It has been a long time since we've seen a Star Trek TV series launch. Maybe we've forgotten how awkward it can be that first year or so.
ST:TNG was painful to watch those first few seasons. Riker had starch in his jock, Troi was whiny had spoke too much for how little she had to say, and it was always "Federation Knows Best."
It wasn't until the series found its footing later that it became interesting. Warp drive wrecks space (we don't know everything after all), Borgs eat our lunch (we aren't so tough after all), and more.
Sadly, Enterprise was never given a chance to find its path. I'm a fan, though I was also critical of weak, pointless plot lines. But I liked the cast and thought the genesis of the universe we've come to know so well had potential.
I saw OSC speak in Boston about a week ago. He spent the first few minutes discussing the movie and the tremendous problems of making such a work. The breakthrough came when a friend's wife told OSC that the story could be better told by combining these two books, otherwise, Ender's Game could only be told by Ender's inner dialog. The majority of the book is in Ender's head!
OSC has done all he can to find people to make the movie who will hold true to its roots. It will become a "buddy movie", as he put it, because that's a form that works well for movies. It will not become a romantic chick flick or romantic comedy(!). Everybody signed up to do the work understands that. (Whether they remember it at all the key moments in the development is yet to be seen).
OSC said, "I think I can now safely say that the actor who will play Ender has been born. Until recently, I couldn't say that."
OSC responded specifically to some of the criticisms seen here, too. Will Ender be older? Yes, probably. Why can't this just be an instantiation of the book's story? Because as earnest as we all appear, we wouldn't sit through a 6 hour movie with voice-over dialog like, "I wonder what Valentine is doing?"
OSC wants to see the movie made but didn't want to just "sell out" to the first offer that came along. This offer, the current stuff on the table, is the best he's seen and, he thought, the best he's going to see--so he took it, and the money. And, like he said, "Once you take the money, you lose control."
Whenever I see things like this I ask myself, "what problem
are they trying to solve?" In this case, it is probably the
scamming that is of low occurance but high profile. The next
reasonable questions are, "how did we get here?" and "is
this the best way to solve it?"
We got here because we have a pervasive electronics commerce
infrastructure with the absence of an accompanying pervasive
authentication, privacy, and nonrepudiation services. Those
things, which would be of immeasurable help now, were actively
discouraged by the same kinds of government leaders who wish
to solve this scaming problem.
Imagine cryptography had not been akin to arms dealing in the
previous decade. Imagine a world where we had solid, dependable
digital identities we could use (and demand to see) in our
online transactions. Imagine we had gotten so used to using
privacy enhanced mail, nonrepudiation services, and key management
that dealing with these technologies were as natural as carrying
a phone or a blackberry.
People are not stupid. People adjust and accomodate new technologies
all the time if they see its value. But, they have to have the
option to do so. The very things that would have headed off
identity theft, the scourge of our age, and these
scams on eBay were discourage by the might of government.
The answer to the second question, "is this the best way to
solve it?" is clearly NO! Heaping more old-world laws on to the
pile is not the answer. Encouraging the maturation of the
digital infrastructure with encryption technology,
nonrepudiation and identity infrastructures, and privacy
ensuring tools is the way out of this mess and to a better world.
I started on 360s and have run the gammut since then.
I've worked extensively on LINUX, Solaris, DOS, Windows (all),
MacOS since 1985, and many, many more. I can say without
hesitation that MacOS X has been the most productive
non-programming environment for me.
Development environments vary and, of course, it is
impractical to do Windows development on anything
other than Windows. But, for development where you
really do have a choice, like with Java,
you can see a strong gravitation towards MacOS X.
In fact, a couple of JavaONEs ago there was such an
observation in the daily rag put out by the conference:
WHERE DID ALL THESE POWERBOOKS COME FROM?!
Apple did what many said could not be done: making
a UNIX that could be used by mere mortals. They put
a GUI on UNIX that even covers all the nasty sys admin
stuff. And, it isn't just functional, it is beautiful. When
you spend 12 hours a day on something, having it be
beautiful goes from optional to manditory. JMHO.
-- Scott
Slashdot Mirror
It has been a long time since we've seen a Star Trek TV series
launch. Maybe we've forgotten how awkward it can be that first year or so.
ST:TNG was painful to watch those first few seasons. Riker had starch in his jock, Troi was whiny had spoke too much for how little she had to say, and it was always "Federation Knows Best."
It wasn't until the series found its footing later that it became interesting. Warp drive wrecks space (we don't know everything after all), Borgs eat our lunch (we aren't so tough after all), and more.
Sadly, Enterprise was never given a chance to find its path. I'm a fan, though I was also critical of weak, pointless plot lines. But I liked the cast and thought the genesis of the universe we've come to know so well had potential.
I will miss it.
-- Scott
I saw OSC speak in Boston about a week ago. He spent the first
/dev/null, please.
few minutes discussing the movie and the tremendous problems of making such a work. The breakthrough came when a friend's wife told OSC that the story could be better told by combining these two books, otherwise, Ender's Game could only be told by Ender's inner dialog. The majority of the book is in Ender's head!
OSC has done all he can to find people to make the movie who will hold true to its roots. It will become a "buddy movie", as he put it, because that's a form that works well for movies. It will not become a romantic chick flick or romantic comedy(!). Everybody signed up to do the work understands that. (Whether they remember it at all the key moments in the development is yet to be seen).
OSC said, "I think I can now safely say that the actor who will play Ender has been born. Until recently, I couldn't say that."
OSC responded specifically to some of the criticisms seen here, too. Will Ender be older? Yes, probably. Why can't this just be an instantiation of the book's story? Because as earnest as we all appear, we wouldn't sit through a 6 hour movie with voice-over dialog like, "I wonder what Valentine is doing?"
OSC wants to see the movie made but didn't want to just "sell out" to the first offer that came along. This offer, the current stuff on the table, is the best he's seen and, he thought, the best he's going to see--so he took it, and the money. And, like he said, "Once you take the money, you lose control."
Thoughtful comments welcomed. Flames to
-- Scott
That's the best way to steer kids away from the field and ensure I'll be able to continue working well into my 70's.
We got here because we have a pervasive electronics commerce infrastructure with the absence of an accompanying pervasive authentication, privacy, and nonrepudiation services. Those things, which would be of immeasurable help now, were actively discouraged by the same kinds of government leaders who wish to solve this scaming problem.
Imagine cryptography had not been akin to arms dealing in the previous decade. Imagine a world where we had solid, dependable digital identities we could use (and demand to see) in our online transactions. Imagine we had gotten so used to using privacy enhanced mail, nonrepudiation services, and key management that dealing with these technologies were as natural as carrying a phone or a blackberry.
People are not stupid. People adjust and accomodate new technologies all the time if they see its value. But, they have to have the option to do so. The very things that would have headed off identity theft, the scourge of our age, and these scams on eBay were discourage by the might of government.
The answer to the second question, "is this the best way to solve it?" is clearly NO! Heaping more old-world laws on to the pile is not the answer. Encouraging the maturation of the digital infrastructure with encryption technology, nonrepudiation and identity infrastructures, and privacy ensuring tools is the way out of this mess and to a better world.
I think I saw her in Space Balls... SUCK! SUCK! SUCK! SUCK!
HP: relabel
I started on 360s and have run the gammut since then. I've worked extensively on LINUX, Solaris, DOS, Windows (all), MacOS since 1985, and many, many more. I can say without hesitation that MacOS X has been the most productive non-programming environment for me.
Development environments vary and, of course, it is impractical to do Windows development on anything other than Windows. But, for development where you really do have a choice, like with Java, you can see a strong gravitation towards MacOS X. In fact, a couple of JavaONEs ago there was such an observation in the daily rag put out by the conference: WHERE DID ALL THESE POWERBOOKS COME FROM?!
Apple did what many said could not be done: making a UNIX that could be used by mere mortals. They put a GUI on UNIX that even covers all the nasty sys admin stuff. And, it isn't just functional, it is beautiful. When you spend 12 hours a day on something, having it be beautiful goes from optional to manditory. JMHO.
-- Scott
They used to use carnivore to read our mail. Maybe they just thought it would be nice to take turns and let us read their mail for a while.
Now I can run it right next to my OpenVMS. -- Scott