Cosmos 1.0 was also "watered down science and at worst, factually inaccurate".

In any field, to describe the work of the experts of that field to humans that are not experts in that field, the experts must summarize/analogize/tell stories to those other humans who have not spent a lifetime in a particular field.

In these retellings, "facts" can actually get in the way of the non-expert getting a basic understand of the subject at hand.

70. From the wiki...
"...whose payload length is limited by the constraints of the signaling protocol to precisely 140 octets (140 octets * 8 bits / octet = 1120 bits). Short messages can be encoded using a variety of alphabets: the default GSM 7-bit alphabet, the 8-bit data alphabet, and the 16-bit UCS-2 alphabet.[40] Depending on which alphabet the subscriber has configured in the handset, this leads to the maximum individual short message sizes of 160 7-bit characters, 140 8-bit characters, or 70 16-bit characters. GSM 7-bit alphabet support is mandatory for GSM handsets and network elements,[40] but characters in languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, or Cyrillic alphabet languages (e.g., Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, etc.) must be encoded using the 16-bit UCS-2 character encoding (see Unicode)."

Outstanding post, thanks for your viewpoint!

Yep. That's the only way I could remember the acronym.

I remember the first time I saw the original acronym, I knew it would never take. Eventually Marketing took over from Engineering, and started calling it PC-Card.

Honorable Mention: It Still Doesn't Network

Touche'

This American can't even find a map anymore. I used to have 2 or 3 maps in the car, along with my Thomas Guide.

Now, I have Google maps on the phone, gps in the car, and a compass in the dashboard; I had trouble even remembering the name of the Guide the other day.

Of course my wife still tells me where to go...

"We all love America. It's just that conservatives are proudest of the America that never was, and liberals are proudest of the America that isn't here yet."

Good quote.

I hate bureaucracy as much as the next person, but it does seem to be the best way humans have found to institutionalize advanced knowledge to the point where very complex procedures can be handled by mere mortals.

Spreading the wealth pleases the folks on the left, and enhancing the military pleases the folks on the right. A win-win situation, as far as politics in the US is concerned.

I suppose that another way of dealing with the politics of a complex project is the way Putin financed the Olympics. He spread the wealth too.

I am the mornin' DJ on W O L D

To save Slashdotter's time, here's the "blogged about" part.

"
This reminds me of the Uncanny Valley. Up to a certain point making the AI better and better makes the NPC seem more real, until they become too convincing and then their shortcomings suddenly become glaring and overshadow everything else.
"

The words "Uncanny Valley" are linked to the Wikipedia page. The blog is all about Skyrim, so all you 'Rimmers out there might like to check it out.

+1, excellent post, thx

Interesting points. Fwiw, I enjoy both games, and my "immersion observations" are the reverse. I can immerse myself in the western, while Portal I find to be an interesting puzzle game with robots.

No royalties

Rollin'!