Okay, the question is why get a $2 million+ robot to do something a person will do for minimum wage? Robotics(the physical bodies made for work) are nowhere near as interesting (or potentially earth-shattering) as true artificail intelligence would be.
Robots simply will not replace human workers in most jobs for quite some time, and when they do so, it will be in a gradual process, not the catastrophic "10 million left jobless" situation the author describes. They're way too expensive for normal labor right now, and the price is not likely to drop too steeply. What's more, look at how cheap human labor is - most of the things we buy are made for minimum wage or less, some of it a lot less. How the hell is some robot going to compete with that?
However, there are some interesting issues regarding AIs and the economy that aren't addressed in the article. If you've seen the Animatrix shorts "The Second Renaissance" Paart 1 & 2, there was an interesting story about how AIs rose to power by having superior prductivity and financial skills, and created their own nation with their wealth. The most important thing about that was the concept of AIs being allowed to own property, and make financial desicisons - we tend to think of even advanced AI as simple property, with no need to own other things or have money. However, I think it's likely that AIs will be used by financial institutions to handle stocks and investing and so forth in the near future - the data they have to interpret will be much more limited than even a turing test, being just numbers and statistics, and their decision-making speed will be an advantage against human brokers. It will be interesting to see if they go on to become legal owners of property from there - if non-person entities like a corporation can own things, why not an AI?
I felt that I should post here, since I've actually taken part in a critical mass gathering. It was in a small town, and there were about 10 to 20 participants each time.
In no way, shape or form were we 'disrupting everyboy's life', as you put it. We rode downtown, then through some residential neighbords. Each time, we took care to stay in one lane, and obey the rules of traffic.
In fact, I'd say that it made me more respectful of the traffic laws. Most of them are there for your safety, and people often ignore them because they think that having a few thousand pounds of steel around them makes it okay. Take that away, and you suddenly become mindful of how dangerous traffic can be - try riding a bike in the street sometime, you'll start being very careful. It taught me to be much more aware of the traffic around me. We even did the hand signals for turns, which most cyclists don't do. Taking part in a critical mass event is something everyone who drives or bikes should do - it makes you a much more careful driver and cyclist, and instills respect for others on the road.
Well, that's better than on the soviet.russia.com(munist) servers - the admins there were really paranoid about items being sold, so they kept everything server-side and anyone caught selling stuff was kick-banned to the gulag.soviet.russia servers. They had really restricted clients with built-in spyware and DRM, too. It screwed up their entire in-game economy, in my opinion. Thankfully, the game was not making enough money, so the whole operation went under. Those admins were real assholes - I think they're running EverQuest nowadays.
If that doesn't work, try jumping, crouching, jumping, crouching, move left, move right, move left, move right, press right nipple, press the other nipple, then find the "select" button on you body and press it. Congratulations, you now have infinite life, or you've created the next dance craze.
For those of you who didn't see the movie, in "The Italian Job"(2003), Shawn Fanning plays himself in a bit role. It was pretty funny, actually - one of the main charachters is a "computer hacker", or at least a hollywood representation of one. He claims that it was he who created Napster in college, and that Shawn simply copied the code while he was napping(thus, "Napster"), slapped his name on it, and released it as his own. Shawn is briefly seen taking a disk out of the computer while the hacker guy is napping in a flashback to college. The hacker guy is actually nicknamed "napster" in the movie because of this, and he makes some references to it throughout the movie - like stopping a computer system with the message, "You will never stop the REAL Napster".
To stay on topic - I don't know if that was a positive of negative thing. On the one hand, it was great that Shawn can poke fun at himself, and the audience I was in really loved the napster jokes. There wasn't any real condemnation of Napster or even file-sharing, which was suprising for a Hollywood film. Then again, associating Napster with the 'hacker' and the criminal element(The Italian Job was, after all, a caper film) might be a bad thing in general for P2P.
Anyone here see the movie and have any thoughts to add?
How the hell did the parent post get modded insightful? The entire post reeks of an attitude that says 'boys should be boys, and girls should be powerless'. The poster seems to regard women as evil succubuses that entrap men through their feminine wiles and sap them of their creativity. I call bullshit. Men have been a far larger burden on women than the other way around.
It used to be an accepted fact that women have a negative impact upon masculine creativity and they should be prevented from dominating a man's life and time as much as possible.
It's an accepted fact that men have a negative impact upon feminine creativity and should be prevented from dominating a woman's life and time as much as possible. The traditional view of marriage sees the wife as housekeeper, mother, cook, caretaker, etc... all roles that ask her to serve others, instead of expressing herself or being creative. Yes, those jobs are important, and involve some creativity - but not in ways that society respets in men, such as writing, research, or art. Why do you think there was a whole movement by women so that being unmarried wouldn't be stigmatized like in the past? Do you think that *maybe* the 'traditional marriage' you refer to is the reason women have made up a minority of artists and scientists?
Hell, you're not even affirming commited relationships - you seem to approve of men "[having] their wives locked at home, engage[ing] in sexual relationships with young boys, not to mention have the occasional drunken symposium with lots of prostitutes and wine." As if drunkenly fucking a young boy makes you more creative, and demanding that one sleep only with a spouse is, like, waaaay too confining, man... free love(for the men), you dig? I won't even get into the fact that you disapprove of women 'flauning their bodies' a few paragraphs later.
The poster reminds me of this exchange from "Dr. Strangelove":
Capt. Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen, tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory?
General Ripper: Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.
Capt. Mandrake: Hmm.
General Ripper: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.
Capt. Mandrake: Hmm.
General Ripper: I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake.
Capt. Mandrake: No.
General Ripper: But I... I do deny them my essence.
There's Group-captain Lionel Mandrake, from the movie "Dr. Strangelove, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb". He's the RAF officer who tries to stop the American General Ripper from launching a full-scale nuclear war. Perhaps it's supposed to signify their relationship to a certain someone?
General Ballmer: Mandrake, do you recall what Stallman once said about code? Group Capt. Mandrake: No, I don't think I do, sir, no. General Ballmer: He said code was too important to be left to the corporations. When he said that, 30 years ago, he might have been right. But today, code is too important to be left to hackers. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow GNU/Communist infiltration, GNU/Communist indoctrination, GNU/Communist subversion and the international GNU/Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious source code. ... General Ballmer: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to open-sourcing OSes, why, there are studies underway to open-source web browsers, spreadsheets, mail clients, compilers, drivers, servers... games. Games, Mandrake, children's games. Group Capt. Mandrake: Lord, Jack. General Ballmer: You know when open-sourcing first began? Group Capt. Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack. General Ballmer: Nineteen hundred and eighty-four. Nineteen eighty-four, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war GNU/Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign license is introduced into our precious source codes without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core GNU/Commie works. Group Capt. Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen, tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory? General Ballmer: Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love. Group Capt. Mandrake: Hmm. General Ballmer: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence. Group Capt. Mandrake: Hmm. General Ballmer: I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake. Group Capt. Mandrake: No. General Ballmer: But I... I do deny them my essence.
Sorry but Debian installation is a pain in the ass. The average user can't install it.
I definetely agree with you there. By some freak coincidence, I just got finished installing Debian yesterday - I'm typing this on a Debian system, in fact. Why, oh why, couldn't this article have been posted earlier? The installation was a huge pain in the ass - even Slackware was easier. The installer seems to try to put hurdles in your way with crummy UI and bad programs(dselect and the partition utility in particular), and I would most definitely *not* recommend Debian to anyone, even advanced users. Other distros seem to be catching up to apt-get in terms of remote updates, and it's just not worth the hassle of going through the Debian install.
The way some Debian fans sound, it almost seems as if the install process is like a hazing or 'initiation' into a frat house - maybe the trauma binds them together through shared pain? (Just kidding - Deb-heads, please don't take offense);)
Anyways, I will probobly keep this Debian system around, since I'm through with the install anyways, but I am not going to install it on any other system. Now to see if I can apt-get install girlfriend....
Bah, there's so many Matrix/Jedi/Magic references here... Forget all those pop-crap 'reinterpretations', here's the real thing:
Source Te Ching - The Source and Its Power (by Lao Stallman)
That which cannot be compiled, is not the True Source.
That which must be NDA'd is not the Open Source.
The code is the Source of all things, great and small.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one sees the manifestations.
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery.
Then after 3 months you are then shot into a planet and stopped by a parachute and then some air bags. The entire time literally thrown into the surface.
You know, if this were about pen-and-paper RPGs, the discussion wouldn't even come up.
Let's say that Bob is playing an RPG with his friends. Suddenly, the Game Master says, "I'm sorry Bob, but that +100 Sword of Invincibility is just too powerful and unbalances the game. I'm going to ban it from the game". Could Bob sue his GM for destroying/devaluing his property? Probobly not. The object never existed, and was only a figment of the people's imagination. The fact that computers are being used to 'imagine' these things don't make it any different, I think.
Except that the presentation of the philosophy was noticeably worse, in this case.
In the original, Morpheus says, "No one can be told what the Matrix is... you have to see it for yourself", then follows it up by actually showing Neo and the audience "just how deep the rabbit hole goes". The Watchoskis(sp?) used the medium of film to great effect by not having Morpheus rant on and on about the Matrix, but instead showing us. Was there a single scene in Reloaded that matched the visceral shock of Neo waking up in a mechanical womb, surrounded by others who were still asleep and plugged in to a hideous machine?
Spoilers Below
Instead, we get an annoying French guy and some old people lecturing to Neo about abstract concepts of choice, without a real payoff from it. I know that the scene with the archtect where Neo chooses the 'wrong' door is supposed to be really important, but they made it feel like just a cliched 'hero goes to save the girl' scene. In the original, the philosophy had a very real consequence; Neo gained his powers and ability from being aware that the world around him was an illusion, and that he could bend it to his will. In Reloaded, Neo makes an important descision - but I get the feeling that he would have made the same descision whether or not he had been told all the things he was. All the philosophy talk previously in the movie was just window dressing.
I suppose that 'free will vs. fate' is a bit harder to do than 'reality is an illusion', but the first movie actually did a better job of showing the free will philosophy. Hopefully, the third movie will actually have the payoff from the choices made in Reloaded, but this movie seems to have been just an excercise in CGI and movie intellectualism.
Oh, please. I recently moved from a small town to a large city(Memphis), which is heavily car-dependent. I must say that I had much more individual freedom back home, where I could walk or ride my bike to the stores, and the traffic was light if I wanted to take my car.
Now, the city I live in pretty much forces me to ride my car everywhere. The geography is such that everything is spread out, so it is impractical to ride a bike, not to mention the fact that the roads are not safe to ride in.
I think that if you want to reduce car usage, you should try to make cities smaller, which makes accomodating pedestrians and bikes easier. Of corse you still need cars for long trips, but one should not have to use one just for everyday tasks. Being forced to use a car is no more free than being forced not to use one.
I think I zoned out during the Archtect's long speech, but here's what I gathered:
* Why will the Matrix fail if Neo takes the door to save Trinity?
I think it was supposed to be because Zion was going to be destroyed, and if Neo went for Trinity, they would be unable to get a new Zion started. But that's even assuming the archtect was telling the truth. It sounded like he knew Neo was going to go for Trinity, so maybe that's what he wanted?
* Why can't Neo save trinity and then deal with the Architect - and take her with him to start the new Zion?
Because Neo won't be able to find him again. They spent a bit of time and effort just trying to get to that door, and without the keymaker, I don't think they can find him. Oh, and Neo completely destroyed the floor, if not the building, in his attempt to get to Trinity.
* Why does the Architect put Neo in so much danger if he is required to keep the matrix stable? Why not just kill him in Zion?
Because the 'One' is supposed to start the new Zion, after the old one is destroyed, I think. And the danger that Neo is in seems to have come mostly from agent Smith, and that french guy, who may or may not be under the control of the central AI.
* Why does the Matrix need to use Zion to deal with the anomaly?
I don't remember if they said it outright, but I think it was that some people just naturally 'wake up' from the matrix, and if they are kept inside against their will, they cause problems(think of the insane detective charachter from Dark City). Those people who seek the truth and might find it are the 'anomaly' the AIs refer to. So the AIs either let a few of them out to found a city, or maybe they just make them think they're out. It's like a penal colony or insane asylum, except everyone there thinks they've been freed.
* How does having Neo start a new Zion temporarily fix the anomaly?
The anomaly is fixed by having Zion around. I think that the AIs simply do not want Zion to become too powerful, or that they don't want things to get too far advanced. So they 'wipe the slate clean' so to speak, by destroying Zion and have someone(in this case Neo) start a new Zion.
It's easy to read too much into this movie. But it looks like the AIs want to keep a cycle of death & rebirth of Zion just like they have of humans, so that they have a stable power supply.
I've never voted, so my expertise in this area is small, but the system you describe sounds good. You don't nessesarily need a bar code, though - a unique # on each vote card will do. Heck, you could probobly implement this system as an add-on to existing vote systems - the important part is that the voter takes home a copy or 'reciept', and that they can check that their vote was counted later.
Actually, I think I first heard about Minitel in Alvin Toffler's Third Wave, where he mentioned that internet acceptance may have suffered in France due to Minitel. I think he used it as an example of "first-mover disadvantage", or the perils of pioneering in new technology. You gotta give the French telecom a lot of credit, though - they sound like they grasped consumer information technology a lot better than AT&T.
As a former child(like everyone else), I think that being able to 'play' as the charachter only matters to the really younger demographic, maybe grade school or lower. I remember in 4th grade, 'Ren & Stimpy' became really popular, despite the fact that no one was 'playing' as any of the charachters - we were much too old and sophisticated for that:) . In the end, it's the humor that matters most.
Okay, I've wanted to ask someone who lives in the Euro zone - how do you pronounce amounts less than 1 Euro? Is 0.01 Euros a CentiEuro? point-oh-one Euro? A one-hundredth of a Euro? Or is there a special term, like 'cent' or 'schilling'?
Although others have given good reasons why this probobly isn't true, I think it's an interesting idea.
Remember near the end, where Neo dies? Guess who "breathes life" into him, and tells him to "Get up"? Yup, Trinity again... Though if anyone in the movie were supposed to represent God, I'd put my guess on Neo, the Oracle, and the head A.I., in that order.
Slashdot Mirror
that movie called Equilibrium, where people was prohibited to fell because felling and emotions are the cause of wars and terrorists acts.
;) Seriously, 'prohibited to fell'?
Interesting... Did they ban proper grammar and spelling too, because they lead to wars and terrorist acts?
Okay, the question is why get a $2 million+ robot to do something a person will do for minimum wage? Robotics(the physical bodies made for work) are nowhere near as interesting (or potentially earth-shattering) as true artificail intelligence would be.
Robots simply will not replace human workers in most jobs for quite some time, and when they do so, it will be in a gradual process, not the catastrophic "10 million left jobless" situation the author describes. They're way too expensive for normal labor right now, and the price is not likely to drop too steeply. What's more, look at how cheap human labor is - most of the things we buy are made for minimum wage or less, some of it a lot less. How the hell is some robot going to compete with that?
However, there are some interesting issues regarding AIs and the economy that aren't addressed in the article. If you've seen the Animatrix shorts "The Second Renaissance" Paart 1 & 2, there was an interesting story about how AIs rose to power by having superior prductivity and financial skills, and created their own nation with their wealth. The most important thing about that was the concept of AIs being allowed to own property, and make financial desicisons - we tend to think of even advanced AI as simple property, with no need to own other things or have money. However, I think it's likely that AIs will be used by financial institutions to handle stocks and investing and so forth in the near future - the data they have to interpret will be much more limited than even a turing test, being just numbers and statistics, and their decision-making speed will be an advantage against human brokers. It will be interesting to see if they go on to become legal owners of property from there - if non-person entities like a corporation can own things, why not an AI?
Not as nasty as goatse, but still nasty...
A lawyer that can use the "it was a bug in the printer" defense to successfully get you off: Priceless.
Paying that lawyer with the same card: even more priceless.
I felt that I should post here, since I've actually taken part in a critical mass gathering. It was in a small town, and there were about 10 to 20 participants each time.
In no way, shape or form were we 'disrupting everyboy's life', as you put it. We rode downtown, then through some residential neighbords. Each time, we took care to stay in one lane, and obey the rules of traffic.
In fact, I'd say that it made me more respectful of the traffic laws. Most of them are there for your safety, and people often ignore them because they think that having a few thousand pounds of steel around them makes it okay. Take that away, and you suddenly become mindful of how dangerous traffic can be - try riding a bike in the street sometime, you'll start being very careful. It taught me to be much more aware of the traffic around me. We even did the hand signals for turns, which most cyclists don't do. Taking part in a critical mass event is something everyone who drives or bikes should do - it makes you a much more careful driver and cyclist, and instills respect for others on the road.
Well, that's better than on the soviet.russia.com(munist) servers - the admins there were really paranoid about items being sold, so they kept everything server-side and anyone caught selling stuff was kick-banned to the gulag.soviet.russia servers. They had really restricted clients with built-in spyware and DRM, too. It screwed up their entire in-game economy, in my opinion. Thankfully, the game was not making enough money, so the whole operation went under. Those admins were real assholes - I think they're running EverQuest nowadays.
It goes something like this....
"Dear Lord who art in Heaven, iddqd"
If that doesn't work, try jumping, crouching, jumping, crouching, move left, move right, move left, move right, press right nipple, press the other nipple, then find the "select" button on you body and press it. Congratulations, you now have infinite life, or you've created the next dance craze.
For those of you who didn't see the movie, in "The Italian Job"(2003), Shawn Fanning plays himself in a bit role. It was pretty funny, actually - one of the main charachters is a "computer hacker", or at least a hollywood representation of one. He claims that it was he who created Napster in college, and that Shawn simply copied the code while he was napping(thus, "Napster"), slapped his name on it, and released it as his own. Shawn is briefly seen taking a disk out of the computer while the hacker guy is napping in a flashback to college. The hacker guy is actually nicknamed "napster" in the movie because of this, and he makes some references to it throughout the movie - like stopping a computer system with the message, "You will never stop the REAL Napster".
To stay on topic - I don't know if that was a positive of negative thing. On the one hand, it was great that Shawn can poke fun at himself, and the audience I was in really loved the napster jokes. There wasn't any real condemnation of Napster or even file-sharing, which was suprising for a Hollywood film. Then again, associating Napster with the 'hacker' and the criminal element(The Italian Job was, after all, a caper film) might be a bad thing in general for P2P.
Anyone here see the movie and have any thoughts to add?
How the hell did the parent post get modded insightful? The entire post reeks of an attitude that says 'boys should be boys, and girls should be powerless'. The poster seems to regard women as evil succubuses that entrap men through their feminine wiles and sap them of their creativity. I call bullshit. Men have been a far larger burden on women than the other way around.
It used to be an accepted fact that women have a negative impact upon masculine creativity and they should be prevented from dominating a man's life and time as much as possible.
It's an accepted fact that men have a negative impact upon feminine creativity and should be prevented from dominating a woman's life and time as much as possible. The traditional view of marriage sees the wife as housekeeper, mother, cook, caretaker, etc... all roles that ask her to serve others, instead of expressing herself or being creative. Yes, those jobs are important, and involve some creativity - but not in ways that society respets in men, such as writing, research, or art. Why do you think there was a whole movement by women so that being unmarried wouldn't be stigmatized like in the past? Do you think that *maybe* the 'traditional marriage' you refer to is the reason women have made up a minority of artists and scientists?
Hell, you're not even affirming commited relationships - you seem to approve of men "[having] their wives locked at home, engage[ing] in sexual relationships with young boys, not to mention have the occasional drunken symposium with lots of prostitutes and wine." As if drunkenly fucking a young boy makes you more creative, and demanding that one sleep only with a spouse is, like, waaaay too confining, man... free love(for the men), you dig? I won't even get into the fact that you disapprove of women 'flauning their bodies' a few paragraphs later.
The poster reminds me of this exchange from "Dr. Strangelove":
Capt. Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen, tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory?
General Ripper: Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.
Capt. Mandrake: Hmm.
General Ripper: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.
Capt. Mandrake: Hmm.
General Ripper: I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake.
Capt. Mandrake: No.
General Ripper: But I... I do deny them my essence.
There's Group-captain Lionel Mandrake, from the movie "Dr. Strangelove, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb". He's the RAF officer who tries to stop the American General Ripper from launching a full-scale nuclear war. Perhaps it's supposed to signify their relationship to a certain someone?
;)
General Ballmer: Mandrake, do you recall what Stallman once said about code?
Group Capt. Mandrake: No, I don't think I do, sir, no.
General Ballmer: He said code was too important to be left to the corporations. When he said that, 30 years ago, he might have been right. But today, code is too important to be left to hackers. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow GNU/Communist infiltration, GNU/Communist indoctrination, GNU/Communist subversion and the international GNU/Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious source code.
...
General Ballmer: Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to open-sourcing OSes, why, there are studies underway to open-source web browsers, spreadsheets, mail clients, compilers, drivers, servers... games. Games, Mandrake, children's games.
Group Capt. Mandrake: Lord, Jack.
General Ballmer: You know when open-sourcing first began?
Group Capt. Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.
General Ballmer: Nineteen hundred and eighty-four. Nineteen eighty-four, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war GNU/Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign license is introduced into our precious source codes without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core GNU/Commie works.
Group Capt. Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen, tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory?
General Ballmer: Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.
Group Capt. Mandrake: Hmm.
General Ballmer: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.
Group Capt. Mandrake: Hmm.
General Ballmer: I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake.
Group Capt. Mandrake: No.
General Ballmer: But I... I do deny them my essence.
It fits perfectly!
Sorry but Debian installation is a pain in the ass. The average user can't install it.
;)
I definetely agree with you there. By some freak coincidence, I just got finished installing Debian yesterday - I'm typing this on a Debian system, in fact. Why, oh why, couldn't this article have been posted earlier? The installation was a huge pain in the ass - even Slackware was easier. The installer seems to try to put hurdles in your way with crummy UI and bad programs(dselect and the partition utility in particular), and I would most definitely *not* recommend Debian to anyone, even advanced users. Other distros seem to be catching up to apt-get in terms of remote updates, and it's just not worth the hassle of going through the Debian install.
The way some Debian fans sound, it almost seems as if the install process is like a hazing or 'initiation' into a frat house - maybe the trauma binds them together through shared pain? (Just kidding - Deb-heads, please don't take offense)
Anyways, I will probobly keep this Debian system around, since I'm through with the install anyways, but I am not going to install it on any other system. Now to see if I can apt-get install girlfriend....
Bah, there's so many Matrix/Jedi/Magic references here... Forget all those pop-crap 'reinterpretations', here's the real thing:
Source Te Ching - The Source and Its Power (by Lao Stallman)
That which cannot be compiled, is not the True Source.
That which must be NDA'd is not the Open Source.
The code is the Source of all things, great and small.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one sees the manifestations.
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery.
Here's some scenes I want to see:
Agent Blue: Tell me, Mr. McBride... what use is a lawsuit... when you have no evidence?
McBride: MMMmmmph!!! mmmnnng!! rrrrgh!!!
Agent Blue: SCO is a disease... a cancer on this planet. We.... are the cure.
Then after 3 months you are then shot into a planet and stopped by a parachute and then some air bags. The entire time literally thrown into the surface.
:P
You mean, they just ship it UPS?
You know, if this were about pen-and-paper RPGs, the discussion wouldn't even come up.
Let's say that Bob is playing an RPG with his friends. Suddenly, the Game Master says, "I'm sorry Bob, but that +100 Sword of Invincibility is just too powerful and unbalances the game. I'm going to ban it from the game". Could Bob sue his GM for destroying/devaluing his property? Probobly not. The object never existed, and was only a figment of the people's imagination. The fact that computers are being used to 'imagine' these things don't make it any different, I think.
"Charlie in the wire! Charlie in the wire! Get the machinegun, we-oh, never mind, it's only Bob."
Except that the presentation of the philosophy was noticeably worse, in this case.
In the original, Morpheus says, "No one can be told what the Matrix is... you have to see it for yourself", then follows it up by actually showing Neo and the audience "just how deep the rabbit hole goes". The Watchoskis(sp?) used the medium of film to great effect by not having Morpheus rant on and on about the Matrix, but instead showing us. Was there a single scene in Reloaded that matched the visceral shock of Neo waking up in a mechanical womb, surrounded by others who were still asleep and plugged in to a hideous machine?
Spoilers Below
Instead, we get an annoying French guy and some old people lecturing to Neo about abstract concepts of choice, without a real payoff from it. I know that the scene with the archtect where Neo chooses the 'wrong' door is supposed to be really important, but they made it feel like just a cliched 'hero goes to save the girl' scene. In the original, the philosophy had a very real consequence; Neo gained his powers and ability from being aware that the world around him was an illusion, and that he could bend it to his will. In Reloaded, Neo makes an important descision - but I get the feeling that he would have made the same descision whether or not he had been told all the things he was. All the philosophy talk previously in the movie was just window dressing.
I suppose that 'free will vs. fate' is a bit harder to do than 'reality is an illusion', but the first movie actually did a better job of showing the free will philosophy. Hopefully, the third movie will actually have the payoff from the choices made in Reloaded, but this movie seems to have been just an excercise in CGI and movie intellectualism.
Oh, please. I recently moved from a small town to a large city(Memphis), which is heavily car-dependent. I must say that I had much more individual freedom back home, where I could walk or ride my bike to the stores, and the traffic was light if I wanted to take my car.
Now, the city I live in pretty much forces me to ride my car everywhere. The geography is such that everything is spread out, so it is impractical to ride a bike, not to mention the fact that the roads are not safe to ride in.
I think that if you want to reduce car usage, you should try to make cities smaller, which makes accomodating pedestrians and bikes easier. Of corse you still need cars for long trips, but one should not have to use one just for everyday tasks. Being forced to use a car is no more free than being forced not to use one.
SPOILERS BELOW
I think I zoned out during the Archtect's long speech, but here's what I gathered:
* Why will the Matrix fail if Neo takes the door to save Trinity?
I think it was supposed to be because Zion was going to be destroyed, and if Neo went for Trinity, they would be unable to get a new Zion started. But that's even assuming the archtect was telling the truth. It sounded like he knew Neo was going to go for Trinity, so maybe that's what he wanted?
* Why can't Neo save trinity and then deal with the Architect - and take her with him to start the new Zion?
Because Neo won't be able to find him again. They spent a bit of time and effort just trying to get to that door, and without the keymaker, I don't think they can find him. Oh, and Neo completely destroyed the floor, if not the building, in his attempt to get to Trinity.
* Why does the Architect put Neo in so much danger if he is required to keep the matrix stable? Why not just kill him in Zion?
Because the 'One' is supposed to start the new Zion, after the old one is destroyed, I think. And the danger that Neo is in seems to have come mostly from agent Smith, and that french guy, who may or may not be under the control of the central AI.
* Why does the Matrix need to use Zion to deal with the anomaly?
I don't remember if they said it outright, but I think it was that some people just naturally 'wake up' from the matrix, and if they are kept inside against their will, they cause problems(think of the insane detective charachter from Dark City). Those people who seek the truth and might find it are the 'anomaly' the AIs refer to. So the AIs either let a few of them out to found a city, or maybe they just make them think they're out. It's like a penal colony or insane asylum, except everyone there thinks they've been freed.
* How does having Neo start a new Zion temporarily fix the anomaly?
The anomaly is fixed by having Zion around. I think that the AIs simply do not want Zion to become too powerful, or that they don't want things to get too far advanced. So they 'wipe the slate clean' so to speak, by destroying Zion and have someone(in this case Neo) start a new Zion.
It's easy to read too much into this movie. But it looks like the AIs want to keep a cycle of death & rebirth of Zion just like they have of humans, so that they have a stable power supply.
I've never voted, so my expertise in this area is small, but the system you describe sounds good. You don't nessesarily need a bar code, though - a unique # on each vote card will do. Heck, you could probobly implement this system as an add-on to existing vote systems - the important part is that the voter takes home a copy or 'reciept', and that they can check that their vote was counted later.
I would like to see them confirm that its an april fools joke..... in May (or maybe April, but way after April 1st anyways)!
;) I'm suprised they didn't just push it 'til next April Fools...
You haven't seen many Microsoft product release schedules, do you?
Actually, I think I first heard about Minitel in Alvin Toffler's Third Wave, where he mentioned that internet acceptance may have suffered in France due to Minitel. I think he used it as an example of "first-mover disadvantage", or the perils of pioneering in new technology. You gotta give the French telecom a lot of credit, though - they sound like they grasped consumer information technology a lot better than AT&T.
As a former child(like everyone else), I think that being able to 'play' as the charachter only matters to the really younger demographic, maybe grade school or lower. I remember in 4th grade, 'Ren & Stimpy' became really popular, despite the fact that no one was 'playing' as any of the charachters - we were much too old and sophisticated for that :) . In the end, it's the humor that matters most.
Okay, I've wanted to ask someone who lives in the Euro zone - how do you pronounce amounts less than 1 Euro? Is 0.01 Euros a CentiEuro? point-oh-one Euro? A one-hundredth of a Euro? Or is there a special term, like 'cent' or 'schilling'?
Although others have given good reasons why this probobly isn't true, I think it's an interesting idea.
Remember near the end, where Neo dies? Guess who "breathes life" into him, and tells him to "Get up"? Yup, Trinity again... Though if anyone in the movie were supposed to represent God, I'd put my guess on Neo, the Oracle, and the head A.I., in that order.