I thought the fascists running the CIA and the FBI and the NSA and the DEA had a long term plan to tatoo barcodes on everybody's forehead they could get away with.
There are a billion fair uses in the compression academic literature of a playboy centerfold photograph from the '70's. Her name is Lena. A copyright on the image is owned by the magazine.
Re:What's Really Important Here
on
Virtual War
·
· Score: 1
skwang wrote about the Gulf War:
> So what is the cost of regional stability? about a couple hundred American casulaties > (and others from the coalition nations), and the popluation of Iraq which must suffer > under a trade embargo and die of starvation, disease, and persecution.
Many of those Iraqis will _not_ die. They will become mortal enemies of the United States and allies.
Perhaps you think this is a bargain. Time will tell.
I personally think the adventure was foolish to the max.
What do you think of the U.S.-centric nature of the global culture, and are there any simple things you think people can do to mix in the best of other cultures into their mindset?
Are there any good case studies of large corporations opening up proprietary in-house source code? My ITmanagers don't see any value in this, and my opinion is that it is inevitable in the industry where I work. I don't want my work to perish when some forward thinking ITmanager at a competitor takes the plunge and their house standards becomes the industry standards. Please Help!
> What about a Slashdot interview with John Perry Barlow or other members of Grateful Dead?
Yes to what he said.
The Salon piece was on the sensational side, IMO. Bottom line is the concept of intellectual property, patent, copyright, etc is going through complete upheaval, and it is far from over.
The big corporations will do everything they can to maximize their take. It is what they do.
I hate politics; it makes me want to VOMIT. There really isn't any alternative but to get more active, though.
> If you really want to get anywhere with many of these people, you really need to accentuate the false negatives, not > the false positives.
I think maybe it is futile, in that "these people" are willfully dumb. The filter in my office keeps me from seeing the Sports Illustrated, swimsuit edition. It lets through the soc.culture.bondage FAQ and the Amok Sensurround Edition sampler. I am not a porno officionado; to me this is hardcore stuff. If I found my teenager going through that when he/she was supposed to be doing their homework, or pursuing a wholesome hobby, I think I would pull the plug on their computer for a week.
It is transparently obvious to anybody with one half a brain that the concept of a content filter is illogical.
There is an easy hack for this, no matter how advanced his methods become.
Learn a new language and make your irresponsible ravings in that.
Language is acquired by age five, and those patterns that you have are
identical with the patterns of your parents, older siblings, and the others
who were around you speaking your native tongue.
If I were to learn French or Spanish, the patterns would be of the Berlitz
language company, or the Barron's education company, or whatever, and would
be bland from a stylistic point of view.
Anonymous authorship was a formidable force in kicking the British out
of the colonies circa 1776.
> Very few of the comments have been about the articles in the news letter. Here are some pointers to the articles > that I think would be of most interest to slashdotters.
I thought the newsletter was mostly interesting. I participate in forums with and without gender balance. The forums that have gender balance are more sociable and more human. Slashdot isn't what I consider a gender-balanced forum.
I have a couple observations:
There were no women in my department when I graduated, although over half the students at the school were women. There are no women in my professional circle where I work, although half the employees in the company are women. I don't think this will change, except in those rare cases where the woman is willing to sacrifice family life. There are men here who have families--their wives stay home and do virtually all of the housework and child rearing. This is how work and family life are balanced when the work week is over sixty hours long. The corporation has an official policy that work-family balance is fully respected, that nobody is expected to work over forty hours per week, etc.
The policy is a sham. High tech work consumes very nearly every calorie of one's energy store. This is capitalism. This is what makes our country great.
My girlfriend is a C.S. student. If a contraception accident occurs, she isn't going to put the baby in child care and build a career. Her value system is such that she would consider that irresponsible. There wouldn't be any forty hour work weeks, let alone sixty hour work weeks, in her life for at least twelve years.
There _is_ a biological difference between men and women. Women can make _life_ with their bodies. For them, it is enough to just be. A man cannot just be. This is why he must do. A psychologist might call this overcompensating. Being a sperm donor is not fulfilling, in and of itself.
Good luck with your project. I admire quixotic people.
> Gibson has never really been about plot, nor, certainly, about theme.
I have always thought that Gibson's strengths were thematic, especially in the sprawl trilogy
The themes are: first, a grimly dystopic near future with nuclear warfare, environmental catastrophe, and violent criminals prowling everywhere; second, a biotechnological dominated lifestyle featuring designer drugs, enabling mechanical implants, and a flourishing gene and organ trade; third, an international and extraterrestrial computer network whose sophistication is so vast that it dominates all human life. The thematic level is epic. The thinness of the books belies the density of their themes.
On their other literary levels--plot, characterization, humor, heroism, romance--the books sometimes work very well, and sometimes they do not work so well. I think the books could do with a little less sorcery. The concept of the trodes is bogus. This is the user interface, which just attaches to the head as in the "Johnny Mnemonic" and "Strange Days" movies. Neurobiology is far too complicated for this to conceivably work. The mention of brand names is almost at the product placement level of Bret Easton Ellis.
These are minor quibbles. Reading Neuromancer was one of the strongest influences in many people's lives. I started playing with computers because I wanted to be like Case.
Each of Gibson's post-Neuromancer novels has disappointed many people. I think this is due to his overpowering thematic content. The impact of a novel literary theme is nearly irreproducible. I noticed this after I found I did not much enjoy reading Virtual Light for the first time. In order to really enjoy it, I had to make a little effort to recall how Neuromancer really affected me on first reading. Gibson did not originate all (or really even any) of these themes, but his original presentation was a tour de force. He is far from a perfect novelist, but he is very nearly the best we have.
> I would actually be very interested in a reading list or beginners bibliography
The standard entries are Kuhn, Popper, and Feyerbend. I think the most important philosopher of technology is Karl Marx. His political remedies stink, but his analysis of how the system and its technology and the people interact is on-the-mark.
To me, the most interesting modern guy is a French Marxist: Michel Foucault. There is an interesting website put together by Steve Dhalgren (it is not G-rated) entitled Doom Patrols. Coincidentally, his website also has an entry on Walt Disney. The URL:
http://www.dhalgren.com/Doom/ch04.html
The best Foucault's are Madness and Civilization (a history of the asylum) and Discipline and Punish (a history of the prison.)
There is a glaciation cycle, and the earth is getting warmer. Greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere do heat the earth. The effect of people burning carbon is not yet known, but it is obvious that it could be a disaster. Here is a link for snobbish American scientific types: http://web.mit.edu/globalchange/www/ Our hero Bruce Sterling is a bigtime FUD'er on this issue, and he didn't answer my question last week!
Dan: > There's an interesting psychology at Microsoft; it deserves further research. I agree with most of Dan's observations; I think the a feature of their corporate culture is geekdom. I work for a big corp whose core business is not computers. Ten years ago, the top executives of the company inflicted Stephen Covey's bull from the top down, and none of us worker bees knew what hit us. Two years ago, they tried the same thing with The Fifth Discipline nonsense. It was dead on arrival, because in the meantime, we all had Altavista. We could see it coming from miles away, and had the information ready to shoot it down. Microsoft is not omnipotent. They cannot change the laws of physics. They cannot alter the democratic prejudices of a hundred thousand geeks.
One nitpick here: there isn't really a free market in surgery. The American Medical Association regulates the supply. They have a guild. Techies being paid as much as surgeons probably is temporary, unless we can organize as well as they.
global warming, burning carbon, veridian
on
Ask Bruce Sterling
·
· Score: 1
There is no question the earth is getting warmer. There is no question that carbon in the atmosphere retains heat. These are scientific facts. The system is complex enough, especially with respect to cloud albedo, that there is no demonstrable causal relationship between humans burning carbon and the global warming. Do you agree or disagree? By the way, this is my first slashdot post. I have been lurking for almost a year. I think the spin put on the facts by publications such as Scientific American does not help the cause, although I totally agree that we should be burning much less fuel. Can anybody post to the veridian list?
Slashdot Mirror
You are bound to attract way more babes than you can possibly handle. Would you please consider piping the overflow to slashdot?
I thought the fascists running the CIA and the FBI and the NSA and the DEA had a long term plan to tatoo barcodes on everybody's forehead they could get away with.
B.
There are a billion fair uses in the compression academic literature of a playboy centerfold photograph from the '70's. Her name is Lena. A copyright on the image is owned by the magazine.
Read Jim Bell's essay? What do you think?
Bukvich
> So what is the cost of regional stability? about a couple hundred American casulaties
> (and others from the coalition nations), and the popluation of Iraq which must suffer
> under a trade embargo and die of starvation, disease, and persecution.
Many of those Iraqis will _not_ die. They will become mortal enemies of the United
States and allies.
Perhaps you think this is a bargain. Time will tell.
I personally think the adventure was foolish to the max.
B.
What do you think of the U.S.-centric nature of the global culture, and are there any simple things you think people can do to mix in the best of other cultures into their mindset?
Anybody wants to take anything Iwrite, feel free to do so. I got it from somebody else to begin with.
Are there any good case studies of large corporations opening up proprietary in-house source code? My ITmanagers don't see any value in this, and my opinion is that it is inevitable in the industry where I work. I don't want my work to perish when some forward thinking ITmanager at a competitor takes the plunge and their house standards becomes the industry standards. Please Help!
> What about a Slashdot interview with John Perry Barlow or other members of Grateful Dead?
Yes to what he said.
The Salon piece was on the sensational side, IMO. Bottom line is the concept of intellectual property, patent, copyright, etc is going through complete upheaval, and it is far from over.
The big corporations will do everything they can to maximize their take. It is what they do.
I hate politics; it makes me want to VOMIT. There really isn't any alternative but to get more active, though.
Bukvich
> If you really want to get anywhere with many of these people, you really need to accentuate the false negatives, not
> the false positives.
I think maybe it is futile, in that "these people" are willfully dumb. The filter in my office keeps me from seeing the Sports Illustrated, swimsuit edition. It lets through the soc.culture.bondage FAQ and the Amok Sensurround Edition sampler. I am not a porno officionado; to me this is hardcore stuff. If I found my teenager going through that when he/she was supposed to be doing their homework, or pursuing a wholesome hobby, I think I would pull the plug on their computer for a week.
It is transparently obvious to anybody with one half a brain that the concept of a content filter is illogical.
Bukvich
Learn a new language and make your irresponsible ravings in that. Language is acquired by age five, and those patterns that you have are identical with the patterns of your parents, older siblings, and the others who were around you speaking your native tongue.
If I were to learn French or Spanish, the patterns would be of the Berlitz language company, or the Barron's education company, or whatever, and would be bland from a stylistic point of view.
Anonymous authorship was a formidable force in kicking the British out of the colonies circa 1776.
Bukvich
> Very few of the comments have been about the articles in the news letter. Here are some pointers to the articles
> that I think would be of most interest to slashdotters.
I thought the newsletter was mostly interesting. I participate in forums with and without gender balance. The forums that have gender balance are more sociable and more human. Slashdot isn't what I consider a gender-balanced forum.
I have a couple observations:
There were no women in my department when I graduated, although over half the students at the school were women. There are no women in my professional circle where I work, although half the employees in the company are women. I don't think this will change, except in those rare cases where the woman is willing to sacrifice family life. There are men here who have families--their wives stay home and do virtually all of the housework and child rearing. This is how work and family life are balanced when the work week is over sixty hours long. The corporation has an official policy that work-family balance is fully respected, that nobody is expected to work over forty hours per week, etc.
The policy is a sham. High tech work consumes very nearly every calorie of one's energy store. This is capitalism. This is what makes our country great.
My girlfriend is a C.S. student. If a contraception accident occurs, she isn't going to put the baby in child care and build a career. Her value system is such that she would consider that irresponsible. There wouldn't be any forty hour work weeks, let alone sixty hour work weeks, in her life for at least twelve years.
There _is_ a biological difference between men and women. Women can make _life_ with their bodies. For them, it is enough to just be. A man cannot just be. This is why he must do. A psychologist might call this overcompensating. Being a sperm donor is not fulfilling, in and of itself.
Good luck with your project. I admire quixotic people.
Bukvich
> Gibson has never really been about plot, nor, certainly, about theme.
I have always thought that Gibson's strengths were thematic, especially
in the sprawl trilogy
The themes are: first, a grimly dystopic near future with nuclear warfare,
environmental catastrophe, and violent criminals prowling everywhere;
second, a biotechnological dominated lifestyle featuring designer drugs,
enabling mechanical implants, and a flourishing gene and organ trade; third,
an international and extraterrestrial computer network whose sophistication
is so vast that it dominates all human life. The thematic level is epic. The
thinness of the books belies the density of their themes.
On their other literary levels--plot, characterization, humor, heroism,
romance--the books sometimes work very well, and sometimes they do not
work so well. I think the books could do with a little less sorcery. The concept
of the trodes is bogus. This is the user interface, which just attaches to the head
as in the "Johnny Mnemonic" and "Strange Days" movies. Neurobiology is
far too complicated for this to conceivably work. The mention of brand names
is almost at the product placement level of Bret Easton Ellis.
These are minor quibbles. Reading Neuromancer was one of the strongest
influences in many people's lives. I started playing with computers because I
wanted to be like Case.
Each of Gibson's post-Neuromancer novels has disappointed many people. I
think this is due to his overpowering thematic content. The impact of a novel
literary theme is nearly irreproducible. I noticed this after I found I did not
much enjoy reading Virtual Light for the first time. In order to really enjoy it,
I had to make a little effort to recall how Neuromancer really affected me on first
reading. Gibson did not originate all (or really even any) of these themes, but
his original presentation was a tour de force. He is far from a perfect novelist,
but he is very nearly the best we have.
Bukvich
> I would actually be very interested in a reading list or beginners bibliography
The standard entries are Kuhn, Popper, and Feyerbend. I think the most important philosopher of technology is Karl Marx. His political remedies stink, but his analysis of how the system and its technology and the people interact is on-the-mark.
To me, the most interesting modern guy is a French Marxist: Michel Foucault. There is an interesting website put together by Steve Dhalgren (it is not G-rated) entitled Doom Patrols. Coincidentally, his website also has an entry on Walt Disney. The URL:
http://www.dhalgren.com/Doom/ch04.html
The best Foucault's are Madness and Civilization (a history of the asylum) and Discipline and Punish (a history of the prison.)
Bukvich
Seen James Bell's Assassination Politics? He proposes the Thomas More Utopian style of conflict.
There is a glaciation cycle, and the earth is getting warmer. Greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere do heat the earth. The effect of people burning carbon is not yet known, but it is obvious that it could be a disaster. Here is a link for snobbish American scientific types: http://web.mit.edu/globalchange/www/
Our hero Bruce Sterling is a bigtime FUD'er on this issue, and he didn't answer my question last week!
Dan: > There's an interesting psychology at Microsoft; it deserves further research. I agree with most of Dan's observations; I think the a feature of their corporate culture is geekdom. I work for a big corp whose core business is not computers. Ten years ago, the top executives of the company inflicted Stephen Covey's bull from the top down, and none of us worker bees knew what hit us. Two years ago, they tried the same thing with The Fifth Discipline nonsense. It was dead on arrival, because in the meantime, we all had Altavista. We could see it coming from miles away, and had the information ready to shoot it down. Microsoft is not omnipotent. They cannot change the laws of physics. They cannot alter the democratic prejudices of a hundred thousand geeks.
One nitpick here: there isn't really a free market in surgery. The American Medical Association regulates the supply. They have a guild. Techies being paid as much as surgeons probably is temporary, unless we can organize as well as they.
There is no question the earth is getting warmer. There is no question that carbon in the atmosphere retains heat. These are scientific facts. The system is complex enough, especially with respect to cloud albedo, that there is no demonstrable causal relationship between humans burning carbon and the global warming. Do you agree or disagree? By the way, this is my first slashdot post. I have been lurking for almost a year. I think the spin put on the facts by publications such as Scientific American does not help the cause, although I totally agree that we should be burning much less fuel. Can anybody post to the veridian list?