Maybe it makes toilet tissue. Now if you get surprised to find no more rolls on the shelf, you can just print one for an emergency wipe!
Are you really going to buy, maintain and find room for a 3D printer in your bathroom for the one-in-a-million time you run out of arse-wiping material?
creating a good original story and finding good people is really the impediment to a good film, not the money.
Good writers, actors and technicians don't work for nothing. The cost of hiring equipment was never the main barrier to getting a film made. You have to pay all those people somehow, they're professionals.
You have made the classic slashdot error of extrapolating from FOSS to art. They are not the same.
I don't even think they *make* ISO 800 Kodachrome, do they?
ISO 64 was the faster normal Kodachrome, the original was ISO 25. A quick google shows there was an ISO 200 version, but if I remember correctly that was for professionals only (or was that Ektachrome?) In any case, as a student, even normal Kodachrome was quite expensive. You certainly didn't go around shooting reel after reel with a motor drive.
Kids today with their digital cameras don't know they're born. And Kodachrome made my lawn, which incidentally you can get off now, greener.
I just got myself a Bolex diver's model when I was in New York. Guy told me they sell for $3000+ in stores, but he let me have one for just $250. Talk about a bargain!
Ha! You were ripped off. On holiday in Turkey last year I got one for $20.
These are cameras that cost about as much as a car
A friend of a friend is a serious broadcast cinematographer. I remember him saying once he'd spent something like GBP 50K on ONE LENS, but then again he can hire it out for something stupid like a few grand a day.
tl;dr version - actual professional equipment is on a different level both in terms of quality and cost.
There are already companies that wont ship to or do business with California / NY/etc residents etc because of onerous regulations.
That just means they're not as efficient as their competitors. You are presumably not suggesting that NO ONE ships to or does business in California or NY?
If you can't handle basic legal compliance work, you have no right to be in business in the 21st Century.
If you want to write a novel in the style of the Culture novels, there's nothing to stop you is there? [*] The only legal problem would be if you copied stuff directly, used existing characters' names or tried to pass it off as being by Iain M Banks, wouldn't it?
There's no copyright/patent/trademark on things like spaceships with AI, drug-enhanced human beings, backed-up personalities, or a post-scarcity economic system or whatever. You find them in all sorts of science fiction.
Fiction (at least well written fiction like Iain M Banks's) doesn't have the equivalent of source code that you need permission to copy.
[*] Apart from an absence of literary ability, imagination and so on.
When I read the news my first thought was how terrible it will be that there will be no more culture novels. My 2nd thought was for his family and friends, which is a pretty terrible way of thinking about these things.
No, unless you're family or a friend yourself, it is perfectly reasonable. You can't get heartbroken over every human being who is dying, you'd be insane within a couple of days.
Like me, your knowledge of Iain Banks is as a writer. In that sense, he has achieved immortality.
Although I don't doubt your sincerity, I can't believe that fasting while you're already weakened from chemotherapy is a very good idea. I'd certainly want better evidence than an article in the Daily Mail.
He has earned a top position among authors like Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, Vance, Van Vogt and Bester to name a few.
No, he is a better writer than any of them, and that's just his Iain M Banks science fiction. None of them have anything like his Iain Banks "straight" fiction in their locker.
I think we should be grateful that an excellent writer was able to devote so much of his energies to science fiction, which is still dismissed as second rate "genre" fiction by many critics and authors.
titles like Outlaws, Dark Forces, Dark Forces II Jedi Knight, etc
Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle
And both of those are classics, but they're 25 and 20 years old respectively. That is an awful long time in video game terms. Most of the Star Wars related stuff in the last 10-15 years has been pretty uninspiring.
I'm sorry. I don't get car metaphors. Could you restate your argument as a superhero metaphor?
Opera's becoming Superman with a load of kryptonite stuffed up his arse? Chromium's the Silver Surfer with his cock cut off. IE is Iron Man without batteries. Firefox is Woody from Toy Story.
He claims that he saw these things actually happen via remote viewing.
The more I hear about this guy, the more I like the sound of him. If you're going to believe in crazy stuff, you might as well go large.
Although I was a little bit disappointed to find that the "Stargate" project he was involved in didn't actually involve creating a wormhole (or something) and travelling through spacetime, as in the TV documentary series of the same name.
Actually more like burn it. Any consistent reader of reader of Slashdot would know about Feynman at this point. Really, nerd cred goes to zero on that one.
Agreed, it's pretty much like a music journalist not having heard of The Beatles.
âoeThe normal consists of a null set which nobody and nothing really fits.â The committee claims that there is no such thing as âoenormalâ, and there are no existing âoenormalâ people (i.e., people existing in the average). For example, no one has 2.3 children.
If you go around taking surrealism literally you are going to end up sounding very odd indeed.
The water dowsers apparently had a much higher rate of success than the metal dowsers. Randi didn't even raise his eyebrows.
I'm not surprised. If you did a hole anywhere, you'll find water. It's called groundwater.
Yes, it makes you wonder why people bother with wells, doesn't it? All that fuss when you can just walk into your back garden and dig up as much water as you need.
He's been putting out this 'reward' offer for something demonstrably 'paranormal' many years. A counter-offer was also made, many years ago, for something demonstrably 'normal.' Neither reward has been claimed and likely neither ever will be.
Wait a minute. I can demonstrate something normal and I'll get a million dollars? I could've retired before lunch today! Dare I ask what the other website is?
Anything you think is "normal" can be alternatively explained. For instance, I woke up, had a shower, drove to work today and had a cheese sandwich for lunch. A religious person could say that God has simply placed these ideas in my head. A mystic could say I dreamed the whole lot while my soul was on a higher astral plane. A Matrix fan could point out that the whole thing might be a virtual reality environment. And so on.
You can't disprove any of them, even though they're simply untrue.
Now if dowsing were real, would you get exactly the same force from a tiny bucket of water versus enough water worth digging a well for?
What, a large amount of water deep underground versus a smaller amount right under your nose? Why couldn't they be about the same? The sun and a flashlight shining in your eyes are equally as bright.
Without getting too defensive about dowsing, that is not a compelling argument against it.
A dowser would probably reply that it has something to do with water naturally forming along ley lines or collecting in places with unique magnetic fields, or some other hokus pokus nonsense.
Dowsing is one of the few "paranormal" activities that I actually have some time for. The simple fact is that if you spend a lot of time outdoors, you WILL get to have a better idea of where water is most likely to be found compared with someone born and bred in a city. It's not magic, it's just an increase in sensitivity to things like dips in fields, curves in hedges, paths made by animals through grass, where mist forms on cold mornings or whatever.
All the bollocks with moving twigs is just showmanship, presumably from a time when being the guy who could more than likely find water was a pretty big deal so you wanted to make it look as impressive as possible for bonus beer and wenches.
Slashdot Mirror
Unless you're a call centre operator or physically disabled in some way, voice dialling is just pure wank.
Maybe it makes toilet tissue. Now if you get surprised to find no more rolls on the shelf, you can just print one for an emergency wipe!
Are you really going to buy, maintain and find room for a 3D printer in your bathroom for the one-in-a-million time you run out of arse-wiping material?
creating a good original story and finding good people is really the impediment to a good film, not the money.
Good writers, actors and technicians don't work for nothing. The cost of hiring equipment was never the main barrier to getting a film made. You have to pay all those people somehow, they're professionals.
You have made the classic slashdot error of extrapolating from FOSS to art. They are not the same.
I don't even think they *make* ISO 800 Kodachrome, do they?
ISO 64 was the faster normal Kodachrome, the original was ISO 25. A quick google shows there was an ISO 200 version, but if I remember correctly that was for professionals only (or was that Ektachrome?) In any case, as a student, even normal Kodachrome was quite expensive. You certainly didn't go around shooting reel after reel with a motor drive.
Kids today with their digital cameras don't know they're born. And Kodachrome made my lawn, which incidentally you can get off now, greener.
I just got myself a Bolex diver's model when I was in New York. Guy told me they sell for $3000+ in stores, but he let me have one for just $250. Talk about a bargain!
Ha! You were ripped off. On holiday in Turkey last year I got one for $20.
These are cameras that cost about as much as a car
A friend of a friend is a serious broadcast cinematographer. I remember him saying once he'd spent something like GBP 50K on ONE LENS, but then again he can hire it out for something stupid like a few grand a day.
tl;dr version - actual professional equipment is on a different level both in terms of quality and cost.
There are already companies that wont ship to or do business with California / NY /etc residents etc because of onerous regulations.
That just means they're not as efficient as their competitors. You are presumably not suggesting that NO ONE ships to or does business in California or NY?
If you can't handle basic legal compliance work, you have no right to be in business in the 21st Century.
There's no such thing as 'post scarcity'. No matter how much is available, I can think of ways to use more.
Oddly, you have too little imagination.
I appreciate his skill and talent, but I think it would celebrate the richness of his universe creation and be paying him tribute.
If you can write, the best way to honour Iain M Banks is to write the best you can, not try to copy him.
There's no copyright/patent/trademark on things like spaceships with AI, drug-enhanced human beings, backed-up personalities, or a post-scarcity economic system or whatever. You find them in all sorts of science fiction.
Fiction (at least well written fiction like Iain M Banks's) doesn't have the equivalent of source code that you need permission to copy.
[*] Apart from an absence of literary ability, imagination and so on.
When I read the news my first thought was how terrible it will be that there will be no more culture novels. My 2nd thought was for his family and friends, which is a pretty terrible way of thinking about these things.
No, unless you're family or a friend yourself, it is perfectly reasonable. You can't get heartbroken over every human being who is dying, you'd be insane within a couple of days.
Like me, your knowledge of Iain Banks is as a writer. In that sense, he has achieved immortality.
Although I don't doubt your sincerity, I can't believe that fasting while you're already weakened from chemotherapy is a very good idea. I'd certainly want better evidence than an article in the Daily Mail.
Beat it?
Honey... We all get it in the end.
We don't all get it at 59, fuckface.
He has earned a top position among authors like Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, Vance, Van Vogt and Bester to name a few.
No, he is a better writer than any of them, and that's just his Iain M Banks science fiction. None of them have anything like his Iain Banks "straight" fiction in their locker.
I think we should be grateful that an excellent writer was able to devote so much of his energies to science fiction, which is still dismissed as second rate "genre" fiction by many critics and authors.
This is desperately sad news.
titles like Outlaws, Dark Forces, Dark Forces II Jedi Knight, etc
Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle
And both of those are classics, but they're 25 and 20 years old respectively. That is an awful long time in video game terms. Most of the Star Wars related stuff in the last 10-15 years has been pretty uninspiring.
Especially Grim Fandango had stronger writing than any of the Star Wars movies themselves.
Much as I admire Grim Fandango, that is setting the bar pretty low.
I'm sorry. I don't get car metaphors. Could you restate your argument as a superhero metaphor?
Opera's becoming Superman with a load of kryptonite stuffed up his arse? Chromium's the Silver Surfer with his cock cut off. IE is Iron Man without batteries. Firefox is Woody from Toy Story.
He claims that he saw these things actually happen via remote viewing.
The more I hear about this guy, the more I like the sound of him. If you're going to believe in crazy stuff, you might as well go large.
Although I was a little bit disappointed to find that the "Stargate" project he was involved in didn't actually involve creating a wormhole (or something) and travelling through spacetime, as in the TV documentary series of the same name.
please renew your geek card.
Actually more like burn it. Any consistent reader of reader of Slashdot would know about Feynman at this point. Really, nerd cred goes to zero on that one.
Agreed, it's pretty much like a music journalist not having heard of The Beatles.
This is what I was thinking of: http://benjamindavidsteele.wordpress.com/tag/pataphysics/
âoeThe normal consists of a null set which nobody and nothing really fits.â The committee claims that there is no such thing as âoenormalâ, and there are no existing âoenormalâ people (i.e., people existing in the average). For example, no one has 2.3 children.
If you go around taking surrealism literally you are going to end up sounding very odd indeed.
It's an art movement, not a practical philosophy.
The water dowsers apparently had a much higher rate of success than the metal dowsers. Randi didn't even raise his eyebrows.
I'm not surprised. If you did a hole anywhere, you'll find water. It's called groundwater.
Yes, it makes you wonder why people bother with wells, doesn't it? All that fuss when you can just walk into your back garden and dig up as much water as you need.
Robert Anton Wilson was a fine writer, humourist and prankster. I doubt that the challenge was a serious one.
He's been putting out this 'reward' offer for something demonstrably 'paranormal' many years. A counter-offer was also made, many years ago, for something demonstrably 'normal.' Neither reward has been claimed and likely neither ever will be.
Wait a minute. I can demonstrate something normal and I'll get a million dollars? I could've retired before lunch today! Dare I ask what the other website is?
Anything you think is "normal" can be alternatively explained. For instance, I woke up, had a shower, drove to work today and had a cheese sandwich for lunch. A religious person could say that God has simply placed these ideas in my head. A mystic could say I dreamed the whole lot while my soul was on a higher astral plane. A Matrix fan could point out that the whole thing might be a virtual reality environment. And so on.
You can't disprove any of them, even though they're simply untrue.
Now if dowsing were real, would you get exactly the same force from a tiny bucket of water versus enough water worth digging a well for?
What, a large amount of water deep underground versus a smaller amount right under your nose? Why couldn't they be about the same? The sun and a flashlight shining in your eyes are equally as bright.
Without getting too defensive about dowsing, that is not a compelling argument against it.
A dowser would probably reply that it has something to do with water naturally forming along ley lines or collecting in places with unique magnetic fields, or some other hokus pokus nonsense.
Dowsing is one of the few "paranormal" activities that I actually have some time for. The simple fact is that if you spend a lot of time outdoors, you WILL get to have a better idea of where water is most likely to be found compared with someone born and bred in a city. It's not magic, it's just an increase in sensitivity to things like dips in fields, curves in hedges, paths made by animals through grass, where mist forms on cold mornings or whatever.
All the bollocks with moving twigs is just showmanship, presumably from a time when being the guy who could more than likely find water was a pretty big deal so you wanted to make it look as impressive as possible for bonus beer and wenches.