Meh. Fantasy bores me. Is there an award for hard sci-fi? Ie, guys like Stephen Baxter that actually know some science and care about the details? That would be a good filter for me.... it appears that the Hugo is kind of useless for my purposes.
Go and read a few car maintenance manuals, they're about as much fun, plus the plots are more exciting.
The thing about Dr. Who both then and now is that you just have to accomodate yourself as a viewer/reader to the fact that there's essentially no actual science in this nominally-science-fictional series. Oh, they'll throw in sf buzzwords, but, as for any real science content? Don't get your hopes up.
Discussions like this always end up becoming a "no true Scotsman" fallacy. There is absolutely nothing to say that you need to have hard science to make something science fiction. A lot of work by Philip K Dick for instance has about the same scientific depth as the Hobbit, but who cares?
Anyway, half the "science" in science fiction is bollicks. Just because you handwave away faster than light travel in a Space Opera by calling it inter-dimensional hyperspatial shifting or casually let people have anti-gravity suits doesn't make it science-y.
The sort of hard science SF novels that go into great detail about building space rockets or whatever are often instructive rather than entertaining. The key word in "science fiction" is the second one. It has been said many times that "speculative fiction" would be a better general description of the genre anyway.
I'm not sure I understand why Hugo is in the mix. Isn't the Hugo Award for Science Fiction? While I also loved the movie, and have always been a sucker for the Melies story, I didn't see it as science fiction.
I assumed it was some sort of postmodernist joke. Because obviously something called Hugo should get a Hugo award, in the same way that it would be amusing if a film called Oscar, with a director and leading actor called Oscar, won an Oscar.
That's because "well done" is subjective. If they thought it was well done, why would they dislike it? That makes no sense anyway. It's easily possible that they could feel it's the worst show on television.
No, it is entirely possible to appreciate that something is well done in its own terms without enjoying it in the slightest.
When I am forced to see something like Downton Abbey, I can say "yes, lovely costumes, nice interior decoration, well defined characters portrayed by good actors" while disliking the whole thing completely.
Everyone has whole genres of film, books or whatever that they simply don't get on with, that doesn't mean they can't appreciate the good things in them. It's just that unless you're a professional critic who needs to achieve some sort of objectivity, life is just too short to keep watching 1950s Hollywood musicals, 1930s Westerns, 1990s romcoms or whatever if they're not your thing.
I'm convinced that literally everyone who talks shit about GoT is just trolling or trying to be a contrarian.
Right, so GoT is objectively great, and anyone who thinks otherwise must be lying or trolling? I am not a great fantasy fan in the first place, so I'm biased, but I found what I have seen of GoT to be enjoyable in the fairly camp way that Arnie in Conan the Barbarian was. It's like Dallas with swords and tits, which is fine in itself but doesn't mean it's great TV.
Grow up, fanboy. You sound like the vapid, whiny Twilight fans who can't believe that anyone doesn't think they're, like, the greatest evar.
An example of an unjustifiable price would be Kodak's asking price of $3 billion for their patents - and no one is biting. That's a sure sign of an unjustifiable price.
It used to be called "what the market will bear."
Which is fine if your only definition of truth or morality is based on the market.
So far, I have turned down a solid promotion, actually quit my job, taken out personal loans, and burned through my savings in order to work on a project I passionately believe in.
No offense, but that sounds pretty fucking stupid to me.
The six scariest words strung together are "There ought to be a law".
You cannot fix stupid. Some people are so stupid, they actually go looking for stuff like this because of laws that are supposed to prevent people getting ripped off. The problem is, they still are stupid, they still get ripped off, but now, they want the Government to fix their stupidity so they can do it all again next week.
Yeah, let's get rid of all laws, teh Government is oppressing me by denying my entirely valid desire to rape and murder you. And, obviously, if you're the sort of person who gets raped and murdered you must be stupid, and therefore you deserve it.
I'm not talking about the robot cars crashing. I'm talking about the people that come up behind them suddenly and have to react to a car going 20mph slower than them in heavy traffic.
Try driving the speed limit on the 101 or the 5 in LA when traffic is moving freely, and observe the effect on other cars.
Then the fucking traffic cops should start pulling a few random speeders over, give them a severe public beating and a ten thousand dollar fine and confiscate their car. Pour encourager les autres.
You fail to see reality. You talk about what should be, and willfully ignore what is.
The fact that a lot of people do something doesn't automatically make it morally right. As a society, we have decided to have speed limits on roads, therefore people should stick to them and not whine when they get caught breaking an agreed law.
I used to call myself a geek proudly. No more. Now I just like tech because it's fascinating, not because I think it'll solve all the world's problems.
In other words, you have grown up and become selfish and cynical, like most people do.
If all cars are self-driving, then we can happily increase the speed limit -- and probably by a lot!! We might even get a scenario where one speed limit applies to humans, and another (higher) one applies to computer-controlled vehicles.
Unless you have different roads for human- and computer-driven cars, it would be a recipe for disaster to have vehicles travelling at wildly different rates next to each other.
If you have to brake suddenly to avoid hitting someone in front was obeying a speed limit, you were driving too fast and/or without due care and attention. Public roads are not racetracks, and so however good a driver you are you have to share the road with slow drivers, old drivers, cyclists, trucks, motorbikes, pedestrians, horsesor whatever comes your way.
It's not safe for the simple reason that the automatic cars will drive the speed limit, and cause accidents because everybody else is going 20 over.
If you stick to the speed limit, it is not you that is driving dangerously and causing accidents. But no doubt you are one of those superior, race-quality drivers who has a right to travel at whatever spped you think fit, and expect anyone going slower than you to move out of your way.
Don't forget that Apple's not really a software company (if they were they would have gone out of business approximately 300 years ago).
Now that iPhones/Pods/Pads don't need to use iTunes to set themselves up, I'm sure Apple will soon abandon the whole hideous piece of bit-vomit as soon as they legally can.
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Meh. Fantasy bores me. Is there an award for hard sci-fi? Ie, guys like Stephen Baxter that actually know some science and care about the details? That would be a good filter for me.... it appears that the Hugo is kind of useless for my purposes.
Go and read a few car maintenance manuals, they're about as much fun, plus the plots are more exciting.
In any case, "Among Others" is NOT SF, but fantasy, and quite good at that.
"SF" is just a label to help bookshops file their product and comfort stupid people. A book is either well written or not, nothing else matters.
You seem convinced that The Time Traveller's Wife is somehow the first and best time travel story. It is neither.
The thing about Dr. Who both then and now is that you just have to accomodate yourself as a viewer/reader to the fact that there's essentially no actual science in this nominally-science-fictional series. Oh, they'll throw in sf buzzwords, but, as for any real science content? Don't get your hopes up.
Discussions like this always end up becoming a "no true Scotsman" fallacy. There is absolutely nothing to say that you need to have hard science to make something science fiction. A lot of work by Philip K Dick for instance has about the same scientific depth as the Hobbit, but who cares?
Anyway, half the "science" in science fiction is bollicks. Just because you handwave away faster than light travel in a Space Opera by calling it inter-dimensional hyperspatial shifting or casually let people have anti-gravity suits doesn't make it science-y.
The sort of hard science SF novels that go into great detail about building space rockets or whatever are often instructive rather than entertaining. The key word in "science fiction" is the second one. It has been said many times that "speculative fiction" would be a better general description of the genre anyway.
a Dr. Who episode (part of a lame ripoff of The Time Traveler's Wife)
I think TTTW was the lame ripoff of Science fiction.
I'm not sure I understand why Hugo is in the mix. Isn't the Hugo Award for Science Fiction? While I also loved the movie, and have always been a sucker for the Melies story, I didn't see it as science fiction.
I assumed it was some sort of postmodernist joke. Because obviously something called Hugo should get a Hugo award, in the same way that it would be amusing if a film called Oscar, with a director and leading actor called Oscar, won an Oscar.
Anyone who refers to people who read books as "bookies" has automatically lost any credibility they might conceivably have had.
"It's pretty well done, it's just not my thing"
That's because "well done" is subjective. If they thought it was well done, why would they dislike it? That makes no sense anyway. It's easily possible that they could feel it's the worst show on television.
No, it is entirely possible to appreciate that something is well done in its own terms without enjoying it in the slightest.
When I am forced to see something like Downton Abbey, I can say "yes, lovely costumes, nice interior decoration, well defined characters portrayed by good actors" while disliking the whole thing completely.
Everyone has whole genres of film, books or whatever that they simply don't get on with, that doesn't mean they can't appreciate the good things in them. It's just that unless you're a professional critic who needs to achieve some sort of objectivity, life is just too short to keep watching 1950s Hollywood musicals, 1930s Westerns, 1990s romcoms or whatever if they're not your thing.
I'm convinced that literally everyone who talks shit about GoT is just trolling or trying to be a contrarian.
Right, so GoT is objectively great, and anyone who thinks otherwise must be lying or trolling? I am not a great fantasy fan in the first place, so I'm biased, but I found what I have seen of GoT to be enjoyable in the fairly camp way that Arnie in Conan the Barbarian was. It's like Dallas with swords and tits, which is fine in itself but doesn't mean it's great TV.
Grow up, fanboy. You sound like the vapid, whiny Twilight fans who can't believe that anyone doesn't think they're, like, the greatest evar.
I suspect App.net's going to crash and take all the money with it.
Oh no, I'm sure they'll pay everyone their $50 back if that happens.
* collapes on floor laughing hysterically *
. how can App.net justify a $50 fee?
It's justified by people actually paying it.
An example of an unjustifiable price would be Kodak's asking price of $3 billion for their patents - and no one is biting. That's a sure sign of an unjustifiable price.
It used to be called "what the market will bear."
Which is fine if your only definition of truth or morality is based on the market.
So far, I have turned down a solid promotion, actually quit my job, taken out personal loans, and burned through my savings in order to work on a project I passionately believe in.
No offense, but that sounds pretty fucking stupid to me.
The six scariest words strung together are "There ought to be a law".
You cannot fix stupid. Some people are so stupid, they actually go looking for stuff like this because of laws that are supposed to prevent people getting ripped off. The problem is, they still are stupid, they still get ripped off, but now, they want the Government to fix their stupidity so they can do it all again next week.
Yeah, let's get rid of all laws, teh Government is oppressing me by denying my entirely valid desire to rape and murder you. And, obviously, if you're the sort of person who gets raped and murdered you must be stupid, and therefore you deserve it.
I think anyone who donates $50 to a non-existent project has moved way beyond stupid and into the land of the delusional.
I'm not talking about the robot cars crashing. I'm talking about the people that come up behind them suddenly and have to react to a car going 20mph slower than them in heavy traffic.
Try driving the speed limit on the 101 or the 5 in LA when traffic is moving freely, and observe the effect on other cars.
Then the fucking traffic cops should start pulling a few random speeders over, give them a severe public beating and a ten thousand dollar fine and confiscate their car. Pour encourager les autres.
You fail to see reality. You talk about what should be, and willfully ignore what is.
The fact that a lot of people do something doesn't automatically make it morally right. As a society, we have decided to have speed limits on roads, therefore people should stick to them and not whine when they get caught breaking an agreed law.
I used to call myself a geek proudly. No more. Now I just like tech because it's fascinating, not because I think it'll solve all the world's problems.
In other words, you have grown up and become selfish and cynical, like most people do.
Because a computer can navigate safely at those speeds. A human cannot.
Yes, we know, you seem to have completely ignored the point about the waste of energy if suddenly cars are going twice as fast.
If all cars are self-driving, then we can happily increase the speed limit -- and probably by a lot!! We might even get a scenario where one speed limit applies to humans, and another (higher) one applies to computer-controlled vehicles.
Unless you have different roads for human- and computer-driven cars, it would be a recipe for disaster to have vehicles travelling at wildly different rates next to each other.
With black out windows you could even have a shower and crafty J Arthur Rank on the way to work.
If you have to brake suddenly to avoid hitting someone in front was obeying a speed limit, you were driving too fast and/or without due care and attention. Public roads are not racetracks, and so however good a driver you are you have to share the road with slow drivers, old drivers, cyclists, trucks, motorbikes, pedestrians, horsesor whatever comes your way.
It's not safe for the simple reason that the automatic cars will drive the speed limit, and cause accidents because everybody else is going 20 over.
If you stick to the speed limit, it is not you that is driving dangerously and causing accidents. But no doubt you are one of those superior, race-quality drivers who has a right to travel at whatever spped you think fit, and expect anyone going slower than you to move out of your way.
Don't forget that Apple's not really a software company (if they were they would have gone out of business approximately 300 years ago).
Now that iPhones/Pods/Pads don't need to use iTunes to set themselves up, I'm sure Apple will soon abandon the whole hideous piece of bit-vomit as soon as they legally can.
You can also be a player in a saturated market and get an antitrust suit
How? (Assuming saturated means no dominant player)
Off the top of my head, by being part of a cartel that artificially fixes prices amongst its members, none of whom individually have a monopoly.
This is probably more common than being a sole monopoly in fact.
Anti-competitive behavior is perfectly legal
It's always a good day when you get to read technically accurate legal information on slashdot. Sadly, today is not one of those days.