Next time you watch "Return of the Jedi," watch it really carefully. Note who does what and when, and exactly what events lead up to the successful destruction of the second Death Star.
Luke had nothing to do with it. He played out a private drama while the actual crucial events took place.
The two folks mostly directly responsible for the destruction of the Death Star and the defeat of the empire: Lando and Chewie.
"Oh no, someone came out with a big TV screen! We're all doomed to life under an evil tyranny!"
Wall screens aren't a necessary, much less sufficient, requirement for Big Brother.
Big TV screens existed in SF before 1984 was published. Bad-ass totalitarian governments have and do exist without wall screens, much less two-way wall screens.
Of far more importance is who controls what is (and isn't) on the screens.
Nifty fusions of the biological and industrial are the kind of things Bruce Sterling sees replacing smokestack industries. (Decentralized Vats of Vidridian Goop industries?)
I'm an old-time D&D geek. I started playing in 1976. I remember when the rules came in three little books in a brown box, and you had to whittle your own polyhedral dice*. My rule books are signed by Gary Gygax. I earned pocket money in collitch writing role-playing stuff for The Dragon and for SJ Games and other companies.
But I can't imagine why anyone would bother making a movie out of D&D. I mean, other than to cash in on the name.
D&D isn't exactly the stuff high-quality fantasy. It doesn't encourage interesting drama or require much in the way of imagination by the DM (at least, since they started selling those damn pre-made "modules").
You could maybe make an interesting spoof fantasy based on a D&D universe, with characters (over) acting as though controlled by badly socialized geeks, hordes of insensate orcs attacking at every turn, and improbable bad stuff suddenly happening when the characters look like they're succeeding.
Stefan
* Well, no, not really. But carved wooden dice would probably have been better than the crappy brittle plastic dice TSR sold back then.
http://lonestar.texas.net/~dub/sterling.html I really get a kick out of B.S.'s essays. The above list links to all the ones I know about, plus speeches and interviews.
I've always liked this rant, from Bruce Sterling's speech to the computer game developer's conference:
"Follow your weird, ladies and gentlemen. Forget trying to pass for normal. Follow your geekdom. Embrace your nerditude."
...
"You may be a geek, you may have geek written all over you; you should aim to be one geek they'll never forget. Don't aim to be civilized. Don't hope that straight people will keep you on as some kind of pet. To hell with them; they put you here. You should fully realize what society has made of you and take a terrible revenge. Get weird. Get way weird. Get dangerously weird. Get sophisticatedly, thoroughly weird and don't do it halfway, put every ounce of horsepower you have behind it. Have the artistic *courage* to recognize your own significance in culture!"
(from "The Wonderful Power of Storytelling" From the Computer Game Developers Conference, March 1991, San Jose CA)
Alarmism of this sort is about as courant and useful as a garage-sale copy of Future Shock. We are far more adaptable than gadflies like Katz and Rifkin give us credit.
"Modern science has imposed upon humanity the necessity for wandering. Its progressive thought and its progressive technology make the transition through time, from generation to generation, a true migration into uncharted seas of adventure. The very benefit of wandering is that it is dangerous and needs skill to avert evils. We must expect, therefore, that the future will disclose dangers. It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties. The prosperous middle classes, who ruled the nineteenth century, placed an excessive value upon the placidity of existence. They refused to face the necessities for social reform imposed by the new industrial system, and they are now refusing to face the necessities for intellectual reform imposed by the new knowledge. The middle class pessimism over the future of the world comes from a confusion between civilization and security. In the immediate future there will be less security than in the immediate past, less stability. It must be admitted that there is a degree of instability which is inconsistent with civilization. But, on the whole, the great ages have been unstable ages."
--Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 1925.
I'm pretty much burned out on gaming, but I keep up with SJGames news because they're a shining light in a murky void of slick junk for the kiddie and angst-ridden adolescent market.
Steve is a genuine SF/Techie/Science geek too. Gibble-gobble, gibble-gobble, one of us!
I burned out on RPGs years ago. I can still bring myself to play a few games, Deluxe Illuminati amoung them.
Card games fill a definite niche. And if you gotta play 'em, play Steve's. Not the ones made by the Marketing Majors of the Coast Who Sold Out to Hasbro.
Not only do I have the original game, I'm the geek who submitted the Orbital Mind Control Lasers card back in . . . sheesh, '93? Well, two weeks after the original came out.
I got the idea from a line uttered by the geek detective "Detrich" on the old "Barney Miller" cop comedy.
I've always been disappointed that SJGames didn't use my special ability for the Loan Sharks, which were accepted also. Loan Sharks should be able to move money around . . . for a price!
Not all Christians are fundamentalist boneheads whose faith is threatened by scientific observations. I know that the Roman Catholic Church has no problem with evolution. A lot of the mellower Protestant denominations don't get ruffled about it. I don't know how Christian Scientists feel about evolution. I do know their 'zine is highly respected for being impartial on international matters.
Gee, wow, another "personal flying machine that will allow commuters to cruise above traffic" piece. These creep up every few years, along with articles about household robots and home-control technology. Sheesh. The only thing more annoying than pieces like this are those smug "Technology fans are dreamy irresponsible fuggheads because they predicted all this neat stuff and all we got are A-Bombs and DDT! Back to the caves now!" things that clueless lefties churn out.
Slashdot Mirror
Antelope Freeway. One Quarter Mile.
Innit, a guy is testing out a new car; along with conversations you hear road signs "speaking" to him in the background.
Antelope Freeway. One Eigth Mile.
Cool stuff.
Antelope Freeway. One Sixteenth Mile.
Stefan
Gee. I can't wait.
Stefan
It had to be Gibson because "research" doesn't necessarily mean having a BS in CS.
The Difference Engine abysmal? Abyssal, maybe. As in unfathomably deep. But worth spelunking.
Stefan
Luke had nothing to do with it. He played out a private drama while the actual crucial events took place.
The two folks mostly directly responsible for the destruction of the Death Star and the defeat of the empire: Lando and Chewie.
"Oh no, someone came out with a big TV screen! We're all doomed to life under an evil tyranny!"
Wall screens aren't a necessary, much less sufficient, requirement for Big Brother.
Big TV screens existed in SF before 1984 was published. Bad-ass totalitarian governments have and do exist without wall screens, much less two-way wall screens.
Of far more importance is who controls what is (and isn't) on the screens.
Nifty fusions of the biological and industrial are the kind of things Bruce Sterling sees replacing smokestack industries. (Decentralized Vats of Vidridian Goop industries?)
Bruce Sterling, "socialist?"
Hee-hee! Mind you, he doesn't strike me as one of your Atlas Shrugged-thumping libertarian fan boys, but he's no socialist.
Do yourself a favor and get a clue yourself. Read his _Wired_ travelogues, where he gleefully reports on the decay of communist utopianism.
http://www.play.com/products/snappy/
Today is Bil Keane's 77th birthday! DFC Rules! Stefan Jones
But I can't imagine why anyone would bother making a movie out of D&D. I mean, other than to cash in on the name.
D&D isn't exactly the stuff high-quality fantasy. It doesn't encourage interesting drama or require much in the way of imagination by the DM (at least, since they started selling those damn pre-made "modules").
You could maybe make an interesting spoof fantasy based on a D&D universe, with characters (over) acting as though controlled by badly socialized geeks, hordes of insensate orcs attacking at every turn, and improbable bad stuff suddenly happening when the characters look like they're succeeding.
Stefan
* Well, no, not really. But carved wooden dice would probably have been better than the crappy brittle plastic dice TSR sold back then.
http://lonestar.texas.net/~dub/sterling.html I really get a kick out of B.S.'s essays. The above list links to all the ones I know about, plus speeches and interviews.
"Follow your weird, ladies and gentlemen. Forget trying to pass for normal. Follow your geekdom. Embrace your nerditude."
"You may be a geek, you may have geek written all over you; you should aim to be one geek they'll never forget. Don't aim to be civilized. Don't hope that straight people will keep you on as some kind of pet. To hell with them; they put you here. You should fully realize what society has made of you and take a terrible revenge. Get weird. Get way weird. Get dangerously weird. Get sophisticatedly, thoroughly weird and don't do it halfway, put every ounce of horsepower you have behind it. Have the artistic *courage* to recognize your own significance in culture!"
(from "The Wonderful Power of Storytelling" From the Computer Game Developers Conference, March 1991, San Jose CA)
"Modern science has imposed upon humanity the necessity for wandering. Its progressive thought and its progressive technology make the transition through time, from generation to generation, a true migration into uncharted seas of adventure. The very benefit of wandering is that it is dangerous and needs skill to avert evils. We must expect, therefore, that the future will disclose dangers. It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the merits of science that it equips the future for its duties. The prosperous middle classes, who ruled the nineteenth century, placed an excessive value upon the placidity of existence. They refused to face the necessities for social reform imposed by the new industrial system, and they are now refusing to face the necessities for intellectual reform imposed by the new knowledge. The middle class pessimism over the future of the world comes from a confusion between civilization and security. In the immediate future there will be less security than in the immediate past, less stability. It must be admitted that there is a degree of instability which is inconsistent with civilization. But, on the whole, the great ages have been unstable ages."
--Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 1925.
It's pathetic how far that dork is sticking his head out to preserve his dippy cities-on-mars thesis.
Steve is a genuine SF/Techie/Science geek too. Gibble-gobble, gibble-gobble, one of us!
And they're not owned by Hasbro!
Stefan
Card games fill a definite niche. And if you gotta play 'em, play Steve's. Not the ones made by the Marketing Majors of the Coast Who Sold Out to Hasbro.
Stefan Jones
I got the idea from a line uttered by the geek detective "Detrich" on the old "Barney Miller" cop comedy.
I've always been disappointed that SJGames didn't use my special ability for the Loan Sharks, which were accepted also. Loan Sharks should be able to move money around . . . for a price!
Stefan Jones
Not all Christians are fundamentalist boneheads whose faith is threatened by scientific observations.
I know that the Roman Catholic Church has no problem with evolution. A lot of the mellower Protestant denominations don't get ruffled about it.
I don't know how Christian Scientists feel about evolution. I do know their 'zine is highly respected for being impartial on international matters.
Gee, wow, another "personal flying machine that will allow commuters to cruise above traffic" piece. These creep up every few years, along with articles about household robots and home-control technology. Sheesh. The only thing more annoying than pieces like this are those smug "Technology fans are dreamy irresponsible fuggheads because they predicted all this neat stuff and all we got are A-Bombs and DDT! Back to the caves now!" things that clueless lefties churn out.