Having worked with remote teams (in India), I fully agree with what he's saying. It's extremely hard to kick someone's butt into gear and get them working when they're thousands of miles away. If you ask the guy to do a simple task that should take half an hour and he takes six hours, and then you ask him to do another task and he says it'll take till next morning even though it should only take an hour, you need to be able to cut this worthless cost pretty quickly. However I don't see why you need to be able to cancel back-pay.
Interesting article (especially the second one). Thanks for the links.
I think it not quite on the ball, though. Sure, some people might misinterpret ender's game as justifying all their vengeful actions. And as such, it would be a pretty bad interpretation. But the fact which is proposed in the book is precisely that Ender's case is special. He's not just a kid misinterpreting stuff happening around him and avenging himself on whatever target becomes available. We are given ample evidence that he is deliberately thrust into exceptionally difficult situations. We are also given ample evidence that he tries every recourse possible to avoid resolving the conflict through violence. At the end of the day, each of Ender's victims is a victim of legitimate self-defence.
The truth is, yes, if you reply to the first bully who assaults you much more violently than he expects, you will be left alone in the future. And if you don't, things will only get worse in the future. I've experienced that truth first-hand, as it applies to children. This does not extend to all situations in life, but does extend to those situations which involve people trying to physically hurt or dominate you - they are the ones who chose the language of violence to deal with you. And most certainly, killing someone is a sure-fire way of ensuring they do not try to kill you again (though in the adult world it will cause other problems of vengeance by their friends and family).
And the fact is, in each and every case, Ender is attacked, he does not initiate the fight. He responds to it with deadly effectiveness. Much the same way as you would if a man came at you and your family with a knife and you happened to have a gun in your hand.
The only less clearly-drawn case is the genocide of the Buggers - but in this case Ender has an even better excuse, that he simply didn't know he was doing it. In fact the case is put forward very clearly that if he had known that he was doing it, he would not have been capable of going through with it.
John Kessel's argument that Ender knew it was preparation for doing it for real does not excuse this fact. The whole reason why Ender is deemed capable of doing it in a simulation is precisely because he would have been unable to do it if he thought it was real. If you're told "type 'ls' at the prompt" and this causes the annihilation of mankind through some process you didn't know about, certainly you are "responsible" for the end of mankind in a causal sense. But are you *morally* responsible for it?
Certainly not.
Anyway, this post is long enough... In summary, some good points in the articles, which are well worth a read, but does not one bit change my opinion that Ender's Game is an excellent book.
Absolutely agreed. Ender's Game is a very "psychological" type of book, which is all about what's going on inside Ender's head. Any script that fails to show that (and not in a blunt way with just a voice over) will fail miserably. I'd even venture to say that Ender's Game is probably harder to make into a movie than most books - eg. Lord of the Rings, being an epic, was much easier. Harry Potter, similarly, is comparatively easy. Most Phil K Dick books/movies were also much more action-based.
Define "incredibly useful"? I find the Wikipedia is moderately useful. When there is some bit of cultural trivia and you want to find out what the hell it is, you can trust that Wikipedia will give you some kind of answer that's related to the truth. For anything more complicated, I always double-check anything I find on there.
Yes, of course. In the wonderful world of the Wikipedists, anything they say is golden because it's in a kind of encyclopedia, which automatically justifies it as being the absolute truth and if you don't like it you can change it yourself or go whine about it on slashdot and claim that the "Wikipedia has fired back" and if this is a firing back then the ammo was a fart and I'm getting bored of writing in this long add-on sentence style that resembles some Wikipedia articles and so I'm going to stop now.
That's a brilliant idea. I hope someone picks it up.
Imagine a game where you can join as a builder, a general or a soldier (each of which probably has a number of sub-classes).
As a builder, your focus is on accumulating resources in your designated area (which is delineated based on which areas are free for your camp to exploit... of course when there are none you are spawned as a soldier instead until an area frees up). You build up the areas to give maximum defensive advantage to your soldiers (who will be under constant attack), placing the spawn-points strategically on the map so that they are protected and yet close to the action, but with decent armouries nearby, hospitals, power-units to power up special weapons (and the special weapons themselves), etc... You also build up the materials which will be used to launch attacks on enemy bases, if you have the time...
As a soldier, you play your typical TFC-like FPS, repelling enemy forces, with multiple character classes, get involved in commando stealth missions to blow up specific objectives, etc.
As a general, you lead soldiers into battle to attack other troops. In tactical RTS-style (think Homeworld/TA rather than C&C), you give your troops waypoints and objectives to achieve, look at the overall situation and design a plan that will lead your side to victory, send out plane-loads of soldiers to attack the enemy base, direct artillery fire, order commando missions to blow up particular objectives, etc.
Would be awesome.
Still wouldn't have time to play it of course... I don't have time to play games anymore:-( But I can still fantasize about them right?
This is not the only filtering technology sold by Google to China. They have also provided filters for google search results. Essentially it's like your average parental-control-type software, except installed on top of google, so it doesn't link to sites the Chinese Govt doesn't like.
This is bad, because Google had a leverage point here. There was no way China was just going to block google altogether. That would be too crippling in a world where Google is so central. So if Google had stood firm they could have essentially forced, in the short or long term, China to decrease their censorship of the net.
Perhaps Google's plan is to suddenly unblock everything sometime in the future, which would have a similar or even better effect. But I seriously doubt that.
I don't disagree with your statement, but I think that Google's support of chinese censorship cannot be construed to not be "evil", no matter which way you argue it. It fits right into the old saying, that capitalists would sell the rope that they'll be hung with.
You make a good point. However, when the other "civil" party is a monster corporation with billions of dollars of cash and more lawyers than you can shake a stick at (or even simply someone with significantly more cash than you), I think washing your hands of it as a "civil" case is irresponsible of the government. After all, it's the government that's providing and enforcing the legal framework that allows this to happen. Perhaps you can't go to prison, but for most sensible people the threat of losing all their hard-earned savings is as close to going to criminal punishment as they'll ever get.
I was going to say... Freedomforum.org states that:
Free speech
The First Amendment says that people have the right to speak freely without government interference.
The Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center presents several programs addressing aspects of free speech, including Freedom Sings and First Amendment on Campus.
Free press
The First Amendment gives the press the right to publish news, information and opinions without government interference. This also means people have the right to publish their own newspapers, newsletters, magazines, etc.
The Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center provides a program for newspaper editors and other staff through a partnership with the American Press Institute.
Conspicuously absent from the first amendment ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.") is any mention of libel or such. In fact, the first amendment which he claims to defend is extremely specific in saying that Congress is not allowed to make any law that abridges the freedom of speech or of the press in any way (some will point out that congress doesn't stop people from publishing libellous documents, just punishes them afterwards... personally I consider that if a man tells me "if you say this you'll be fined $1000", he is abridging my freedome of speech, but this particular argument is, I suppose, off-topic).
While I sympathise with Mr Seigenthaler about the crap that ended up attached to his name on Wikipedia, I don't sympathize with this sort of dual approach to freedom.
Actually, the solution to that problem is simple: the "anonymizing net" (something like Freenet, for instance) needs to be substantially used for other activities. If all the geeks around the world start using Freenet to browse the web instead of http, then suddenly it will be effectively impossible to ban. This is the same mechanism by which the **AA can't "shut down the internet" to protect its interests. There are too many non-infringing uses, too many financial dependencies on it. They will only be able to make the Freenet-like network illegal if it's only used for p2p.
Given that a Freenet-like network does not allow people to see what traffic they're transmitting, it will be impossible to shut down a node without shutting down many non-infringing nodes.
Bear in mind that at this stage, we do not need to have everything go through Freenet - only the torrents. By the time the **AA starts actually connecting to torrents to figure out who sitting there downloading and uploading, cpu power and bandwidth will have hopefully reached the level where we can finally move the whole thing onto a Freenet-like net. Once that's the case, the **AA will be well and totally screwed.
People don't read SF stories for the glossy paper/nice layout.
(I'm not suggesting Card's magazine doesn't have good content - but so do many free webzines out there, if only because they pay roughly the same rates)
We pay 6 cents a word up to $500. Stories can be longer, but the word rate drops with increasing length to always yield a total of $500.
With this payment we buy exclusive rights in any language or any medium throughout the world for one year from date of first publication in the magazine, and nonexclusive electronic and/or online rights in any language in perpetuity. We also buy nonexclusive print and audio rights throughout the world and in all languages for inclusion in multi-author anthologies based on the magazine, for which you will receive a pro rata share of the authors' share of advances and royalties, to be reported and paid when reports and payments are received by us from the publisher (or, if we are the publisher, every six months after one year after publication, if there are any earnings to report).
Though these rights are not outrageous, they are by no means extraordinary. In fact, they are more restrictive than your average magazine rights - usually they don't restrict your right to publish in other media for a year, like this does (eg, according to this you are not allowed to sell your story to any anthology for a year from the publication date...).
So essentially, whereas magazines normally only buy first rights (the rights to be the first to publish the story), this one wants to be the only one for at least a year. Respect for the author's rights? Really?
Why Hydrogen? Cosmic particles interact just as much with collections of protons and neutrons as with single protons. In fact, your best bet for shielding, if you're going for the "let's maximize the interaction potential of the material" (also known as the "cross-section" in physics) would be to use something like lead.
Funnily enough, that's what we already use to shield ourselves from radiation, both particle (alpha, beta) and light (gamma)!
There are no magnetic monopoles in the universe -- or at least we have yet to find one, though they have been postulated to possibly exist. All sources of a magnetic field are dipoles (ie they have a "North" side and a "South" side). Additionally, all sources of a magnetic field are moving electric charges. Atoms produce magnetic fields (thanks to their electrons), but usually they are all pointing in random directions so they cancel each other out on a macro scale. In a magnet, the atomic magnetic fields are aligned with each other so they strengthen each other.
As far as I know, we don't know exactly what causes the magnetic field of the earth, but it can be one of two things:
1. A giant magnet - ie all those particles inside the earth are somehow aligned so that they produce an overall magnetic field. It's not very clear what would cause them to slowly reverse direction then, though.
2. Currents flowing in giant loops through the earth's core. This is the more likely one I believe, as the earth's core is posited to be made of molten metal - and some process at those high pressures is causing charge to move about in a circle. In this case, the process through which the field flips is pretty obvious - the current slows down, stops, and then starts again in the other direction.
Alternatively, it could probably be a combination of both, a kind of giant electromagnet, where the current causes a strong magnetization of some material further within the core.
Mods please take note. AKAImBatman has only started posting 2 days ago. Now an article is posted with a tagline that is in direct contradiction with the contents of the article. And this guy (AKAImBatman) who's come out of nowhere is one of the first to post here, claiming to be confused and making bizarre convoluted claims which come down with the non-obvious conclusion that the article is correct in declaring that Fair Use is bad and will stifle innovation. I smell a rat.
I think this source is blocked by the filters the editors use when selecting stories... It's pretty untrustworthy and contains lots of potentially inappropriate material...
I'd add that the signal is recorded in the EM waves that spread outwards from Earth. Once/if FTL (Faster Than Light) travel is invented, anyone with an FTL drive could travel away from earth for a little while, stop, record the broadcast, come back to Earth and put it on the evil file-sharing networks, thus depriving the record co^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H noble artists of their god-given right to enjoy the fruits of their labour!
Slashdot Mirror
Having worked with remote teams (in India), I fully agree with what he's saying. It's extremely hard to kick someone's butt into gear and get them working when they're thousands of miles away. If you ask the guy to do a simple task that should take half an hour and he takes six hours, and then you ask him to do another task and he says it'll take till next morning even though it should only take an hour, you need to be able to cut this worthless cost pretty quickly. However I don't see why you need to be able to cancel back-pay.
Daniel
Interesting article (especially the second one). Thanks for the links.
I think it not quite on the ball, though. Sure, some people might misinterpret ender's game as justifying all their vengeful actions. And as such, it would be a pretty bad interpretation. But the fact which is proposed in the book is precisely that Ender's case is special. He's not just a kid misinterpreting stuff happening around him and avenging himself on whatever target becomes available. We are given ample evidence that he is deliberately thrust into exceptionally difficult situations. We are also given ample evidence that he tries every recourse possible to avoid resolving the conflict through violence. At the end of the day, each of Ender's victims is a victim of legitimate self-defence.
The truth is, yes, if you reply to the first bully who assaults you much more violently than he expects, you will be left alone in the future. And if you don't, things will only get worse in the future. I've experienced that truth first-hand, as it applies to children. This does not extend to all situations in life, but does extend to those situations which involve people trying to physically hurt or dominate you - they are the ones who chose the language of violence to deal with you. And most certainly, killing someone is a sure-fire way of ensuring they do not try to kill you again (though in the adult world it will cause other problems of vengeance by their friends and family).
And the fact is, in each and every case, Ender is attacked, he does not initiate the fight. He responds to it with deadly effectiveness. Much the same way as you would if a man came at you and your family with a knife and you happened to have a gun in your hand.
The only less clearly-drawn case is the genocide of the Buggers - but in this case Ender has an even better excuse, that he simply didn't know he was doing it. In fact the case is put forward very clearly that if he had known that he was doing it, he would not have been capable of going through with it.
John Kessel's argument that Ender knew it was preparation for doing it for real does not excuse this fact. The whole reason why Ender is deemed capable of doing it in a simulation is precisely because he would have been unable to do it if he thought it was real. If you're told "type 'ls' at the prompt" and this causes the annihilation of mankind through some process you didn't know about, certainly you are "responsible" for the end of mankind in a causal sense. But are you *morally* responsible for it?
Certainly not.
Anyway, this post is long enough... In summary, some good points in the articles, which are well worth a read, but does not one bit change my opinion that Ender's Game is an excellent book.
Daniel
Absolutely agreed. Ender's Game is a very "psychological" type of book, which is all about what's going on inside Ender's head. Any script that fails to show that (and not in a blunt way with just a voice over) will fail miserably. I'd even venture to say that Ender's Game is probably harder to make into a movie than most books - eg. Lord of the Rings, being an epic, was much easier. Harry Potter, similarly, is comparatively easy. Most Phil K Dick books/movies were also much more action-based.
Daniel
Define "incredibly useful"? I find the Wikipedia is moderately useful. When there is some bit of cultural trivia and you want to find out what the hell it is, you can trust that Wikipedia will give you some kind of answer that's related to the truth. For anything more complicated, I always double-check anything I find on there.
Daniel
Yes, of course. In the wonderful world of the Wikipedists, anything they say is golden because it's in a kind of encyclopedia, which automatically justifies it as being the absolute truth and if you don't like it you can change it yourself or go whine about it on slashdot and claim that the "Wikipedia has fired back" and if this is a firing back then the ammo was a fart and I'm getting bored of writing in this long add-on sentence style that resembles some Wikipedia articles and so I'm going to stop now.
Daniel
That's a brilliant idea. I hope someone picks it up.
:-( But I can still fantasize about them right?
Imagine a game where you can join as a builder, a general or a soldier (each of which probably has a number of sub-classes).
As a builder, your focus is on accumulating resources in your designated area (which is delineated based on which areas are free for your camp to exploit... of course when there are none you are spawned as a soldier instead until an area frees up). You build up the areas to give maximum defensive advantage to your soldiers (who will be under constant attack), placing the spawn-points strategically on the map so that they are protected and yet close to the action, but with decent armouries nearby, hospitals, power-units to power up special weapons (and the special weapons themselves), etc... You also build up the materials which will be used to launch attacks on enemy bases, if you have the time...
As a soldier, you play your typical TFC-like FPS, repelling enemy forces, with multiple character classes, get involved in commando stealth missions to blow up specific objectives, etc.
As a general, you lead soldiers into battle to attack other troops. In tactical RTS-style (think Homeworld/TA rather than C&C), you give your troops waypoints and objectives to achieve, look at the overall situation and design a plan that will lead your side to victory, send out plane-loads of soldiers to attack the enemy base, direct artillery fire, order commando missions to blow up particular objectives, etc.
Would be awesome.
Still wouldn't have time to play it of course... I don't have time to play games anymore
Daniel
This is not the only filtering technology sold by Google to China. They have also provided filters for google search results. Essentially it's like your average parental-control-type software, except installed on top of google, so it doesn't link to sites the Chinese Govt doesn't like.
This is bad, because Google had a leverage point here. There was no way China was just going to block google altogether. That would be too crippling in a world where Google is so central. So if Google had stood firm they could have essentially forced, in the short or long term, China to decrease their censorship of the net.
Perhaps Google's plan is to suddenly unblock everything sometime in the future, which would have a similar or even better effect. But I seriously doubt that.
Daniel
I don't disagree with your statement, but I think that Google's support of chinese censorship cannot be construed to not be "evil", no matter which way you argue it. It fits right into the old saying, that capitalists would sell the rope that they'll be hung with.
Daniel
You make a good point. However, when the other "civil" party is a monster corporation with billions of dollars of cash and more lawyers than you can shake a stick at (or even simply someone with significantly more cash than you), I think washing your hands of it as a "civil" case is irresponsible of the government. After all, it's the government that's providing and enforcing the legal framework that allows this to happen. Perhaps you can't go to prison, but for most sensible people the threat of losing all their hard-earned savings is as close to going to criminal punishment as they'll ever get.
Daniel
I was going to say... Freedomforum.org states that:
Free speech
The First Amendment says that people have the right to speak freely without government interference.
The Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center presents several programs addressing aspects of free speech, including Freedom Sings and First Amendment on Campus.
Free press
The First Amendment gives the press the right to publish news, information and opinions without government interference. This also means people have the right to publish their own newspapers, newsletters, magazines, etc.
The Freedom Forum's First Amendment Center provides a program for newspaper editors and other staff through a partnership with the American Press Institute.
Conspicuously absent from the first amendment ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.") is any mention of libel or such. In fact, the first amendment which he claims to defend is extremely specific in saying that Congress is not allowed to make any law that abridges the freedom of speech or of the press in any way (some will point out that congress doesn't stop people from publishing libellous documents, just punishes them afterwards... personally I consider that if a man tells me "if you say this you'll be fined $1000", he is abridging my freedome of speech, but this particular argument is, I suppose, off-topic).
While I sympathise with Mr Seigenthaler about the crap that ended up attached to his name on Wikipedia, I don't sympathize with this sort of dual approach to freedom.
Daniel
If it's not the english version it might also be considerably less retarded.
Daniel
Why the hell would anyone want to play a "bully" game?
If you were a bully at school, you've already done it. If you were bullied at school, that's hardly going to be an enjoyable activity.
What a bizarre idea for a game...
Daniel
Actually, the solution to that problem is simple: the "anonymizing net" (something like Freenet, for instance) needs to be substantially used for other activities. If all the geeks around the world start using Freenet to browse the web instead of http, then suddenly it will be effectively impossible to ban. This is the same mechanism by which the **AA can't "shut down the internet" to protect its interests. There are too many non-infringing uses, too many financial dependencies on it. They will only be able to make the Freenet-like network illegal if it's only used for p2p.
Given that a Freenet-like network does not allow people to see what traffic they're transmitting, it will be impossible to shut down a node without shutting down many non-infringing nodes.
Bear in mind that at this stage, we do not need to have everything go through Freenet - only the torrents. By the time the **AA starts actually connecting to torrents to figure out who sitting there downloading and uploading, cpu power and bandwidth will have hopefully reached the level where we can finally move the whole thing onto a Freenet-like net. Once that's the case, the **AA will be well and totally screwed.
Daniel
Thanks for the info!
;-)
I'll bear that in mind when I publish my best-seller that will be so good it's selected for all the anthologies of that year...
I can dream too, can't I?
Daniel
Not contradicting you, but how do you get it in yearly anthologies then??
Daniel
You aren't, but this is webzines we're talking about...
Daniel
People don't read SF stories for the glossy paper/nice layout.
(I'm not suggesting Card's magazine doesn't have good content - but so do many free webzines out there, if only because they pay roughly the same rates)
Daniel
Also, in the "Submissions" section..
We pay 6 cents a word up to $500. Stories can be longer, but the word rate drops with increasing length to always yield a total of $500.
With this payment we buy exclusive rights in any language or any medium throughout the world for one year from date of first publication in the magazine, and nonexclusive electronic and/or online rights in any language in perpetuity. We also buy nonexclusive print and audio rights throughout the world and in all languages for inclusion in multi-author anthologies based on the magazine, for which you will receive a pro rata share of the authors' share of advances and royalties, to be reported and paid when reports and payments are received by us from the publisher (or, if we are the publisher, every six months after one year after publication, if there are any earnings to report).
Though these rights are not outrageous, they are by no means extraordinary. In fact, they are more restrictive than your average magazine rights - usually they don't restrict your right to publish in other media for a year, like this does (eg, according to this you are not allowed to sell your story to any anthology for a year from the publication date...).
So essentially, whereas magazines normally only buy first rights (the rights to be the first to publish the story), this one wants to be the only one for at least a year. Respect for the author's rights? Really?
Daniel
Ok, so Orson Scott Card is a great author... but how is this groundbreaking? There are numerous webzines that publish quality stories, out there...
Try Duotrope's digest to find them.
Daniel
Why Hydrogen? Cosmic particles interact just as much with collections of protons and neutrons as with single protons. In fact, your best bet for shielding, if you're going for the "let's maximize the interaction potential of the material" (also known as the "cross-section" in physics) would be to use something like lead.
Funnily enough, that's what we already use to shield ourselves from radiation, both particle (alpha, beta) and light (gamma)!
Daniel
Some parts are North poles and some parts are South poles so the overall poles shift as they move around.
Djing! Incorrect physics alert! Target located. Engaging.
There are no magnetic monopoles in the universe -- or at least we have yet to find one, though they have been postulated to possibly exist. All sources of a magnetic field are dipoles (ie they have a "North" side and a "South" side). Additionally, all sources of a magnetic field are moving electric charges. Atoms produce magnetic fields (thanks to their electrons), but usually they are all pointing in random directions so they cancel each other out on a macro scale. In a magnet, the atomic magnetic fields are aligned with each other so they strengthen each other.
As far as I know, we don't know exactly what causes the magnetic field of the earth, but it can be one of two things:
1. A giant magnet - ie all those particles inside the earth are somehow aligned so that they produce an overall magnetic field. It's not very clear what would cause them to slowly reverse direction then, though.
2. Currents flowing in giant loops through the earth's core. This is the more likely one I believe, as the earth's core is posited to be made of molten metal - and some process at those high pressures is causing charge to move about in a circle. In this case, the process through which the field flips is pretty obvious - the current slows down, stops, and then starts again in the other direction.
Alternatively, it could probably be a combination of both, a kind of giant electromagnet, where the current causes a strong magnetization of some material further within the core.
There. Hope this helps.
Daniel
Mods please take note. AKAImBatman has only started posting 2 days ago. Now an article is posted with a tagline that is in direct contradiction with the contents of the article. And this guy (AKAImBatman) who's come out of nowhere is one of the first to post here, claiming to be confused and making bizarre convoluted claims which come down with the non-obvious conclusion that the article is correct in declaring that Fair Use is bad and will stifle innovation. I smell a rat.
Daniel
The guy seems dead serious. Maybe you find it funny, but it appears he is indeed supporting TPM and declaring that Fair Use is bad.
Daniel
I think this source is blocked by the filters the editors use when selecting stories... It's pretty untrustworthy and contains lots of potentially inappropriate material...
Daniel
I'd add that the signal is recorded in the EM waves that spread outwards from Earth. Once/if FTL (Faster Than Light) travel is invented, anyone with an FTL drive could travel away from earth for a little while, stop, record the broadcast, come back to Earth and put it on the evil file-sharing networks, thus depriving the record co^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H noble artists of their god-given right to enjoy the fruits of their labour!
Daniel