Tatooine has two suns, creatively named Tatoo I and Tatoo II.
The only planet I can readily recall from science fiction with three suns is the one from Pitch Black (and even then I think I'm making up the third sun). Most hard scifi authors and such place habitable planets around star systems like ours or around binaries (though most scifi universes take for granted that there is a habitable star in the Proxima-Alpha Centaurus complex (made up of Rigil Kentaurus A and B and Proxima Centaurus)).
I will be very interested to hear the explanation for this.
//crosses arms and scowls
//Luuuuucy, you got some 'splainin to do!
Ooooh. Very cool. I think I'm nearing a nerdgasm... All of your favorite books come to life.
Although I would use my GoogleMapHack to display the progress of my Diabolical Hordes (R) as they spread their infamy accross the globe.
/*waits for someone to make a map of WoT's Randland complete with reenactments of the Trolloc Wars, War of the Second Dragon, War of the Hundred Years, and the Aiel War*/
I have yet to RTFL, but using the Google Map API to write Risk or Civ style games sounds like a wonderful (and just a little scary) application for megalomaniacs like myself.
Imagine the complexity one could introduce to the game...Maybe not use individual troops, but use something similar to Axis and Allies, where each piece represents approximately one division/squadron/task force (maybe ships only represent one ship... has been awhile). Lay siege to your hometown, and animate peasants running through the streets.
Then again, maybe we can adapt Trogdor to play out against SCO's offices...
Re:Religion IS escapism
on
Game with God
·
· Score: 1
Salvation is by faith alone, as noted in Romans. Paul says that Abraham was afforded righteousness through faith. Paul says in Galatians that those who would force the Hebraic law on Gentile Christians have "fallen from grace" a phrase that is picked up to reinforce the idea of meritocratic salvation. James says that faith without works is dead, and I do not dispute that. I merely raise the point that there is nothing I can do of my own merit that affords salvation. The very definition of grace implies that it is a gift, not something earned.
If you would like to talk more about it, my email is polemarch AT charter DOT net (adjust accordingly).
Re:Religion IS escapism
on
Game with God
·
· Score: 1
Christianity doesn't deny the worth of the whole universe (and yes, I know religion != Christianity; but it's what I know, because I practice, so it's what I'll talk about). The philosophy of the first century Christians was not one of 'well, this place is worthless, and Jesus is coming again, so I'll go sit up on my rooftop', though there are places where Christ says that this will be done in the last days (whenever those are...). It was more one of 'how can I best serve my time here while I wait for my turn to go?'
In fact, contrary to your statement about the importance of the spiritual vs. the material, it seems to me that Paul and the original Christians viewed the physical and spiritual with equal importance. For instance, James rebukes those who would say to a homeless and hungry man, 'God go with you and be well' without caring for the obvious physical needs. Paul likens the spiritual body of believers to the physical body throughout the Corinthian letters. And in the eighth chapter of the letter to the church in Rome, Paul seems to indicate that the physical and spiritual worlds are not in a relationship of dominate and submissive, but that each were given equal weight, but due to the Fall of Man, the two are now separate.
But back on the topic of video games: There is a good reason religion isn't brought into more games. Look at Civilisation. In Civ2-3 (don't know about the original, never played it) religion is treated as either an opiate or as a way to score points. You build temples to soothe rebellious citizens, and you build great works with religious undertones as a way to increase your score. Religion is included in the tech tree and is treated as just another stepping stone to a better tomorrow. The problem is this: religion in videogames is treated much as it is in the real world, as a meritocracy. A practicing Christian will tell you that the path to Heaven is not through good deeds. Christians believe that the soul is saved through faith, not by adherence to law. So, if you remove the idea of meritocratic faith in a game, what's the point in including religion at all, except for the cool superpowers that someone mentioned earlier or for RPG elements? Personally, I think it would be cool to have an MMORPG world of any setting that had a faith element that was not forced on you. In most games that have aspects of religion, you have to choose either to follow the Light god or demonic forces instead of just going through the world as an atheist. The faithful could get bonuses from whichever side they chose, and for everyone else, 'the rain falls on the just and the unjust'.
Anybody know if there are any plans to adapt Life the Universe and Everything to the big screen? I always wondered what ultra-violent and infradead looked like...
And yet a centralised system of government was pervasive until the late 1700's, when some upstarts in English colonies got it in their heads that a system which forced them to do much of the work and yet was prohibitively expensive when they wanted to reap their reward was stupid. And before you go saying the fall of the Soviet Union was a victory for openness, look at our system. It is, for the most part, top-down. True, barring a cataclysm that took out all of the Federal Government all at once, there is no single event which could bring down the American society. September 11, 2001, was an attempt, and it failed.
The point of my post was not to say that there will never be a measure of openness, but to say that the measure of openness that Negroponte envisions is unlikely. Some may complain about the closed-ness of American society, with regards to information cover-ups, closed source, draconian EULAs, what have you, and I'll agree that you have a gripe. But no matter how much informational freedom you obtain, there will always be some level of control. Otherwise, you run the risk of an utter meltdown in society.
Unfortunately, I've noticed that I've begun to ramble. Therefore, I will quickly wrap-up. As to the relationship of encryption with such an information model, look at FreeNet. The project is an attempt to set up a network where there is total freedom of information, complete anonymity, and no censorship, base on the philosophy that you cannot have 'good' censorship.
Most of this stuff is fairly obvious (to/. at least). It is nice to see mainstream treatment of it though...
P2P has already proven its effectiveness, whether you look at programs like KaZaA, Mercora, etc. But it works on wired systems because there is established infrastructure that makes the rest of the system work. For his system to work, it would be like taking out the router/server farms from the ISPs and turning every desktop computer into both a router and a server. It adds complexity, and while it ensures redundancy and would keep outages like the earlier one at Akamai from happening, it would require lots of overhead.
There is a reason that we assume that centralised systems work better; they are easier to establish, coordinate and control. This outlook only works if you are going for a fully anarchist system, which you will never get everyone to buy into, barring a massive sociological paradigm shift; something has to happen that convinces everyone that a truly open society is more beneficial than the current model.
There is a link (pops) off of the main article to the DirecTV Defense website that has a rundown of DirecTV's machinations. Included as part of the awareness package is a list of uses for smart cards, including IDs, storage of cryptographic keys, secure memory storage...etc.
The kernel exploit reported yesterday is one that requires shell access and permissions to use an affected gcc version (2.96, 3.0-3.3.2) on the buggy kernels. It does not provide a remote hole, and would not cause a DoS situation. Read more here (pops) if you didn't get to yesterday.
/risking off-topic moderation, but this had to be corrected
If I hear the quirky optical distortion bellow wort wort wort! or see a random energy blade floating in mid air, I'm going to find mmy nearest MJOLNIR capable footsoldier and get the hell out of the way.
/welcomes our new multispecies religious-fanatic overlords...
So it's acceptable to write utter shit as long as those reading it are not in on the "ins and outs" of the subject?
I look forward to BBC's response to my feedback.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyways, it couldn't be any worse than Battlefield Earth, could it? Or am I about to have to give up my geek card?
Now, if it is as bad as you say, there should be an MST3K of it somewhere. THAT I would like to see.
Damnation. I coulda sworn there was like, one post there just a few seconds ago. This place is worse than fark.
The only planet I can readily recall from science fiction with three suns is the one from Pitch Black (and even then I think I'm making up the third sun). Most hard scifi authors and such place habitable planets around star systems like ours or around binaries (though most scifi universes take for granted that there is a habitable star in the Proxima-Alpha Centaurus complex (made up of Rigil Kentaurus A and B and Proxima Centaurus)).
I will be very interested to hear the explanation for this.
//Luuuuucy, you got some 'splainin to do!
Although I would use my GoogleMapHack to display the progress of my Diabolical Hordes (R) as they spread their infamy accross the globe.
Imagine the complexity one could introduce to the game...Maybe not use individual troops, but use something similar to Axis and Allies, where each piece represents approximately one division/squadron/task force (maybe ships only represent one ship... has been awhile). Lay siege to your hometown, and animate peasants running through the streets.
Then again, maybe we can adapt Trogdor to play out against SCO's offices...
I for one welcomerqs$$%#@[no carrier]
Salvation is by faith alone, as noted in Romans. Paul says that Abraham was afforded righteousness through faith. Paul says in Galatians that those who would force the Hebraic law on Gentile Christians have "fallen from grace" a phrase that is picked up to reinforce the idea of meritocratic salvation. James says that faith without works is dead, and I do not dispute that. I merely raise the point that there is nothing I can do of my own merit that affords salvation. The very definition of grace implies that it is a gift, not something earned.
If you would like to talk more about it, my email is polemarch AT charter DOT net (adjust accordingly).
Christianity doesn't deny the worth of the whole universe (and yes, I know religion != Christianity; but it's what I know, because I practice, so it's what I'll talk about). The philosophy of the first century Christians was not one of 'well, this place is worthless, and Jesus is coming again, so I'll go sit up on my rooftop', though there are places where Christ says that this will be done in the last days (whenever those are...). It was more one of 'how can I best serve my time here while I wait for my turn to go?'
In fact, contrary to your statement about the importance of the spiritual vs. the material, it seems to me that Paul and the original Christians viewed the physical and spiritual with equal importance. For instance, James rebukes those who would say to a homeless and hungry man, 'God go with you and be well' without caring for the obvious physical needs. Paul likens the spiritual body of believers to the physical body throughout the Corinthian letters. And in the eighth chapter of the letter to the church in Rome, Paul seems to indicate that the physical and spiritual worlds are not in a relationship of dominate and submissive, but that each were given equal weight, but due to the Fall of Man, the two are now separate.
But back on the topic of video games: There is a good reason religion isn't brought into more games. Look at Civilisation. In Civ2-3 (don't know about the original, never played it) religion is treated as either an opiate or as a way to score points. You build temples to soothe rebellious citizens, and you build great works with religious undertones as a way to increase your score. Religion is included in the tech tree and is treated as just another stepping stone to a better tomorrow. The problem is this: religion in videogames is treated much as it is in the real world, as a meritocracy. A practicing Christian will tell you that the path to Heaven is not through good deeds. Christians believe that the soul is saved through faith, not by adherence to law. So, if you remove the idea of meritocratic faith in a game, what's the point in including religion at all, except for the cool superpowers that someone mentioned earlier or for RPG elements? Personally, I think it would be cool to have an MMORPG world of any setting that had a faith element that was not forced on you. In most games that have aspects of religion, you have to choose either to follow the Light god or demonic forces instead of just going through the world as an atheist. The faithful could get bonuses from whichever side they chose, and for everyone else, 'the rain falls on the just and the unjust'.
Yes, that involuntary wireless hack sounds like a bastard of an exploit. I hear it can even render tinfoil hats susceptable.
You can find information at www.$%aaer&&*[carrier lost]
Slashdot announces competition for the design of new All Your Base cliches.
Mod me redundant all you want...Just making an observation...
I get the option to use a superior shell or more advanced gui than the one built in.
Anybody know if there are any plans to adapt Life the Universe and Everything to the big screen? I always wondered what ultra-violent and infradead looked like...
The point of my post was not to say that there will never be a measure of openness, but to say that the measure of openness that Negroponte envisions is unlikely. Some may complain about the closed-ness of American society, with regards to information cover-ups, closed source, draconian EULAs, what have you, and I'll agree that you have a gripe. But no matter how much informational freedom you obtain, there will always be some level of control. Otherwise, you run the risk of an utter meltdown in society.
Unfortunately, I've noticed that I've begun to ramble. Therefore, I will quickly wrap-up. As to the relationship of encryption with such an information model, look at FreeNet. The project is an attempt to set up a network where there is total freedom of information, complete anonymity, and no censorship, base on the philosophy that you cannot have 'good' censorship.
P2P has already proven its effectiveness, whether you look at programs like KaZaA, Mercora, etc. But it works on wired systems because there is established infrastructure that makes the rest of the system work. For his system to work, it would be like taking out the router/server farms from the ISPs and turning every desktop computer into both a router and a server. It adds complexity, and while it ensures redundancy and would keep outages like the earlier one at Akamai from happening, it would require lots of overhead.
There is a reason that we assume that centralised systems work better; they are easier to establish, coordinate and control. This outlook only works if you are going for a fully anarchist system, which you will never get everyone to buy into, barring a massive sociological paradigm shift; something has to happen that convinces everyone that a truly open society is more beneficial than the current model.
There is a link (pops) off of the main article to the DirecTV Defense website that has a rundown of DirecTV's machinations. Included as part of the awareness package is a list of uses for smart cards, including IDs, storage of cryptographic keys, secure memory storage...etc.
/welcomes our new multispecies religious-fanatic overlords...
And while suffering through a /.-ing, we flaunt our superior hosting skillz.
And when I discovered they weren't talking about tetris, the white dove of hope came crashing back to earth in a fiery ball of feathers.
At least I get some roasted avian out of the deal...
Question for those !(IANAL)s:
Does this now set a precedent in favor of the GPL to be used in such cases as SCO vs *ix/BSD?
Cool. Of course, my children are going to be named using greek letters. All of the oddity, none of the benefits.
mwahahahaha....
Shit...you're right...
(please mod original -1, Misidentifying well known Star Trek quotes)
I don't know whats worse, your comment, or the fact that I dimly recall the TNG episode that's from...
::frantically looks for something non-nerdy to do::
So it's acceptable to write utter shit as long as those reading it are not in on the "ins and outs" of the subject? I look forward to BBC's response to my feedback.
Just sent mine in. I'm afraid I may have ranted a bit. I tried to add some facts to it, but it may have come out jumbled.