I thought the "I, Robot" movie was actually a good attempt to condense Asimov's stories into a single story. The movie captured all the "significant" angles of the stories while weaving a single plot through it. However, I did wait a long time before seeing the movie, because I was uncertain they could have really pulled it off. The one thing the movie lacked was that Asimov was pretty much a super-nerd-genius, and it shows in his novels, which isn't always good for typical movie audiences (e.g., the whole awkward scientist romance thing).
"Which means a film would be excellent as (assuming is has a good director and cast and budget) it's a great story and the money would not go to waste."
Will this be another Hollywood movie where the giant worms eat peoples' brains?
IMO, it's more than that. I've been to a movie theatre only a few times in as many years, and it never fails that there is some obnoxious person kicking my chair or talking or, once, making rude noises during the movie. There is no common courtesy observed at theatres, these days. And let's not even mention cell phones (oops).
Add that on top of going to a movie being as expensive as a nice dinner for two, well of course pirates with camcorders are to blame!
Yeah, I wish I understood how inflation rates are calculated. Heating costs have doubled for many people in the last several years--that's hundreds of dollars a year. My health insurance went up about 10% this year--again, potentially hundreds per year. My mortgage escrow also went up about 10% (taxes and insurance). Yet, the newscasts still say inflation is amost non-existent. I suspect that inflation is much much higher for some people, and the average must work out fairly low.
"Work honestly and sincerely and do your best. In the end if u dont get the recognition u expected, move on..."
I'm not an economist, but my gut feeling is that it is getting harder and harder for people to move on. Of course, there's always jobs available as a cashier somewhere, but that isn't supposed to be rewarding for a four-year degree or years of experience. Or, is it?
I'm not an MBA, either, but it seems that MBA schools must not include "morale" anywhere in their curriculums. Time and time again, when management decides to "restructure", morale drops to about zero, especially after all the cuts the executives still get to escape to their championship golf courses and gated communities.
I don't think this is an issue of slavery or religion. People need to realize that software isn't handed down from heaven and that RMS isn't some sort of divine prophet! What DRM will most likely do is remind people they can do without the cheesy movies and music they've been buying lately. It is unlikely that this will cause some new Dark Ages, because people will very quickly realize how confining DRM is in an "information society". It could even drive people, whether they realize it or not, to use sources like Wikipedia over DRM-o-pedia, and, when DRM starts making a real dent in their pocket books, people also may be driven more towards open source desktops. I suspect that older DVDs and audio/data CDs will have absolutely tremendous staying power, because HDTV/HDCP/blahblahblah is confusing the hell out of everyone.
I browse the web with a somewhat upgraded 8 year old PC. The primary issues are RAM, sometimes, and that many Flash websites seem to require a quad core Opteron to run properly. New embedded CPUs are much faster than this PC, and RAM is not expensive. $100 might be achievable, with very thin margins and high volume, if open source software like Linux/BSD/OpenSolaris, Firefox, OO.org, etc. are used.
However, looking at credit cards and current consumer debt levels, people will probably just get the $500 smart phone or whatever.
That's the new BSOD feature. The screen physically slides off and melts into a pile of goo on the floor. The box comes with five BSOD replacement kits, with the BSODs timed to have the kits run out right after the warranty expires.
I agree with that. Adopting all sorts of new gadgets can result in immature device drivers and other incompatibilities that are unanticipated when the purchase order goes through. Mainly, I prefer a nice solid workstation desktop, even if it isn't a 400THz Pentium 5000.
IT budgets are often backwards and upsidedown. I've seen expensive software developers given the crappiest white-box PCs served by the flakiest Windows network, and they waste hours during network outages or service outages or virus scans where they simply cannot get work done beyond reading a book or talking at the coffee pot. There is no accounting for this lost productivity! The PHBs still think they save money on the crappy PCs!
It's really quite amazing that businesses can operate this way.
Sun's MAJC processor was dual core VLIW and was around in the late 1990s, but I don't think that CPU saw much action outside of some graphics cards. It looks like Power 4 went dual core around 2000. Regardless, multi-core CPUs have been around nearly, if not longer than, 10 years, so neither AMD nor Intel are even close in 'innovating' this technology as portrayed in the article summary.
I've generally been a believer in static analysis tools. I remember using lint quite a bit of code back in the day and remember it not only finding basic syntax errors, but it educated me more about the code itself and even found some bizarre bugs that normal peer reviews would not have found. The code was better for it, even if it took days to really get through all the analysis output and do something about it.
My fuel cell laptop is powered remotely by the gaseous isobar differentials of Uranus, which drastically reduces burn risks compared to traditional power sources.
Actually, while there are many examples of abuse by unions, it seems there are industries where unions might actually still be useful. For example, health care workers are beginning to pay the price for the Big Healthcare Crunch that is building up. While hospital CEOs get their six figures, the people who make sure you get the right blood, right now, are getting the squeeze.
"an easy brand to look for if you're a busy yuppy with no desire to study reviews and compare prices all day."
I thought being a yuppie also meant a mandatory subscription to Crutchfield catalogs (it's part of the Yuppie Code). Of course, I suppose there are wannabe yuppies, who don't get these catalogs, but it seems terribly terribly sad for anyone to have such a goal in life.
I haven't seen much of Penn & Teller, but on TV a while ago they had a trick where one of them would "catch" a bullet fired out of a hand gun, complete with a hole in a sheet of plastic. I was very impressed by it, but, then again, I don't watch many magic shows, so who knows. A much better contest prize would be to be the stand-in for catching the bullet! Or, perhaps not.
"The more expensive brands just have bigger margins."
Not always. One thing I read about not too long ago was an accusation that China dumped these "small brands" into western markets, thereby gutting the western electronics industry. The report said that Chinese electronics _retail_ at prices cheaper than the western factories could _manufacture_ them. There is something like one TV factory left in the USA, IIRC, where there were several as recent as a few years ago. I don't know details, so this remains an *accusation*.
Generally, I am not anti-globalist at all, but I wonder about the rate of globalization, where, in a matter of a few years (a blip in history), the entire manufacturing landscape has been drastically changed. I would feel more comfortable if people could at least develop something resembling a career before their training/degree is made obselete and irrelevant to their next career. It seems some technical degrees are good for a couple years at best--no time for ROI on tuition and loans.
"like the toilet paper, which has a tendency for structural weakness that isn't very hygenic."
The paper that shreds off does so by design and is called a "Post Event Re-Absorbtion Layer" that provides much needed moisure control throughout the day.
Video games are all well and good, but, when they are our entertainment (good ol' fashion games), our living (MMORPG economies), our excersize (DDR), our significant others (video porn), our pets (robot dogs), and our education (games in schools), where do we draw the line? Virtual friends? Virtual parents?
There is this culture developing around video games that seeks to virtualize every aspect of real life. If real life sucks so much, why even go to that effort? You'll probably find that the things that suck in the real world end up sucking in the virtual one, too.
In a hundred years or so, God will probably send down a virtual prophet to reel in yet another round of (now virtualized) decadence. In that prophesy, people will wonder if there is life after a power cycle.
I live in a rural area, and it was fun to see the actual roads in the pictures next to the roads plotted by Google. The plotted routes might be navigable by Humvee...maybe.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought the "I, Robot" movie was actually a good attempt to condense Asimov's stories into a single story. The movie captured all the "significant" angles of the stories while weaving a single plot through it. However, I did wait a long time before seeing the movie, because I was uncertain they could have really pulled it off. The one thing the movie lacked was that Asimov was pretty much a super-nerd-genius, and it shows in his novels, which isn't always good for typical movie audiences (e.g., the whole awkward scientist romance thing).
"Which means a film would be excellent as (assuming is has a good director and cast and budget) it's a great story and the money would not go to waste."
Will this be another Hollywood movie where the giant worms eat peoples' brains?
IMO, it's more than that. I've been to a movie theatre only a few times in as many years, and it never fails that there is some obnoxious person kicking my chair or talking or, once, making rude noises during the movie. There is no common courtesy observed at theatres, these days. And let's not even mention cell phones (oops).
Add that on top of going to a movie being as expensive as a nice dinner for two, well of course pirates with camcorders are to blame!
Yeah, I wish I understood how inflation rates are calculated. Heating costs have doubled for many people in the last several years--that's hundreds of dollars a year. My health insurance went up about 10% this year--again, potentially hundreds per year. My mortgage escrow also went up about 10% (taxes and insurance). Yet, the newscasts still say inflation is amost non-existent. I suspect that inflation is much much higher for some people, and the average must work out fairly low.
"Work honestly and sincerely and do your best. In the end if u dont get the recognition u expected, move on..."
I'm not an economist, but my gut feeling is that it is getting harder and harder for people to move on. Of course, there's always jobs available as a cashier somewhere, but that isn't supposed to be rewarding for a four-year degree or years of experience. Or, is it?
I'm not an MBA, either, but it seems that MBA schools must not include "morale" anywhere in their curriculums. Time and time again, when management decides to "restructure", morale drops to about zero, especially after all the cuts the executives still get to escape to their championship golf courses and gated communities.
I don't think this is an issue of slavery or religion. People need to realize that software isn't handed down from heaven and that RMS isn't some sort of divine prophet! What DRM will most likely do is remind people they can do without the cheesy movies and music they've been buying lately. It is unlikely that this will cause some new Dark Ages, because people will very quickly realize how confining DRM is in an "information society". It could even drive people, whether they realize it or not, to use sources like Wikipedia over DRM-o-pedia, and, when DRM starts making a real dent in their pocket books, people also may be driven more towards open source desktops. I suspect that older DVDs and audio/data CDs will have absolutely tremendous staying power, because HDTV/HDCP/blahblahblah is confusing the hell out of everyone.
I browse the web with a somewhat upgraded 8 year old PC. The primary issues are RAM, sometimes, and that many Flash websites seem to require a quad core Opteron to run properly. New embedded CPUs are much faster than this PC, and RAM is not expensive. $100 might be achievable, with very thin margins and high volume, if open source software like Linux/BSD/OpenSolaris, Firefox, OO.org, etc. are used.
However, looking at credit cards and current consumer debt levels, people will probably just get the $500 smart phone or whatever.
That's the new BSOD feature. The screen physically slides off and melts into a pile of goo on the floor. The box comes with five BSOD replacement kits, with the BSODs timed to have the kits run out right after the warranty expires.
Nice, but what all Slashdotters really want to know is the temperature of Natalie Portman's grits!
"is asking for tentacles too much?"
Well, wouldn't finding that the hot female lead character has a tentacle kind of spoil the mood?
Yes, by the end of VIII, I wasn't sure what purpose the summons had, besides employing graphics animators somewhere.
I agree with that. Adopting all sorts of new gadgets can result in immature device drivers and other incompatibilities that are unanticipated when the purchase order goes through. Mainly, I prefer a nice solid workstation desktop, even if it isn't a 400THz Pentium 5000.
IT budgets are often backwards and upsidedown. I've seen expensive software developers given the crappiest white-box PCs served by the flakiest Windows network, and they waste hours during network outages or service outages or virus scans where they simply cannot get work done beyond reading a book or talking at the coffee pot. There is no accounting for this lost productivity! The PHBs still think they save money on the crappy PCs!
It's really quite amazing that businesses can operate this way.
Sun's MAJC processor was dual core VLIW and was around in the late 1990s, but I don't think that CPU saw much action outside of some graphics cards. It looks like Power 4 went dual core around 2000. Regardless, multi-core CPUs have been around nearly, if not longer than, 10 years, so neither AMD nor Intel are even close in 'innovating' this technology as portrayed in the article summary.
I've generally been a believer in static analysis tools. I remember using lint quite a bit of code back in the day and remember it not only finding basic syntax errors, but it educated me more about the code itself and even found some bizarre bugs that normal peer reviews would not have found. The code was better for it, even if it took days to really get through all the analysis output and do something about it.
My fuel cell laptop is powered remotely by the gaseous isobar differentials of Uranus, which drastically reduces burn risks compared to traditional power sources.
Actually, while there are many examples of abuse by unions, it seems there are industries where unions might actually still be useful. For example, health care workers are beginning to pay the price for the Big Healthcare Crunch that is building up. While hospital CEOs get their six figures, the people who make sure you get the right blood, right now, are getting the squeeze.
"an easy brand to look for if you're a busy yuppy with no desire to study reviews and compare prices all day."
I thought being a yuppie also meant a mandatory subscription to Crutchfield catalogs (it's part of the Yuppie Code). Of course, I suppose there are wannabe yuppies, who don't get these catalogs, but it seems terribly terribly sad for anyone to have such a goal in life.
Right, because NASA has already solved the 10,000 body equation that was needed to precisely pinpoint where the asteroid will be in roughly 100 years.
Well, perhaps they just found a use for all those Itaniums, besides driving the steam plant for heating all their buildings?
I haven't seen much of Penn & Teller, but on TV a while ago they had a trick where one of them would "catch" a bullet fired out of a hand gun, complete with a hole in a sheet of plastic. I was very impressed by it, but, then again, I don't watch many magic shows, so who knows. A much better contest prize would be to be the stand-in for catching the bullet! Or, perhaps not.
"The more expensive brands just have bigger margins."
Not always. One thing I read about not too long ago was an accusation that China dumped these "small brands" into western markets, thereby gutting the western electronics industry. The report said that Chinese electronics _retail_ at prices cheaper than the western factories could _manufacture_ them. There is something like one TV factory left in the USA, IIRC, where there were several as recent as a few years ago. I don't know details, so this remains an *accusation*.
Generally, I am not anti-globalist at all, but I wonder about the rate of globalization, where, in a matter of a few years (a blip in history), the entire manufacturing landscape has been drastically changed. I would feel more comfortable if people could at least develop something resembling a career before their training/degree is made obselete and irrelevant to their next career. It seems some technical degrees are good for a couple years at best--no time for ROI on tuition and loans.
"like the toilet paper, which has a tendency for structural weakness that isn't very hygenic."
The paper that shreds off does so by design and is called a "Post Event Re-Absorbtion Layer" that provides much needed moisure control throughout the day.
Video games are all well and good, but, when they are our entertainment (good ol' fashion games), our living (MMORPG economies), our excersize (DDR), our significant others (video porn), our pets (robot dogs), and our education (games in schools), where do we draw the line? Virtual friends? Virtual parents?
There is this culture developing around video games that seeks to virtualize every aspect of real life. If real life sucks so much, why even go to that effort? You'll probably find that the things that suck in the real world end up sucking in the virtual one, too.
In a hundred years or so, God will probably send down a virtual prophet to reel in yet another round of (now virtualized) decadence. In that prophesy, people will wonder if there is life after a power cycle.
I live in a rural area, and it was fun to see the actual roads in the pictures next to the roads plotted by Google. The plotted routes might be navigable by Humvee...maybe.
Sure, but the death ray will require so much bandwidth that targets will have plenty of time to move into the next block of pixels.