I remember a kid in my English class who would sit in the back, and basically draw. He tended to get good grades in the class, even though he didn't take notes and such.... He handed the paper to me, and on it was a cartoon character of his own design, of basically a guy hanging from a noose in a tree, but only the head in the noose. Below the head was a lifeless body, and a chainsaw nearby. Everything was "covered" in blood (he used a red pen for this).
You have basically just described who I was when I was in 7th grade. Except I drew pictures of "the devil" and pentagrams and hell -- with a red pen. I remember my dad finding them one day after school and telling me how inappropriate it was. I also remember how stupid I thought he was for believing that I was actually interested in satanism or devil worship. (or that I believed that Satan existed as more than a SYMBOL for evil.)
I had trouble with authority all through school, and I still have trouble with authority today. I am a firm believer that rules exist to form a framework that will allow us to USE OUR OWN BEST JUDGEMENT.
The rule(s) should exist to say, "in an average situation, it would be reasonable to...." The rule should not exist to say, "In every situation, you must...."
Do you have any proof that any of the activities you are accusing cops of actually occur?
One of my best friends' fathers had a close friend who was a retired cop. That retired cop told us one day that every cop he had ever worked with had carried a "throw away" piece in case he ever accidentally shot an unarmed civilian.
Note: A RETIRED COP told this story with a PROUD SMIRK on his face.
(A throw away piece is a weapon that a police officer picks up in the course of his duty -- from some guy he pulls over, or someone he arrests -- that is either unregistered or stolen and that he can then plant on the corpse of someone he's shot and perhaps fire off a couple of rounds to make it look like the innocent corpse really did deserve to eat that bullet.)
We had a lot of laughs about that over here; and 62 million people can't believe you actually made a film called Free Willy....
...and didn't realise...:)
We all realized it. But seeing it was a DISNEY movie aimed at a DISNEY audience, we largely ignored it altogether. (Though I'm sure Jay Leno and Dave Letterman probably made 2 weeks worth of jokes about it.)
A bad hollywood portrayal? Hackers was anything but that. Hackers was actually a well-written movie with a lot of undertoned parody and 'inside jokes'.
I agree that there was a lot to like (From a one-time warez d00d perspective) about Hackers. My biggest complaints about it are these:
1. At her party, Acid Burn points to what is obviously a Mac Laptop and says "look, it's a pentium 5" or something similar.
2. All the graphical "matrix-ish" (Gibson's matrix, not the Wachowski Bros) stuff used to show them "hacking" the mainframe. Either they should've left that stupid crap out, or they should've stuck "somewhere in the late 21st century" at the beginning of the movie so that we weren't expected to view that stuff as current tech.
I'm sure there were more, but it's been a couple years since I saw it, and I just don't care that much.
"Hackers" is worth watching if you're bored on a thursday night and have nothing to do but get high and watch silly movies.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Nazi's having inferior musical abilities
on
Nazis on Napster
·
· Score: 1
I've listened to a sampling of racist, Nazi music and it's not likely to reach a huge audience just because it's on Napster. It's the worst music I've ever heard. Even if I could ignore the lyrics, I think I'd prefer "Achy Breaky Heart" on infinite replay. For some reason, racist imbeciles don't make good musicians, go figure.
Writing good songs requires quite a bit of skill. Not only do you need to learn to properly play your instruments, develop some music theory, etc., you also have to live through some experiences that lend depth to your music. The best music is representative of the emotions and ideas of the musician. It's an external reflection of what's inside the songwriter.
Someone who refuses to allow their worldview to expand beyond their own little personal prejudices is unlikely to be able to write anything that anyone who has gone beyond that level will appreciate. Or, to restate that in a slightly clearer context:
A brilliant, thoughtful, sensitive guy who happens to be a musician is more likely to write great songs than would a hate-filled, dogmatic moron who just happens to be a musician.
Microsoft products (unlike heroin) allow people to make money when they are proficient with them. Heroin makes your teeth and hair fall out. Thus, a learning to use a microsoft product has positive reprocussions, using heroin does not
Before I say it, let me say this first:
I am not now, nor have I ever been a heroin user.
That being said, Heroin OBVIOUSLY has some positive repercussions because if it didn't, nobody would be killing themself to use it. -The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Ebay Insurance (3rd party) covers all transactions except for the first $50. So, if you spend $20,000 on an item, have the receipt proving you paid, you get $19,950 back. I assume a collection agency/etc goes after the deadbeat seller...
That's not entirely true... Ebay will cover up to $300 minus a "co-payment" of $50 bucks. So the most you'd get back on that $20,000 item is $250. Not quite as safe as you'd like, eh?
Granted, But I would ask how many realdolls are there vs. how many hookers?
The question is not is it technicaly possible to automate the task (fighting, f*cking, flipping burgers etc) but can you build a robot that does these things cheaper that some random poor 18 year old dragooned into the respective taks.
Um.. You missed my point.. the answer is right at your fingertips... if people are spending thousands to buy the real doll now (instead of some random poor 18 year old) then they'll be just as likely (more likely, in fact) to purchase the same thing if they add realistic movement.
Is this why my girlfriend always asks incredulously, "You're not wearing THAT, are you?" when we go out on a date?
Not at all. You're confusing tetrachromats with bad taste. Nobody needs an extra color sense (well, besides you) to know that plaid and polka dots do not a sophisticate make.
Besides which, We still have alot more humans than we know what to do with so the market for either millitary or recreaional robots is porbably going to be quite limited.
Well, people are already making money on the Real Doll so chances that someone would want their real doll to be equipped with the ability to move, mimick sexual responsiveness or respond to spoken commands (I'll leave those to your imagination) seem pretty high to me.
I'd rather have an autonomous vacuum cleaner look like...a vacuum cleaner.
I think I tend to agree with you. There *MAY* be a sound reason for having them shaped to look like and mimick human movement, but the biggest reason I can see for it is that that's what people expect.. Given this age of GUI interfaces, perhaps what they're looking at the "user friendliness" angle. I.e. if it looks more human, it'll be easier to interact with as if it were human.
People who are already technophobic might feel silly talking to a box on the floor that sucks up the crumbs, but they'll feel right at home talking to MS-JoeBot.
But look on the bright side! If they weren't humanoid robots, they wouldn't be able to ;boogie !
What all could you get from an asteroid? Just facts or some nice raw materials?
Yes, you're missing something.
For instance, you apparently missed READING THE ARTICLE. In it, it states that (for example) a recently discovered Near Earth Orbit (NEO) asteroid that is only about 2 kilometers in size but "At today's prices, the iron and nickel alone would be worth about eight trillion dollars, cobalt another six trillion dollars, and the platinum-group metals about the same."
So yes, there is quite a bit of nice, usable raw material to be gained from extra-planetery mining. Not to mention that if you could build a "space refinery" you could build and manufacture ships & supplies right up there in zero-g, without having to waste fuel & resources getting them there.
If you're not knowledgeable enough yourself to post on a story, how can you be knowledgeable enough to tell whether someone else's post is informative?
I agree with you. I guess to better explain the way I feel, let's take something like Mozilla. I'm not personally an open-source zealot. I think the idea of multiple browsers & whatnot is a good idea, and a user-supported browser is a great idea... but I'm not a programmer. There is very little I can add to such a movement, so I tend to stay out of those discussions. (I don't like to post my "uninformed" opinions unless it seems really necessary) There are lots of stories that I *DO* relate with and respond to, and I obviously can't post AND moderate those kinds of discussions. So what I do is attempt to moderate interesting or informative posts in threads that aren't normally my cup of tea. It may mean that I occassionally mod something up that is undeserving, but I would rarely use the (+1 informative) rating unless I was reasonably informed myself. If something seems plausible or interesting and i don't have the experience to judge its inherent truthfulness, I'd mod it as "interesting". A well thought out post, even if it contains factual errors, may well spark a discussion that will lead to real answers.
(I've already lost 4 karma points for this little thread, which just goes to show that some people are just plain idiots. MY TITLE says that the post is off-topic... why would anyone need a moderator (much less 4) to tell them that it was off-topic when I announced it myself?)
How many people were involved in making the baby? Congrats to whoever was...
Ok. So it was a pretty lame joke, but offtopic?
I think not. Especially when you consider the whole ARTICLE (article condensed: "Linus' wife had a baby") has very little topic to begin with, just about anything relating to Linux, babies or open source is pretty much on topic.
And this isn't rocket science, folx. It's geek fodder. Why waste your moderation on this story AT ALL, much less to moderate posts down?
Go moderate something interesting or worthwhile.
(Or how 'bout some kneejerk "offtopic" moderation thrown at me for pointing out how utterly ridiculous this sort of moderation is.)
the premise of the book was basically that Ender was nothing special, and everything that he thought he did that was out of the ordinary was really done by Bean.
Or at least, that was Bean's impression of the same events. Most people, I think, tend to make themselves the "Star" of their own story. Perceptions of facts tend to align themselves with our perception of ourself.
Given that, is it surprising that Ender sees himself as an incredible leader and Bean sees something similar in himself?
Carnivore is a good thing. The bad things are: 1) the search string is not in the warrant ordering the tap, and 2) their is no accountability or prevention for overstepping this search string.
There's very little new info in this current article. Mostly it says that according to new info, Carnivore is capable of capturing all unfiltered traffic that flows through it and archiving it for later investigation. That's a bad thing.... but then, we've all known that Carnivore was a bad thing the first time we heard about it. This is further confirmation, but hardly surprising.
Did anybody really expect a secret surveillance project by a secretive government organization to be anything BUT invasive?
What remains to be seen is whether or not all the public outcry will have any effect whatsoever on the implementation of this software. (My bet is "No, it will not.")
heh, did anyone even read those past the 5th chapter the first time they've read it? =] Unless you're reading it again, reading those get VERY boring and around the 4th chapter you realize that they aren't integral to the plot so it's skipped
I disagree, actually. I've always thought it would be interesting (Though with my level of free time who knows whether I'll ever get around to doing it) to create a textfile which puts all of those little quotes from the different books (Mentat, Bene Gesseret, Fremen) into a collection... to build the "books" from their respective quotes. Could be an interesting tool to anyone interested in the study of philosophy, or just fun for any real Herbert fanatics.
FYI - Herbert does this kind of thing at the beginning of a chapter in a lot of his books. (See the Destination: Void series for more examples.)
And fwiw, $1 million bond is hardly unheard of. Seeing that... it doesn't mention the other 3 charges that were dropped were,... and whether the bond would be lower if paid in cash (which is usually the case).
It isn't the $1 million dollar bond that is unheard of, but the fact that it was applied to a MISDEMEANOR OFFENSE that makes it so odd. Imagine a $1 million dollar bond on a jaywalking or prank calling charge for proper perspective.
Also, seeing that he DID make bail, it obviously wasn't an impossible hardship.
Um, it doesn't say that he made bail, what it DOES say is that:
He was released Tuesday because, according to the prosecutor, there was no evidence against him
I mean, there has rarely been a more long-winded, dull book with shoddy characterisation, awful prose and a setting that lacks interest. If it wasn't for the fact that the other science fiction around at the time was even worse, nobody would have ever even considered Dune, let alone call it a "classic".
One of the reasons that I loved the dune series was their scope. Few books in any genre manage to successfully (or even unsuccessfully) carry a story over several thousand years.
It was interesting to watch the development of their government, the way the Bene Gesseret would engineer religions and entire societies, the way the God Emperor built up Arakkis...
Sure, some of the dialogue was a bit bogged down, but I sat down and read the first 5 books in less than a month. It also gave me a lot of interesting ideas about OUR society and cultural development, which (IMHO) was Herbert's whole point to begin with.
Sometimes it isn't the plot line that causes something to succeed or fail... it's the effect on the reader that make it great. -The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
The original movie was hard for most to follow, unless you had read the books.
I just *REALLY* hope that they switch the fremen fighting techniques back to something more akin to what it was in the books -- a hand-to-hand combat style, instead of those ridiculous "muad'dib" voice weapons they were using in the movie. Give me a worm knife anyday over one of those annoying megaphone zap guns.
Come on, the Matrix was a joke. One of the worst sci-fi movies I have seen. Lots of special effects, sure. So what? Bad science and lots of guns - whoopee.
If you really want to enjoy the matrix (as more than a kill-the-bad-guy movie) you must do one or more of the following:
Read extensively of hindu/buddhist/Taoist philosophy.
Read Christian philosophy/mythology
take LSD, mescaline, mushrooms or other powerful hallucinogen.
Personally, I couldn't understand what the hype was all about on first viewing.. i found stuff like the character "mouse" just too stereotypical... but after my 4th viewing (and with considerable investigation of all of the above list items) I am still finding new things to be captivated and amazed by.
I'm curious to see whether Trinity ends up being the "real" savior of everything by the time Matrix 3 is out.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember a kid in my English class who would sit in the back, and basically draw. He tended to get good grades in the class, even though he didn't take notes and such .... He handed the paper to me, and on it was a cartoon character of his own design, of basically a guy hanging from a noose in a tree, but only the head in the noose. Below the head was a lifeless body, and a chainsaw nearby. Everything was "covered" in blood (he used a red pen for this).
You have basically just described who I was when I was in 7th grade. Except I drew pictures of "the devil" and pentagrams and hell -- with a red pen. I remember my dad finding them one day after school and telling me how inappropriate it was. I also remember how stupid I thought he was for believing that I was actually interested in satanism or devil worship. (or that I believed that Satan existed as more than a SYMBOL for evil.)
I had trouble with authority all through school, and I still have trouble with authority today. I am a firm believer that rules exist to form a framework that will allow us to USE OUR OWN BEST JUDGEMENT.
The rule(s) should exist to say, "in an average situation, it would be reasonable to...." The rule should not exist to say, "In every situation, you must...."
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Do you have any proof that any of the activities you are accusing cops of actually occur?
One of my best friends' fathers had a close friend who was a retired cop. That retired cop told us one day that every cop he had ever worked with had carried a "throw away" piece in case he ever accidentally shot an unarmed civilian.
Note: A RETIRED COP told this story with a PROUD SMIRK on his face.
(A throw away piece is a weapon that a police officer picks up in the course of his duty -- from some guy he pulls over, or someone he arrests -- that is either unregistered or stolen and that he can then plant on the corpse of someone he's shot and perhaps fire off a couple of rounds to make it look like the innocent corpse really did deserve to eat that bullet.)
No shit.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
We had a lot of laughs about that over here; and 62 million people can't believe you actually made a film called Free Willy....
:)
...and didn't realise...
We all realized it. But seeing it was a DISNEY movie aimed at a DISNEY audience, we largely ignored it altogether. (Though I'm sure Jay Leno and Dave Letterman probably made 2 weeks worth of jokes about it.)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
A bad hollywood portrayal? Hackers was anything but that. Hackers was actually a well-written movie with a lot of undertoned parody and 'inside jokes'.
I agree that there was a lot to like (From a one-time warez d00d perspective) about Hackers. My biggest complaints about it are these:
1. At her party, Acid Burn points to what is obviously a Mac Laptop and says "look, it's a pentium 5" or something similar.
2. All the graphical "matrix-ish" (Gibson's matrix, not the Wachowski Bros) stuff used to show them "hacking" the mainframe. Either they should've left that stupid crap out, or they should've stuck "somewhere in the late 21st century" at the beginning of the movie so that we weren't expected to view that stuff as current tech.
I'm sure there were more, but it's been a couple years since I saw it, and I just don't care that much.
"Hackers" is worth watching if you're bored on a thursday night and have nothing to do but get high and watch silly movies.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
I've listened to a sampling of racist, Nazi music and it's not likely to reach a huge audience just because it's on Napster. It's the worst music I've ever heard. Even if I could ignore the lyrics, I think I'd prefer "Achy Breaky Heart" on infinite replay. For some reason, racist imbeciles don't make good musicians, go figure.
Writing good songs requires quite a bit of skill. Not only do you need to learn to properly play your instruments, develop some music theory, etc., you also have to live through some experiences that lend depth to your music. The best music is representative of the emotions and ideas of the musician. It's an external reflection of what's inside the songwriter.
Someone who refuses to allow their worldview to expand beyond their own little personal prejudices is unlikely to be able to write anything that anyone who has gone beyond that level will appreciate. Or, to restate that in a slightly clearer context:
A brilliant, thoughtful, sensitive guy who happens to be a musician is more likely to write great songs than would a hate-filled, dogmatic moron who just happens to be a musician.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Microsoft products (unlike heroin) allow people to make money when they are proficient with them. Heroin makes your teeth and hair fall out. Thus, a learning to use a microsoft product has positive reprocussions, using heroin does not
Before I say it, let me say this first:
I am not now, nor have I ever been a heroin user.
That being said, Heroin OBVIOUSLY has some positive repercussions because if it didn't, nobody would be killing themself to use it.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Ebay Insurance (3rd party) covers all transactions except for the first $50. So, if you spend $20,000 on an item, have the receipt proving you paid, you get $19,950 back. I assume a collection agency/etc goes after the deadbeat seller...
That's not entirely true... Ebay will cover up to $300 minus a "co-payment" of $50 bucks. So the most you'd get back on that $20,000 item is $250. Not quite as safe as you'd like, eh?
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Granted, But I would ask how many realdolls are there vs. how many hookers?
The question is not is it technicaly possible to automate the task (fighting, f*cking, flipping burgers etc) but can you build a robot that does these things cheaper that some random poor 18 year old dragooned into the respective taks.
Um.. You missed my point.. the answer is right at your fingertips... if people are spending thousands to buy the real doll now (instead of some random poor 18 year old) then they'll be just as likely (more likely, in fact) to purchase the same thing if they add realistic movement.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Is this why my girlfriend always asks incredulously, "You're not wearing THAT, are you?" when we go out on a date?
Not at all. You're confusing tetrachromats with bad taste. Nobody needs an extra color sense (well, besides you) to know that plaid and polka dots do not a sophisticate make.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Besides which, We still have alot more humans than we know what to do with so the market for either millitary or recreaional robots is porbably going to be quite limited.
Well, people are already making money on the Real Doll so chances that someone would want their real doll to be equipped with the ability to move, mimick sexual responsiveness or respond to spoken commands (I'll leave those to your imagination) seem pretty high to me.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
I'd rather have an autonomous vacuum cleaner look like...a vacuum cleaner.
;boogie !
I think I tend to agree with you. There *MAY* be a sound reason for having them shaped to look like and mimick human movement, but the biggest reason I can see for it is that that's what people expect.. Given this age of GUI interfaces, perhaps what they're looking at the "user friendliness" angle. I.e. if it looks more human, it'll be easier to interact with as if it were human.
People who are already technophobic might feel silly talking to a box on the floor that sucks up the crumbs, but they'll feel right at home talking to MS-JoeBot.
But look on the bright side! If they weren't humanoid robots, they wouldn't be able to
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
What all could you get from an asteroid? Just facts or some nice raw materials?
Yes, you're missing something.
For instance, you apparently missed READING THE ARTICLE. In it, it states that (for example) a recently discovered Near Earth Orbit (NEO) asteroid that is only about 2 kilometers in size but "At today's prices, the iron and nickel alone would be worth about eight trillion dollars, cobalt another six trillion dollars, and the platinum-group metals about the same."
So yes, there is quite a bit of nice, usable raw material to be gained from extra-planetery mining. Not to mention that if you could build a "space refinery" you could build and manufacture ships & supplies right up there in zero-g, without having to waste fuel & resources getting them there.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
If you're not knowledgeable enough yourself to post on a story, how can you be knowledgeable enough to tell whether someone else's post is informative?
I agree with you. I guess to better explain the way I feel, let's take something like Mozilla. I'm not personally an open-source zealot. I think the idea of multiple browsers & whatnot is a good idea, and a user-supported browser is a great idea... but I'm not a programmer. There is very little I can add to such a movement, so I tend to stay out of those discussions. (I don't like to post my "uninformed" opinions unless it seems really necessary) There are lots of stories that I *DO* relate with and respond to, and I obviously can't post AND moderate those kinds of discussions. So what I do is attempt to moderate interesting or informative posts in threads that aren't normally my cup of tea. It may mean that I occassionally mod something up that is undeserving, but I would rarely use the (+1 informative) rating unless I was reasonably informed myself. If something seems plausible or interesting and i don't have the experience to judge its inherent truthfulness, I'd mod it as "interesting". A well thought out post, even if it contains factual errors, may well spark a discussion that will lead to real answers.
(I've already lost 4 karma points for this little thread, which just goes to show that some people are just plain idiots. MY TITLE says that the post is off-topic... why would anyone need a moderator (much less 4) to tell them that it was off-topic when I announced it myself?)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
"Congrats to Linus, Tove, Patricia and the fam. "
...
How many people were involved in making the baby? Congrats to whoever was
Ok. So it was a pretty lame joke, but offtopic?
I think not. Especially when you consider the whole ARTICLE (article condensed: "Linus' wife had a baby") has very little topic to begin with, just about anything relating to Linux, babies or open source is pretty much on topic.
And this isn't rocket science, folx. It's geek fodder. Why waste your moderation on this story AT ALL, much less to moderate posts down?
Go moderate something interesting or worthwhile.
(Or how 'bout some kneejerk "offtopic" moderation thrown at me for pointing out how utterly ridiculous this sort of moderation is.)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
"natzi" [sic]
The correct spelling is "ratzi"
And here I thought it was Yahtzee.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
the premise of the book was basically that Ender was nothing special, and everything that he thought he did that was out of the ordinary was really done by Bean.
Or at least, that was Bean's impression of the same events. Most people, I think, tend to make themselves the "Star" of their own story. Perceptions of facts tend to align themselves with our perception of ourself.
Given that, is it surprising that Ender sees himself as an incredible leader and Bean sees something similar in himself?
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Carnivore is a good thing. The bad things are: 1) the search string is not in the warrant ordering the tap, and 2) their is no accountability or prevention for overstepping this search string.
Where's the good part again? I think I missed it.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
There's very little new info in this current article. Mostly it says that according to new info, Carnivore is capable of capturing all unfiltered traffic that flows through it and archiving it for later investigation. That's a bad thing.... but then, we've all known that Carnivore was a bad thing the first time we heard about it. This is further confirmation, but hardly surprising.
Did anybody really expect a secret surveillance project by a secretive government organization to be anything BUT invasive?
What remains to be seen is whether or not all the public outcry will have any effect whatsoever on the implementation of this software. (My bet is "No, it will not.")
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
It's Lego not Legos, get a life will ya?
The irony of the above statement needs no further punchline.
:D
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
heh, did anyone even read those past the 5th chapter the first time they've read it? =] Unless you're reading it again, reading those get VERY boring and around the 4th chapter you realize that they aren't integral to the plot so it's skipped
I disagree, actually. I've always thought it would be interesting (Though with my level of free time who knows whether I'll ever get around to doing it) to create a textfile which puts all of those little quotes from the different books (Mentat, Bene Gesseret, Fremen) into a collection... to build the "books" from their respective quotes. Could be an interesting tool to anyone interested in the study of philosophy, or just fun for any real Herbert fanatics.
FYI - Herbert does this kind of thing at the beginning of a chapter in a lot of his books. (See the Destination: Void series for more examples.)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
And fwiw, $1 million bond is hardly unheard of. Seeing that... it doesn't mention the other 3 charges that were dropped were,... and whether the bond would be lower if paid in cash (which is usually the case).
It isn't the $1 million dollar bond that is unheard of, but the fact that it was applied to a MISDEMEANOR OFFENSE that makes it so odd. Imagine a $1 million dollar bond on a jaywalking or prank calling charge for proper perspective.
Also, seeing that he DID make bail, it obviously wasn't an impossible hardship.
Um, it doesn't say that he made bail, what it DOES say is that:
He was released Tuesday because, according to the prosecutor, there was no evidence against him
Thank you, drive through.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
I mean, there has rarely been a more long-winded, dull book with shoddy characterisation, awful prose and a setting that lacks interest. If it wasn't for the fact that the other science fiction around at the time was even worse, nobody would have ever even considered Dune, let alone call it a "classic".
One of the reasons that I loved the dune series was their scope. Few books in any genre manage to successfully (or even unsuccessfully) carry a story over several thousand years.
It was interesting to watch the development of their government, the way the Bene Gesseret would engineer religions and entire societies, the way the God Emperor built up Arakkis...
Sure, some of the dialogue was a bit bogged down, but I sat down and read the first 5 books in less than a month. It also gave me a lot of interesting ideas about OUR society and cultural development, which (IMHO) was Herbert's whole point to begin with.
Sometimes it isn't the plot line that causes something to succeed or fail... it's the effect on the reader that make it great.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
The original movie was hard for most to follow, unless you had read the books.
I just *REALLY* hope that they switch the fremen fighting techniques back to something more akin to what it was in the books -- a hand-to-hand combat style, instead of those ridiculous "muad'dib" voice weapons they were using in the movie. Give me a worm knife anyday over one of those annoying megaphone zap guns.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
There is no proof, or even reliable evidence, that homosexuality is not a (mental) disease/disorder
And just how, praytell, would one go about proving a negative anyway?
(it's easier to see if you take your head out of the sand, btw.)
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Come on, the Matrix was a joke. One of the worst sci-fi movies I have seen. Lots of special effects, sure. So what? Bad science and lots of guns - whoopee.
If you really want to enjoy the matrix (as more than a kill-the-bad-guy movie) you must do one or more of the following:
Read extensively of hindu/buddhist/Taoist philosophy.
Read Christian philosophy/mythology
take LSD, mescaline, mushrooms or other powerful hallucinogen.
Personally, I couldn't understand what the hype was all about on first viewing.. i found stuff like the character "mouse" just too stereotypical... but after my 4th viewing (and with considerable investigation of all of the above list items) I am still finding new things to be captivated and amazed by.
I'm curious to see whether Trinity ends up being the "real" savior of everything by the time Matrix 3 is out.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)