical) lazy parents who bought SurfWatch(or whatever) in leiu of spending time with me. Or what if I'm looking for the TV schedule of Two Angry Beavers? Whatever.
Changing the name of the college may allow them to get back on the "Good" side of a bad-site-blocker program, but it sets a bad example.
Do we change our names every time something bad can be made of them? Should we?
It's just another "proof" against filtering software which is something stupid people want.
So, is there anything stupider than the program? Yes. The people who want it.
later