FLAC and PNG aren't likely to disappear anytime soon. Just because you don't see them for what you're doing doesn't mean they aren't in use. The reason I suggest them is that, unlike MP3 or JPEG, they're lossless. Unlike WAV or BMP, they're compressed. I would think the best file formats for archives would be those which would preserve all the intended data losslessly, but with as much compression as possible.
So for pictures that leaves a couple of options, like PNG or TIF. Audio really should be FLAC to save some space. There are other options, but AFAIK, none as open, well supported, and commonly used as FLAC. ALAC, for example, is supported by Apple and available to FOSS through reverse engineering, but not exactly open.
True, but in those times, there wasn't an expectation of completeness. Now, like you said, it's just easier all around. It's easier to make documents, easier to store them, and also easier to alter them. We often don't even keep old copies of documents, but instead alter them in-place and re-save, which isn't really feasible with paper. Still, we have the expectation that everything is being captured and stored, so we don't even bother to remember things ourselves.
Hmm - the problem with ODF/PDF is that it cannot be chanced by hand
Neither can FLAC or PNG. Anything stored in any format will assume that you have a computer capable of reading it. Hell, I could have plain text files on a hard drive, but I still can read them without a computer, an operating system, and some program that will open a text file and output the contents.
So the key thing is, I think, to store everything in open formats, and then focus on preserving enough information as is necessary to build a viewer for each format. Hell, write a full spec on how to read the disk and how to write a viewer for each file format, and print those on plastic sheets that won't degrade. As long as mankind doesn't regress to cave men, they should be able to figure it out.
As much as anything, it seems like we might worry about people rewriting the past. It'd be hard to edit part of one of the original copies of the US Constitution without anyone being able to tell the difference, because we actually have a really old piece of paper that someone would have to get access to, somehow erase some ink, and write over top with identical ink.
But a historical document in the form of a text file on someone's hard drive? That can be edited without a trace.
If future systems are so wildly different from those we have today that they can't have a PNG viewer written for them, how easy will it be to write an emulator now that will run on such wildly different systems, yet faithfully emulate our existing environments?
I think your general sentiment is worthwhile, but HTML for word processing documents, JPEGs for pictures, MP3s for audio? Geeze, lets at least be thinking more along the lines of ODF/PDF, PNG24, and FLAC.
However, that doesn't really address the question of medium. It'd be nice to have some sort of nearly-indestructable medium to store all this.
Granted, it may be an infant platform, still buggy and insecure, and not necessarily useful for very much yet, but then you could say the same thing about the Internet itself a few years ago.
And you would have been right. The internet is still buggy, insecure, and not necessarily useful for very much yet. It is useful for a few things, but much of what it gets used for is useless time-wasting. Including right now. Hey, look at me, I'm wasting time!
Considering that I've been told by more than one Christian (true story here) that atheists do not have the capacity for morality, I absolutely love the idea that I might be able to catch up with gay people on the social pecking order.
What kind of Christian? I know some of you might not know the difference, but FYI, there are different sects of Christianity, and they don't all agree with each other. Not that I'm a Christian, but maybe we could try to understand that different people and different groups have different beliefs, instead of just trying to pit all atheists against all christians?
I think it serves to illustrate that, no matter how we use are critical thinking, we're dependant on second-hand interpretations from people we believe to be trustworthy authorities. We have no choice to trust the mainstream media unless there's someone else explaining how we're being "duped". We trust that "someone else" until the mainstream media tells us that they're just as crooked.
The only thing interesting about I-III is the politics of the Republic's devolution into the Empire. And that's covered so lightly that it's mostly just confusing.
Well that's the problem right there. Lucas apparently wanted to make this trilogy some sort of childish political treatise in symbolic form, and clearly isn't smart enough to do so.
If I may rephrase a little, tell me if you agree with this: but the "problem" with education is, and always has been, that different students need different things, while teachers must approach a classroom with a consistant method.
For example, some students need more discipline, and others need more freedom. Some students need little attention, some need a lot of attention, and others need so much special personal attention that giving it would take a personal tutor working around-the-clock. Still others should really be taken out of school, given psychiatric help, and returned to school when they're ready for it.
I don't know, but it just seems like calling people "bad students" might be a bit of an oversimplication, even though the problem you're describing is valid.
Careful, though, because there are school systems who have dismissed "regurgitation" like memorizing multiplication tables in favor of teaching "process". This results in people who can give you a general outline of problem-solving processes but can't solve problems. They neither have practice in solving problems, nor can they multiply 6x30 without a calculator.
So for young kids, I don't think it's either teaching them "facts" nor is it teaching them "process", but instead in might be something like "forcing them to practice". Given enough practice, kids will learn to memorize important information, throw away useless trivia and info they can look up, and discover their own best processes.
Instead we find out that you can beat Anakin, the most bad-ass Jedi ever, in a fight.... by standing a little bit higher up on a hill than he is. If you have the high ground, he just can't do shit without getting his limbs cut off.
Trying to hide them so that geeks can watch 6 movie marathons and pretend not to know what's going to happen is ridiculous.
What about hiding them so that people who haven't seen any of the movies can watch all 6 in some order without ruining one trilogy or the other? Episodes 1-3 were always going to be a little uninteresting for someone who had already seen the original trilogy because you know what happens. However, the story we're talking about was specifically someone who hadn't seen any of them watching all six "in order". This person found the original trilogy a bit dull because all of the plot twists were already known.
So yes, it's unfortunate that there isn't a good order to watch these movies in that will allow both trilogies to be interesting.
Well, the key thing is that Lucas should have done what we're doing, which was to start with the information known from the original trilogy, use that to sketch out a plot outline, and then fill in the gaps. There's a wide variety on how you can fill in the gaps, but if he wanted to write an incongruous plotline, he could have just written a new story, unconnected to the original Star Wars trilogy.
Given how things worked out, I think we can only infer that the whole thing was driven by marketing. I don't think many people here will find that conclusion surprising.
Right. I think there's a reference somewhere that she knows she's adopted. If she wasn't adopted, by wouldn't she get confused when Luke asks about her "real mother". And why would he be asking at all, if he didn't think that he was getting information about his own mother.
And finally, she says that she remembers her mother as being "sad". Of course, this is supposed to imply what she's sad about.
Yes. In fact, it might be worth paying for the $500 entry into the corporate version, just so they can't cut you off of their activation scheme, forcing you to upgrade, if you ever need to reformat your drive. It's pretty much that bad.
It would be tough to make this work for the viewers while still having the prequels be about Anakin's fall. The easiest way would be to completely refrain from mentioning Vader in Ep. III, so he just looked like a random new Sith Lord in IV, though it would make Ben's blaming Vader for Anakin's death seem weird lie or not.
That's pretty much what I was suggesting. What I was saying was, I think it would make Ben's blaming of Vadar seem like he was making something up out of guilt, because he wouldn't want to tell Luke, "Sorry kid, but I killed your father."
What I'm saying is, Lucas could have written it so that you didn't know he was Vadar in Ep3. You could simply have him go evil and seemingly get killed by Obiwan, and then introduce Vadar as a new character in Ep4.
The problem is that it just wasn't written that way. It wouldn't have been hard. Hell, you could take the Ep3 script, drop any lines which refer to Anakin as "Vadar", drop the scene at the end when he's put in the Vadar suit/mask, and change the scene where he's cut in half and set on fire, so that he appears to die. Bingo, you won't know he's Vadar until Ep5.
The knowledge that Darth Vader is Luke and Leia's father is given away at the end of III, but revealed as plot twists in V and VI. I can only imagine how confusing Ben Kenobi's behavior must have seemed.
Ok, I'm going to geek out here for a second, but I think the most unfortunate thing about all this is that they could have made the prequals to preserve a lot of those mysteries. Episode 3 could have been written so you're lead to believe that Anakin died at the end, and Padme could have been left pregnant. In RotJ, Leia says she remembers her real mother a little, and yet in Episode 3 she dies in childbirth. It isn't even coherent.
Also, Yoda could have been spoken of and referenced in the prequals, but never seen, which would have only built up suspense for the Degoba scene in ESB. And when ObiWan lies about Vadar killing Anakin in A New Hope, the audience would naturally assume that he's lying because it would be tought thing to explain, that it was he who killed Anakin. So you'd be left to think the big secret coming in ESB was that ObiWan killed Anakin, which would make the real plot twist that much more twisty.
So Lucas could have made it sensible to watch them in order, 1=>6, without destroying the plots of the original trilogy. The fact is, he simply chose not to, which is just baffling. As it is, there is absolutely no good order to watch the trilogy in, because Episode 3 ruins the surprises of 5 and 6, whereas watching the original trilogy basically lays out the story for the prequals, meaning there's no possiblity of Anakin's fall being interesting.
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FLAC and PNG aren't likely to disappear anytime soon. Just because you don't see them for what you're doing doesn't mean they aren't in use. The reason I suggest them is that, unlike MP3 or JPEG, they're lossless. Unlike WAV or BMP, they're compressed. I would think the best file formats for archives would be those which would preserve all the intended data losslessly, but with as much compression as possible.
So for pictures that leaves a couple of options, like PNG or TIF. Audio really should be FLAC to save some space. There are other options, but AFAIK, none as open, well supported, and commonly used as FLAC. ALAC, for example, is supported by Apple and available to FOSS through reverse engineering, but not exactly open.
True, but in those times, there wasn't an expectation of completeness. Now, like you said, it's just easier all around. It's easier to make documents, easier to store them, and also easier to alter them. We often don't even keep old copies of documents, but instead alter them in-place and re-save, which isn't really feasible with paper. Still, we have the expectation that everything is being captured and stored, so we don't even bother to remember things ourselves.
Hmm - the problem with ODF/PDF is that it cannot be chanced by hand
Neither can FLAC or PNG. Anything stored in any format will assume that you have a computer capable of reading it. Hell, I could have plain text files on a hard drive, but I still can read them without a computer, an operating system, and some program that will open a text file and output the contents.
So the key thing is, I think, to store everything in open formats, and then focus on preserving enough information as is necessary to build a viewer for each format. Hell, write a full spec on how to read the disk and how to write a viewer for each file format, and print those on plastic sheets that won't degrade. As long as mankind doesn't regress to cave men, they should be able to figure it out.
As much as anything, it seems like we might worry about people rewriting the past. It'd be hard to edit part of one of the original copies of the US Constitution without anyone being able to tell the difference, because we actually have a really old piece of paper that someone would have to get access to, somehow erase some ink, and write over top with identical ink.
But a historical document in the form of a text file on someone's hard drive? That can be edited without a trace.
If future systems are so wildly different from those we have today that they can't have a PNG viewer written for them, how easy will it be to write an emulator now that will run on such wildly different systems, yet faithfully emulate our existing environments?
I think that's why he said "open and well-supported format". The "open" part might preclude the use of many Microsoft formats.
I think your general sentiment is worthwhile, but HTML for word processing documents, JPEGs for pictures, MP3s for audio? Geeze, lets at least be thinking more along the lines of ODF/PDF, PNG24, and FLAC.
However, that doesn't really address the question of medium. It'd be nice to have some sort of nearly-indestructable medium to store all this.
How is this different than the previous ages where all information was kept on paper or in spoken words?
Paper actually holds up rather well as an archival medium. Plus, you don't need specialized technology to read it.
Granted, it may be an infant platform, still buggy and insecure, and not necessarily useful for very much yet, but then you could say the same thing about the Internet itself a few years ago.
And you would have been right. The internet is still buggy, insecure, and not necessarily useful for very much yet. It is useful for a few things, but much of what it gets used for is useless time-wasting. Including right now. Hey, look at me, I'm wasting time!
Considering that I've been told by more than one Christian (true story here) that atheists do not have the capacity for morality, I absolutely love the idea that I might be able to catch up with gay people on the social pecking order.
What kind of Christian? I know some of you might not know the difference, but FYI, there are different sects of Christianity, and they don't all agree with each other. Not that I'm a Christian, but maybe we could try to understand that different people and different groups have different beliefs, instead of just trying to pit all atheists against all christians?
I think it serves to illustrate that, no matter how we use are critical thinking, we're dependant on second-hand interpretations from people we believe to be trustworthy authorities. We have no choice to trust the mainstream media unless there's someone else explaining how we're being "duped". We trust that "someone else" until the mainstream media tells us that they're just as crooked.
You might be surprised to learn that the current iPod models can use WiFi in as many useful ways as the Zune is able to.
Exactly. Imagine how much people will want those Zunes once they figure out all the terrific ways the Zune uses WiFi.
The only thing interesting about I-III is the politics of the Republic's devolution into the Empire. And that's covered so lightly that it's mostly just confusing.
Well that's the problem right there. Lucas apparently wanted to make this trilogy some sort of childish political treatise in symbolic form, and clearly isn't smart enough to do so.
For example, some students need more discipline, and others need more freedom. Some students need little attention, some need a lot of attention, and others need so much special personal attention that giving it would take a personal tutor working around-the-clock. Still others should really be taken out of school, given psychiatric help, and returned to school when they're ready for it.
I don't know, but it just seems like calling people "bad students" might be a bit of an oversimplication, even though the problem you're describing is valid.
Careful, though, because there are school systems who have dismissed "regurgitation" like memorizing multiplication tables in favor of teaching "process". This results in people who can give you a general outline of problem-solving processes but can't solve problems. They neither have practice in solving problems, nor can they multiply 6x30 without a calculator.
So for young kids, I don't think it's either teaching them "facts" nor is it teaching them "process", but instead in might be something like "forcing them to practice". Given enough practice, kids will learn to memorize important information, throw away useless trivia and info they can look up, and discover their own best processes.
Instead we find out that you can beat Anakin, the most bad-ass Jedi ever, in a fight.... by standing a little bit higher up on a hill than he is. If you have the high ground, he just can't do shit without getting his limbs cut off.
Trying to hide them so that geeks can watch 6 movie marathons and pretend not to know what's going to happen is ridiculous.
What about hiding them so that people who haven't seen any of the movies can watch all 6 in some order without ruining one trilogy or the other? Episodes 1-3 were always going to be a little uninteresting for someone who had already seen the original trilogy because you know what happens. However, the story we're talking about was specifically someone who hadn't seen any of them watching all six "in order". This person found the original trilogy a bit dull because all of the plot twists were already known.
So yes, it's unfortunate that there isn't a good order to watch these movies in that will allow both trilogies to be interesting.
Well, the key thing is that Lucas should have done what we're doing, which was to start with the information known from the original trilogy, use that to sketch out a plot outline, and then fill in the gaps. There's a wide variety on how you can fill in the gaps, but if he wanted to write an incongruous plotline, he could have just written a new story, unconnected to the original Star Wars trilogy.
Given how things worked out, I think we can only infer that the whole thing was driven by marketing. I don't think many people here will find that conclusion surprising.
Right. I think there's a reference somewhere that she knows she's adopted. If she wasn't adopted, by wouldn't she get confused when Luke asks about her "real mother". And why would he be asking at all, if he didn't think that he was getting information about his own mother.
And finally, she says that she remembers her mother as being "sad". Of course, this is supposed to imply what she's sad about.
Yes. In fact, it might be worth paying for the $500 entry into the corporate version, just so they can't cut you off of their activation scheme, forcing you to upgrade, if you ever need to reformat your drive. It's pretty much that bad.
It would be tough to make this work for the viewers while still having the prequels be about Anakin's fall. The easiest way would be to completely refrain from mentioning Vader in Ep. III, so he just looked like a random new Sith Lord in IV, though it would make Ben's blaming Vader for Anakin's death seem weird lie or not.
That's pretty much what I was suggesting. What I was saying was, I think it would make Ben's blaming of Vadar seem like he was making something up out of guilt, because he wouldn't want to tell Luke, "Sorry kid, but I killed your father."
but we already knew Anakin was Vader in Ep3.
What I'm saying is, Lucas could have written it so that you didn't know he was Vadar in Ep3. You could simply have him go evil and seemingly get killed by Obiwan, and then introduce Vadar as a new character in Ep4.
The problem is that it just wasn't written that way. It wouldn't have been hard. Hell, you could take the Ep3 script, drop any lines which refer to Anakin as "Vadar", drop the scene at the end when he's put in the Vadar suit/mask, and change the scene where he's cut in half and set on fire, so that he appears to die. Bingo, you won't know he's Vadar until Ep5.
Ok, I'm going to geek out here for a second, but I think the most unfortunate thing about all this is that they could have made the prequals to preserve a lot of those mysteries. Episode 3 could have been written so you're lead to believe that Anakin died at the end, and Padme could have been left pregnant. In RotJ, Leia says she remembers her real mother a little, and yet in Episode 3 she dies in childbirth. It isn't even coherent.
Also, Yoda could have been spoken of and referenced in the prequals, but never seen, which would have only built up suspense for the Degoba scene in ESB. And when ObiWan lies about Vadar killing Anakin in A New Hope, the audience would naturally assume that he's lying because it would be tought thing to explain, that it was he who killed Anakin. So you'd be left to think the big secret coming in ESB was that ObiWan killed Anakin, which would make the real plot twist that much more twisty.
So Lucas could have made it sensible to watch them in order, 1=>6, without destroying the plots of the original trilogy. The fact is, he simply chose not to, which is just baffling. As it is, there is absolutely no good order to watch the trilogy in, because Episode 3 ruins the surprises of 5 and 6, whereas watching the original trilogy basically lays out the story for the prequals, meaning there's no possiblity of Anakin's fall being interesting.
For all the good the people on CSPAN do us, they may as well be Jamaican muppets.