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Comment Re: JMS didn't get to run it like a movie director (Score 1) 480

... when he had major story events planned for both their characters.

Can you say, "first obvious on-screen lesbian relationship"? It was right there for all to see, except for the folks who insisted that onboard sleeping quarters were tight and they were just really good friends. Thompson's character got killed off not too long after that came out.

Comment Re:Go write a global illumination algorithm (Score 1) 480

I was a big B5 fan in the day. As I recall, "sound in space" and some other real world physics effects were running hot topics in the B5 newsgroups, mailing lists, and the few websites in existence at the time (Wintermute's Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 should be in the Archive, somewhere...). JMS really did peek in on those and use them in the show.

ps. Yes there is sound, but most of it is coming from your own ship. Motors, fans, vibration etc. Other ships exploding? Not so much, unless fragments hit your ship. There was some debate about how much noise the rarefied cloud of expanding gasses could carry, and what you would hear as it impinged on your vehicle, suit, etc..

Comment Re:Switch off; turn on! (Score 1) 228

Imagine you walk into a room, and the room is dynamic. And with your permission and all of that, you are interacting with the things going on in the room.

Wow. Does he realize how completely out of touch with reality that sounds? He says *imagine* when in the future, with [my] technology, you will be able to "interact with the things going on in the room."

NEWS FLASH! I can now, Eric Schmidt. And anyone can. All you have to do it turn off your cell phone and begin interacting!

Cell phones come with an off button now? When did that happen?

Comment Re:So, what else is there to watch? (Score 1) 148

Marvel sold ITSELF to Disney. It is a wholly owned operating unit at Disney now, just like Lucasfilm and Star Wars. What you ought to be watching for is Luke and Leia showing up as Force enabled superbeings opposing a Villainous Vader (aided by Maleficent) on an Avengers themed Agents of Shield, with Snow White, Cinderella, Belle, Ariel and the other princesses (and their cute animal friends) all lending a hand. All on the Disney owned ABC network of course, with ESPN calling the play by play destruction.

Comment Re: Agent Smith was Right (Score 1) 110

I'm not saying humans are awesome, and I'm not dismissing our environmental impacts. I'm just pointing out the flaws in that speech.

Take "Collapse" by Jared Diamond, since you mentioned it. The regions he talked about still have a human population. It's not similar to a virus, but instead a boom/bust population cycle common to some mammals (e.g. the infamous snowshoe hare)

We may cause the end of our civilization in many ways. But humanity is likely to still be around even after the end.

Comment Re:Agent Smith was Right (Score 5, Interesting) 110

Agent Smith: "I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops an equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not.

Cute sentimentality, but considering how obviously untrue it is, that monologue always bugged me.

First off, what areas have humans consumed so many natural resources that they can no longer survive there? About the only arguable cases I can think of is areas of desertification - and even then, humans do manage to live there.

Second, mammals have no instinct to come to an equilibrium with their environment. E.g. rabbits in Australia - introduced a century ago, and definitely did not come to an homeostasis with the environment they found - instead, growing so numerous that they are a serious ecological problem.

Comment Re:It's paid for. (Score 1) 189

Nope, that's not what killed it. Ethernet was just as bad before hubs and then switching came along -- even with hubs, one bad ethernet card could take down the whole broadcast domain, and did with some frequency. And with thinnet wiring (coax to the younglings) all it took was one marginal connector, anywhere in the loop, to kill the whole network. Don't even get me started on thicknet.

What killed it was money. Ethernet became very cheap to implement. Once everything moved to a star topology (hubs, then switches) the advantages of Token Ring were not worth the additional cost. Ethernet benefitted from being able to advertise higher bandwidths (10mbps, then 100mbps, vs. TR's 4/16 then, too late, 100) -- the perception was, "why would I want 16mbps token ring when I could have 100Mbps ethernet for less money?" Ethernet wasn't really any faster, and was often slower due to collisions, but everybody just looked at the total bandwidth. Once switch ports got cheap, collisions were no longer an issue and Token Rings fate was sealed.

Of course, Arcnet had a star topology long before Ethernet or Token Ring. But it too suffered from low nominal bandwidth.

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