Posts by Suricou Raven

Re: @Dr Dan Holdsworth

C3P0 isn't a standard model, too - it was cobbled together from scrap parts of other protocol droids, and assembled by someone with little experience and no formal training. A wonder it works at all.

The novels retconned the parsec comment. The Kessel run is explained as a smuggling route that skims the 'no hyperspace' region around a black hole - somewhere that Empire police won't go lightly, as only the most experienced pilots can do so safely. The closer a smuggler can get to that region, the better his chances of evading detection. Solo's ability to run the Kessel route at such a close distance shows his ability as a pilot, and his willingness to take risks.

In the film though, it's just a sloppy line.

Re: Interesting

Just declare it was an advanced form of clay pigeon.

It's fairly common in politics for unrelated issues to get roped together. Especially in America, as the rules government amendments to bills in the Senate are very lax - it's a very frequent practice to stick an unpopular provision into a law that is overwhelmingly popular. This was not one of these cases though: It's just that whoever wrote it figured that both are internet-related taxes, and that means they should go under one law.

One of the most famous examples of recent years was a law to block the FCC from enforcing net neutrality regulations - as part of a bill relating to medical benefits for veterans.

Law and sausages, as the expression goes.

Re: opps

Depends on field.

In mathematics, risk is risk. Ask a statistician and he'll calculate the probability for you.

In business, risk is probability times impact - even though impact can't always be quantified.

Re: A man cannot serve two masters

Not yet - but once the technology matures, someone is eventually going to put together enough information to create an open-source version. It'll probably occupy a few terabytes for the knowledge base though - there's a reason these programs are just front ends to a remote server farm.

Re: Does her boobs really look like that?

Stranger still when you look at the character: Cortana-the-character is an AI, though based partially upon patterns derived from a scanned human brain. Why does she have breasts? Because she deliberately designed her avatar model to look like that.

Re: Mmm, I just don't get it

"Anyway what is there to not like about a character who can travel anywhere in time and space."

Except New York, apparently. He broke it.

Re: Moore got off too easy....

It's called 'revenge porn' because it's submitted in revenge. No hacking is required - the photos are sent by the bitter exes, who were in turn sent or allowed to take the photos willingly by the woman prior to their break-up.

Re: Topless pic = bottomless misery?

The internet already has an effectively limitless supply of topless women.

Re: Due Process

It might be adhered to, but how long will that take? I imagine quite a few years.

Be fair to them: They didn't take a full stock of lifeboats because they believed that lifeboats would never be needed, instead designing a ship that was supposed to be unsinkable. A double-walled hull design was almost impervious to breaches, and even if a section did breach there was a system for sealing off entire sections - the ship could float even with multiple compartments flooded. Unsinkable wasn't just an idle boast - it was a design specification. It did take a lot of damage to sink, and that only because of a side-on collision with an iceburg, something that designers didn't anticipate because giant floating lumps of ice are usually easy to see ahead and avoid.

Re: Hang on...

Dr Who is the 'family' offering - it's made to appeal to all ages, even though this unavoidably means lessening the appeal for a more specific age.

There is the Torchwood spinoff for the adults, and the Sarah Jane Adventures spinoff for the kids.

Re: We will see her again

Even if 'the' Clara is dead, there are still echos of her scattered throughout his timeline. Past and future.

Re: I doubt it

There are a couple of lines in Sarah Jane Adventures that hint at what some companions are up to.

I'd really like to see what happened to Ace - she was a very eighties character. As the final companion of the classic series she never had her story resolved. She was last seen walking off towards the next adventure with the doctor, and was not there when the series resumed. So what became of her?

I'd ideally like her to come back as a one-episode character (She's too eighties to work any longer than that), initially unidentified - she's older now, she's matured, no longer the punk we knew and not even recognizable. She may wear a suit and work in an office at a steady job, perhaps applying her talent for chemistry as a scientist, but there's still a bit of Ace beneath that - and when she uncovers a world-threatening conspiracy or an alien invasion, she knows it's time to call the number that the Doctor left her all those years ago - because there are days when the world needs a respectable scientist, and there are days when the world needs the Doctor, his trusted companion, and a flask of nitro-nine.

There was a final story planned for Ace, but the series was canceled before it could be made - the Doctor was to sponsor her enrollment at the Time Lord Academy, recognizing what he always saw in her. That she may look, dress, speak and act like a punk street kid, but the appearance is deceptive, and though she may lack the discipline to do well at school she still has the mind of a gifted intellectual. I guess the Time War pretty much kills off that possibility.

Re: Noooo!

This computer simulation River has barely been used. There's a lot of wasted potential. Consider that this character is running on the highest-capacity storage system ever built, with a processor so powerful it occupies the interior of the entire library planet, and has nothing to do but sit around and read the entire collected knowledge of a highly advanced civilization. She's a singularity waiting to happen.

Right now? Brain the size of a planet and they send her to open a door.

Re: "university education"

I have my own hypothesis on this: Education and exposure to wider ideas makes it more difficult to reconcile the contradictions of moderate religion.

Moderate religion is full of self-contradictory elements. You need to believe that all followers of other religions are going to burn in hell forever, but also respect their freedom of religion - even allow them to raise children doomed to burn, when the compassionate thing would be to kidnap them for their own good. You need to believe in a paradise afterlife, but still value self-preservation. You need to believe you have a book with the words of the all-powerful creator, but only bother to skim through it once or twice a year. You've got to believe that this verse forbidding murder is a divine moral mandate of unquestionable authority, but this verse a little later in the book requiring stoning the gays is safe to ignore. You've got to tolerate the preachers of other religions, even when you know that they are dragging people down to hell with them.

There comes a point when it's too hard to reconcile what one believes they believe with how one acts - and at that point people are forced to either admit they were lying to themselves and abandon the religion altogether, or embrace it to the fullest possible extent become an extremist.

Re: What PC death spiral?

The PC remains a staple of work, and will be for the forseeable future, but even there sales are not what they were. There's little growth in the market - every company that could benefit from computerisation has already done so. Upgrades also are not what they were. There was a time not long ago when you could barely get a PC delivered before a new one came out with twice the memory and a much faster processor, and new software with ever-rising requirements made sure they sold. It was standard practice for companies to refresh their PCs every two years, three at most. Now? A five-year-old PC is perfectly sufficient. Refresh cycles are slower, and getting more so all the time. Software is also 'good enough' - just look how long it took to get rid of Windows XP.

Re: All that forest ... gone!

I'm not so sure. The picture may look like wilderness, but there are practical concerns for datacenters that say you can't put them right in the middle of nowhere. They need transportation connection for the staff, and power connections. Multiple independent power connections, which means a long string of pylons isn't going to cut it. Turn the camera around a bit and you'd probably see a built-up city area not too far away. If it was really isolated it'd just cost far too much to bury power and fiber lines along multiple routes.