I think they're just thankful to have the service at all - I recall many of the monopolies in Minnesota are not terribly competitive. You have Comcast, the cable monopoly that aggressively goes after the high speed network market and offers high priced TV packages (compared to satellite) and anyone that uses the Qwest or Covad backbones and neither of those providers sees any reason to keep up with Comcast. Nearly everyone I know in Minnesota uses Comcast for high speed internet, and last time I checked Broadband Reports it was the cheapest and fastest overall (but from experience I know that is iffy and their TV packages are much worse than competing satellite).
And since when is Montecello a suburb of Minneapolis? Its like more than half way to St Cloud. In fact, I used to meet my boss there when I lived near the University of Minnesota and telecommuted to his business in St Cloud.
The TSA was OK with me emptying and bringing empty bottles through security and filling them in the fountain before getting on the plane - they don't really have any clear guideline on that, so it may vary by location. I usually look for the larger refrigerated water fountains because they almost always are filtered. You also can buy bottles in the airport after clearing security, though the last time I did that the big bottles (smaller than a liter) were $4.95 each - the same price as the liter beers I was drinking at the bar.
From an application standpoint this may be meh, but I use them on mac mainly when I build libraries, and I'd expect the same thing on Linux. In the Apple case, lipo can be used to build and strip architectures from universal binaries - in fact, it often HAS to be used to build OSS projects because autotools uses macros and the -arch command is not valid when certain macros are used (because they depend on architecture and make the build ambiguous if I recall correctly). Basically build twice, once for each architecture, then lipo merge, and done. Use the lipo architecture removal command after an install and you can reclaim space. I've actually built with 3 architectures before - ppc, i386, and x86_64. There also is ppc64 (or something like that) but I never managed to get that to cross-compile.
In the case where BOTH architectures exist on the system you could build a library that supports both and anyone interfacing with that library would get the architecture of choice (for example x86 or x86_64) - it's win-win for a library developer - you maintain backwards compatibility with the old architecture and gain forward compatibility with the new architecture. Linux also has been ported to all sorts of architectures, so such a thing may be very important for a chip you may not have even heard of.
They would need about 40 pages to even scratch the surface, not 5. Heck, I'd add Civilization, TIE Fighter, Wing Commander, Alone in the Dark, Spaceward Ho! (originally mac, but exists on PC now), Elite, Escape Velocity, the Total War games, and Diablo and that doesn't even scratch the surface of my list.
They're more discussing graphics and gameplay trends. Incidentally, I've never played X-Com but I heard it was great. I bought it and installed it, but it crashed on start so I returned it. X-Com and Daggerfall didn't like my computer for some reason.
I wouldn't say Pathways had an outstanding plot - it had more of a plot than many shooters of the era, but RPGs like Ultima Underworld preceded it and also featured a plot (admittedly, I don't know a whole lot about the plot because I didn't have a PC capable of playing it [had a mac and a 386], but I did play it a few times at a friend's house). Also note that Id decided plot didn't matter even before Wolf 3D - Catacomb 3D had no plot, either and it predates Wolf. It even had sequels, but I never played them or even heard about them until I looked it up. Whether plot matters or not is debatable - I love The Longest Journey, but I also love Diablo 2. Diablo 2 isn't exactly on top of my list plot-wise.
Most PC gamers didn't play Pathways or Marathon even though Marathon 2 also came out on PC. Marathon 2 and Rise of the Triad came out around the same time, and both had in-game chat - remember that? Which came first is debatable - RotT technically was first, but only the Shareware part - the commercial release was after M2.
As far as shooters go, Pathways was bad - very easy for FPS junkies. I admit, I had a hard time with it the first time I played it because it was the second shooter I'd ever played and I hadn't played much of the first one (Catacomb 3D, incidentally), but when I went back a few years later it was a snap. The only real problem I had was it made me nauseous after a couple of hours play like most early shooters (Duke 3D was the worst, followed by Half Life - wasn't able to complete either of those, but even some modern shooters like Half Life 2 make me sick... but Catacomb and Wolf 3D didn't, none of the Unreal Tournaments do, and Rise of the Triad wasn't bad, so it's hit and miss...).
Anyhow, those guys couldn't spell Cthulhu (two h's, not one), so my respect is gone;)
Of course, D&D evil is rather dubious, at least now - it originally meant you're the type that eats babies, drowns mothers, rapes, pillages, etc. but they changed it so self-centered, greedy people are also 'evil.' Playing a greedy person or someone with a "me first" attitude can be fun, especially in a party of like minded people. I haven't played many games of D&D like that but I'd say all players of Paranoia would be evil in D&D terms and that game is a blast.
hmm... that doesn't make a lot of sense, either... its like suing a door manufacturer for using a non-licensed patented screw (for example, Phillips head, and say this is the 1940s) and then suing the door manufacturer. The real violator is the screw manufacturer, not the door maker, though the filer may not have known that in the initial lawsuit since all they've seen was the in-violation door. More likely is this lawsuit may be indirectly targeting the Ethernet suppliers, either to drive them out of business or force them to pay for the patents. In the above example, the door manufacturer may be sued either to use the inventor as a supplier or to change their screws. I believe the supplier is also responsible for paying damages, which may be why they are being sued.
My guess is that because a single hardware manufacturer may use a variety of Ethernet part suppliers, it may be easier to sue the computer assemblers rather than find and sue the suppliers individually.
You're getting ahead of yourself - I seriously doubt 3Com sold the patents to USEI - 3Com, a Massachusetts based company, is more likely just using USEI to file the patent infringement suit because it is located in east Texas. My guess is they hired some dude to create a company there for the sole reason of filing a lawsuit there and will funnel most of the profits from such a venture back to themselves.
I agree - I was wondering the same thing when I read this. Apple does manufacture some of their own equipment and was an ethernet pioneer (X-wire was demo'd, and that was a version of 10Mbit ethernet if I recall correctly), but Dell certainly doesn't, and I don't believe ACER does either.
It seems strange that they're going after end equipment providers because Broadcom, NEC, or other Ethernet hardware manufacturers would make more sense - these are the companies that traditionally would pay for the patents and then pass on that expense to companies like Dell. The only reason I can think of is they anticipate those companies to settle out of court because east Texas is so notorious for favoring patent trolls. It would probably help their case if they can prove they've sent cease-and-desist letters to hardware assemblers and show intent to file suit against ethernet hardware manufacturers.
Digging a bit deeper into this, Robert Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet, did go to 3Com in the late 1970s. Not sure if he retained the initial patents, but Google says he currently has four related to Ethernet. 3Com is based in Massachusetts, so it makes sense that they would need to enlist a no name company called U.S. Ethernet Innovations based in east Texas (let me guess... filed in Marshall?) since it is easier to keep the case in east Texas if the filer is from there.
Ha - our public can't even have a Swine Flu without them think it comes from eating pork. Oh, and thanks for pushing bacon prices down - ignorance IS bliss!
Actually, I've found the latest VASIMR progress quite interesting, but that article seemed more intent on promoting Canada than feeding news. Heck, the ISS mission has been known since 2007.
A google search was also able to come up with an article with a lot more meat. This explains that the project is working towards 200MW ion rockets (MUCH more powerful than the earlier.3kW), would be powered by a cheap nuke drive instead of solar panels, and they believe it's doable by 2020. Similar info is in PopSci this month.
Now if they could just get that dense plasma fusion device (see Slashdot yesterday) to power the craft instead of fission, that would be cool... yeah, I know I'm pipe dreaming again, but I can't help it.
heh - well, the designers of IPv6 would agree with Kapersky at least on a machine level - it was designed from the ground up not only to not support NAT traversal, but also to actively block it if the default encryption (IPsec) was used (my understanding is IKE was intentionally designed to not work over NAT). When I talked to some people involved with IPv6 over IRC years ago [15?... maybe more], they insisted that no person would ever want or need NAT and the internet would be a lot safer without it. That stance must have relaxed some because eventually NAT-T (NAT tunneling) was added (which was pretty much essential when IPsec was backported to IPv4). IPv6 still frowns on NAT, but it isn't actively discouraged like it was a few years ago.
I know one person in the "minority," and she has still not had anything recovered as of 8PM CST Thursday, Oct 16 and she says she knows two other people with the same status. The kicker is she was required to get a Sidekick for her job working with deaf people (for TTY support? I don't really know, but that brand was required).
Incidentally, I' had heard MS pushed MS-SQL servers into the Danger server room, and this is bad press more for MS-SQL than MS as a whole.
yeah - technically you own a license to use the software, just like if you buy music you don't own the music - the record company (or rarely, artist) owns the music - all they did was sell you an unlimited use license and physical medium containing the copyrighted material. Of course, this sort of license gives you the right to create a backup copy by copyright law and the DMCA contradicts this and says you can't if it has copy protection... I still don't understand how the two laws can coexist - one invalidates the other.
The other nice thing about this sort of license is it gives you the right to do whatever you want with it except share the license with someone else, so MS can't really do anything about someone that, say, removes activation.
Jack T Chick is to D&D what Jack Thompson is to computer gaming. I remember finding pamphlets by his loonie followers in bathroom stalls in college (seriously!). Chick at least has an excuse - he's Baptist and they tend to be a bit...zealous..., but Thompson is a friggin Presbyterian, so he's uh, zealous by choice (zealous = loonie). And why the f*ck do they all go by Jack?...
I'm not actually surprised about free to play online games being popular because we've had that for years (Diablo, Starcraft, Guild Wars, etc). The zero cost of entry is really the big change in the past 4-5 years, following the model set in countries like Korea where microtransactions are the norm. Incidentally, even games that have an entry cost like Guild Wars have embraced microtransactions (for character slots, storage panels, unlock packs, etc) probably because their Korean parent said they had to.
I still haven't given DDO another chance - my two week trial shortly after release left me underwhelmed, mostly because of some early balance issues, bugs, and gameplay issues. I've heard its really improved, so I'd like to give it another shot, but it may have to wait until after Dragon Age, as I think I'll lose a month or so to that game (and work gets almost all of my free time right now). Incidentally some of the bugs were the same that frustrated me in Guild Wars - stuck spots where you'd get stuck on the terrain and couldn't move (both games addressed these, I'm just saying that was my major frustration - DDO also had an annoying crash bug for me, but I believe that was RAM related - I needed more).
By loose definition, maybe, but Fantasy could be by setting. I remember reading a book about thieves and no magic, but the world was not Earth. I also remember reading a sci-fi series about a thief and can't remember the name of that, either - whether it falls in sci-fi or fantasy depends entirely on setting. I'm pretty sure that many of the Thieves' World stories had little or no magic, but I haven't read them since Elementary School/Jr High, which was long ago.
Sci-fi is a bit more liberal than that, especially with Space Opera. Star Wars has sound in space, which is undeniably impossible, but it gets put with sci-fi movies, not fantasy movies. Independence Day is an action movie posing as a sci-fi movie and also will be dumped in sci-fi. Ships that big would crush anything underneath it when entering the atmosphere unless they came in very, very slow. They don't.
Where do you lump Neil Gaiman books like Neverwhere or American Gods? I generally find them under Fantasy, but they are set in the present.
I've also read books where the magic was in fact technology used in front of a primitive audience.
Cyberpunk often straddles sci-fi and hard sci-fi by your definition.
So I'd say Fantasy: Setting is current technology or older. Usually assumes the fantastic, not fact (magic, future tech, creatures).
Sci-fi: Setting is the future, often assumes the fantastic. For example, sound in space, mysterious superpowers like "the force", cyberlimbs that require no power, weapon laser weapons dispersed by dust/smoke, etc.
Hard Sci-fi: Assumes something that is true, possibly true, or unproven to not be true. Only things that are theoretically possible are allowed, though some highly unlikely things may be allowed. For example, cyberlimbs that do require power, antigravity, antimatter, nanobots, weapon lasers that burn through dust/smoke (you might get some reflection, but not much...), etc. Faster than light travel is sometimes ok in hard sci-fi, sometimes not.
Some straddle the line - for instance, the teleporters (beamers?) in Star Trek - you can't exactly disprove that it isn't possible, but it is highly unlikely. Also I imagine they'd need to synchronize the ship with the movement of the planet or the rotational velocity of the planet would kill them.
Personally, I can't outright debunk a "warp" drive, so at this time I'd say it is fine for even hard sci-fi (and some hard sci-fi settings use it). IMO, it is perfectly reasonable to be able to move further than the speed of light without going faster than the speed of light. For instance, if you use 2-space to 3-space rather than 3-space to 4-space the basic theory is easier - take a piece of paper - you want to get from one corner of the paper to another along an edge. You could follow the edge, or you could bend the paper to where the corners touch, the optimal distance (an O shape). Alternatively, you could also bend the paper part way and move through the 3-space between the gaps of paper (paper is a 'U' shape, you move across the top of the U). The big "ifs" here are if 4-space travel is possible and if the plane (paper in the example and meaning 3-space) can be bent.
So Independance [sic] Day and Armageddon aren't science fiction?
I have to pipe in here - no - they're action movies with pseudo-science. In fact, I'd say there's almost no science involved in Independence Day outside the fact that aliens might be out there and not like us. Spaceships that large will crush cities when they enter the atmosphere, not to mention the laughable plot - imagine the Wright brothers being given an fully fueled and armed F16 jet fighter - sure they know its an aircraft, and maybe they can tell it has weapons attached, but can they fly it? Fat chance. Can they attack a target with it? Even more unlikely. Since most of it can be debunked outright, it is more science fantasy.
On the other hand, the new BSG had some of the opposite issues - why is a society that can build giant spacecraft with faster than light travel not able to, say, cure cancer? How about viruses? Nope - they quarantine those. Even more laughable in my opinion was the rebellion - I just don't buy a group of people that has nearly been wiped out and is running for their life having that much infighting. BSG also has as much pseudo-science as Star Trek and Star Wars (all have FTL, artificial gravity, inertia inhibitors, space noise and flight to some extent, crappy medicine [ever notice how they never try to resuscitate anyone?], etc). Some of these may be proven as science some day, others will never be, but there are enough pseudo-science things that they definitely can't be called hard science fiction. Personally, I'd say you can't debunk some like FTL because it may be correct since there are theories on how it can be done and we've observed things moving faster than light in the universe, not to mention that faster than light may even be a misnomer - "warp" travel could be fourth dimensional movement that is actually slower than light.
lol - I really wouldn't include Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in books with meat - I didn't find the story particularly engaging and it seemed like the main storylines diverged a lot, mostly into Mercerism (a religion the film thankfully left out). That was one of the rare cases where I liked the movie (Blade Runner) far better than the book. VALIS or Ubik would be better PKD choices, IMO - those are two of his better books. If you wanted to go with the "I was totally f*cked up when I wrote this, go with the Three Stigmata one (yeah, he claims he didn't use LSD until afterward... the man generated LSD in his glands...) or WSB's Naked Lunch (who absolutely was on vast quantities of LSD). I'd probably shy away from Dune myself, not because the story is bad, but more because I found it a bit overlong.
Personally, I'd choose "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson for a cyberpunk/dystopia book over Androids - great story and doesn't feel dated like a lot of Gibson novels.
The funny thing about your list is I've read every book except Glasshouse in your Sci-fi list (for that matter, I've never heard of it) and only read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in your fantasy list (but at least know the titles). I've read every author on the fantasy list except Richard Adams - just not those books. My Fantasy and Science Fiction class in college included On a Pale Horse, which is a good example of a modern fantasy work. I personally prefer Gaiman, but that weird taxi driver section in the middle of American Gods might be a bit to graphic... Ananzi Boys would work, though (Gods was better, IMO).
Lovecraft was split between Lord Dunsany (aka Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Lord of Dunsany - always got a kick out of that name) and Poe - I can't quite remember the quote, but it was something like "there are my Dunsany pieces and my Poe pieces, but where are my Lovecraft pieces?"
Ursula LeGuin, Robert E Howard, and Michael Moorcock were also fans of Dunsany from what I remember. I personally have only read a few like The Sword of Welleran, which I had in a book of short stories also containing Lovecraft and Tolkien shorts (and some weird ones like Kafka), but it was by far my favorite story in the book. There are several more on Project Gutenberg (I know I've also read "Time and the Gods," but none of the others ring any bells). Unfortunately, The King of Elfland's Daughter is not there, so possibly still copyrighted (or not copied yet - I don't know).
Poe himself was a fan/critic of Nathaniel Hawthorne, a contemporary, particularly Twice Told Tales (a personal favorite of mine, as well). Can also be grabbed off of gutenberg, so it could be a cheap read. A particular favorite of mine is Dr Heidegger's Experiment. I've seen similarities in Hawthorne, Poe, and Lovecraft writings (and even Steven King, who is a Lovecraft fan, in some shorts), so its kind of interesting.
I think people like myself and Miguel have a very different perspective than RMS - we think that if you give to the community, the community will voluntarily give back in return. Sure not everyone will give back, and in some cases people will just take, but even those people may create something that you never would have had if you didn't create the tools in the first place.
I personally feel RMS is trolling here - and I quote:
The danger is that Microsoft is probably planning to force all free C# implementations underground some day using software patents.
Mono itself is GPL 2.0. The MS Permissive License (now the MS Public License, but its listed as the older name Permissive on the mono page) which is used for parts like ASP/.NET says, and I quote
(B) Patent Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license under its licensed patents to make, have made, use, sell, offer for sale, import, and/or otherwise dispose of its contribution in the software or derivative works of the contribution in the software.
It seems MS is making an attempt at extending the olive branch and communists (I'll get to that in a minute) like RMS are tossing it to the ground and stomping on it.
This is essentially capitalism vs socialism vs communism - communism is technically a strict form of socialism - you MUST give back to the community for the betterment of the community and everyone shares the wealth. Socialism says give back to the community for the betterment of the community (no opinion on sharing the wealth). GPL is a communist license, BSD and the MS PL are socialist licenses, and Windows, MacOS etc are capitalist licenses. Incidentally, the mono project is a mix of communism and socialism since it uses different (incompatible) licenses for different parts - some parts are GPL 2.0, others are MS PL. The fact that MS is a capitalist and open to testing the waters of communism and socialism is a huge stride IMO - a lot like the US government adopting socialized medicine. Capitalism, socialism and communism are not mutually exclusive - as I said above, you could have socialized medicine in a capitalist society or pay everyone a basic living wage in a capitalism or socialism, which is a form of communism. Personally I admit - I think communism and capitalism can work in pretty much any case, but socialism only works if the people want it to work, so defending RMS's side or MS's side is a much easier task than defending the socialist side, but I personally think socialists are happiest - they contribute because they want to, not because they have to.
(not that I think I'll ever see a dime of that money, of course, just because someone owes you money doesn't mean you can actually collect it).
Amen to that. I currently have four warrants out - three against renters and one against a landlord. Two are standing warrants for unpaid rent, one a standing warrant from 15 years ago for an un-returned damage deposit (she claimed we broke the lease - we did not - she also committed perjury by lying about not having renters immediately after we moved out [they were moving in at the same time I was moving out...], but because we won the case I didn't chase that at the time, which was stupid in hindsight). The last one not only didn't pay rent the last month, but stole the neighbor tenants rent (property is a duplex) and had stolen property in the garage. We found out later that he had been a suspect in 26 other cases of theft but they lacked enough evidence to arrest or convict - they should have something to go on now.
The sad part is of the two rental properties (both sides of a duplex), one has had perfect renters with no problems and the other has yet to have a good renter (we're hoping #5 works out, even though she was recently laid off - #1 was bad in non-financial ways I'm not going to get into). I did learn that I should always call the police from the city where a resident previously lived in addition to a background check - someone with 19 domestic calls, 26 suspected thefts, and twice suspected in assaults is probably not the best person to have as a renter, even if his rental and criminal history is officially clean (I got the impression that many if not all of the theft cases were open, too).
well I'm sure he's had his undies in a wad because Australia banned Left for Dead 2 and the US did not. For a country that was essentially a British prison colony (to non-aboriginals) for over 100 years, you'd think they would be more lax than other countries, but nope... of course, parts of the US were British prison colonies, too, but the number of people sent was vastly dwarfed by the number sent to Australia. Still, coincidence...?
Yeah - I'm waiting for the Apple retaliatory commercial joking about it - probably PC with a party hat on saying he's throwing a Windows 7 release party and the mac guy asking where all his friends are...
To an extent, but where would the world be without hobbyists? Linux, the personal computer, variable intermittent windshield wipers... all hobbyists that created inventions. A job is just a way to provide a means for doing what you love - if that means building rockets, so be it, and if that means playing WoW, so be it.
I'm not sure I completely agree with either camp - with bad design you get crap, with over engineering you show up in the market 7 years too late (and I'm sure everyone is using the OSI model vs TCP to post here right now, to give a good example - if I remember correctly, it was designed for two more years and it took 5 to get a full implementation).
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I think they're just thankful to have the service at all - I recall many of the monopolies in Minnesota are not terribly competitive. You have Comcast, the cable monopoly that aggressively goes after the high speed network market and offers high priced TV packages (compared to satellite) and anyone that uses the Qwest or Covad backbones and neither of those providers sees any reason to keep up with Comcast. Nearly everyone I know in Minnesota uses Comcast for high speed internet, and last time I checked Broadband Reports it was the cheapest and fastest overall (but from experience I know that is iffy and their TV packages are much worse than competing satellite).
And since when is Montecello a suburb of Minneapolis? Its like more than half way to St Cloud. In fact, I used to meet my boss there when I lived near the University of Minnesota and telecommuted to his business in St Cloud.
The TSA was OK with me emptying and bringing empty bottles through security and filling them in the fountain before getting on the plane - they don't really have any clear guideline on that, so it may vary by location. I usually look for the larger refrigerated water fountains because they almost always are filtered. You also can buy bottles in the airport after clearing security, though the last time I did that the big bottles (smaller than a liter) were $4.95 each - the same price as the liter beers I was drinking at the bar.
From an application standpoint this may be meh, but I use them on mac mainly when I build libraries, and I'd expect the same thing on Linux. In the Apple case, lipo can be used to build and strip architectures from universal binaries - in fact, it often HAS to be used to build OSS projects because autotools uses macros and the -arch command is not valid when certain macros are used (because they depend on architecture and make the build ambiguous if I recall correctly). Basically build twice, once for each architecture, then lipo merge, and done. Use the lipo architecture removal command after an install and you can reclaim space. I've actually built with 3 architectures before - ppc, i386, and x86_64. There also is ppc64 (or something like that) but I never managed to get that to cross-compile.
In the case where BOTH architectures exist on the system you could build a library that supports both and anyone interfacing with that library would get the architecture of choice (for example x86 or x86_64) - it's win-win for a library developer - you maintain backwards compatibility with the old architecture and gain forward compatibility with the new architecture. Linux also has been ported to all sorts of architectures, so such a thing may be very important for a chip you may not have even heard of.
They would need about 40 pages to even scratch the surface, not 5. Heck, I'd add Civilization, TIE Fighter, Wing Commander, Alone in the Dark, Spaceward Ho! (originally mac, but exists on PC now), Elite, Escape Velocity, the Total War games, and Diablo and that doesn't even scratch the surface of my list.
They're more discussing graphics and gameplay trends. Incidentally, I've never played X-Com but I heard it was great. I bought it and installed it, but it crashed on start so I returned it. X-Com and Daggerfall didn't like my computer for some reason.
I wouldn't say Pathways had an outstanding plot - it had more of a plot than many shooters of the era, but RPGs like Ultima Underworld preceded it and also featured a plot (admittedly, I don't know a whole lot about the plot because I didn't have a PC capable of playing it [had a mac and a 386], but I did play it a few times at a friend's house). Also note that Id decided plot didn't matter even before Wolf 3D - Catacomb 3D had no plot, either and it predates Wolf. It even had sequels, but I never played them or even heard about them until I looked it up. Whether plot matters or not is debatable - I love The Longest Journey, but I also love Diablo 2. Diablo 2 isn't exactly on top of my list plot-wise.
Most PC gamers didn't play Pathways or Marathon even though Marathon 2 also came out on PC. Marathon 2 and Rise of the Triad came out around the same time, and both had in-game chat - remember that? Which came first is debatable - RotT technically was first, but only the Shareware part - the commercial release was after M2.
As far as shooters go, Pathways was bad - very easy for FPS junkies. I admit, I had a hard time with it the first time I played it because it was the second shooter I'd ever played and I hadn't played much of the first one (Catacomb 3D, incidentally), but when I went back a few years later it was a snap. The only real problem I had was it made me nauseous after a couple of hours play like most early shooters (Duke 3D was the worst, followed by Half Life - wasn't able to complete either of those, but even some modern shooters like Half Life 2 make me sick... but Catacomb and Wolf 3D didn't, none of the Unreal Tournaments do, and Rise of the Triad wasn't bad, so it's hit and miss...).
Anyhow, those guys couldn't spell Cthulhu (two h's, not one), so my respect is gone ;)
Of course, D&D evil is rather dubious, at least now - it originally meant you're the type that eats babies, drowns mothers, rapes, pillages, etc. but they changed it so self-centered, greedy people are also 'evil.' Playing a greedy person or someone with a "me first" attitude can be fun, especially in a party of like minded people. I haven't played many games of D&D like that but I'd say all players of Paranoia would be evil in D&D terms and that game is a blast.
hmm... that doesn't make a lot of sense, either... its like suing a door manufacturer for using a non-licensed patented screw (for example, Phillips head, and say this is the 1940s) and then suing the door manufacturer. The real violator is the screw manufacturer, not the door maker, though the filer may not have known that in the initial lawsuit since all they've seen was the in-violation door. More likely is this lawsuit may be indirectly targeting the Ethernet suppliers, either to drive them out of business or force them to pay for the patents. In the above example, the door manufacturer may be sued either to use the inventor as a supplier or to change their screws. I believe the supplier is also responsible for paying damages, which may be why they are being sued.
My guess is that because a single hardware manufacturer may use a variety of Ethernet part suppliers, it may be easier to sue the computer assemblers rather than find and sue the suppliers individually.
You're getting ahead of yourself - I seriously doubt 3Com sold the patents to USEI - 3Com, a Massachusetts based company, is more likely just using USEI to file the patent infringement suit because it is located in east Texas. My guess is they hired some dude to create a company there for the sole reason of filing a lawsuit there and will funnel most of the profits from such a venture back to themselves.
I agree - I was wondering the same thing when I read this. Apple does manufacture some of their own equipment and was an ethernet pioneer (X-wire was demo'd, and that was a version of 10Mbit ethernet if I recall correctly), but Dell certainly doesn't, and I don't believe ACER does either.
It seems strange that they're going after end equipment providers because Broadcom, NEC, or other Ethernet hardware manufacturers would make more sense - these are the companies that traditionally would pay for the patents and then pass on that expense to companies like Dell. The only reason I can think of is they anticipate those companies to settle out of court because east Texas is so notorious for favoring patent trolls. It would probably help their case if they can prove they've sent cease-and-desist letters to hardware assemblers and show intent to file suit against ethernet hardware manufacturers.
Digging a bit deeper into this, Robert Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet, did go to 3Com in the late 1970s. Not sure if he retained the initial patents, but Google says he currently has four related to Ethernet. 3Com is based in Massachusetts, so it makes sense that they would need to enlist a no name company called U.S. Ethernet Innovations based in east Texas (let me guess... filed in Marshall?) since it is easier to keep the case in east Texas if the filer is from there.
Ha - our public can't even have a Swine Flu without them think it comes from eating pork. Oh, and thanks for pushing bacon prices down - ignorance IS bliss!
Actually, I've found the latest VASIMR progress quite interesting, but that article seemed more intent on promoting Canada than feeding news. Heck, the ISS mission has been known since 2007.
A google search was also able to come up with an article with a lot more meat. This explains that the project is working towards 200MW ion rockets (MUCH more powerful than the earlier .3kW), would be powered by a cheap nuke drive instead of solar panels, and they believe it's doable by 2020. Similar info is in PopSci this month.
Now if they could just get that dense plasma fusion device (see Slashdot yesterday) to power the craft instead of fission, that would be cool... yeah, I know I'm pipe dreaming again, but I can't help it.
heh - well, the designers of IPv6 would agree with Kapersky at least on a machine level - it was designed from the ground up not only to not support NAT traversal, but also to actively block it if the default encryption (IPsec) was used (my understanding is IKE was intentionally designed to not work over NAT). When I talked to some people involved with IPv6 over IRC years ago [15?... maybe more], they insisted that no person would ever want or need NAT and the internet would be a lot safer without it. That stance must have relaxed some because eventually NAT-T (NAT tunneling) was added (which was pretty much essential when IPsec was backported to IPv4). IPv6 still frowns on NAT, but it isn't actively discouraged like it was a few years ago.
I know one person in the "minority," and she has still not had anything recovered as of 8PM CST Thursday, Oct 16 and she says she knows two other people with the same status. The kicker is she was required to get a Sidekick for her job working with deaf people (for TTY support? I don't really know, but that brand was required).
Incidentally, I' had heard MS pushed MS-SQL servers into the Danger server room, and this is bad press more for MS-SQL than MS as a whole.
yeah - technically you own a license to use the software, just like if you buy music you don't own the music - the record company (or rarely, artist) owns the music - all they did was sell you an unlimited use license and physical medium containing the copyrighted material. Of course, this sort of license gives you the right to create a backup copy by copyright law and the DMCA contradicts this and says you can't if it has copy protection... I still don't understand how the two laws can coexist - one invalidates the other.
The other nice thing about this sort of license is it gives you the right to do whatever you want with it except share the license with someone else, so MS can't really do anything about someone that, say, removes activation.
ugh, not him again.
Jack T Chick is to D&D what Jack Thompson is to computer gaming. I remember finding pamphlets by his loonie followers in bathroom stalls in college (seriously!). Chick at least has an excuse - he's Baptist and they tend to be a bit...zealous..., but Thompson is a friggin Presbyterian, so he's uh, zealous by choice (zealous = loonie). And why the f*ck do they all go by Jack?...
I'm not actually surprised about free to play online games being popular because we've had that for years (Diablo, Starcraft, Guild Wars, etc). The zero cost of entry is really the big change in the past 4-5 years, following the model set in countries like Korea where microtransactions are the norm. Incidentally, even games that have an entry cost like Guild Wars have embraced microtransactions (for character slots, storage panels, unlock packs, etc) probably because their Korean parent said they had to.
I still haven't given DDO another chance - my two week trial shortly after release left me underwhelmed, mostly because of some early balance issues, bugs, and gameplay issues. I've heard its really improved, so I'd like to give it another shot, but it may have to wait until after Dragon Age, as I think I'll lose a month or so to that game (and work gets almost all of my free time right now). Incidentally some of the bugs were the same that frustrated me in Guild Wars - stuck spots where you'd get stuck on the terrain and couldn't move (both games addressed these, I'm just saying that was my major frustration - DDO also had an annoying crash bug for me, but I believe that was RAM related - I needed more).
By loose definition, maybe, but Fantasy could be by setting. I remember reading a book about thieves and no magic, but the world was not Earth. I also remember reading a sci-fi series about a thief and can't remember the name of that, either - whether it falls in sci-fi or fantasy depends entirely on setting. I'm pretty sure that many of the Thieves' World stories had little or no magic, but I haven't read them since Elementary School/Jr High, which was long ago.
Sci-fi is a bit more liberal than that, especially with Space Opera. Star Wars has sound in space, which is undeniably impossible, but it gets put with sci-fi movies, not fantasy movies. Independence Day is an action movie posing as a sci-fi movie and also will be dumped in sci-fi. Ships that big would crush anything underneath it when entering the atmosphere unless they came in very, very slow. They don't.
Where do you lump Neil Gaiman books like Neverwhere or American Gods? I generally find them under Fantasy, but they are set in the present.
I've also read books where the magic was in fact technology used in front of a primitive audience.
Cyberpunk often straddles sci-fi and hard sci-fi by your definition.
So I'd say
Fantasy: Setting is current technology or older. Usually assumes the fantastic, not fact (magic, future tech, creatures).
Sci-fi: Setting is the future, often assumes the fantastic. For example, sound in space, mysterious superpowers like "the force", cyberlimbs that require no power, weapon laser weapons dispersed by dust/smoke, etc.
Hard Sci-fi: Assumes something that is true, possibly true, or unproven to not be true. Only things that are theoretically possible are allowed, though some highly unlikely things may be allowed. For example, cyberlimbs that do require power, antigravity, antimatter, nanobots, weapon lasers that burn through dust/smoke (you might get some reflection, but not much...), etc. Faster than light travel is sometimes ok in hard sci-fi, sometimes not.
Some straddle the line - for instance, the teleporters (beamers?) in Star Trek - you can't exactly disprove that it isn't possible, but it is highly unlikely. Also I imagine they'd need to synchronize the ship with the movement of the planet or the rotational velocity of the planet would kill them.
Personally, I can't outright debunk a "warp" drive, so at this time I'd say it is fine for even hard sci-fi (and some hard sci-fi settings use it). IMO, it is perfectly reasonable to be able to move further than the speed of light without going faster than the speed of light. For instance, if you use 2-space to 3-space rather than 3-space to 4-space the basic theory is easier - take a piece of paper - you want to get from one corner of the paper to another along an edge. You could follow the edge, or you could bend the paper to where the corners touch, the optimal distance (an O shape). Alternatively, you could also bend the paper part way and move through the 3-space between the gaps of paper (paper is a 'U' shape, you move across the top of the U). The big "ifs" here are if 4-space travel is possible and if the plane (paper in the example and meaning 3-space) can be bent.
I have to pipe in here - no - they're action movies with pseudo-science. In fact, I'd say there's almost no science involved in Independence Day outside the fact that aliens might be out there and not like us. Spaceships that large will crush cities when they enter the atmosphere, not to mention the laughable plot - imagine the Wright brothers being given an fully fueled and armed F16 jet fighter - sure they know its an aircraft, and maybe they can tell it has weapons attached, but can they fly it? Fat chance. Can they attack a target with it? Even more unlikely. Since most of it can be debunked outright, it is more science fantasy.
On the other hand, the new BSG had some of the opposite issues - why is a society that can build giant spacecraft with faster than light travel not able to, say, cure cancer? How about viruses? Nope - they quarantine those. Even more laughable in my opinion was the rebellion - I just don't buy a group of people that has nearly been wiped out and is running for their life having that much infighting. BSG also has as much pseudo-science as Star Trek and Star Wars (all have FTL, artificial gravity, inertia inhibitors, space noise and flight to some extent, crappy medicine [ever notice how they never try to resuscitate anyone?], etc). Some of these may be proven as science some day, others will never be, but there are enough pseudo-science things that they definitely can't be called hard science fiction. Personally, I'd say you can't debunk some like FTL because it may be correct since there are theories on how it can be done and we've observed things moving faster than light in the universe, not to mention that faster than light may even be a misnomer - "warp" travel could be fourth dimensional movement that is actually slower than light.
lol - I really wouldn't include Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in books with meat - I didn't find the story particularly engaging and it seemed like the main storylines diverged a lot, mostly into Mercerism (a religion the film thankfully left out). That was one of the rare cases where I liked the movie (Blade Runner) far better than the book. VALIS or Ubik would be better PKD choices, IMO - those are two of his better books. If you wanted to go with the "I was totally f*cked up when I wrote this, go with the Three Stigmata one (yeah, he claims he didn't use LSD until afterward... the man generated LSD in his glands...) or WSB's Naked Lunch (who absolutely was on vast quantities of LSD). I'd probably shy away from Dune myself, not because the story is bad, but more because I found it a bit overlong.
Personally, I'd choose "The Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson for a cyberpunk/dystopia book over Androids - great story and doesn't feel dated like a lot of Gibson novels.
The funny thing about your list is I've read every book except Glasshouse in your Sci-fi list (for that matter, I've never heard of it) and only read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in your fantasy list (but at least know the titles). I've read every author on the fantasy list except Richard Adams - just not those books. My Fantasy and Science Fiction class in college included On a Pale Horse, which is a good example of a modern fantasy work. I personally prefer Gaiman, but that weird taxi driver section in the middle of American Gods might be a bit to graphic... Ananzi Boys would work, though (Gods was better, IMO).
Lovecraft was split between Lord Dunsany (aka Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Lord of Dunsany - always got a kick out of that name) and Poe - I can't quite remember the quote, but it was something like "there are my Dunsany pieces and my Poe pieces, but where are my Lovecraft pieces?"
Ursula LeGuin, Robert E Howard, and Michael Moorcock were also fans of Dunsany from what I remember. I personally have only read a few like The Sword of Welleran, which I had in a book of short stories also containing Lovecraft and Tolkien shorts (and some weird ones like Kafka), but it was by far my favorite story in the book. There are several more on Project Gutenberg (I know I've also read "Time and the Gods," but none of the others ring any bells). Unfortunately, The King of Elfland's Daughter is not there, so possibly still copyrighted (or not copied yet - I don't know).
Poe himself was a fan/critic of Nathaniel Hawthorne, a contemporary, particularly Twice Told Tales (a personal favorite of mine, as well). Can also be grabbed off of gutenberg, so it could be a cheap read. A particular favorite of mine is Dr Heidegger's Experiment. I've seen similarities in Hawthorne, Poe, and Lovecraft writings (and even Steven King, who is a Lovecraft fan, in some shorts), so its kind of interesting.
I think people like myself and Miguel have a very different perspective than RMS - we think that if you give to the community, the community will voluntarily give back in return. Sure not everyone will give back, and in some cases people will just take, but even those people may create something that you never would have had if you didn't create the tools in the first place.
I personally feel RMS is trolling here - and I quote:
Mono itself is GPL 2.0. The MS Permissive License (now the MS Public License, but its listed as the older name Permissive on the mono page) which is used for parts like ASP/.NET says, and I quote
It seems MS is making an attempt at extending the olive branch and communists (I'll get to that in a minute) like RMS are tossing it to the ground and stomping on it.
This is essentially capitalism vs socialism vs communism - communism is technically a strict form of socialism - you MUST give back to the community for the betterment of the community and everyone shares the wealth. Socialism says give back to the community for the betterment of the community (no opinion on sharing the wealth). GPL is a communist license, BSD and the MS PL are socialist licenses, and Windows, MacOS etc are capitalist licenses. Incidentally, the mono project is a mix of communism and socialism since it uses different (incompatible) licenses for different parts - some parts are GPL 2.0, others are MS PL. The fact that MS is a capitalist and open to testing the waters of communism and socialism is a huge stride IMO - a lot like the US government adopting socialized medicine. Capitalism, socialism and communism are not mutually exclusive - as I said above, you could have socialized medicine in a capitalist society or pay everyone a basic living wage in a capitalism or socialism, which is a form of communism. Personally I admit - I think communism and capitalism can work in pretty much any case, but socialism only works if the people want it to work, so defending RMS's side or MS's side is a much easier task than defending the socialist side, but I personally think socialists are happiest - they contribute because they want to, not because they have to.
(not that I think I'll ever see a dime of that money, of course, just because someone owes you money doesn't mean you can actually collect it).
Amen to that. I currently have four warrants out - three against renters and one against a landlord. Two are standing warrants for unpaid rent, one a standing warrant from 15 years ago for an un-returned damage deposit (she claimed we broke the lease - we did not - she also committed perjury by lying about not having renters immediately after we moved out [they were moving in at the same time I was moving out...], but because we won the case I didn't chase that at the time, which was stupid in hindsight). The last one not only didn't pay rent the last month, but stole the neighbor tenants rent (property is a duplex) and had stolen property in the garage. We found out later that he had been a suspect in 26 other cases of theft but they lacked enough evidence to arrest or convict - they should have something to go on now.
The sad part is of the two rental properties (both sides of a duplex), one has had perfect renters with no problems and the other has yet to have a good renter (we're hoping #5 works out, even though she was recently laid off - #1 was bad in non-financial ways I'm not going to get into). I did learn that I should always call the police from the city where a resident previously lived in addition to a background check - someone with 19 domestic calls, 26 suspected thefts, and twice suspected in assaults is probably not the best person to have as a renter, even if his rental and criminal history is officially clean (I got the impression that many if not all of the theft cases were open, too).
well I'm sure he's had his undies in a wad because Australia banned Left for Dead 2 and the US did not. For a country that was essentially a British prison colony (to non-aboriginals) for over 100 years, you'd think they would be more lax than other countries, but nope... of course, parts of the US were British prison colonies, too, but the number of people sent was vastly dwarfed by the number sent to Australia. Still, coincidence...?
Yeah - I'm waiting for the Apple retaliatory commercial joking about it - probably PC with a party hat on saying he's throwing a Windows 7 release party and the mac guy asking where all his friends are...
To an extent, but where would the world be without hobbyists? Linux, the personal computer, variable intermittent windshield wipers... all hobbyists that created inventions. A job is just a way to provide a means for doing what you love - if that means building rockets, so be it, and if that means playing WoW, so be it.
I'm not sure I completely agree with either camp - with bad design you get crap, with over engineering you show up in the market 7 years too late (and I'm sure everyone is using the OSI model vs TCP to post here right now, to give a good example - if I remember correctly, it was designed for two more years and it took 5 to get a full implementation).