Yeah, that was another brain fart. I meant 'The City and the Stars', Clarke's first novel. And I could have mentioned a couple more that had some depth as well (no, none of the Rama series).
Whoops! Big mistake on the above. I misread 'Betty Ballantine' for a different Betty with a similar last name. Betty Ballantine is a major SF editor and scion of Ballantine books. I wish I had caught that before clicking 'Submit'. But I did catch on the re-read after.
Mea-culpa and sorry.
Expanded who's who --was Re:A who's who - comments
on
Sneak Peek of SF Museum
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Forrest J. Ackerman -- (If you don't know who he is, don't bother reading on)
Robin Wayne Bailey -- (Don't know)
Betty Ballantine -- (Local Seattle SF BNF [Big Name Fan], well know for her belly dancing workshops and ability to sing anything in Klingon [not to mention being the only person I know that can sing the cantina scene song from 'Star Wars'])
Astrid Anderson Bear -- Daughter of Poul Anderson / Wife of Greg Bear (and organizer of this years Nebula awards)
Gregory Benford -- (Hard SF writer and physicist)
Jeff Bezos -- (You already know this one)
Ray Bradbury -- this shows taste (agreed)
David Brin -- (SF writer and iconoclast)
Charles Brown -- A cartoon? (No, the editor and publisher of Locus, the top-rated magazine about the SF biz)
Octavia Butler -- I like her work (You had damn well better, she is a nice lady; also now local to Seattle)
James Cameron -- give me a break!!! (agreed)
Orson Scott Card -- Ender was it (If you say so)
Arthur C. Clarke -- nice ideas but fluffy (Eh? 'The City at the Edge of Forever' fluffy?)
Freeman Dyson -- the creater of sphere! (and way more; I can listen to him talk for hours, too bad the Dyson Sphere is all people think of when they hear his name)
Harlan Ellison -- yes!! (No!!! Unless, that is, you are the kind of person who slows down to look at car wrecks)
James Gunn -- (SF writer, not too well known anymore)
Ray Harryhausen -- (stop-motion animator of many a SciFi film and director, not too well known anymore)
David Hartwell -- (SF writer and major name editor)
Tim Kirk (Tolkien artist)
Lawrence Krauss (Science writer, wrote 'Physics of Star Trek' among other things)
George Lucas -- twenty years way past his prime (uh, yeah...)
Syne Mitchell -- (Local SF writer, fairly new but promising)
Dennis Muren -- (don't know)
Kim Stanley Robinson -- (Bay area SF writer best known for his Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy which, if sold by weight, would have made him rich)
Majel Barrett Roddenberry -- I know still running the "Great Bird" business, but have you seen some of the lastest works? (Roddenberry had some good ideas, but taking every thing he ever scratched on a napkin and making it into a series is dumb; plus Rick Berman has completely destroyed Roddenberry's best work anyway)
Stanley Schmidt -- (SF writer and editor)
Steven Spielberg -- Not SciFi - pretty pictures (well, he did do 'AI'; never mind, that isn't a reccomendation)
Neal Stephenson -- (Local Seattle SF writer and 'recluse' [OK, not really], currently taking the crown for heaviest trilogy)
Compgeeks has these for 22.95. I bought this one several months ago and am quite happy with it.
The only thing is; they don't have the Flexikey logo. Other than that they are exactly the same, right down to the graphics on the special function buttons across the top.
OTOH I, for one, am looking forward to the coming age of nanotech. It means I can build that backyard rocket I have been planning and leave all you losers arguing over this ball of mud...
Arrogance - was Re:You know.
on
2003 Nebula Awards
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Dude, the day you are nominated for a major award, by your peers, and don't win, and then don't tell anyone what you would have said, is the day you get to call Cory Doctorow arrogant.
My Nebula report and more on Cory Doctorow
on
2003 Nebula Awards
·
· Score: 5, Informative
My Nebula report is here, on the new Slashcode site TruFen.net.
I used it last week for a day and was quite impressed. It isn't perfect, some major bugs, some missing features and a slow memory leak that requires you to stop and start it every hour or so. But very usable.
What I thought was most cool about it was that it is very close to something I have been saying I wanted for a long time, except that I want to rotate the 'world' around me using a foot controller. In any case Sphere might just be pointing the way to a new GUI paradigm we can use for real work, something other than the 'desktop'.
Is it just me? Or do other people wonder why NASA has money to study the ocean but can't seem to make much progress on trivial things like, well, space?
My rudeness consisted of a single preposition: I assumed you did not understand XML Namespaces or the use Namespace Modules to extend existing Namespaces. Are you willing to state right now that I was incorrect?
If not, then you are being rude by insisting that you are making a correct assertion even though you do not have the background to make it. In which case I am only being curt.
You missed the entire point. Namespaces are not a derivative format, they are a separate format embedded in the original file; like embedding a graphic. Please read up on XML namespaces and google for 'Namespace Modules' before continuing this conversation.
Couldn't you extend the file formats the 'Namespace Module' way? This has several advantages: First off, you aren't changing their spec, only adding a new namespace for a particular need -- and now you namespace modules are the proper and accepted way, in XML, to add functionality to a schema you don't control!
Wow! I knew the Gerhardt mentioned in the review when I contracted at MS for MSN 1.0! He seemed a cool guy, though his health problems at the time kept him away more than he was there.
Small world... Perhaps I do have to read the book?
All this is very similar to the 'Delphi' futures betting system described by SF writer John Brunner in his novel 'Shockwave Rider'. Yet another case of Science Fiction getting there first I think.
Note that Brunner described some bad consequences of such a system, as well as the advantages. Also note that 'Shockwave Rider' is the 'book of honor' this year for the literary SF convention Potlatch which will be in Seattle next Febuary...
Any information from the conference on Game Blender? Apparently a lot of the parts are in place to make it work, but there is barely any documentation at all. Every new Blender release I check to see if it is working and documented...
Things are looking pretty good in Software too. Over a year ago I had to take a job in Michigan because there was nothing here in Seattle -- even though my skills are current and I have tons of experience. I worked there for a year and then came home (even though I could have stayed there). I really didn't want to spend another winter near the Great Lakes.
In the last two weeks I have had three interviews (two in one day) and I have another interview tomorrow. I have people calling me saying things like "We found your resume in our database and we were wondering if you could send us an updated copy?"
I had the same reaction. Of course I haven't read the book, so I don't know if Spolsky is being reported correctly either.
Considering that I often do agree with Joel's commentary on aspects of programming and programmer thinking (for example his concept of leaky abstractions) I am wondering if it was something he was saying for effect that got took out of context.
OTOH Joel is quite aware that not all programmers are equal. So it could be that this new book is aimed at non-creative types who want to make the transition. Something that, I suspect, is a lost cause from the start. This reminds me of the people who say to you "Forget all this theory crap, let's get to the code." -- You just know they will never understand why the theory is important. I expect the same is true of someone who thinks creativity and logic are opposite poles of thought.
I was afraid of just this scenario from the beginning. Screw these guys, and the congress they rode in on! (And the Dems are just as much to blame as the Reps on this, so screw 'em all!)
Please won't someone get this to the Supreme Court? Right now our best chance of putting an end to this nonsense is if it is found unconstitutional. Failing that my guess is that all the frogs are gonna sit in the water nattering about the heat until it comes to a boil. In a country still divided over the meaning of the 2nd Ammendment I doubt we will find enough people ready to vote the bastards out on this one issue.
Advertisebot? -- Re:save $2.50 on this book
on
Blind Lake
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I hope/. is getting some money for this kind of thing even if a real person is posting it. But it sure makes me wonder if Amazon has some kind of bot that watches for book reviews and posts the 'save money' thing as an AC.
Note to moderators -- pleez do not moderate this kind of thing up. We are all smart enough to shop around if we want to save money and it just encourages them...
Darwinia is quite good . . .
on
Blind Lake
·
· Score: 1
Darwinia is quite good, with a surprising twist about halfway through and yet another twist at the end. In a way it reads like three different books. I recommend it highly.
Beyond that, you added far more insightful commentary than I would have expected on Slashdot.
Some might call that a backhanded compliment...:-)
What I find most interesting about Vinge's ideas is that even he thinks the Singularity sucks pretty damn hard for SF writers. However he is working on a new novel that confronts the Singularity head on and has even included a novella in his recent short story collection that is either from the same universe or is the basis of that novel (he isn't saying). I am looking forward to it!
One of the problems we face today in writing 'real' Science Fiction is our understanding of science itself. In the golden age of SF you could write about rockets to Mars built in their back yards and piloted by guys with slide rules and you weren't far off from what was known to be possible. Nowdays we have the capability to actually do it and we know you can't build it in your backyard. In fact we know that the cost is far more than a jaded populace is willing to support right now.
Sure fantasy stories dressed up in science fiction clothing still hold peoples attention, but they aren't really the Science Fiction. But they are what die-hard hard-SF fans like myself derisivly refer to 'Sci Fi' (or 'skiffy' in the SF fan parlence). Moreover what was once Science Fiction in every sense of the phrase is now 'Sci Fi'.
The kind of stories that once filled us with wonder (partly because we could imagine ourselves in them) are now out of reach in reality; whether due to cost or due to the actual science being wrong. Once again, relying on SF Fannish phrasing, the sensawunda is no longer there, so we end up with stories based on implausible or impossible technology where plot points are based around plasma fires in the transporter. No sensawunda, but the special effects are cool.
The other problem with modern SF was first articulated by Vernor Vinge in his paper The Singularity: "Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended."
Whether Vinge's Singularity comes to pass as envisioned or not, the core point is certainly valid; at the very least the future, even the near future, is probably going to be unimaginable by anyone living today. Why? Because sometime soon, perhaps not within thirty years but certainly within a century, we are going to have the ability to create intelligences orders of magnitude smarter than we are. It doesn't matter if we enhance human intelligence or create machine intelligence, either way the result is the same. Either way something that is to us as we are to mice is going to be calling the shots.
This scenario is pretty damming to SF; after all most of the familiar tropes of SF go out the window. Rocket ships? Well, they might exist, but we have no idea what they would look like or who would be on them. Alien contact? Hell, the aliens would be right here. Humans colonizing other star systems? Even if humanity survives into this post-human future it will change so as to be unrecognizable to us now anyway. How can you write stories about beings who don't share your basic motivations? (Not that this is impossible, but it certainly demands more from the reader, therefore making the book harder to sell.)
As of now no-one has successfully answered Vinge's question, other than several attempts to dismiss it out of hand. Vinge himself, because he wanted to write space operas, ended up thrusting the problem of ultra-intelligence aside by creating a magic 'slow zone' in the galaxy that limits intelligence to a maximum inside the zone.
However a few writers have tried to honestly deal with the problem of the Singularity by writing a new kind of fiction I refer to as 'Transhuman' SF. Cyberpunk was the progenitor of this SF form with stories set right on the edge of the Singularity. Writers like Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Kathleen Goonan, John Varley, Ian M. Bainks, Ken MacCleod, Greg Egan, Cory Doctorow and others have written SF set either just over that edge, or millions of years past it. Although the level to which they are honest in their presentation of transhumanism varies greatly, probably because the more you extrapolate the harder it is to make the story coherent and interesting.
Transhuman SF does require much from the reader. Unless the writer constantly stops the action for 'As you know Bob.' sequences to explicate things the reader must have a wide ranging knowledge of genetics,
Slashdot Mirror
You are correct in nearly every respect. See the note below, where I point out that I don't consider the 'Rama' series that visionary.
Yeah, that was another brain fart. I meant 'The City and the Stars', Clarke's first novel. And I could have mentioned a couple more that had some depth as well (no, none of the Rama series).
Whoops! Big mistake on the above. I misread 'Betty Ballantine' for a different Betty with a similar last name. Betty Ballantine is a major SF editor and scion of Ballantine books. I wish I had caught that before clicking 'Submit'. But I did catch on the re-read after.
Mea-culpa and sorry.
Expanded who's who (my comments in parens).
Greg Bear -- (Local Seattle hard-SF writer and all-around nice guy)
Forrest J. Ackerman -- (If you don't know who he is, don't bother reading on)
Robin Wayne Bailey -- (Don't know)
Betty Ballantine -- (Local Seattle SF BNF [Big
Name Fan], well know for her belly dancing workshops and ability to sing anything in Klingon [not to mention being the only person I know that can sing the cantina scene song from 'Star Wars'])
Astrid Anderson Bear -- Daughter of Poul Anderson / Wife of Greg Bear (and organizer of this years Nebula awards)
Gregory Benford -- (Hard SF writer and physicist)
Jeff Bezos -- (You already know this one)
Ray Bradbury -- this shows taste (agreed)
David Brin -- (SF writer and iconoclast)
Charles Brown -- A cartoon? (No, the editor and publisher of Locus, the top-rated magazine about the SF biz)
Octavia Butler -- I like her work (You had damn well better, she is a nice lady; also now local to Seattle)
James Cameron -- give me a break!!! (agreed)
Orson Scott Card -- Ender was it (If you say so)
Arthur C. Clarke -- nice ideas but fluffy (Eh? 'The City at the Edge of Forever' fluffy?)
Freeman Dyson -- the creater of sphere! (and way more; I can listen to him talk for hours, too bad the Dyson Sphere is all people think of when they hear his name)
Harlan Ellison -- yes!! (No!!! Unless, that is, you are the kind of person who slows down to look at car wrecks)
James Gunn -- (SF writer, not too well known anymore)
Ray Harryhausen -- (stop-motion animator of many a SciFi film and director, not too well known anymore)
David Hartwell -- (SF writer and major name editor)
Tim Kirk (Tolkien artist)
Lawrence Krauss (Science writer, wrote 'Physics of Star Trek' among other things)
George Lucas -- twenty years way past his prime (uh, yeah...)
Syne Mitchell -- (Local SF writer, fairly new but promising)
Dennis Muren -- (don't know)
Kim Stanley Robinson -- (Bay area SF writer best known for his Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy which, if sold by weight, would have made him rich)
Majel Barrett Roddenberry -- I know still running the "Great Bird" business, but have you seen some of the lastest works? (Roddenberry had some good ideas, but taking every thing he ever scratched on a napkin and making it into a series is dumb; plus Rick Berman has completely destroyed Roddenberry's best work anyway)
Stanley Schmidt -- (SF writer and editor)
Steven Spielberg -- Not SciFi - pretty pictures (well, he did do 'AI'; never mind, that isn't a reccomendation)
Neal Stephenson -- (Local Seattle SF writer and 'recluse' [OK, not really], currently taking the crown for heaviest trilogy)
Gary Stiffelman -- (don't know)
Phil Tippett -- (Animator and filmmaker)
Bjo Trimble (Somewhat local SF writer)
Michael Whelan (SF artist of consummate skill)
Jane Yolen (SF writer)
Compgeeks has these for 22.95. I bought this one several months ago and am quite happy with it.
The only thing is; they don't have the Flexikey logo. Other than that they are exactly the same, right down to the graphics on the special function buttons across the top.
OTOH I, for one, am looking forward to the coming age of nanotech. It means I can build that backyard rocket I have been planning and leave all you losers arguing over this ball of mud...
Dude, the day you are nominated for a major award, by your peers, and don't win, and then don't tell anyone what you would have said, is the day you get to call Cory Doctorow arrogant.
My Nebula report is here, on the new Slashcode site TruFen.net.
I used it last week for a day and was quite impressed. It isn't perfect, some major bugs, some missing features and a slow memory leak that requires you to stop and start it every hour or so. But very usable.
What I thought was most cool about it was that it is very close to something I have been saying I wanted for a long time, except that I want to rotate the 'world' around me using a foot controller. In any case Sphere might just be pointing the way to a new GUI paradigm we can use for real work, something other than the 'desktop'.
Is it just me? Or do other people wonder why NASA has money to study the ocean but can't seem to make much progress on trivial things like, well, space?
My rudeness consisted of a single preposition: I assumed you did not understand XML Namespaces or the use Namespace Modules to extend existing Namespaces. Are you willing to state right now that I was incorrect?
If not, then you are being rude by insisting that you are making a correct assertion even though you do not have the background to make it. In which case I am only being curt.
You missed the entire point. Namespaces are not a derivative format, they are a separate format embedded in the original file; like embedding a graphic. Please read up on XML namespaces and google for 'Namespace Modules' before continuing this conversation.
Couldn't you extend the file formats the 'Namespace Module' way? This has several advantages: First off, you aren't changing their spec, only adding a new namespace for a particular need -- and now you namespace modules are the proper and accepted way, in XML, to add functionality to a schema you don't control!
Wow! I knew the Gerhardt mentioned in the review when I contracted at MS for MSN 1.0! He seemed a cool guy, though his health problems at the time kept him away more than he was there.
Small world... Perhaps I do have to read the book?
All this is very similar to the 'Delphi' futures betting system described by SF writer John Brunner in his novel 'Shockwave Rider'. Yet another case of Science Fiction getting there first I think.
Note that Brunner described some bad consequences of such a system, as well as the advantages. Also note that 'Shockwave Rider' is the 'book of honor' this year for the literary SF convention Potlatch which will be in Seattle next Febuary...
Any information from the conference on Game Blender? Apparently a lot of the parts are in place to make it work, but there is barely any documentation at all. Every new Blender release I check to see if it is working and documented...
Things are looking pretty good in Software too. Over a year ago I had to take a job in Michigan because there was nothing here in Seattle -- even though my skills are current and I have tons of experience. I worked there for a year and then came home (even though I could have stayed there). I really didn't want to spend another winter near the Great Lakes.
In the last two weeks I have had three interviews (two in one day) and I have another interview tomorrow. I have people calling me saying things like "We found your resume in our database and we were wondering if you could send us an updated copy?"
I would say things are looking up...
I had the same reaction. Of course I haven't read the book, so I don't know if Spolsky is being reported correctly either.
Considering that I often do agree with Joel's commentary on aspects of programming and programmer thinking (for example his concept of leaky abstractions) I am wondering if it was something he was saying for effect that got took out of context.
OTOH Joel is quite aware that not all programmers are equal. So it could be that this new book is aimed at non-creative types who want to make the transition. Something that, I suspect, is a lost cause from the start. This reminds me of the people who say to you "Forget all this theory crap, let's get to the code." -- You just know they will never understand why the theory is important. I expect the same is true of someone who thinks creativity and logic are opposite poles of thought.
I was afraid of just this scenario from the beginning. Screw these guys, and the congress they rode in on! (And the Dems are just as much to blame as the Reps on this, so screw 'em all!)
Please won't someone get this to the Supreme Court? Right now our best chance of putting an end to this nonsense is if it is found unconstitutional. Failing that my guess is that all the frogs are gonna sit in the water nattering about the heat until it comes to a boil. In a country still divided over the meaning of the 2nd Ammendment I doubt we will find enough people ready to vote the bastards out on this one issue.
Crap...
Disney is dead, watch your overcoat.
I hope /. is getting some money for this kind of thing even if a real person is posting it. But it sure makes me wonder if Amazon has some kind of bot that watches for book reviews and posts the 'save money' thing as an AC.
Note to moderators -- pleez do not moderate this kind of thing up. We are all smart enough to shop around if we want to save money and it just encourages them...
Darwinia is quite good, with a surprising twist about halfway through and yet another twist at the end. In a way it reads like three different books. I recommend it highly.
What I find most interesting about Vinge's ideas is that even he thinks the Singularity sucks pretty damn hard for SF writers. However he is working on a new novel that confronts the Singularity head on and has even included a novella in his recent short story collection that is either from the same universe or is the basis of that novel (he isn't saying). I am looking forward to it!
One of the problems we face today in writing 'real' Science Fiction is our understanding of science itself. In the golden age of SF you could write about rockets to Mars built in their back yards and piloted by guys with slide rules and you weren't far off from what was known to be possible. Nowdays we have the capability to actually do it and we know you can't build it in your backyard. In fact we know that the cost is far more than a jaded populace is willing to support right now.
Sure fantasy stories dressed up in science fiction clothing still hold peoples attention, but they aren't really the Science Fiction. But they are what die-hard hard-SF fans like myself derisivly refer to 'Sci Fi' (or 'skiffy' in the SF fan parlence). Moreover what was once Science Fiction in every sense of the phrase is now 'Sci Fi'.
The kind of stories that once filled us with wonder (partly because we could imagine ourselves in them) are now out of reach in reality; whether due to cost or due to the actual science being wrong. Once again, relying on SF Fannish phrasing, the sensawunda is no longer there, so we end up with stories based on implausible or impossible technology where plot points are based around plasma fires in the transporter. No sensawunda, but the special effects are cool.
The other problem with modern SF was first articulated by Vernor Vinge in his paper The Singularity: "Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended."
Whether Vinge's Singularity comes to pass as envisioned or not, the core point is certainly valid; at the very least the future, even the near future, is probably going to be unimaginable by anyone living today. Why? Because sometime soon, perhaps not within thirty years but certainly within a century, we are going to have the ability to create intelligences orders of magnitude smarter than we are. It doesn't matter if we enhance human intelligence or create machine intelligence, either way the result is the same. Either way something that is to us as we are to mice is going to be calling the shots.
This scenario is pretty damming to SF; after all most of the familiar tropes of SF go out the window. Rocket ships? Well, they might exist, but we have no idea what they would look like or who would be on them. Alien contact? Hell, the aliens would be right here. Humans colonizing other star systems? Even if humanity survives into this post-human future it will change so as to be unrecognizable to us now anyway. How can you write stories about beings who don't share your basic motivations? (Not that this is impossible, but it certainly demands more from the reader, therefore making the book harder to sell.)
As of now no-one has successfully answered Vinge's question, other than several attempts to dismiss it out of hand. Vinge himself, because he wanted to write space operas, ended up thrusting the problem of ultra-intelligence aside by creating a magic 'slow zone' in the galaxy that limits intelligence to a maximum inside the zone.
However a few writers have tried to honestly deal with the problem of the Singularity by writing a new kind of fiction I refer to as 'Transhuman' SF. Cyberpunk was the progenitor of this SF form with stories set right on the edge of the Singularity. Writers like Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Kathleen Goonan, John Varley, Ian M. Bainks, Ken MacCleod, Greg Egan, Cory Doctorow and others have written SF set either just over that edge, or millions of years past it. Although the level to which they are honest in their presentation of transhumanism varies greatly, probably because the more you extrapolate the harder it is to make the story coherent and interesting.
Transhuman SF does require much from the reader. Unless the writer constantly stops the action for 'As you know Bob.' sequences to explicate things the reader must have a wide ranging knowledge of genetics,