"The star beast", by Heinlein. Perfect for that age - and pure fun all the way through. It keeps its charm even if you are older:-) All his juvenile books are great, but this one is the best, I think.
It is tough to find something not already mentioned on someone's list! You might want to consider Patricia McKillip's "Riddle Master of Hed" trilogy, though that's (excellent) fantasy - and speaking of fantasy, Gread Bear's "Infinity Concerto" and "The Serpent Mage" are great fantasy by a great SF writer. At 13, she might be just a bit too young for it, though.
What else that I didn't see mentioned... Jack Chalker's "Well of souls" series, of course; Anything by E.E. Doc Smith, if you can find it; Julian May's "The many colored land" series (wonderful mixture of aliens, psi, high-tech and time travel. Some mentioning of sex, though nothing explicit).
Any Jack Vance (planet of adventure... the dying earth... the demon princes). Gene Wolfe is probably too hard for a 13 year old. So is David Zindell (the Neverness series). Both are a must read later on...
Got it! The perfect SF book for a 13 year old! "Rite of passage" by Alexei Panshin (about a teenage girl growing up in a spaceship - thought provoking issues about morality, growing up, some adventure, and general fun).
And nobody mentioned Cordwainer Smith! Go today and get "the rediscovery of man" - that's all the short stories - and "Norstrilia". It simply doesn't get any better. Trust me. Or, rather, don't - ask anyone who has read him. It really doesn't get any better.
Speaking of Smith, someone mentioned "Bridge of Birds" by Barry Hughart. That's also an all-times great one.
Whow, and that's besides the great books on other people's lists. I guess you are swamped. Trust me on "Star beast", "Rite of passage" - they are just perfect for her age, and are easy reading.
You could, of course, just get her a library card and the sum of all responses. That should keep her busy and out of trouble until she's 21:-)
There was a time people though that creating a dedicated "Java Chip" would be a good idea. It sort of fizzled, but the notion does have some merit.
Technically, the immediate candidates which came to mind to pull such a trick have been X86 companies. They have a lot of experience in converting one instruction set (X86) to another (whatever their chip "really" runs). For some strange reason, Intel never made anything of this:-)
Transmeta, on the other hand, seem to have both the technology and the lack of, shall we say, unfortunate entanglement with a certain software company:-) so such a project would make sense for it. A JVM which was tightly integrated with the code morphing layer could probably run circles around existing implementations.
Given that that the same chip could also run another instruction set at the same time (its all in the code morphing software, after all), then you'll get a machine which runs native Windows/Be/Linux/Etc. applications, but doesn't discriminate against Java ones. In fact, it might even encourage them. The Java bytes code should be much easier to optimize then X86...
If Sun has any sense, they would be starting to work on such a thing ASAP. It is a natural fit to their Jini initiative - not to mention the HAVI one. If Transmeta would release a Java-friendly chip with tailored HAVI support, they could be "the" choice for consumer electronic devices.
Life is definitely going to be interesting in the next few years...
That a philosophy class needs to use a silly movie to hook its students. Well, actually, I guess that things weren't that different in ancient Greece.
At any rate, Matrix is a very nice movie, but as far as stimulating the intellect? Come on. Humans as biological batteries? Please. "Grow large amounts of algae. Burn it.". I mean, how silly can you get?
They could have come up with dozens of more plausible and more interesting scenarios: for example, the AIs are not strong on creativity, and are maintaining all the charade just for the few human geniuses who contribute new science, new art, etc. - that would make an interesting twist in things, and could serve as a basis for wonderful plot lines.
Or, why just one level of reality? The whole humans-as-batteries is so absurd you just have to believe it is also simulated and that there's a level below. "It is turtles all the way down".
OK, expecting an intelligent script from Hollywood is like expecting generosity from a bank. But a University? If it had some sense, they'd pick on the writings of Phillip K. Dick instead. "Ubik" comes to mind as an excellent example.
What is importants is: When can we see it running Linux!
Hardware wise, you'll need to find a way to attach a FireWire disk. It will support modems out of the box.
Software wise, it should be possible to write one hell of a 3D-accelerated X windows server, in addition to requiring drivers for the FireWire disk etc.
But then... Imagine how lovely it would be if you could buy a Linux PS CD, simply put it into the machine, turn it on, and that's it. You have Linux running.
Use a partition of the disk as cache for important system files, and another for "system configuration" files. Other then that, it should be all user data. So an upgrade would be just throwing one CD away and inserting a new one.
And if someone insists on his own particular set of tools, well, that's what CD writers are for. There might be a market for custom combination "Linux CD" distributions here.
Yes, the integer performance sucks. And this won't be a machine for tinkerers. But it could be a great way to push end-user Linux. Imagine having all the PS market as a Linux user base. That would definitely cause application developers to take notice.
And, of course, it would play such lovely games...
Of course techies know less law then lawyers know tech. It makes perfect sense.
Ever had something explained to you, in simple terms, so you understood it at the time, but completely forgot the explanation a short while later?
No, this doesn't mean you are dumb. Typically it means that whatever it was, it didn't make any sense. It was just a bunch of arbitrary facts which didn't combine any a meaningful way, and people are not good at remembering long lists of arbitrary facts.
To be fair, sometimes it is because you don't know enough about the domain, so the facts don't combine to a coherent picture for you. We can hardly argue that's the case for tech laws, can we? We supposedly understand tech, at least...
Lawyers deal with a completely arbitrary set of laws established by a not very coherentic body of legistlators over years, later modified by judges via precedents. The laws are overly complex, contradict each other and sometimes even themselves. I doubt there's a worse mess in any other human field of knowledge. Lawyers are therefore highly trained in dealing with an arbitrary mess of facts.
Example: There are several programs to compute the yearly american tax returns. Some magazine tested them by entering the same data into all programs (a URL to that survey would be appreciated; I think it was in 1998...). Of course the results were wildly different, even though all programs claimed to follow the IRS rules. And of course nobody was surprised, nobody raised a fuss, and the IRS didn't bother to declare that any of the programs was wrong.
Programers are encouraged, one way or the other, to "see the larger picture", how "things fall into place", the "design patterns", "reuse potential", "overall architecture", etc. When presented with a huge, self contradictory, arbitrary, senseless mess their first reaction is "dump this and reimplement".
Programmers are simply not trained to handle the law in general. Their mind set is, in general, wrong. They keep trying to look for a larger pattern, which simply isn't there. So they generally give up the attempt, leaving it for lawyers.
Now, I realize that large pieces of the law do create a coherent pattern. Only, of course, the interesting cases one hears about are always in the areas where the law doesn't make much sense - and lawyers are trained to drag issues into these areas, because there he can get away with more for his client. So overall, outsiders contact with the law is biased to the messier parts.
All similarities to the programmer's stone are completely accidental, I think:-)
Couldn't this also be used as "Run of the Mill Programmer" Profiling Test?
Yes. Programmers are dangerous (I don't know about violent, though). In fact, in school, everyone who concentrates on thinking (as opposed to, say, girls and sports) is considered dangerous:-)
3D acceleration, for most home users, means games. While Linux is finally starting to take off as a games platform, it won't be able to seriously compete there for a long time.
However... Have you considered the cost of, say, a PlayStation 2 as compared to a CD/DVD drive + a 3D accelerator card + TV output convertor + sound card? Granted the PS2 will not be a good "computer" (integer performance is weak), but it seems to be a wonderful "peripherials package" for one.
Given that a PS2 has plenty of I/O connectors (FireWire is especially interesting), it should be possible to run a (3D accelerated!) X-windows server "game" on it, and access that from the linux box. Likewise it should be possible to access the DVD and sound capabilities from the Linux box as if they were a local device, given appropriate servers running on the PS2 and "device drivers" or clients on the Linux box.
And, best of all, one could still play games and DVDs on the PS2. The combination would be just the thing for finally getting rid of Windows out of my house...
To the ideal computer configuration. Break it into separate boxes (just like we'd like to do to Microsoft:-) - one for the CPU/Memory; one for the disk; one for the video system; one for the sound system; etc.
Upgrading a component is simply taking out the old one and plugging in the new one. Preferably without turning anything off.
Drivers are passed around using a standard scheme (some sort of byte codes). There are well defined interfaces for everything (disks, sound, video, printers).
Sounds like a pipe dream? Look at hardware specs like FireWire and USB; basic software specs like HAVI and Jini. Higher level specs like X, OpenGl, NFS, HTTP. Think again.
The advantages of such systems over current ones is so great they are simply inevitable. It is only a question of how long companies invested in the current architecture will fight on.
The legacy free PC is a step closer towards this ideal. Oh, and don't ignore the PlayStation. It has VESA, USB, and FireWire connectors, and Sony is a member of the HAVI team...
Some people have commented on the prospect of breaking Microsoft up, saying that this would be a good thing for Microsoft - at least to their share holders.
Now, when people have complained about Microsoft's practices, the standard reason given to explain them was that they were just trying to maximize profits. If the above premise is true (and I personaly suspect it is), then the profit motive is just an excuse - and given that the people in Microsoft are far from dumb, they know this very well.
So the question is - why? Why should microsoft engage in practices which are either barely legal or outright illegal, and also reduce the company's worth?
Disregarding for the moment theories like "Gates is an agent from alien civilization whose purpose is to destroy human information technology", or "Gates is the antichrist" (tempting as such theories might be:-), there's one explanation that comes to mind.
Power. It isn't money. At these scales, money is just an integer in the bank. But power... The ability to control... That is something some people just can't get enough of.
Of course, the power seeker is typically convinced he "knows best" and that it is "for the good of everyone". There has been more then hints that this is Gate's view of the situation. Actually, it is often that such power seekers do much good on the way. Even Microsoft did (gasp!). The problem is such people never know when to quit; they fight to hold to their power, causing great harm in the process (which Microsoft certainly did). The total balance is often negative.
So, overall, we are not in such a bad shape. First, Gates/Microsoft's type of power seeking is subject to checks and balances - as is demonstrated by the finding of facts and hopefully by the final ruling. So it will take five to ten more years to make Microsoft completey irrelevant, like IBM is today. So what?
You could complain about the cost to humanity - the immense amount of talent which was wasted on obfuscating computer technology on the one hand and de-obfuscating it on the other; the amount of progress we could have made if Microsoft hasn't been there to hinder us; the health effects of the increased blood pressure of people programming windows (definitely worth a study:-) ; the sheer amount of unhappiness caused by Windows...
But, overall, it really is peanuts compared to other frivolities humanty is addicted to. Consider the complexity of the IRS tax laws - that's a worse waste of talent, since we'll never be able to get rid of it. And, to be very blatant, we all know the costs of the last time someone seriously decided to rule the world - the hard way.
No, Microsoft is really mild by comparison. Wait ten years. Regardless of the courts, windows PCs will join the mainframe in the hall of fame and in fossilized large corporations. "The best revenge one can have on his enemies is to outlive them.".
What I'm worried about is who the next contender to "world domination" would be. Nature hates a vacuum, and power attracts people like nothing else on earth.
I just hope it will be in some other field. Maybe nano tech, or genetic engineering, or zero-g manufacturing, or anything but computers, please! This way we'd be left alone to enjoy ourselves for a change. We've been through a decade of Microsoft domination. We deserve a break.
... these issues ultimately hinge on whether source code is speech...
Suppose they are ruled to be "speech". This raises an interesting question... Can "speech" infringe on a patent? ("Speech" can violate copyright, but that's a separate issue.)
Imagine being able to patent rhetoric... Politicians would have to have an army of lawyers clearing their speeches for patented rhetorical techniques (or computing royalties for it). Independent candidates would be weeded up even faster then today.
Yes, of course, the tried and true "answer on an unrelated subject", "ad hominem attacks" and so on have well established prior art. But the patent office will be hard pressed to rule out specific enhancements. The havoc we have for software patents would be mild by comparison.
Even better - imagine that legal techniques would become patentable (this has been suggested before, I know, but patenting "speech" lends it more credit). Lawyers would need lawyers to avoid paying royalties on cross examination techniques.
There's the chance this spectre will make lawyers and politicians to amenable to renouncing software patents (and business practice patents) on first amendment grounds.
Of course, given that the lawyers and politicians interpret and make the law, chances are that "speech" would be patentable if and only if it doesn't give them any headaches:-)
Is it possible to reverse the reaction to get a light-emitting device? Existing light sources are notoriously inefficient - most of the energy ends up as heat, instead of light.
Does anyone know whether the Ps2 will support the HAVI standard? Now that would be a PC killer. The moment some brave soul wrote a Linux "game" to "play" on it, I'll never look at a PC again.
Slashdot Mirror
It is tough to find something not already mentioned on someone's list! You might want to consider Patricia McKillip's "Riddle Master of Hed" trilogy, though that's (excellent) fantasy - and speaking of fantasy, Gread Bear's "Infinity Concerto" and "The Serpent Mage" are great fantasy by a great SF writer. At 13, she might be just a bit too young for it, though.
What else that I didn't see mentioned... Jack Chalker's "Well of souls" series, of course; Anything by E.E. Doc Smith, if you can find it; Julian May's "The many colored land" series (wonderful mixture of aliens, psi, high-tech and time travel. Some mentioning of sex, though nothing explicit).
Any Jack Vance (planet of adventure... the dying earth... the demon princes). Gene Wolfe is probably too hard for a 13 year old. So is David Zindell (the Neverness series). Both are a must read later on...
Got it! The perfect SF book for a 13 year old! "Rite of passage" by Alexei Panshin (about a teenage girl growing up in a spaceship - thought provoking issues about morality, growing up, some adventure, and general fun).
And nobody mentioned Cordwainer Smith! Go today and get "the rediscovery of man" - that's all the short stories - and "Norstrilia". It simply doesn't get any better. Trust me. Or, rather, don't - ask anyone who has read him. It really doesn't get any better.
Speaking of Smith, someone mentioned "Bridge of Birds" by Barry Hughart. That's also an all-times great one.
Whow, and that's besides the great books on other people's lists. I guess you are swamped. Trust me on "Star beast", "Rite of passage" - they are just perfect for her age, and are easy reading.
You could, of course, just get her a library card and the sum of all responses. That should keep her busy and out of trouble until she's 21
Technically, the immediate candidates which came to mind to pull such a trick have been X86 companies. They have a lot of experience in converting one instruction set (X86) to another (whatever their chip "really" runs). For some strange reason, Intel never made anything of this
Transmeta, on the other hand, seem to have both the technology and the lack of, shall we say, unfortunate entanglement with a certain software company
Given that that the same chip could also run another instruction set at the same time (its all in the code morphing software, after all), then you'll get a machine which runs native Windows/Be/Linux/Etc. applications, but doesn't discriminate against Java ones. In fact, it might even encourage them. The Java bytes code should be much easier to optimize then X86...
If Sun has any sense, they would be starting to work on such a thing ASAP. It is a natural fit to their Jini initiative - not to mention the HAVI one. If Transmeta would release a Java-friendly chip with tailored HAVI support, they could be "the" choice for consumer electronic devices.
Life is definitely going to be interesting in the next few years...
At any rate, Matrix is a very nice movie, but as far as stimulating the intellect? Come on. Humans as biological batteries? Please. "Grow large amounts of algae. Burn it.". I mean, how silly can you get?
They could have come up with dozens of more plausible and more interesting scenarios: for example, the AIs are not strong on creativity, and are maintaining all the charade just for the few human geniuses who contribute new science, new art, etc. - that would make an interesting twist in things, and could serve as a basis for wonderful plot lines.
Or, why just one level of reality? The whole humans-as-batteries is so absurd you just have to believe it is also simulated and that there's a level below. "It is turtles all the way down".
OK, expecting an intelligent script from Hollywood is like expecting generosity from a bank. But a University? If it had some sense, they'd pick on the writings of Phillip K. Dick instead. "Ubik" comes to mind as an excellent example.
What is importants is: When can we see it running Linux!
Hardware wise, you'll need to find a way to attach a FireWire disk. It will support modems out of the box.
Software wise, it should be possible to write one hell of a 3D-accelerated X windows server, in addition to requiring drivers for the FireWire disk etc.
But then... Imagine how lovely it would be if you could buy a Linux PS CD, simply put it into the machine, turn it on, and that's it. You have Linux running.
Use a partition of the disk as cache for important system files, and another for "system configuration" files. Other then that, it should be all user data. So an upgrade would be just throwing one CD away and inserting a new one.
And if someone insists on his own particular set of tools, well, that's what CD writers are for. There might be a market for custom combination "Linux CD" distributions here.
Yes, the integer performance sucks. And this won't be a machine for tinkerers. But it could be a great way to push end-user Linux. Imagine having all the PS market as a Linux user base. That would definitely cause application developers to take notice.
And, of course, it would play such lovely games...
Ever had something explained to you, in simple terms, so you understood it at the time, but completely forgot the explanation a short while later?
No, this doesn't mean you are dumb. Typically it means that whatever it was, it didn't make any sense. It was just a bunch of arbitrary facts which didn't combine any a meaningful way, and people are not good at remembering long lists of arbitrary facts.
To be fair, sometimes it is because you don't know enough about the domain, so the facts don't combine to a coherent picture for you. We can hardly argue that's the case for tech laws, can we? We supposedly understand tech, at least...
Lawyers deal with a completely arbitrary set of laws established by a not very coherentic body of legistlators over years, later modified by judges via precedents. The laws are overly complex, contradict each other and sometimes even themselves. I doubt there's a worse mess in any other human field of knowledge. Lawyers are therefore highly trained in dealing with an arbitrary mess of facts.
Example: There are several programs to compute the yearly american tax returns. Some magazine tested them by entering the same data into all programs (a URL to that survey would be appreciated; I think it was in 1998...). Of course the results were wildly different, even though all programs claimed to follow the IRS rules. And of course nobody was surprised, nobody raised a fuss, and the IRS didn't bother to declare that any of the programs was wrong.
Programers are encouraged, one way or the other, to "see the larger picture", how "things fall into place", the "design patterns", "reuse potential", "overall architecture", etc. When presented with a huge, self contradictory, arbitrary, senseless mess their first reaction is "dump this and reimplement".
Programmers are simply not trained to handle the law in general. Their mind set is, in general, wrong. They keep trying to look for a larger pattern, which simply isn't there. So they generally give up the attempt, leaving it for lawyers.
Now, I realize that large pieces of the law do create a coherent pattern. Only, of course, the interesting cases one hears about are always in the areas where the law doesn't make much sense - and lawyers are trained to drag issues into these areas, because there he can get away with more for his client. So overall, outsiders contact with the law is biased to the messier parts.
All similarities to the programmer's stone are completely accidental, I think
Yes. Programmers are dangerous (I don't know about violent, though). In fact, in school, everyone who concentrates on thinking (as opposed to, say, girls and sports) is considered dangerous
However... Have you considered the cost of, say, a PlayStation 2 as compared to a CD/DVD drive + a 3D accelerator card + TV output convertor + sound card? Granted the PS2 will not be a good "computer" (integer performance is weak), but it seems to be a wonderful "peripherials package" for one.
Given that a PS2 has plenty of I/O connectors (FireWire is especially interesting), it should be possible to run a (3D accelerated!) X-windows server "game" on it, and access that from the linux box. Likewise it should be possible to access the DVD and sound capabilities from the Linux box as if they were a local device, given appropriate servers running on the PS2 and "device drivers" or clients on the Linux box.
And, best of all, one could still play games and DVDs on the PS2. The combination would be just the thing for finally getting rid of Windows out of my house...
Upgrading a component is simply taking out the old one and plugging in the new one. Preferably without turning anything off.
Drivers are passed around using a standard scheme (some sort of byte codes). There are well defined interfaces for everything (disks, sound, video, printers).
Sounds like a pipe dream? Look at hardware specs like FireWire and USB; basic software specs like HAVI and Jini. Higher level specs like X, OpenGl, NFS, HTTP. Think again.
The advantages of such systems over current ones is so great they are simply inevitable. It is only a question of how long companies invested in the current architecture will fight on.
The legacy free PC is a step closer towards this ideal. Oh, and don't ignore the PlayStation. It has VESA, USB, and FireWire connectors, and Sony is a member of the HAVI team...
Now, when people have complained about Microsoft's practices, the standard reason given to explain them was that they were just trying to maximize profits. If the above premise is true (and I personaly suspect it is), then the profit motive is just an excuse - and given that the people in Microsoft are far from dumb, they know this very well.
So the question is - why? Why should microsoft engage in practices which are either barely legal or outright illegal, and also reduce the company's worth?
Disregarding for the moment theories like "Gates is an agent from alien civilization whose purpose is to destroy human information technology", or "Gates is the antichrist" (tempting as such theories might be
Power. It isn't money. At these scales, money is just an integer in the bank. But power... The ability to control... That is something some people just can't get enough of.
Of course, the power seeker is typically convinced he "knows best" and that it is "for the good of everyone". There has been more then hints that this is Gate's view of the situation. Actually, it is often that such power seekers do much good on the way. Even Microsoft did (gasp!). The problem is such people never know when to quit; they fight to hold to their power, causing great harm in the process (which Microsoft certainly did). The total balance is often negative.
So, overall, we are not in such a bad shape. First, Gates/Microsoft's type of power seeking is subject to checks and balances - as is demonstrated by the finding of facts and hopefully by the final ruling. So it will take five to ten more years to make Microsoft completey irrelevant, like IBM is today. So what?
You could complain about the cost to humanity - the immense amount of talent which was wasted on obfuscating computer technology on the one hand and de-obfuscating it on the other; the amount of progress we could have made if Microsoft hasn't been there to hinder us; the health effects of the increased blood pressure of people programming windows (definitely worth a study
But, overall, it really is peanuts compared to other frivolities humanty is addicted to. Consider the complexity of the IRS tax laws - that's a worse waste of talent, since we'll never be able to get rid of it. And, to be very blatant, we all know the costs of the last time someone seriously decided to rule the world - the hard way.
No, Microsoft is really mild by comparison. Wait ten years. Regardless of the courts, windows PCs will join the mainframe in the hall of fame and in fossilized large corporations. "The best revenge one can have on his enemies is to outlive them.".
What I'm worried about is who the next contender to "world domination" would be. Nature hates a vacuum, and power attracts people like nothing else on earth.
I just hope it will be in some other field. Maybe nano tech, or genetic engineering, or zero-g manufacturing, or anything but computers, please! This way we'd be left alone to enjoy ourselves for a change. We've been through a decade of Microsoft domination. We deserve a break.
Suppose they are ruled to be "speech". This raises an interesting question... Can "speech" infringe on a patent? ("Speech" can violate copyright, but that's a separate issue.)
Imagine being able to patent rhetoric... Politicians would have to have an army of lawyers clearing their speeches for patented rhetorical techniques (or computing royalties for it). Independent candidates would be weeded up even faster then today.
Yes, of course, the tried and true "answer on an unrelated subject", "ad hominem attacks" and so on have well established prior art. But the patent office will be hard pressed to rule out specific enhancements. The havoc we have for software patents would be mild by comparison.
Even better - imagine that legal techniques would become patentable (this has been suggested before, I know, but patenting "speech" lends it more credit). Lawyers would need lawyers to avoid paying royalties on cross examination techniques.
There's the chance this spectre will make lawyers and politicians to amenable to renouncing software patents (and business practice patents) on first amendment grounds.
Of course, given that the lawyers and politicians interpret and make the law, chances are that "speech" would be patentable if and only if it doesn't give them any headaches :-)
Is it possible to reverse the reaction to get a light-emitting device? Existing light sources are notoriously inefficient - most of the energy ends up as heat, instead of light.
Does anyone know whether the Ps2 will support the HAVI standard? Now that would be a PC killer. The moment some brave soul wrote a Linux "game" to "play" on it, I'll never look at a PC again.