Dude, this post needs to be modded up more.
It's like this: a newspaper can report that the president of a hypothetical country had blanks in his past military record. This is purely factual, and, as Harvard's president says, something that should be studied. But such a report cannot be taken out of its context, because of the overwhelming implication of possible wrong-doing. The messenger has to take certain responsibility for the collateral damage he/she will cause.
The poster probably knows this, but to elaborate B5 did spawn several feature-length TV movies. Not all of them were good however. The one about Sheridan nuking an ancient Vorlon jump gate crawling with Cthulu-lookalikes was, bluntly put, a trite unoriginal story and while Hollywood puts out far worse films than this the fact that it's too niche is probably the deciding factor. But word has it that JMS is working on something new this year...
Yes, according to Yahoo! Movies, the script supposedly owes its roots to a certain Jeff Vintar:
This film is based upon elements from all nine of the stories in the "I Robot" anthology by Isaac Asimov (1920-1992). This film is not a direct adaptation of any of the nine stories in that book, but is instead a prequel of sorts to them, having its origins in a script by Jeff Vintar that was originally called 'Hardwired' that was adapted to fit into Asimov's stories, but not based on any specific one.
Flanking the enemy might work better if your troops weren't so disorganized after hacking at Orcs in ten thousand directions. Then the oliphaunts were in a long, single row, so flanking would at best take out only the leftmost/rightmost ones leaving the oliphaunts in the middle unscathed. And the superior momentum of the huge oliphaunts would have probably meant the cavalry getting stampeded before reaching the flanks. My complaint wouldn't be that there was any gross lack of strategy, but the fact that the scene is suspiciously reminiscent of the AT-AT Hoth attack scene in Empire Strikes Back.
I did like the wedge formation Theoden used to smash into the Orcs, although the humans were still heavily outnumbered so it's surprising it worked. The book does hint that the Orcs resented their predicament of being slaves of Sauron somewhat, so they weren't the best of soldiers.
Good point, although it doesn't make the formations look any less unnatural. Perhaps it's because of the high angle, hence the tendency for small objects on the ground to look like toys is literally true.
The Phantom Menace battleground looked quite bad, I agree. But it's an offworld planet, and who knows what it's supposed to look like. But I was expecting some agriculture around Minas Tirith, which, after all, is a big city with lots of mouths to feed. What I saw instead was large, swaths of boring grass. Maybe the evil air drifting down from Mordor killed off the crops?
Minas Tirith started to look like a model when they switched to aerial shots though. Not CG, nor even a matte painting. A physical model, sort of like how it was obvious the ship in Poseidon Adventure is a model. The combination of unrealistically sterile fields of grass surrounding the city, dotted with perfectly rectangular enemy formations drawn in CG didn't seem to help. Perhaps different camera angles would have helped to convey a better sense of scale. But that's an exercise for the director, not the effects artists.:-)
Sure, there is freedom of choice. I happen to choose Mac OS (graphics) and generic Unix (programming). And there are dozens of people like me. The only problem is, these "dozens of people" number in the low minority and has been like that for many years with only changes for the worst in sight. There are hundreds of alternate products: Star Office, Framemaker, QuickTime, gcc, Java, MySQL, Mozilla... all of these are arguably great products and I use many of them. And I'm not the only one using them. But do you see any significant changes in the Status Quo? Nope.
The main reason why Microsoft has a clear path to power is because:
It has a firm user base,
It is reinventing the wheel for everything, such that everything works best with MS only, with corollary:
MS products tend to be extremely proprietary, such that they preclude practical interoperation with other "alternatives" (one only needs to look at Office and Windows for proof).
A ton of users with pre-installed Windows on their Black and White game machines are reminded everyday through their boot screens that they rely on Microsoft for the everyday functioning of their machines. A very significant fraction of these know their favorite game isn't available for alternative OS's, and neither know about Mandrake, know how to install Red Hat, couldn't care about BSD, let alone write their own "alternative." They see the Hailstorm coming, but relax when they see the MS banners waving in front. Hailstorm is incredibly general. It is MS reinventing the consumer Internet. No doubt, what with even its own "C#" language, it is as proprietary as the other Microsoft offerings. Don't give me the usual about "COM" and "XML" being open because once you start talking about "alternative messenger clients" and such that talk the MS protocols you have already lost; MS controls those very protocols you are merely trying to coexist with! I think this is what Katz meant by "taking over."
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
on
American Gods
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· Score: 1
I am reminded heavily of Douglas Adams' 'The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul'. Gods are walking among us, wreaking havoc at airports. Ever wondered which god makes those street lamps go out when you walk past them? Adams has the answer.
I hate to break it, but Anonymous Coward (=dwj, who forgot his password) is correct, as is BuzCory ("Power 101"). While P=(V^2)/R is algebraically equivalent to P=(I^2)R, one musn't confuse the two. The V must be derived and not plugged in, since it denotes the line drop and not the total voltage.
Try it: plugging in 120V for a.001 Ohm line gives you a ridiculously high power loss, a wrong answer that is to be expected since you hardly expect power loss to increase with decreasing R! The other way to look at it is to notice that the only power loss is due to the voltage that drops across the resistance. Here, that would be Vdrop = IR. We need a value for I (can't derive it, for the same reasons as above). So using an arbitrary I=200A (pretty high), Vdrop = 2V which is much better: 400W power loss instead of 1440000W! QED.
In First Contact, the Borg do indeed head straight for Earth. Unfortunately, they forgot to time warp to the Cochran era first before any Enterprise showed up to follow them. That sucking sound I hear must be a Plot Hole.
Yeah, I agree that Jimmy was confused there. He compares the xbox with the cube by Release date, but then lumps the ps2 and the dreamcast together by similar specs instead of release date.
The psx is certainly a generation apart from the DC, spec wise.
And Dr Strangelove was actually fun *and* a well made film at the same time. It sounds like this movie has more in common with Starship Troopers though, a movie which also ended being a hilarious parody of itself. The very B-movieish quality must be hard to maintain, yet they pull it off!
I agree that OO is not universally compelling. Especially when it comes to, say, having to integrate C++ code with existing C code. At work we have this huge telephony OS that is all MFC, C++, COM etc (written before I arrived), the point being it's OO'ed up to the gills, and the most hellish part is trying to hack around the OO barrier to work with the Dialogic (telephony hardware) APIs, which like many low-level APIs, is in C.
Now procedural programming in C isn't better just because I have the hapless task of working with APIs that are in C, but just look at the APIs themselves. Look at X Windows, UNIX, and Motif. These are large, mature programs with large APIs. They are written just fine in C, with minimal use of OO concepts--structs, unions at most--and they have stood the test of time (maintainability), proof that procedural programming from the ground up works and works well.
Right, I wasn't trying to suggest simulation replace real experiments and actual observational data. I do not have access to the journal you've quoted so I hesitate, but it does sound rather conceitful. Dozens of theories have been invalidated by what actually happened instead; I need not give examples.
On the other hand, some theories are hamstrung by the requirement of checking millions of data points (eg., galaxy clusters--my previous work, QCD, etc) and to make at least some progress practically demands the integration of the computer into your theoretical work. There is the risk that you've been wasting your time when the real data waltzes in, but that seems to be the danger with any theory, and the short time spent on simulations (relative to, say, waiting for the next satellite to launch) combined with improved quality (due to fresh contributions from the CS field) tend to justify the effort. If at least one of these efforts turn out to be the real thing, then it is probably worth it.
I completely agree. "Computer science" was probably an unfortunate (deliberate?) misnomer in this case, bringing down the wrath of many CS veterans of slashdot.
You note the lack of innovation in CS. I have no idea if there are some universities out there who really don't treat CS as "training for a tech job" but I've been getting that impression. CS theory seems to be languishing, with a few valiant attempts on the "is P=NP?" problem appearing now and then with predictable results. Even quantum computing hasn't really rocked the boat yet. There seems to be some work in computational linguistics but it didn't seem like such a fruitful field. I might even go so far as to say these are all true, and that's because CS is an early science. Would anyone care to correct this impression? I'm anxious to hear about counterexamples. I'm another one of those "computer science physicists."
Actually, an increasingly common use of computer simulations is for a theorist to quickly run a model and then fix his theory as required. For example, the NYT article mentions cosmology simulation, which due to the dearth of (and questionable reliability of) observational data is almost entirely simulation only. And yet it is enough to drive the theorists on, until a new batch of real observational data arrives. Everyone would agree that the simulation is not true experimental data, but it is still data. The old cliche that the lines are blurred is true again in this case. Simulations can provide the same serendipitous results as real data and can thus inspire new theories in the same way.
Slashdot Mirror
Dude, this post needs to be modded up more. It's like this: a newspaper can report that the president of a hypothetical country had blanks in his past military record. This is purely factual, and, as Harvard's president says, something that should be studied. But such a report cannot be taken out of its context, because of the overwhelming implication of possible wrong-doing. The messenger has to take certain responsibility for the collateral damage he/she will cause.
Mod parent up. Ceramic = smaller. Probably another good use for ceramic lenses are mobile phone cameras, where size is everything.
The poster probably knows this, but to elaborate B5 did spawn several feature-length TV movies. Not all of them were good however. The one about Sheridan nuking an ancient Vorlon jump gate crawling with Cthulu-lookalikes was, bluntly put, a trite unoriginal story and while Hollywood puts out far worse films than this the fact that it's too niche is probably the deciding factor. But word has it that JMS is working on something new this year...
Gundams and exoskeletons are so 90's. We're in the 21st century, when schoolgirls, in a twist, become badass flying cyborgs and shoot nuclear missiles out of their backs. Read Saishuu Heiki Kanojo: "She, The Ultimate Weapon".
Flanking the enemy might work better if your troops weren't so disorganized after hacking at Orcs in ten thousand directions. Then the oliphaunts were in a long, single row, so flanking would at best take out only the leftmost/rightmost ones leaving the oliphaunts in the middle unscathed. And the superior momentum of the huge oliphaunts would have probably meant the cavalry getting stampeded before reaching the flanks. My complaint wouldn't be that there was any gross lack of strategy, but the fact that the scene is suspiciously reminiscent of the AT-AT Hoth attack scene in Empire Strikes Back.
I did like the wedge formation Theoden used to smash into the Orcs, although the humans were still heavily outnumbered so it's surprising it worked. The book does hint that the Orcs resented their predicament of being slaves of Sauron somewhat, so they weren't the best of soldiers.
Good point, although it doesn't make the formations look any less unnatural. Perhaps it's because of the high angle, hence the tendency for small objects on the ground to look like toys is literally true.
The Phantom Menace battleground looked quite bad, I agree. But it's an offworld planet, and who knows what it's supposed to look like. But I was expecting some agriculture around Minas Tirith, which, after all, is a big city with lots of mouths to feed. What I saw instead was large, swaths of boring grass. Maybe the evil air drifting down from Mordor killed off the crops?
Minas Tirith started to look like a model when they switched to aerial shots though. Not CG, nor even a matte painting. A physical model, sort of like how it was obvious the ship in Poseidon Adventure is a model. The combination of unrealistically sterile fields of grass surrounding the city, dotted with perfectly rectangular enemy formations drawn in CG didn't seem to help. Perhaps different camera angles would have helped to convey a better sense of scale. But that's an exercise for the director, not the effects artists. :-)
The main reason why Microsoft has a clear path to power is because:
A ton of users with pre-installed Windows on their Black and White game machines are reminded everyday through their boot screens that they rely on Microsoft for the everyday functioning of their machines. A very significant fraction of these know their favorite game isn't available for alternative OS's, and neither know about Mandrake, know how to install Red Hat, couldn't care about BSD, let alone write their own "alternative." They see the Hailstorm coming, but relax when they see the MS banners waving in front. Hailstorm is incredibly general. It is MS reinventing the consumer Internet. No doubt, what with even its own "C#" language, it is as proprietary as the other Microsoft offerings. Don't give me the usual about "COM" and "XML" being open because once you start talking about "alternative messenger clients" and such that talk the MS protocols you have already lost; MS controls those very protocols you are merely trying to coexist with! I think this is what Katz meant by "taking over."
I am reminded heavily of Douglas Adams' 'The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul'. Gods are walking among us, wreaking havoc at airports. Ever wondered which god makes those street lamps go out when you walk past them? Adams has the answer.
Try it: plugging in 120V for a .001 Ohm line gives you a ridiculously high power loss, a wrong answer that is to be expected since you hardly expect power loss to increase with decreasing R! The other way to look at it is to notice that the only power loss is due to the voltage that drops across the resistance. Here, that would be Vdrop = IR. We need a value for I (can't derive it, for the same reasons as above). So using an arbitrary I=200A (pretty high), Vdrop = 2V which is much better: 400W power loss instead of 1440000W! QED.
In First Contact, the Borg do indeed head straight for Earth. Unfortunately, they forgot to time warp to the Cochran era first before any Enterprise showed up to follow them. That sucking sound I hear must be a Plot Hole.
Call me off topic, but the first thought I got was, "Booya" is one of Zell's limit breaks in Final Fantasy 8. Isn't that obscure or what? =)
Yeah, I agree that Jimmy was confused there. He compares the xbox with the cube by Release date, but then lumps the ps2 and the dreamcast together by similar specs instead of release date.
The psx is certainly a generation apart from the DC, spec wise.
LOL!
What irony.
And Dr Strangelove was actually fun *and* a well made film at the same time. It sounds like this movie has more in common with Starship Troopers though, a movie which also ended being a hilarious parody of itself. The very B-movieish quality must be hard to maintain, yet they pull it off!
I agree that OO is not universally compelling. Especially when it comes to, say, having to integrate C++ code with existing C code. At work we have this huge telephony OS that is all MFC, C++, COM etc (written before I arrived), the point being it's OO'ed up to the gills, and the most hellish part is trying to hack around the OO barrier to work with the Dialogic (telephony hardware) APIs, which like many low-level APIs, is in C.
Now procedural programming in C isn't better just because I have the hapless task of working with APIs that are in C, but just look at the APIs themselves. Look at X Windows, UNIX, and Motif. These are large, mature programs with large APIs. They are written just fine in C, with minimal use of OO concepts--structs, unions at most--and they have stood the test of time (maintainability), proof that procedural programming from the ground up works and works well.
Right, I wasn't trying to suggest simulation replace real experiments and actual observational data. I do not have access to the journal you've quoted so I hesitate, but it does sound rather conceitful. Dozens of theories have been invalidated by what actually happened instead; I need not give examples.
On the other hand, some theories are hamstrung by the requirement of checking millions of data points (eg., galaxy clusters--my previous work, QCD, etc) and to make at least some progress practically demands the integration of the computer into your theoretical work. There is the risk that you've been wasting your time when the real data waltzes in, but that seems to be the danger with any theory, and the short time spent on simulations (relative to, say, waiting for the next satellite to launch) combined with improved quality (due to fresh contributions from the CS field) tend to justify the effort. If at least one of these efforts turn out to be the real thing, then it is probably worth it.
-dwj
I completely agree. "Computer science" was probably an unfortunate (deliberate?) misnomer in this case, bringing down the wrath of many CS veterans of slashdot.
You note the lack of innovation in CS. I have no idea if there are some universities out there who really don't treat CS as "training for a tech job" but I've been getting that impression. CS theory seems to be languishing, with a few valiant attempts on the "is P=NP?" problem appearing now and then with predictable results. Even quantum computing hasn't really rocked the boat yet. There seems to be some work in computational linguistics but it didn't seem like such a fruitful field. I might even go so far as to say these are all true, and that's because CS is an early science. Would anyone care to correct this impression? I'm anxious to hear about counterexamples. I'm another one of those "computer science physicists."
-dwj
Actually, an increasingly common use of computer simulations is for a theorist to quickly run a model and then fix his theory as required. For example, the NYT article mentions cosmology simulation, which due to the dearth of (and questionable reliability of) observational data is almost entirely simulation only. And yet it is enough to drive the theorists on, until a new batch of real observational data arrives. Everyone would agree that the simulation is not true experimental data, but it is still data. The old cliche that the lines are blurred is true again in this case. Simulations can provide the same serendipitous results as real data and can thus inspire new theories in the same way.
-dwj