I am interested in learning about the writing process of a typical Futurama episode. Given the obscure nature of some of the more geek-prone jokes (e.g. "Announcer:...and horse X finishes in a quantum finish! Farnworth: No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it!"), it would seem that the writers of the show were more inclined to make inside jokes for geeks than for a more mainstream audience. Was it difficult to find a balance between the two audiences? Where there producers who allowed you such leeway? What would you suggest for artists and writers who want to create things that appeal to niche audiences and yet can still be accessible to the masses?
I was NOT playing the race card. You did NOT make clear that your statements were about Imperial Japan, rather than the Japanese at large, because there is not a semantic agreement that the "Imperial" Japanese are any different than normal Japanese of the time. You should be more specific about whom you mean to be perceived as the even fascist torturers, and the normal citizens of a nation. If you read your post, and remove the assumption that your reader will infer that "Imperial" is a different designation, your post comes off as being written by a narrowminded bigot. Furthermore, given that you do not have either the intelligence or respect to even bother reading up on the source of my arguments (which, although criticized by some, remains the fullest and mst informed body of work to EVER be written about the decision to drop the atomic bomb) I think that it is wise to let this argument drop. Brashly saying that my arguments appear more political than historical without even bothering to check shows a noted hypocrisy in your argument. Kettle black, indeed.
It perhaps would have been wiser to actually cite REAL AUTHORITATIVE evidence in your arguments rather than simply state disjointed suppositions as facts as recklessly as I did. I wasn't expecting this kind of flaming, or I would have been more careful. I know now that the source I chose to cite was probably not the best, but at the same time, aside from its obvious flaws, it does at least show a thoroughly researched side of an argument. Admittedly, Japanese surrender was not as likely as I may have made it seem, but it is impossible to ignore the evidence that certain members of the Japanese polity at the time were considering it, and it is impossible now to guess how much more fighting would have been necessary to garner a Japanese surrender, if not peace. Your arguments, however, seem to be more predicated on a vilification of the Japanese as a race and nation, rather than proving that the Japanese would have continued fighting if the bomb had not been dropped. Japanese war atrocities are well documented. Do the sick actions of a fascist government therefore necessitate the murder of innocent civilians? Can you really justify the decades long suffering and pain caused by nuclear fallout, when you yourself cite Japanese atrocities as examples of the cruelty of men?
I have to appreciate how your reply to my argument was prediated on A. posting anonymously. B.pulling out one of my statements and sarcastically repeating it. C. Cursing. D. Insulting my character. E. Citing revenge as good reason for atrocities. F. Ballooning your self-worth up with no back (i.e. calling yourself a dragon), and G. Using a tired cliche to propose that I have been thoroughly beaten.
Truly sir, your methods of discourse surely put mine to sad shame.
I call bullshit on your statement about dropping tha tomic bomb on Japan. Japan had already attempted to surrender to Moscow weeks before Hiroshima. The Americans hamstringed that attempt. We dropped the bomb on Japan specifically because we wanted to ensure that the Japanese surrendered to the United States, instead of the Soviets. Don't forget that just months earlier we were learning how Europe was being divided up. We didn't want another East Germany at the helm of one of the most titanic war machines ever built.
the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were one of the greatest massacres in the history of the world, and the United States has to live up to that fact. Although most historians agree that we did it to stop the Soviets, I doubt that popular opinion will ever coincide with this until all the WWII vets are dead and gone.
If you doubt me, read "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, and The Architecture of an American Myth." by Gar Alperovitz. Read a scholarly article on the question here: http://www.progressive.org/zinn0800.htm (admittedly, Zinn is not the best authority to speak of, but his article can stand as the general opinion of US historians)
This book is a scholarly work that is corroborated by scores of historians, not some dimestore reaction book. Before you go spouting off trash about the murder of tens of thousands of civilians, you better know your facts.
Reminds me of Antarctica...
on
Lawyers In Space...
·
· Score: 5, Informative
...which is divided up between a handful of nations for scientific research, and by treaty, it belongs to the "common heritage of mankind." That, if I recall correctly from my international law studies, is the same term applied to space. Both Antarctica and outer space belong to everyone in the world for common scientific study and use.
Of course, the treaties around Antarctica would all go to pot if say, something like massive deposits of fuel oil or some other extremely profitable venture were discovered there...
I'm a gigantic fallout fan, and I'm completely dying to get my hands on Fallout 3. the thing I loved about it was not only the immersive world and the story, but it was the fact that I could strategically take my time and make decisions about what course of action to take in the game. There was no real dire pressure to pull off a snapshot, run around as fast as you could, or any of that action game crap that make them so enjoyable as immediate satisfaction time wasters.
Now, tell me, how exactly would a turn based game come off in a first person perspective? The amazing thing about fallout was the ability to take stock of all your surroundings when in a fight. The first person perspective only allows you to see one view of what could be a gigantic battle. This makes it ideal for an action game, but crap for a strategic combat game.
As was said above, if they bastardize the game into another crappy FPS, the franchise is dead to me.
Leave it to/. editors to use a word that's also a synonym that means to cancel a rocket flight.
And here I was wondering how I hadn't heard about a moon mission and why the mission was 'scrubbed'...
In Asimov's robot novels, the assumption was that modern science had invented the positronic brain, which was thought to be capable of actual sentient thought, though most of the robots in the books did so on a very basic and childlike level. It was this that actually gave Dr. Calvin a job... seeing as how the brains had the capacity for original thought, even though it was mostly predictable. As it stands today, and into the foreseeable future, we have invented no such thing capable of acting with original thought. Our hardware has, instead, given the appearance of thought, as it is capacble of so many calculations per second that it appears to come up with things on its own.
So, my question is, what use is a robot psychologist if every action that a robot can take is already predetermined by its programming? What new field is there to be discovered that is not already known? In the human mind, we are constantly learning new things about the brain, a mechanism we only barely understand, but what is there to derive from a machine we ourselves create?
Perhaps a better study would be the eventual effects on human society. A million questions remained unanswered regarding that.
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I am interested in learning about the writing process of a typical Futurama episode. Given the obscure nature of some of the more geek-prone jokes (e.g. "Announcer: ...and horse X finishes in a quantum finish! Farnworth: No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it!"), it would seem that the writers of the show were more inclined to make inside jokes for geeks than for a more mainstream audience. Was it difficult to find a balance between the two audiences? Where there producers who allowed you such leeway? What would you suggest for artists and writers who want to create things that appeal to niche audiences and yet can still be accessible to the masses?
I was NOT playing the race card. You did NOT make clear that your statements were about Imperial Japan, rather than the Japanese at large, because there is not a semantic agreement that the "Imperial" Japanese are any different than normal Japanese of the time. You should be more specific about whom you mean to be perceived as the even fascist torturers, and the normal citizens of a nation. If you read your post, and remove the assumption that your reader will infer that "Imperial" is a different designation, your post comes off as being written by a narrowminded bigot. Furthermore, given that you do not have either the intelligence or respect to even bother reading up on the source of my arguments (which, although criticized by some, remains the fullest and mst informed body of work to EVER be written about the decision to drop the atomic bomb) I think that it is wise to let this argument drop. Brashly saying that my arguments appear more political than historical without even bothering to check shows a noted hypocrisy in your argument. Kettle black, indeed.
It perhaps would have been wiser to actually cite REAL AUTHORITATIVE evidence in your arguments rather than simply state disjointed suppositions as facts as recklessly as I did. I wasn't expecting this kind of flaming, or I would have been more careful. I know now that the source I chose to cite was probably not the best, but at the same time, aside from its obvious flaws, it does at least show a thoroughly researched side of an argument. Admittedly, Japanese surrender was not as likely as I may have made it seem, but it is impossible to ignore the evidence that certain members of the Japanese polity at the time were considering it, and it is impossible now to guess how much more fighting would have been necessary to garner a Japanese surrender, if not peace. Your arguments, however, seem to be more predicated on a vilification of the Japanese as a race and nation, rather than proving that the Japanese would have continued fighting if the bomb had not been dropped. Japanese war atrocities are well documented. Do the sick actions of a fascist government therefore necessitate the murder of innocent civilians? Can you really justify the decades long suffering and pain caused by nuclear fallout, when you yourself cite Japanese atrocities as examples of the cruelty of men?
I have to appreciate how your reply to my argument was prediated on A. posting anonymously. B.pulling out one of my statements and sarcastically repeating it. C. Cursing. D. Insulting my character. E. Citing revenge as good reason for atrocities. F. Ballooning your self-worth up with no back (i.e. calling yourself a dragon), and G. Using a tired cliche to propose that I have been thoroughly beaten. Truly sir, your methods of discourse surely put mine to sad shame.
I call bullshit on your statement about dropping tha tomic bomb on Japan. Japan had already attempted to surrender to Moscow weeks before Hiroshima. The Americans hamstringed that attempt. We dropped the bomb on Japan specifically because we wanted to ensure that the Japanese surrendered to the United States, instead of the Soviets. Don't forget that just months earlier we were learning how Europe was being divided up. We didn't want another East Germany at the helm of one of the most titanic war machines ever built.
the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were one of the greatest massacres in the history of the world, and the United States has to live up to that fact. Although most historians agree that we did it to stop the Soviets, I doubt that popular opinion will ever coincide with this until all the WWII vets are dead and gone.
If you doubt me, read "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, and The Architecture of an American Myth." by Gar Alperovitz. Read a scholarly article on the question here: http://www.progressive.org/zinn0800.htm (admittedly, Zinn is not the best authority to speak of, but his article can stand as the general opinion of US historians)
This book is a scholarly work that is corroborated by scores of historians, not some dimestore reaction book. Before you go spouting off trash about the murder of tens of thousands of civilians, you better know your facts.
...which is divided up between a handful of nations for scientific research, and by treaty, it belongs to the "common heritage of mankind." That, if I recall correctly from my international law studies, is the same term applied to space. Both Antarctica and outer space belong to everyone in the world for common scientific study and use.
Of course, the treaties around Antarctica would all go to pot if say, something like massive deposits of fuel oil or some other extremely profitable venture were discovered there...
It's safe to say the same about space, too.
I'm a gigantic fallout fan, and I'm completely dying to get my hands on Fallout 3. the thing I loved about it was not only the immersive world and the story, but it was the fact that I could strategically take my time and make decisions about what course of action to take in the game. There was no real dire pressure to pull off a snapshot, run around as fast as you could, or any of that action game crap that make them so enjoyable as immediate satisfaction time wasters. Now, tell me, how exactly would a turn based game come off in a first person perspective? The amazing thing about fallout was the ability to take stock of all your surroundings when in a fight. The first person perspective only allows you to see one view of what could be a gigantic battle. This makes it ideal for an action game, but crap for a strategic combat game. As was said above, if they bastardize the game into another crappy FPS, the franchise is dead to me.
Leave it to /. editors to use a word that's also a synonym that means to cancel a rocket flight.
And here I was wondering how I hadn't heard about a moon mission and why the mission was 'scrubbed'...
In Asimov's robot novels, the assumption was that modern science had invented the positronic brain, which was thought to be capable of actual sentient thought, though most of the robots in the books did so on a very basic and childlike level. It was this that actually gave Dr. Calvin a job... seeing as how the brains had the capacity for original thought, even though it was mostly predictable. As it stands today, and into the foreseeable future, we have invented no such thing capable of acting with original thought. Our hardware has, instead, given the appearance of thought, as it is capacble of so many calculations per second that it appears to come up with things on its own.
So, my question is, what use is a robot psychologist if every action that a robot can take is already predetermined by its programming? What new field is there to be discovered that is not already known? In the human mind, we are constantly learning new things about the brain, a mechanism we only barely understand, but what is there to derive from a machine we ourselves create?
Perhaps a better study would be the eventual effects on human society. A million questions remained unanswered regarding that.