From the article:
Advances in solar cell technology mean the craft will be able to cope with half the number of solar panels its predecessor carried: it will open up to reveal two panels rather than previous four.
So now there is a 50% greater chance of catastrophic energy collection failure. Check.
The craft's UHF antenna (identical to that on Beagle 2) is positioned on the top panel, so the motorised fanfold mechanism ensures it always points upwards for communication.
So now when the "fanfold mechanism" for that panel fails we lose communications along with half the power. Check.
Engineers stressed, however, that this was a preliminary proposal and the design would continue to "evolve".
"As before, the study ignores the thousands of automatically-spreading viruses for Windows."
Just like the millions of clueless Windows users.
Re:Election Results Predicted by Candidate Mask Sa
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Halloween Fun
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"It's as unscientific as it gets, but the theory, according to some people in the costume business, is that the winner in every election since 1980 has been the candidate whose masks were most popular on Halloween."
What I want to know is, did more people buy the (eventual) winner's mask because they liked that candidate, or because that candidate was most scary to them? Sort of like a reverse-popularity predictor if it's the latter.
Please explain the difference between these extremist Muslims and the extremist fundamentalist Christians currently running your country? Apart from the Muslims not having killed as many people, of course.
First off, I don't run this country, am not old enough to have set up the players in government currently and did not vote for the current president. Also, I'm neither Christian nor Muslim, and personally view the concept of a supreme diety of any sort as a rather backwoods outmoded concept.
That said, I think the most fundamental difference between the two groups is the motivation behind any killing they have done. The extremist christians running our country are killing for economic and political reasons - oil, power, wealth, etc. While the extremist muslims are killing in response to the above, and also as a mandate from god (some of them anyway). Whether anyone in our government personally believes they are doing the lord's work with their wars I can't say, but if they do think that is the case they are keeping it to themselves.
Personally I'm outraged and disgusted by the whole thing. At the heart of the matter it amounts to nothing more than a rediculous blood fued fueled by generations of killing, deception, and intolerance. It continues to spiral out of control as neither side will back down and only seeks greater retribution with each passing decade. I don't think either side is right, I have no idea what the solution is (arguably even if America pulled out of the Middle East tomorrow there would still be terrorist attacks and kidnappings and the like, and even if the terrorists and such stopped their activities America would continue to try to seize oil and political power in those countries).
So don't sit behind your AC post and lob thinly veiled acusations at myself or anyone else with sense enough to analyse the situation. You assume too quickly that all Americans are warmongering jerks who follow blindly the leaders who represent them. If you are a regular reader of slashdot you would know from reading posts here that many of us are at a total loss at how our current politicians are in power since on so many fronts they are almost completely out of touch with those they supposedly represent. In an republic (which the US is) there will always be a divide between the people and the government since policy is determined by a select few representatives of the people rather than by popular vote on all issues. However, over the years those in power seem to have done an excellent job at furthering that divide while maintaining their power, and a sleeping public has let that happen piece by piece. I also reject your smug implication that one side has killed more than the other. My reasons for that being twofold. One, I don't have facts and figures on the body counts for both sides, and I'm willing to bet cash that at the time of your writing, neither did you. And two, if you want to take a look at the christians vs muslims conflict it arguably spans centuries and while in any given era one side may be ahead of the other in atrocities, it's impossible to point to any short time span and say 'this proves side X is clearly the worst.' Neither side is forgivable, and just because one side at any time is less efficient at killing than the other does not make them any better, since it is quite obvious both sides are keen as hell at killing as many as possible.
To get back to the topic of my original post here, I did not and do not necessarily condone the secret service in considering prayer as a literal threat. However, given the state of affairs currently it is not very difficult to construct the scenario in which a prayer to god to kill a leader could in fact be a threat. Sometimes playing devil's advocate to an idea is the best way to determine if it is at all justifiable, or if it's in fact totally unfounded. Whether or not you agree with any justification you find is another matter. But that's the beauty of being an intelligent entity, isn't it? Being able to simultaneously entertain the notion of, but not believe in, any given concept.
I think part of the reason why wishing god would kill someone could be considered a threat has a lot to do with our current war on terror. Many of the terrorists are extremist Muslims, believe they are fighting in a Jihad dicated by god, and expect to be rewarded for their self-sacrifice by ascending to heaven. I read somewhere (don't know where, too lazy to go check) that before these terrorists die they scream something to the effect of "God is great!" Please/. community correct me if I'm wrong or spreading bad information with that statement.
In any case, when the US is facing enemies driven by religious fanaticism, I think a call (wish, prayer, etc) for god to kill someone could easily be considered a direct threat by the secret service. Especially when so many terrorists have killed in the name of their god or acting as "the hand of god."
Oh, poor baby. Sounds like someone just didn't make the cut in teeball as a kid and is rather oversensitive about it. In all this (still posting as AC) dipshit's rant there is not one suggestion of alternate activites or events that would fulfill his over-blown ego's desire for constant intellectual stimulation.
Got news for you pal, not everyone likes watching chess. And what of this rage against sport in general? Since even before man figured out how how to hurl rocks he's had an innate desire to compete, driven by instinct and survival. Throughout history sport has provided
not just amusement but taught skills, helped warriors hone their craft, and yes, acted as a diversion from a
sometimes otherwise mundane or painful life. Is there no value in joy? Is there nothing worthy to be found in relaxing oneself
through, god forbid, non-productive indulgement from time to time? If you like we can find and discuss studies that
demonstrate people with lower stress who are happy are more productive. I would argue that if you enjoy sports, playing or
watching, and that makes your life better than how is it injurious?
Perhaps you only rail against those who make watching
sports their life? I concede that there are many people who really need to do more with their time than follow dozens of
teams and spew statistics like it was their job. But as with any pursuit there are always those who overindulge, yet this does
not invalidate the entire field. There are scientists who have ruined their marriages because they devoted all their time to their
studies and not enough time to family. There are people who have spent their entire lives becoming chess masters, to the
exclusion of all other things, and though their passtime is perhaps more amenable to your idea of intellectual advancement, it is
still reprehensible to focus on it to that degree.
Is it competition you loathe? It would be very hard, if not impossible, for you
to prove that competition is inherently evil. Without even getting into the argument of evolution as an eternal competition, the
simple fact is competition in all aspects of life has driven man and all of mankind's achievements throughout history.
And
finally it comes down to not everyone likes the same things. I like baseball but not basketball. I like sailing but not country
music. Just because you hate sports, for whatever reason, hardly means there is no value in it and anyone who does enjoy sports is some kind of sloth or mendicant.
I would also point out, more to your point about Orwellian control and "fake news", (trust me, there are a lot more lies and half-truths about important political events in an evening's news to worry about than whether bruins scores really matter globally) that sports have been around long before our society, and long before the author of 1984 was even a wink in his great-grandfather's eye. The immersion provided at this point in history is higher, certainly, but that is true of all things. You can immerse yourself to an unhealthly degree in just about anything from porn to classical music, to hardware overclocking, to painting these days, thanks to the internet and electronic media in general.
Your closed view of the world serves only two purposes as I see it: (1) to artificially elevate yourself above others you feel are somehow inferior to you, despite their backgrounds, and (2) to infuriate yourself over something that is not a real problem. Poor misguided warrior, you are jousting windmills. Go fight the biased presidential debate committe, or get just as pissed off at people who promote hate, bias, or arbitrary morality laws. But please, if you're so elevated above your common man intellectually, if your vision is so much clearer than the blinded proletariat around you, find something more worthwhile to get so vehement about, and by all means apply that energy to fixing the problem, but sports is not a problem. And even if it were, it is so far down on the list of priorities as to be considered benign for the time being.
Now, as to your claiming I am a semi-literate shit-for-brains fucktard I will point you to my above paragraphs, and the fact that I am a robotics engineer for automated chemistry systems. And also a Red Sox fan. Gee, guess that blows your theory all to hell.
Yes, you're correct. The parent must have mistakenly inserted "[Thomas]" instead of "[Aldous]". It is the Aldous Huxley of Brave New World and (especially) Island fame who is clearly the correct Huxley.
Whoops! Thanks Slashdot. Keeping armchair physicists, philosophers, and "IANAL" lawyers error-free since [insert/. founding year here]!
Re:Except Animals are more likely to be right.
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Good Bad Attitude
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I really don't think any of this is new, or that we're doomed. This country has had our dark moments and our bright ones, but has survived many things and will continue to survive. Maybe it will not be the same, but this "slippery slope" falicy that so many people call upon when they look at the compramises that are made in our name will not be our end. As long as we're alive, there's hope that things will get better, and there is always something we can do, even if it's small, to make the world a better place.
In the long term I think you are correct. But I'm only on this planet for maybe 75 years or so, I'd rather see (true, unhindered, stable) freedom now and continuing forward, than to just shrug my shoulders and say "it's ok, I know someday balance will be restored."
If our rights are being eroded now, let's stop it now. If our leaders are out of touch with the country, let's fix that and the process now. I know this is a selfish approach, but given that governments span centuries while its inhabitants barely span one, the thought of things being righted eventually is about as comforting to me as telling a Roman peasant that his empire would last for another 400 years even though barbarians were burning his village and he'd be dead by nightfall.
And eventually there is going to be a peak, a turning point, and we will hit upon just the right combination of bad policies, bad leaders, and public complacency to trigger either the ruin of our country, or enable it to become the totalitarian state we fear. I think what many of us are seeing and saying now is that we seem to be rapidly approaching that turning point. In other points of history you refer to there have indeed been bad leaders, freedom stifling policy, unecessary wars, etc. But right now there seems to be some of everything, and with technology to corral, coherce, and supress people in wholly new and terribly effective ways available to those in power there are new forms of control unlike anything ever before seen in history.
I think our current society, more than any of its other incarnations before, is at the most risk. Technology has always enabled more control, there have always been doomsayers. Electricity, the telegraph, transcontinental flight, nuclear power. With each iteration of technology people have foretold that it would consume the world, and you're right, it hasn't. Yet. But each time we advance our technology and use it to control and govern the masses, the reality and the dangers come ever more in line with the ill forecasts of skeptics. Eventaully, and soon I fear, they will be proven right.
Now is the time to act, always now. There isn't a later to fight for if the fight is always later.
but I feel that those who have power tend to want to keep things nice and stable so they can keep it, and part of that means keeping the masses happy, so we're probably OK.
There is a subtle but important difference in keeping the masses happy and keeping the masses complicit. The apathy and ignorance of the population can be, and always has been, used to keep them in line. As long as everyone gets cable TV and can go to Vegas for the one week of the year they're not working constantly, they're happy. As long as the "terrorists are on the run" they're happy. As long as they can drive whatever car they want despite its impact on the environment, economy, and world relations, they're happy. Meanwhile those in power will do as they've always done and find more ways to keep themselves in power, until at last when the masses notice things and demand change it may be too late to do it in any other way than bloody revolt. And now, unlike any other time in history, the phrase "they've got the guns but we've got the numbers" doesn't mean much since our new weapons are of such ferocity that rebellion will come, at best, at a horrific cost.
Heh, wow, that turned into quite a rant, sorry, think I got a bit offtopic, but you get my point. Let's not wait for the problems to mature, let's notice these trends and make corrections to keep what we have already.
Ok, let's not get nasty here, but I would like to point out that I was posting a rebuttle specifically in response to I Love Bees as "disguised advertising" not the entire concept and current execution of it in all forms. This topic is about ILB afterall, and what I'm trying to point out is that while it is in fact a form of advertising it can be taken wholly apart from the advertising aspect, and enjoyed.
I'd also like to ask what about my post you consider an "uneducated barrage of bullshit"? I stated only a) my opinion that the game could be enjoyed regardless of the product tie-in, and b) facts culled from the/. posting and the wired article, and having visited the ILB site itself when this thing began.
Making a (unsupported) personal attack against me does nothing to forward your argument.
As to you feeling the need to explain in detail each of your examples, I really don't know why you bothered, they were already quite clear. Wasn't it obvious from my post that I was referring to none of those things (except for the ovaltine ring analog)? Yes, those things (geocaching by Jeep, RIAA sludge, and Ovaltine decoder rings) are disguised advertising, whoopie, you outted them, good for you. I'm not disagreeing with that. What I'm saying is that even though ILB falls under the same umbrella, it has added value, and in a way that I think doesn't necessarily have to end with the user buying the product. In fact I think it'd be a pretty big leap for someone not already interested in Halo to end up buying the video game because of ILB, the two being vastly different game spaces (one reality, the other console) and experiences (some ppl like intrigue games, but maybe not video games or FPSes).
The point of all of this is that even though YOU might not care it's still blatant marketing and you are falling for it hook, line, and sinker. If that's ok w/you, so be it, but the parent shouldn't bitch that the rest of us don't care for it.
Yeah, it's blatant marketing. As in obvious, as in you notice it and the very act of noticing it means you're not being duped by it. How am I falling for it hook line and sinker? Because I believe it to be benign? The marketing geniuses have thrown their shroud of control over me secretly? No. I think not, as I already said I was planning on buying Halo 2 before it was announced there would be a Halo 2, cuz I like it. As to the unwashed masses? Well there's a lot more dangerous things out there duping them right this second that are a hell of a lot worse than obfuscated Jeep commercials. Like the biased media, a bi-partisan debate committee claiming to be non-partisan, and presidential candidates who are more beholden to corporate interests than the public whom they supposedly represent.
On this one let's agree to disagree, but keep in mind, sometimes you gotta let that which truly does not matter slide.
Folks, it's not Orwellian unless it is backed by a totalitarian state. Most of your fears would be better directed at a Huxleyan future.
Heh, most of your readers would be better directed at a dictionary.;)
Incidentally, for those like myself who haven't heard of this term, here you go. Don't say I never gave ya nothing.
(excerpted from here) "What [Thomas] Huxley teaches is that in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate. In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility"
"How about you not get suckered in and you buy the product because it's superior not because the marketing gods have your brain by the balls.
"
How about you look into your subject a little before you bash people for being suckered by advertising when that's not the case?
The ARG is based on the story of the Halo universe, and yes, come November 9th it will end (According to the Wired article) with ppl being directed to video game stores to buy the game. But although it is technically just one giant commercial, there is not a constant product barrage. People answering the payphones aren't getting spammed with "Buy Bungie games!" or "XBox Rulez!" because that breaks the suspension of disbelief the game (I Love Bees) has created. It is in fact a standalone free alternate reality game. You don't have to like Halo, you don't have to have even ever played Halo. While it may be true that there is no such thing as a free lunch, there is nothing about ILB that forces its product upon you, and I have a feeling that come Nov 9th a lot of people are going to be very sad their fun is over, but go on with their lives w/o giving a rat's ass whether they play Halo2 or not.
As for me, I don't have time to crack cyphers and answer random payphones, but I'll be buying Halo 2 because Halo was the most fun multiplayer FPS I've ever played IMO. Some people may decide to buy Halo 2 because of ILB, and if not then at least they had fun playing the game, incidentally one which gets people outside and interacting rather than just staring monotonously at the television for hours. And unlike the decoder ring revealing an anticlimactic paid advertisement, the "secret" unlocked by ILB will possibly be one of the best video games ever produced - hardly a letdown.
I preordered the DVDs, and while I did go straight home and watch them all I haven't scrutinized them for every change. However I did notice that one of the big "errors" from the originals still remains in Empire Strike Back.
In the fight scene between Vader and Luke in the Carbonite Chamber, after Luke turns of his saber and jumps off the platform to follow Vader he lands on a trampoline (since the set platform was ~10 ft high) and when he rebounds his head reappears in the shot. Surprisingly Lucas missed editing out Luke's head as he bounces back into frame.
I find it hard to believe Lucas didn't have a check list of fixes for the re-remastering; both personal, and culled from the endless fan forums that at this point have probably documented every mistake there is. Oversight? Or perhaps a little piece of nostalgia left in there on purpose?
If a house is burning down, first you put out the fire. Voting third party this year is like redesigning the house while it's still on fire. Kerry will need every vote he can get.
The problem is when Americans continue to vote like this, the only people we put in the house are arsonists. We'll never get to redesign anything if the devil we don't know is always next in line.
Just show more Mos Eisleys, Death Stick Dealers, smugglers in crappy starships, malfunctioning droids, bounty hunters, weird aliens...
If you can live without the universe having some great mysterious super power, I suggest you go rent the Firefly DVDs. You'll find they have all you're asking for, and much better dialogue.;)
]] What proof do they have that Kerry will be any different?
Sometimes the devil you know is so bad that you're willing to give the devil you don't know a try.
I'm sorry, but I can't believe this got modded up as insightful. This is the exact same bullshit that's helped to ruin the democratic system by setting up a
a near-perpetual power monopoly by the two parties that are currently serving up the schlock of the country as our proposed "leaders."
You want to vote for the devil you don't know? How about not voting for the devil as long as we're electing strangers. I don't care what third party you
choose, I don't care if you abstain from voting or write-in Optimus Prime for Pres to protest the system, but please, stop voting for the lesser of two
evils just to evict the first.
People pass this phrase around and nod their heads like it's some great wisdom bestowed from a more rational time. Fuck that.
If people would just take the time to find out more about who else is running, rather than looking at who Fox news feeds them as their "choices" in
2004, they might find a candidate they actually [gasp] agree with, instead of perpetuating the two party puppets that have hijacked democracy.
Honestly, instead of telling everyone you see "Vote for Kerry, he's not Bush!" Tell them to vote for a candidate they believe in and, as a bonus, it might
not be Bush! This "conventional wisdom" of voting one asshat in for another makes people believe it's the only way to do it, so the sheeple follow the
old wives tale right to the voting booth. If Americans don't snap out of this stupid daze that the only choice year after year is the other major party candidate who will get out the incumbent president, we will never see serious change, only the contiuned slide of lost freedoms, curbed rights, voter redistricting, and gerrymandering with the process until we have literally been legislated into a single defacto party who is unoustable.
Get Bush out of office. Vote for the candidate you want to win, not the one you think will win.
I do not understand how patents can be bad for some technical fields and good for others. They work just fine for machines and medicines then why not for software?
As I understand the problem it is this: with physical inventions, like say a bean sorter, the inventor must provide technical drawings and schematics etc showing how the machine works and is constructed. Now no one else may build precisely that machine. However, if I come up with an innovative new bean grabber/combine/conveyor mchanism that does the sorting in a different mechanical way then I may also patent that, and if my device works better than the other bean sorters out there I do well.
With software patents what is patented is the general concept or function, but it is not tied to the actual execution. So if someone gets a software patent for "a routine to sort Bean Class Objects in LogN time using only one mouseclick" they don't need to inlcude an implementation in a specific language and have the idea intimately linked with that implementation. (Just as the physical bean sorting machine patent is forever linked to its design and schematics.) Now even if I create a new way of sorting Bean Class Objects in LogN time using one mouseclick, one that is written in a different language and uses some clever recursive trick to make my code smaller than the patented version, I still cannot get a patent on my software because the idea of this Bean Class sorter has already been patented. Thus my innovation is stifled and now everywhere I use a bean class sort that executes in logN time with one mouseclick, I have to pay a licensing fee to the original patent holder even though I didn't ever use any of their code.
This is how I understand the general difference between softpats and more classical machine patents. Granted, this is very simplified and there are more issues at stake. Perhaps someone more in the know could elaborate or correct what I've said here if anything doesn't jive.
Slashdot Mirror
Advances in solar cell technology mean the craft will be able to cope with half the number of solar panels its predecessor carried: it will open up to reveal two panels rather than previous four.
So now there is a 50% greater chance of catastrophic energy collection failure. Check.
The craft's UHF antenna (identical to that on Beagle 2) is positioned on the top panel, so the motorised fanfold mechanism ensures it always points upwards for communication.
So now when the "fanfold mechanism" for that panel fails we lose communications along with half the power. Check.
Engineers stressed, however, that this was a preliminary proposal and the design would continue to "evolve".
Let's hope so.
Just like the millions of clueless Windows users.
What I want to know is, did more people buy the (eventual) winner's mask because they liked that candidate, or because that candidate was most scary to them?
Sort of like a reverse-popularity predictor if it's the latter.
First off, I don't run this country, am not old enough to have set up the players in government currently and did not vote for the current president. Also, I'm neither Christian nor Muslim, and personally view the concept of a supreme diety of any sort as a rather backwoods outmoded concept.
That said, I think the most fundamental difference between the two groups is the motivation behind any killing they have done. The extremist christians running our country are killing for economic and political reasons - oil, power, wealth, etc. While the extremist muslims are killing in response to the above, and also as a mandate from god (some of them anyway). Whether anyone in our government personally believes they are doing the lord's work with their wars I can't say, but if they do think that is the case they are keeping it to themselves.
Personally I'm outraged and disgusted by the whole thing. At the heart of the matter it amounts to nothing more than a rediculous blood fued fueled by generations of killing, deception, and intolerance. It continues to spiral out of control as neither side will back down and only seeks greater retribution with each passing decade. I don't think either side is right, I have no idea what the solution is (arguably even if America pulled out of the Middle East tomorrow there would still be terrorist attacks and kidnappings and the like, and even if the terrorists and such stopped their activities America would continue to try to seize oil and political power in those countries).
So don't sit behind your AC post and lob thinly veiled acusations at myself or anyone else with sense enough to analyse the situation. You assume too quickly that all Americans are warmongering jerks who follow blindly the leaders who represent them. If you are a regular reader of slashdot you would know from reading posts here that many of us are at a total loss at how our current politicians are in power since on so many fronts they are almost completely out of touch with those they supposedly represent. In an republic (which the US is) there will always be a divide between the people and the government since policy is determined by a select few representatives of the people rather than by popular vote on all issues. However, over the years those in power seem to have done an excellent job at furthering that divide while maintaining their power, and a sleeping public has let that happen piece by piece. I also reject your smug implication that one side has killed more than the other. My reasons for that being twofold. One, I don't have facts and figures on the body counts for both sides, and I'm willing to bet cash that at the time of your writing, neither did you. And two, if you want to take a look at the christians vs muslims conflict it arguably spans centuries and while in any given era one side may be ahead of the other in atrocities, it's impossible to point to any short time span and say 'this proves side X is clearly the worst.' Neither side is forgivable, and just because one side at any time is less efficient at killing than the other does not make them any better, since it is quite obvious both sides are keen as hell at killing as many as possible.
To get back to the topic of my original post here, I did not and do not necessarily condone the secret service in considering prayer as a literal threat. However, given the state of affairs currently it is not very difficult to construct the scenario in which a prayer to god to kill a leader could in fact be a threat. Sometimes playing devil's advocate to an idea is the best way to determine if it is at all justifiable, or if it's in fact totally unfounded. Whether or not you agree with any justification you find is another matter. But that's the beauty of being an intelligent entity, isn't it? Being able to simultaneously entertain the notion of, but not believe in, any given concept.
In any case, when the US is facing enemies driven by religious fanaticism, I think a call (wish, prayer, etc) for god to kill someone could easily be considered a direct threat by the secret service. Especially when so many terrorists have killed in the name of their god or acting as "the hand of god."
Plus all the deficit betting? Ouch!
ps - for all our sarcasm-impaired readers out there [cough!]secretservice[cough!] I'm joking.
Let's hope the character script is taken directly from the game too so that I don't have to hear "The Rock" say anything at all.
someone needs to tell this to management as well.
Got news for you pal, not everyone likes watching chess. And what of this rage against sport in general? Since even before man figured out how how to hurl rocks he's had an innate desire to compete, driven by instinct and survival. Throughout history sport has provided not just amusement but taught skills, helped warriors hone their craft, and yes, acted as a diversion from a sometimes otherwise mundane or painful life. Is there no value in joy? Is there nothing worthy to be found in relaxing oneself through, god forbid, non-productive indulgement from time to time? If you like we can find and discuss studies that demonstrate people with lower stress who are happy are more productive. I would argue that if you enjoy sports, playing or watching, and that makes your life better than how is it injurious?
Perhaps you only rail against those who make watching sports their life? I concede that there are many people who really need to do more with their time than follow dozens of teams and spew statistics like it was their job. But as with any pursuit there are always those who overindulge, yet this does not invalidate the entire field. There are scientists who have ruined their marriages because they devoted all their time to their studies and not enough time to family. There are people who have spent their entire lives becoming chess masters, to the exclusion of all other things, and though their passtime is perhaps more amenable to your idea of intellectual advancement, it is still reprehensible to focus on it to that degree.
Is it competition you loathe? It would be very hard, if not impossible, for you to prove that competition is inherently evil. Without even getting into the argument of evolution as an eternal competition, the simple fact is competition in all aspects of life has driven man and all of mankind's achievements throughout history.
And finally it comes down to not everyone likes the same things. I like baseball but not basketball. I like sailing but not country music. Just because you hate sports, for whatever reason, hardly means there is no value in it and anyone who does enjoy sports is some kind of sloth or mendicant.
I would also point out, more to your point about Orwellian control and "fake news", (trust me, there are a lot more lies and half-truths about important political events in an evening's news to worry about than whether bruins scores really matter globally) that sports have been around long before our society, and long before the author of 1984 was even a wink in his great-grandfather's eye. The immersion provided at this point in history is higher, certainly, but that is true of all things. You can immerse yourself to an unhealthly degree in just about anything from porn to classical music, to hardware overclocking, to painting these days, thanks to the internet and electronic media in general.
Your closed view of the world serves only two purposes as I see it: (1) to artificially elevate yourself above others you feel are somehow inferior to you, despite their backgrounds, and (2) to infuriate yourself over something that is not a real problem. Poor misguided warrior, you are jousting windmills. Go fight the biased presidential debate committe, or get just as pissed off at people who promote hate, bias, or arbitrary morality laws. But please, if you're so elevated above your common man intellectually, if your vision is so much clearer than the blinded proletariat around you, find something more worthwhile to get so vehement about, and by all means apply that energy to fixing the problem, but sports is not a problem. And even if it were, it is so far down on the list of priorities as to be considered benign for the time being.
Now, as to your claiming I am a semi-literate shit-for-brains fucktard I will point you to my above paragraphs, and the fact that I am a robotics engineer for automated chemistry systems. And also a Red Sox fan. Gee, guess that blows your theory all to hell.
Go Sox!
Blue Screen of DEATH.
ACs on slashdot, and posting anonymously in general, is the preocupation of pussies.
There, took care of that for ya. ;)
Which is a piece of electrical tape covering the IR receiver so nitwits who can't ignore TV can't turn mine off!
Whoops! Thanks Slashdot. Keeping armchair physicists, philosophers, and "IANAL" lawyers error-free since [insert /. founding year here]!
In the long term I think you are correct. But I'm only on this planet for maybe 75 years or so, I'd rather see (true, unhindered, stable) freedom now and continuing forward, than to just shrug my shoulders and say "it's ok, I know someday balance will be restored."
If our rights are being eroded now, let's stop it now. If our leaders are out of touch with the country, let's fix that and the process now. I know this is a selfish approach, but given that governments span centuries while its inhabitants barely span one, the thought of things being righted eventually is about as comforting to me as telling a Roman peasant that his empire would last for another 400 years even though barbarians were burning his village and he'd be dead by nightfall.
And eventually there is going to be a peak, a turning point, and we will hit upon just the right combination of bad policies, bad leaders, and public complacency to trigger either the ruin of our country, or enable it to become the totalitarian state we fear. I think what many of us are seeing and saying now is that we seem to be rapidly approaching that turning point. In other points of history you refer to there have indeed been bad leaders, freedom stifling policy, unecessary wars, etc. But right now there seems to be some of everything, and with technology to corral, coherce, and supress people in wholly new and terribly effective ways available to those in power there are new forms of control unlike anything ever before seen in history.
I think our current society, more than any of its other incarnations before, is at the most risk. Technology has always enabled more control, there have always been doomsayers. Electricity, the telegraph, transcontinental flight, nuclear power. With each iteration of technology people have foretold that it would consume the world, and you're right, it hasn't. Yet. But each time we advance our technology and use it to control and govern the masses, the reality and the dangers come ever more in line with the ill forecasts of skeptics. Eventaully, and soon I fear, they will be proven right.
Now is the time to act, always now. There isn't a later to fight for if the fight is always later.
but I feel that those who have power tend to want to keep things nice and stable so they can keep it, and part of that means keeping the masses happy, so we're probably OK.
There is a subtle but important difference in keeping the masses happy and keeping the masses complicit. The apathy and ignorance of the population can be, and always has been, used to keep them in line. As long as everyone gets cable TV and can go to Vegas for the one week of the year they're not working constantly, they're happy. As long as the "terrorists are on the run" they're happy. As long as they can drive whatever car they want despite its impact on the environment, economy, and world relations, they're happy. Meanwhile those in power will do as they've always done and find more ways to keep themselves in power, until at last when the masses notice things and demand change it may be too late to do it in any other way than bloody revolt. And now, unlike any other time in history, the phrase "they've got the guns but we've got the numbers" doesn't mean much since our new weapons are of such ferocity that rebellion will come, at best, at a horrific cost.
Heh, wow, that turned into quite a rant, sorry, think I got a bit offtopic, but you get my point. Let's not wait for the problems to mature, let's notice these trends and make corrections to keep what we have already.
I'd also like to ask what about my post you consider an "uneducated barrage of bullshit"? I stated only a) my opinion that the game could be enjoyed regardless of the product tie-in, and b) facts culled from the /. posting and the wired article, and having visited the ILB site itself when this thing began.
Making a (unsupported) personal attack against me does nothing to forward your argument.
As to you feeling the need to explain in detail each of your examples, I really don't know why you bothered, they were already quite clear. Wasn't it obvious from my post that I was referring to none of those things (except for the ovaltine ring analog)? Yes, those things (geocaching by Jeep, RIAA sludge, and Ovaltine decoder rings) are disguised advertising, whoopie, you outted them, good for you. I'm not disagreeing with that. What I'm saying is that even though ILB falls under the same umbrella, it has added value, and in a way that I think doesn't necessarily have to end with the user buying the product. In fact I think it'd be a pretty big leap for someone not already interested in Halo to end up buying the video game because of ILB, the two being vastly different game spaces (one reality, the other console) and experiences (some ppl like intrigue games, but maybe not video games or FPSes).
The point of all of this is that even though YOU might not care it's still blatant marketing and you are falling for it hook, line, and sinker. If that's ok w/you, so be it, but the parent shouldn't bitch that the rest of us don't care for it.
Yeah, it's blatant marketing. As in obvious, as in you notice it and the very act of noticing it means you're not being duped by it. How am I falling for it hook line and sinker? Because I believe it to be benign? The marketing geniuses have thrown their shroud of control over me secretly? No. I think not, as I already said I was planning on buying Halo 2 before it was announced there would be a Halo 2, cuz I like it. As to the unwashed masses? Well there's a lot more dangerous things out there duping them right this second that are a hell of a lot worse than obfuscated Jeep commercials. Like the biased media, a bi-partisan debate committee claiming to be non-partisan, and presidential candidates who are more beholden to corporate interests than the public whom they supposedly represent.
On this one let's agree to disagree, but keep in mind, sometimes you gotta let that which truly does not matter slide.
Heh, most of your readers would be better directed at a dictionary. ;)
Incidentally, for those like myself who haven't heard of this term, here you go.
Don't say I never gave ya nothing.
(excerpted from here) "What [Thomas] Huxley teaches is that in the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate. In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility"
How about you look into your subject a little before you bash people for being suckered by advertising when that's not the case?
The ARG is based on the story of the Halo universe, and yes, come November 9th it will end (According to the Wired article) with ppl being directed to video game stores to buy the game. But although it is technically just one giant commercial, there is not a constant product barrage. People answering the payphones aren't getting spammed with "Buy Bungie games!" or "XBox Rulez!" because that breaks the suspension of disbelief the game (I Love Bees) has created. It is in fact a standalone free alternate reality game. You don't have to like Halo, you don't have to have even ever played Halo. While it may be true that there is no such thing as a free lunch, there is nothing about ILB that forces its product upon you, and I have a feeling that come Nov 9th a lot of people are going to be very sad their fun is over, but go on with their lives w/o giving a rat's ass whether they play Halo2 or not.
As for me, I don't have time to crack cyphers and answer random payphones, but I'll be buying Halo 2 because Halo was the most fun multiplayer FPS I've ever played IMO. Some people may decide to buy Halo 2 because of ILB, and if not then at least they had fun playing the game, incidentally one which gets people outside and interacting rather than just staring monotonously at the television for hours. And unlike the decoder ring revealing an anticlimactic paid advertisement, the "secret" unlocked by ILB will possibly be one of the best video games ever produced - hardly a letdown.
As I always say: moderation in all things, moderation doubly so.
In the fight scene between Vader and Luke in the Carbonite Chamber, after Luke turns of his saber and jumps off the platform to follow Vader he lands on a trampoline (since the set platform was ~10 ft high) and when he rebounds his head reappears in the shot. Surprisingly Lucas missed editing out Luke's head as he bounces back into frame.
I find it hard to believe Lucas didn't have a check list of fixes for the re-remastering; both personal, and culled from the endless fan forums that at this point have probably documented every mistake there is.
Oversight? Or perhaps a little piece of nostalgia left in there on purpose?
The problem is when Americans continue to vote like this, the only people we put in the house are arsonists. We'll never get to redesign anything if the devil we don't know is always next in line.
If you can live without the universe having some great mysterious super power, I suggest you go rent the Firefly DVDs. You'll find they have all you're asking for, and much better dialogue. ;)
Worst animated GIF ever.
Sometimes the devil you know is so bad that you're willing to give the devil you don't know a try.
I'm sorry, but I can't believe this got modded up as insightful. This is the exact same bullshit that's helped to ruin the democratic system by setting up a a near-perpetual power monopoly by the two parties that are currently serving up the schlock of the country as our proposed "leaders."
You want to vote for the devil you don't know? How about not voting for the devil as long as we're electing strangers. I don't care what third party you choose, I don't care if you abstain from voting or write-in Optimus Prime for Pres to protest the system, but please, stop voting for the lesser of two evils just to evict the first.
People pass this phrase around and nod their heads like it's some great wisdom bestowed from a more rational time. Fuck that. If people would just take the time to find out more about who else is running, rather than looking at who Fox news feeds them as their "choices" in 2004, they might find a candidate they actually [gasp] agree with, instead of perpetuating the two party puppets that have hijacked democracy.
Honestly, instead of telling everyone you see "Vote for Kerry, he's not Bush!" Tell them to vote for a candidate they believe in and, as a bonus, it might not be Bush! This "conventional wisdom" of voting one asshat in for another makes people believe it's the only way to do it, so the sheeple follow the old wives tale right to the voting booth. If Americans don't snap out of this stupid daze that the only choice year after year is the other major party candidate who will get out the incumbent president, we will never see serious change, only the contiuned slide of lost freedoms, curbed rights, voter redistricting, and gerrymandering with the process until we have literally been legislated into a single defacto party who is unoustable.
Get Bush out of office. Vote for the candidate you want to win, not the one you think will win.
As I understand the problem it is this: with physical inventions, like say a bean sorter, the inventor must provide technical drawings and schematics etc showing how the machine works and is constructed. Now no one else may build precisely that machine. However, if I come up with an innovative new bean grabber/combine/conveyor mchanism that does the sorting in a different mechanical way then I may also patent that, and if my device works better than the other bean sorters out there I do well.
With software patents what is patented is the general concept or function, but it is not tied to the actual execution. So if someone gets a software patent for "a routine to sort Bean Class Objects in LogN time using only one mouseclick" they don't need to inlcude an implementation in a specific language and have the idea intimately linked with that implementation. (Just as the physical bean sorting machine patent is forever linked to its design and schematics.) Now even if I create a new way of sorting Bean Class Objects in LogN time using one mouseclick, one that is written in a different language and uses some clever recursive trick to make my code smaller than the patented version, I still cannot get a patent on my software because the idea of this Bean Class sorter has already been patented. Thus my innovation is stifled and now everywhere I use a bean class sort that executes in logN time with one mouseclick, I have to pay a licensing fee to the original patent holder even though I didn't ever use any of their code.
This is how I understand the general difference between softpats and more classical machine patents. Granted, this is very simplified and there are more issues at stake. Perhaps someone more in the know could elaborate or correct what I've said here if anything doesn't jive.