I'm thinking at least an argument over whether it'd be a good idea to grapple someone... And maybe a scene where 5 people take 5 minutes getting ready to open a door...
I think Sir Terry would approve of how this thread turned to a discussion of the finer details of critics reviewing books on the backsides of others. This discussion almost certainly belongs in a Discworld novel.
Adam and No Eve: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Bester#Notable_short_stories [wikipedia.org] Guy invents a rocket powered by a catalyst that causing fission in elemental iron. During takeoff, as warned, a bit must have leaked and it causes a chain reaction that wipes out all life on earth. Post-crash landing he is dying, but drags himself to the ocean, continually fending off his dog which went with him in the rocket, and is now trying to eat him because there is no food. He dies there so the bacteria within him can be reestablished in the ocean and maybe start life over again.
Also No, No, Not Rogov! is a story I always enjoy re-reading, despite the sad ending. It's not world ending, or anything like that, but it's just a mournful short story.
Fall back to 1941, Alfred Bester: Adam and No Eve:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Bester#Notable_short_stories
Guy invents a rocket powered by a catalyst that causing fission in elemental iron. During takeoff, as warned, a bit must have leaked and it causes a chain reaction that wipes out all life on earth. Post-crash landing he is dying, but drags himself to the ocean, continually fending off his dog which went with him in the rocket, and is now trying to eat him because there is no food. He dies there so the bacteria within him can be reestablished in the ocean and maybe start life over again.
Short stories:
Unfortunately, you'll find it is hard to get many short stories together that you want to use without picking a random anthology. Otherwise you'll be hunting all over for books. Instead I would really suggest that you get "The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One" a short story collection used by many SF classes. It actually includes several of the stories and authors I've already listed. See it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Science_Fiction_Hall_of_Fame_Volume_One,_1929-1964
Classic Novels:
- Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination : IMHO the best book ever. I reread it every year or so. Read the wikipedia page about it.
- Walter Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz : an excellent example nuclear apocalypse leading into cyclical history. (also refer to The Mote in God's Eye for the same theme and it's impact on an alien race after hundreds of repeats of nuclear war)
- A.E. Van Vogt, The Weapon Shops of Isher : a large conglomeration of gun rights supporters vs an empire. One quote was "The right to own weapons is the right to be free". Interestingly Van Vogt's writings later led to what became scientology. [note, I've just looked at the sf hall of fame book I mentioned and the short story version of this is included]
- Pohl / Kornbluth, The Space Merchants : an excellent treatment of the possibilities of capitalism + advertising taken to their extreme in an overpopulated world.
- Asimov, The Caves of Steel : A detective story featuring an overpopulated Earth, fear of robots replacing human jobs, and agoraphobia on the new planets that are minimally settled.
- The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two : this includes several other still applicable novellas such as "The Marching Morons" (surely used as the basis for the movie "Idiocracy" where advertising is used to direct the now moronic populace).
I'd pick more, but you only have one semester. I'm trying to think of some good environmental destruction stories, but nothing excellent is coming to mind that isn't a multi-book set.
Anyone want to cover that topic?
Actually, The Stars My Destination (Tiger Tiger) has had the movie rights recently purchased. I'm frightened that it will almost certainly fail to live up to the book... but one can always hope for some goodness from it.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117940125.html?categoryid=13&cs=1(variety.com)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0783588/Here's the imdb link but it's locked to Pro only... It used to say 2010... now it says 2012. Guess Jumper sort of messed up the jaunting storyline.
Don't you know that many researchers are credit hogs, who eventually rise to the review level and heavily criticize and turn down proposals of those that might criticize their own work? It's the awful truth about scientific research and grant money. It's like a soap opera.
It is important to note that with a large code base, Visual Assist is noticing any time you have a variable or function name that it can't find anywhere else, and highlighting it with the red underline. This is in addition to turning the various keywords, macros, #defines, class names, function names, member variable names, nonmember variable names, and other such things all into their own colors. Granted, if you misspell something everywhere, then it will highlight correctly, and not indicate a problem. It's still a simple thing to notice it and bulk find/replace a string in all files in your project/solution/directory/etc. If you are a walking spellchecker like me, you'll be glad you've made your whole group install it. Also the extra droplists it provides, the wonderful shift insert droplist of previous copy/paste entries, and a variety of other great features will all make you happy to pay the tiny registration fee for each programmer on your team. I'd say it saves me at least 30 minutes of digging through our 2 million lines of code to remember how someone capitalized something or which spelling or abbreviation to use.
-A very satisfied VA customer who recommends it to every VS programmer he knows
Actually, making an ActiveX DWF Viewer goes back to restoring a functionality of a previous generation of their viewing tools named VoloView. It was a free dwg/dwf markup tool, and could be plugged into a web browser, or into a program for free, allowing large companies to make a web page that has access to a restricted file server, for viewing of dwg/dwf files, then markup, then email or print the markups. This ability goes farther too, as I could now grab their dwf viewer activex plugin (free), and slap it into a microsoft visual studio express project and present you with a working dwf viewer program in under 10 minutes.
Also, have a look at www.dwfit.com to see a new site they are developing that will allow people to have a web server take the dwf file, and display it in any browser. Okay, so they aren't releasing the code behind it to companies yet, because it's still in development... but that just means that the www.dwfit.com site can only access dwf's that are hosted by a web server that their web server can get to (because you can't set up your own dwfit site inside your own firewall yet). If you put dwgs onto a public site, the dwfit site can render and display them.
As someone who's been writing AutoCAD plugins using their API software many years...
All the TrustedDWG thing does is basically tell the person opening a dwg in autocad that the file was last saved by a trusted dwg product (i.e. one using AutoDesk's software, or one of their own APIs). Consider it like having the right to slap the Windows XP Certified logo on your software. That's all it does. There's no encryption, no DRM stuff here... it just prints a string of text in the AutoCAD command window when you open the file. Is it right for some other company to claim to be AutoDesk? No. But why does Autodesk bother, you ask?
The main concern for AutoCAD here is not that the OpenDesign (formerly OpenDWG) Alliance is reverse engineering their format. AutoDesk is partnered with several companies that use the OpenDesign API, and AutoDesk is well aware of them using it. Opening a dwg generated from the OpenDesign API, however, was marking files as being a Genuine AutoDesk product file, which guarantees that AutoDesk programs were the last programs to have saved the file.
Aside from the point that people have been asking AutoDesk to open up the DWG format legally for years, there are some considerations here.
Consider the issue of the OpenDesign API having a bug that corrupted the DWG files, in a subtle way that eventually caused problems in AutoDesk programs. AutoDesk shouldn't have to help companies with support agreements to solve it... they can just throw up their hands and say, sorry, but your file was not last saved by us... your other program corrupted this file, talk to them. Really it's only right. Would you expect MS to help you find the cause of formatting loss or file corruption on a word document that you had saved with OpenOffice?
What's wrong with trademarking your files? It's not like they are saying it is illegal to use them any way you want to, nor that the OpenDesign Alliance must stop releasing the API... they just don't want another company claiming to be generating genuine AutoDesk files.
Also worth noting here is that AutoDesk sells their own API to access dwg files without a copy of AutoCAD or AutoDesk Map installed... This API is currently called RealDWG (formerly known as DwgUnplugged). This is sold at a one time fee to a company with the right to make small applications or viewers for reselling. The fee for the license to make your own dwg format manipulating program is somewhere around $5000 last I heard... for a license to make your own software from the ground up, using their dwg access API and resell it.
One last point... According to that site, the OpenDesign people have already released an update that no longer violates the AutoDesk trademark by claiming that their software was an AutoDesk product.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm thinking at least an argument over whether it'd be a good idea to grapple someone... And maybe a scene where 5 people take 5 minutes getting ready to open a door...
There are four lights!
I think Sir Terry would approve of how this thread turned to a discussion of the finer details of critics reviewing books on the backsides of others. This discussion almost certainly belongs in a Discworld novel.
Adam and No Eve: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Bester#Notable_short_stories [wikipedia.org] Guy invents a rocket powered by a catalyst that causing fission in elemental iron. During takeoff, as warned, a bit must have leaked and it causes a chain reaction that wipes out all life on earth. Post-crash landing he is dying, but drags himself to the ocean, continually fending off his dog which went with him in the rocket, and is now trying to eat him because there is no food. He dies there so the bacteria within him can be reestablished in the ocean and maybe start life over again. Also No, No, Not Rogov! is a story I always enjoy re-reading, despite the sad ending. It's not world ending, or anything like that, but it's just a mournful short story.
Fall back to 1941, Alfred Bester: Adam and No Eve: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Bester#Notable_short_stories Guy invents a rocket powered by a catalyst that causing fission in elemental iron. During takeoff, as warned, a bit must have leaked and it causes a chain reaction that wipes out all life on earth. Post-crash landing he is dying, but drags himself to the ocean, continually fending off his dog which went with him in the rocket, and is now trying to eat him because there is no food. He dies there so the bacteria within him can be reestablished in the ocean and maybe start life over again.
Should have gone with SiO2
Short stories:
Unfortunately, you'll find it is hard to get many short stories together that you want to use without picking a random anthology. Otherwise you'll be hunting all over for books. Instead I would really suggest that you get "The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One" a short story collection used by many SF classes. It actually includes several of the stories and authors I've already listed. See it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Science_Fiction_Hall_of_Fame_Volume_One,_1929-1964
Classic Novels:
- Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination : IMHO the best book ever. I reread it every year or so. Read the wikipedia page about it.
- Walter Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz : an excellent example nuclear apocalypse leading into cyclical history. (also refer to The Mote in God's Eye for the same theme and it's impact on an alien race after hundreds of repeats of nuclear war)
- A.E. Van Vogt, The Weapon Shops of Isher : a large conglomeration of gun rights supporters vs an empire. One quote was "The right to own weapons is the right to be free". Interestingly Van Vogt's writings later led to what became scientology. [note, I've just looked at the sf hall of fame book I mentioned and the short story version of this is included]
- Pohl / Kornbluth, The Space Merchants : an excellent treatment of the possibilities of capitalism + advertising taken to their extreme in an overpopulated world.
- Asimov, The Caves of Steel : A detective story featuring an overpopulated Earth, fear of robots replacing human jobs, and agoraphobia on the new planets that are minimally settled.
- The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two : this includes several other still applicable novellas such as "The Marching Morons" (surely used as the basis for the movie "Idiocracy" where advertising is used to direct the now moronic populace).
I'd pick more, but you only have one semester. I'm trying to think of some good environmental destruction stories, but nothing excellent is coming to mind that isn't a multi-book set. Anyone want to cover that topic?
Actually, The Stars My Destination (Tiger Tiger) has had the movie rights recently purchased. I'm frightened that it will almost certainly fail to live up to the book... but one can always hope for some goodness from it. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117940125.html?categoryid=13&cs=1(variety.com)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0783588/Here's the imdb link but it's locked to Pro only... It used to say 2010... now it says 2012. Guess Jumper sort of messed up the jaunting storyline.
According to the Variety article, it's being produced by http://www.variety.com/profiles/people/main/47298/Lorenzo%20di%20Bonaventura.html?dataSet=1Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Variety) who brought us Doom, Transformers (1 and soon 2), and GI Joe... so it might have enough special effects to look cool at least.
Don't you know that many researchers are credit hogs, who eventually rise to the review level and heavily criticize and turn down proposals of those that might criticize their own work? It's the awful truth about scientific research and grant money. It's like a soap opera.
Will it blend?
and mind those neutron star tides!
It is important to note that with a large code base, Visual Assist is noticing any time you have a variable or function name that it can't find anywhere else, and highlighting it with the red underline. This is in addition to turning the various keywords, macros, #defines, class names, function names, member variable names, nonmember variable names, and other such things all into their own colors. Granted, if you misspell something everywhere, then it will highlight correctly, and not indicate a problem. It's still a simple thing to notice it and bulk find/replace a string in all files in your project/solution/directory/etc. If you are a walking spellchecker like me, you'll be glad you've made your whole group install it. Also the extra droplists it provides, the wonderful shift insert droplist of previous copy/paste entries, and a variety of other great features will all make you happy to pay the tiny registration fee for each programmer on your team. I'd say it saves me at least 30 minutes of digging through our 2 million lines of code to remember how someone capitalized something or which spelling or abbreviation to use. -A very satisfied VA customer who recommends it to every VS programmer he knows
Actually, making an ActiveX DWF Viewer goes back to restoring a functionality of a previous generation of their viewing tools named VoloView. It was a free dwg/dwf markup tool, and could be plugged into a web browser, or into a program for free, allowing large companies to make a web page that has access to a restricted file server, for viewing of dwg/dwf files, then markup, then email or print the markups. This ability goes farther too, as I could now grab their dwf viewer activex plugin (free), and slap it into a microsoft visual studio express project and present you with a working dwf viewer program in under 10 minutes. Also, have a look at www.dwfit.com to see a new site they are developing that will allow people to have a web server take the dwf file, and display it in any browser. Okay, so they aren't releasing the code behind it to companies yet, because it's still in development... but that just means that the www.dwfit.com site can only access dwf's that are hosted by a web server that their web server can get to (because you can't set up your own dwfit site inside your own firewall yet). If you put dwgs onto a public site, the dwfit site can render and display them.
As someone who's been writing AutoCAD plugins using their API software many years... All the TrustedDWG thing does is basically tell the person opening a dwg in autocad that the file was last saved by a trusted dwg product (i.e. one using AutoDesk's software, or one of their own APIs). Consider it like having the right to slap the Windows XP Certified logo on your software. That's all it does. There's no encryption, no DRM stuff here... it just prints a string of text in the AutoCAD command window when you open the file. Is it right for some other company to claim to be AutoDesk? No. But why does Autodesk bother, you ask? The main concern for AutoCAD here is not that the OpenDesign (formerly OpenDWG) Alliance is reverse engineering their format. AutoDesk is partnered with several companies that use the OpenDesign API, and AutoDesk is well aware of them using it. Opening a dwg generated from the OpenDesign API, however, was marking files as being a Genuine AutoDesk product file, which guarantees that AutoDesk programs were the last programs to have saved the file. Aside from the point that people have been asking AutoDesk to open up the DWG format legally for years, there are some considerations here. Consider the issue of the OpenDesign API having a bug that corrupted the DWG files, in a subtle way that eventually caused problems in AutoDesk programs. AutoDesk shouldn't have to help companies with support agreements to solve it... they can just throw up their hands and say, sorry, but your file was not last saved by us... your other program corrupted this file, talk to them. Really it's only right. Would you expect MS to help you find the cause of formatting loss or file corruption on a word document that you had saved with OpenOffice? What's wrong with trademarking your files? It's not like they are saying it is illegal to use them any way you want to, nor that the OpenDesign Alliance must stop releasing the API... they just don't want another company claiming to be generating genuine AutoDesk files. Also worth noting here is that AutoDesk sells their own API to access dwg files without a copy of AutoCAD or AutoDesk Map installed... This API is currently called RealDWG (formerly known as DwgUnplugged). This is sold at a one time fee to a company with the right to make small applications or viewers for reselling. The fee for the license to make your own dwg format manipulating program is somewhere around $5000 last I heard... for a license to make your own software from the ground up, using their dwg access API and resell it. One last point... According to that site, the OpenDesign people have already released an update that no longer violates the AutoDesk trademark by claiming that their software was an AutoDesk product.