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Slashback: Swiftness, Ender's, Streams 231

Posted by timothy from the need-a-nap dept.
Slashback entries tonight convey updates on the upcoming Ender's Game movie, one (of many) dissenting voices about impressive network bandwidth, Ogg at the Beeb, and Cool Chips. Read on for more, and enjoy!

When it comes to records, context begets significance. Fandu writes: "In regards to the article about the new internet2 land speed record.. That is not correct, The Canadian CA*Net3 network is about 60X faster still. It may be a net speed record for Internet2, but it's certainly no new internet speed record. See the ABC Article about the network from a few years back and the NOC webpage."

And no one is in line for tickets yet? flea writes: "So, fans of orson scott card (to whom I was turned onto by luna) should be happy. The books Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow are on the track to being made into a movie. Script is being written and OSC is involved in the process. It's being made by Wolfgan Petersen, who has a few hits and misses (http://us.imdb.com/Name?Petersen,+Wolfgang); Air Force One and Outbreak are, well, ya know ... To his credit though, he did Enemy Mine, the movie with Louis Gossett Jr. playing the speach impediment'd alien trapped on a rock after a battle with Dennis Quaid and then LGj gives birth (wtf). C'mon, we all liked that. Anyway, it hasn't even started filming yet and the script isn't done, but things look good. More info here."

Speak up for Ogg Vorbis! SgtChaireBourne writes: "The BBC's testing period for Ogg Vorbis is now finished, but they are still soliciting feedback.

Now's the chance to add any words of encouragement to the BBC regarding Ogg, especially since, perhaps by oversight, RealOne (formerly RealPlayer) is now only available for Windows 98, 2000, ME, NT and XP. Currently, the download page for older versions seem to turn up empty for all requests for Linux versions, but deep links can still get you there.

As far as I can tell, the BBC is the first large (or even medium) news service to try Ogg. Here is last year's announcment on Slashdot about the start of the test."

"Sounds cool." blocksetter writes: "Cool Chips plc appreciates the interest of the Slashdot community. We've made an effort to address the points raised in last week's discussion of our technology and we've posted the resulting FAQ on our site. In the interest of conserving bandwidth, a text-only version is available for your viewing pleasure. We would like to thank everybody whose questions and criticisms inspired us to do this.

If there is something we haven't covered, you can also write directly to Cool Chips President Isaiah Cox, or to myself, Company Wonky Chris Bourne."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Slashback: Swiftness, Ender's, Streams More

Slashback: Swiftness, Ender's, Streams

Comments Filter:

  • Ender's Game Awaited (Score:4, Interesting)

    by totallygeek ( 263191 ) <sellis@totallygeek.com> on Thursday May 23, 2002 @07:02PM (#3576115) Homepage
    How many times have we heard that this will be made into a movie and then nothing happens? Is there serious money behind this project yet?

    • Re:Ender's Game Awaited (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Dragon218 ( 139996 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @07:19PM (#3576184) Homepage
      Personally, I don't really want to see the Ender series made into a movie. There is more to that series than just a kid fighting some aliens. The first book would be ok to see, but it will probably lose the political edge that was put in by Valentine and Peter.

      The other books in that series are more along the lines of metaphysical texts. The whole aspect of religion and first contact and the concequences that go along with it. I thought they would be honored more to stay on text.

      As far as the Ender's Shadow route... there is more hope for that series to (once it ends) make it on the silver screen. More of a political thriller / mystery, Ender's Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon would appeal to people that don't really enjoy science fiction.

      It's really rather ironic. I was reading the Ender's game series (Speaker for the Dead, etc.) while on a religious retreat (curse you catholic school!) and the Ender's Shadow books around the September 11th events. I guess fate was all about putting me in the mood for these books.

      • Re:Ender's Game Awaited (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Seems to me that by juggling things around a bit they could make two or three films out of the combined ender's Game/Ender's Shadow story.

        eg:

        Episode 1: Making it to Battle School, learning how to survive as launchies.
        Episode 2: Battle School, Bonzo, return of Achilles.
        Episode 3: Graduation and the battle with the Buggers (sorry, "Formics").

        This would make *some* room for the missing story threads such as (presumably) Peter and Valentine. Without whom there is little possibility of a movie treatment of the subsequent books without a major departure from the book story.

      • Re:Ender's Game Awaited (Score:4, Interesting)

        by aWalrus ( 239802 ) <sergio.overcaffeinated@net> on Thursday May 23, 2002 @10:48PM (#3577018) Homepage Journal
        I thought they would be honored more to stay on text

        I think those should never be made into movies. I don't know about the rest of the slashdotters, but personally, apart from "speaker", the rest of the series seemed to lose its appeal. The characters were really, REALLY annoying. You meet them, you hate them, keep hoping they'll get better when they grow up, and they just keep on getting more and more obnoxious. Also, the sci-fi on the latter books gets just too metaphysical for my taste. The explanation for the instant space travel is just... flaky. The first book was really good, though, and shadow was so so.

      • Re:Ender's Game Awaited (Score:2, Interesting)

        by mder ( 580360 )
        Dang ! So I think 'Hmmm, I just need to check a detail or two', so I track down the book... that was 4 hours ago. I hate it when that happens :)!

        There are so many ways they could gruesomely mangle such a delicate story it's scary. This could make Lynch's Dune look like a sensitive interpretation.

        Perhaps we should put our faith in child abuse. We need a 'Friends of Ender' organisation to suggest to Hollywood ( well, anyone who'll listen... ) that Ender's Game glorifies abusive relationships with children, seeks to justify the use of children as soldiers ( I'm sure there's a UN Treaty or something about that ), encourages children who use the net to deceive others about their age, and is actually little more than a twisted shadow of Lord of the Flies.

        Now done as dark Manga, that might be a different picture...
    • Well, if it's the same folks that did Enemy Mine, we'll be better off if it doesn't make it to a movie. Enemy Mine was a horrible adaptation of the original story, with critical plot elements (like the human reciting the other's lineage to his family) given short shrift, and way too much attention was given to Louis Gosset's makeup.

      Now, that may not all have been Wolfgang Petersen's fault, apparently he was brought in at the last minute to clean up somebody else's mess.

      • Enemy Mine was a horrible adaptation of the original story, with critical plot elements (like the human reciting the other's lineage to his family) given short shrift

        Note that Wolfgang Petersen was the director of Enemy Mine, NOT the screenwriter. The screenwriter is the one who makes the decisions of what to keep or leave out when adapting a book. If you think Orson Scott Card is going to let anyone else write the script, you haven't been paying much attention. He's been waiting for years to find a studio that would let him write the script, give him some say in the director and cast, etc. He's a perfectionist and a control freak, and would much rather never have the movie made than have it made without his input. I'm completely confident that if this movie is being made at all, it's being made the way Card wants it.

        • Note that Wolfgang Petersen was the director of Enemy Mine, NOT the screenwriter. The screenwriter is the one who makes the decisions of what to keep or leave out when adapting a book.

          Screenwriters everywhere wish they had that much control. In reality, the producer, screenwriter, director, and editor all shape what ends up on the screen. Occasionally the studio executives re-edit the film.

    • I truly hope it makes it this time. With the movie industry desperately looking for the next big movie, I think it will.

      There seem to be three trends in major movies right now - epics (LotR, Star Wars), series (Matrix, LotR, Star Wars), and comics (Spider-Man, Incredible Hulk). I think the scope of Ender's will be tempting enough for some nice funding.

      Of course, I could be insane.
      • The trends are because the movie industry is looking fo rsuper hero's again. They've figured out that the random action flicks and horibly bad comedies aren't selling as well as they thought. It's epic stories that make people talk and want to come back for more. Think about it, all of the movies you listed have a definate good guys v. bad guys sort of set up. Ask someone to identify the heros and they give you a group of about 3 -5 characters (for the larger epics) of people that are with out a doubt the good guys. The whole sort of not knowing really who's good or if there is a good that's been presented in a lot of movies recently (Traffic, Training Day, Spy Games etc) doesn't quite sit well with people. We want big battles between good and evil.

        Ender's Game really doesn't fit this role, but anyone who's read the book(s) will tell you that if done right it will make an incredible movie. What it all hinges on is whether or not it can come across with the same power that the book does, and make you go hmmm.

        For those of you wondering how the story could be told without Peter and Valentine I suggest you try to dig up a copy of the old S.F. magazine "Analog" in the volume labled Anthology #2 Readers Choice (1982 Edition) [if it helps, the magazines Library of Congress number is 80-69078] you will find a short story version of Ender's Game. If I recall correctly, OSC wrote this version long before he wrote the book and went back to the story at much prodding from friends to turn it into a book. Most likely, the movie will follow a formula of this type.

        Those of you looking to read some good S.F. & F that is on par with Ender's Game for being cool and visual should read Cobra (by Timothy Zahn) and the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (by Stephen R. Donaldson)
        • Those of you looking to read some good S.F. & F that is on par with Ender's Game for being cool and visual should read Cobra (by Timothy Zahn) and the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (by Stephen R. Donaldson)

          Thank you for that recommendation. I've read Ender's series, and I've read the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Ur-Lord and White Gold Wielder. I can honestly say that no other books have ever had the punch that those series did.

          Ender's Game taught me what horror really is. And The Wounded Land showed me one of the most beautiful moments in any book I've ever read (around page 180, it actually brought tears to my eyes, when the Giants got their caamora.

          So, I'll be picking up Cobra tomorrow, and hoping for the same greatness.

          • One other one I remembered was (but only if you're into deep stuff) Sphere was a good book (Michael Chriton I believe wrote it). The movie on the other hand sucked.
          • Cobra is from Zahn's earlier writings.. can't remember if it's back in print at the moment, you may have to comb used books stores. It's a very decent example of military sci-fi, but has an... aged feel. Much the same tone as a lot of novels from the Vietnam war era.

            I haven't read too much of Zahn.. Warhorse was an interesting standalone, and not too stereotypical.
            The Thrawn trilogy is very good, IMHO head and shoulders above the rest of the Star Wars novels. Spinneret was a good, light, read. Deadman switch is, well, weird. It's a suspense novel, so it isn't nearly as good a read the second time, but was quite riveting the first time.

            .. just checked. Cobra, and it's sequels (which I have not found) are all out of print.

            If you like Military Sci-fi, I heartily recommend David Webber's Honor Harrington series. The first two books in the series are available in the Baen Free Library [baen.com].
    • Hey, Stop yer cryin. We had to wait a long time for D&D [imdb.com] and look what happened.

      Wait. Bad example.

  • I think the record wasn't just that they transmitted at that speed, but that they did it over the massively long distance which they did, over oceans and all. I don't think an intra-Canadian network can really claim that they transmit as far.

    • More importantly (Score:5, Informative)

      by BeBoxer ( 14448 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @07:45PM (#3576287)
      The land speed record is not how fast your network is in aggregate. It's how fast and how far you can push a single pair of hosts using TCP. How fast the backbone links are on CANet is entirely irrelevant. Lot's of big providers have links running at OC-12 or OC-48, both of which are faster than 400Mbps. Abilene itself routinely runs links at over 400Mbps 24/7. Check out the graphs [iu.edu]

      But how fast an aggregate link is isn't the point. It's how fast you can send data from one computer to another. If you've ever actually tried to send data at over 100Mbps on the WAN, you would know how hard it is. To get 400Mbps requires the link to not only be fast enough, but to have essentially zero loss. And to get several networks that are that clean, especially to Europe, is pretty amazing. If you don't believe me, try sending a CD's worth of data across your room at that speed. Never mind sending it across the Atlantic Ocean.

  • Ender's Game (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Torinaga-Sama ( 189890 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @07:03PM (#3576122) Homepage
    Man, I hope they find a lot of good child actors. With the exception of the sixth Sence and the City of Lost Children I have yet to see an excellent job done by a child filling a more adult personality.
    • Er, I can think of a few movies where the child actors seemed better than the adults...
      Wait - adult personality.

      Ok, then I'd add the girl that played Claudia in Interview with a Vampire.

      Kirsten Dunst? Which makes it in IMHO her best role.
    • how about the others...the girl was pretty good?
    • Man, I hope they find a lot of good child actors. With the exception of the sixth Sence and the City of Lost Children I have yet to see an excellent job done by a child filling a more adult personality.

      Hardly movie-quality, but - the kid who played Picard in the "four people get turned into children" TNG episode did a damned good job.

    • Re:Ender's Game (Score:3, Funny)

      by 3Suns ( 250606 )
      Short a few good child actors? Pschaw... just CG 'em! I thought Yoda did a pretty darn good job in AotC...
      • There's lots of speculation of how studios are
        longing for high quality CG in order to have
        a better bargaining position with actors,
        but child actors who don't prance like prima
        donnas are still a major headache. They have
        growth spurts in the middle of a shooting period,
        or break their voices, et cetera. The first
        massive use of CG actors IMO is likely to
        be done for child characters.
    • Anyone remember Bugsy Malone [imdb.com] ? It's a gangster film where all the roles are played by child actors; and no, it isn't too corny, but as I remember it it's a pretty good 'Untouchables' style romp (except the guns fire pies I think - it's been a long time since I last saw it).

  • I thought I might add... (Score:4, Funny)

    by cscx ( 541332 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @07:08PM (#3576142) Homepage
    Now's the chance to add any words of encouragement to the BBC regarding Ogg, especially since, perhaps by oversight, RealOne (formerly RealPlayer) is now only available for Windows 98, 2000, ME, NT and XP.

    WinAmp [winamp.com] has support for playing Ogg Vorbis files.

    Funny someone would name an encoding format after a caveman...
    • > Funny someone would name an encoding format after a caveman...

      and there was me thinking it was a Terry Pratchett reference. (Nanny Ogg + Vorbis the Exquisitor)

      signed
      confused

    • What does the name "Ogg Vorbis" mean? (Score:5, Informative)

      by cpeterso ( 19082 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @07:56PM (#3576325) Homepage
      According to someone on the Vorbis User and Discussion List [xiph.org], "Ogg Vorbis" is named after the "ogg tactical maneuver" in Netrek and Vorbis after the Terry Pratchett character from the book Small Gods.

      What does the name "Ogg Vorbis" mean?

      First, Vorbis was taken from a character of an ''exquisitor'' in the book
      "Small Gods," a title in a series of Terry Pratchett fantasy novels.
      Formally, Vorbis is the name for the specific audio compression scheme used
      to create Ogg Vorbis files. It is ultimately part of the Ogg Vorbis CODEC
      project (a branch of the overarching, open-multimedia Ogg project), which is
      headed by Christopher Montgomery and his team.


  • transgaming (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ukyoCE ( 106879 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @07:08PM (#3576143) Journal
    transgaming is awesome software! I've just been playing Warcraft 2 (Battle-net edition, the old one was DOS and needs Dosemu), Deus Ex, and Counter-strike. All without leaving linux, and all *with* the ability to change workspaces to talk in Gaim while I'm playing (in between rounds of counter-strike can get tedious, after all).

    • Trans-Story (Score:2, Funny)

      by bstadil ( 7110 )
      Maybe you are using the new Netscape Tab feature, as you posted under wrong story. ;-)

    • transgaming is awesome software! I've just been playing Warcraft 2 (Battle-net edition, the old one was DOS and needs Dosemu), Deus Ex, and Counter-strike. All without leaving linux, and all *with* the ability to change workspaces to talk in Gaim while I'm playing (in between rounds of counter-strike can get tedious, after all).

      War2: BNE worked fine for me when I played it using regular WINE a year or so ago. Counter-strike also works fine with regular WINE. I don't know about Deus Ex (I think you can grab the beta version that Loki almost [or was it finally released? I know there was an issue with the unrealscript stuff...] released from one of the Loki ftp mirrors [check lokigames.com for a list]). Since I don't use proprietary software anymore (I run a completely Free machine...woo), I don't use WINE for gaming anymore. But WINE still has a use: I use it to run VTI (GPL) because gtktiemu can't emulate the Z80 based calculators (ti82, ti83[+|SE], ti86). I really should recompile that using libwine...(I know the calc rom is evil and proprietary...)

  • They do have a version for linux that is either alpha or beta, the link is very hard to find.. if I find it again Ill reply to this..

    • Re:realone player (Score:3, Informative)

      by moronic1 ( 162493 )
      instructions and link to get it: RealOne [real.com]
      There is NO direct link to the download because of the registration process.
      Here is how to get it:
      1) Goto http://scopes.real.com/real/player/unix/unix.html
      2) Fill in the form and Choose Linux 2.x (libc6 i386).
      3) click on "Download Community Supported Player"
      4) Don't click on the normal download links. Go look at the very bottom of the page. You will see
      " RealOne Player for Unix - Preview Release If you would like to try the alpha version of RealOne Player for Linux 2.2 x86, use the button below." 5) Click on that button and download

  • Forgetting some films? (Score:4, Informative)

    by SmackDown ( 246562 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @07:11PM (#3576157)
    Wolfgang Petersen also did Das Boot, one of the best war movies of all time. (IMHO) This could be a spectacular film under his direction.

  • Wonky? (Score:3, Funny)

    by avalys ( 221114 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @07:13PM (#3576161)
    What an unfortunate job title...what the hell is a 'Company Wonky'?

    I bet that looks real good on a resume.

  • Who is luna? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Hatter ( 3985 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @07:19PM (#3576186)
    So, fans of orson scott card (to whom I was turned onto by luna) should be happy.

    Who is luna? Are slashdot submissions going to have shout-outs in them like MTV's TRL now?

    • At least the grammar on /. submissions will be better than on TRL, this crowd appreciates the finer points of the English language.

      Wait a minute......
    • This brings up an interesting point.

      Why aren't submissions to /. edited?

      Often they contain spelling errors, gramamr errors, or other crap that isn't relevant to the story being posted. In particular, the submitter's commentary on the article/gadget/etc or other comments not related to the submission are often included verbatim.

      Why don't /. editors edit this out? It would really improve the professionalism and cohesiveness of the site.

  • Ender's game movie? (Score:3, Funny)

    by RESPAWN ( 153636 ) <respawn_76@@@hotmail...com> on Thursday May 23, 2002 @07:27PM (#3576210) Journal
    So they're finally going to do a movie based on it? Oh great. Yet another movie for the slashdot community to bitch about. ;)

  • Ender's Game Movie - Don't Hold Your Breath (Score:5, Interesting)

    by donnacha ( 161610 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @07:28PM (#3576217) Homepage


    The long developmental time for films is a frustrating and, sometimes, sad thing. One of our greatest writers, Philip K. Dick, died just before getting to see the screen adaptation of his fabulous novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? [amazon.com], Ridley Scott [imdb.com]'s Blade Runner [imdb.com].

    That was particulary sad because, as told in Lawrence Sutin's excellent Divine Invasions : A Life of Philip K. Dick [amazon.com], this would have been a self-vindicating landmark in a life tortured by schizophrenia and criminal disregard by literary critics.

    It's worth noting that Douglas Adams also died after years trying to get a film of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy [amazon.com] off the ground.

    • Philip K. Dick, died just before getting to see the screen adaptation of his fabulous novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"
      Fabulous? You've got to be kidding. I bought the book after being blown away by the movie Blade Runner. After reading "Do Androids...", my only thought was how did they make such a great movie out of that huge, steaming, stinking pile of doggy poo. The book is beyond bad. It's dreadful. It's crap. It's major shit. My god, I can't believe I wasted a couple of hours of my life on that garbage!

      • Re: Ender's Game Movie - Don't Hold Your Breath (Score:4, Insightful)

        by donnacha ( 161610 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @09:28PM (#3576664) Homepage


        Fabulous? You've got to be kidding. I bought the book after being blown away by the movie Blade Runner. After reading "Do Androids...", my only thought was how did they make such a great movie out of that huge, steaming, stinking pile of doggy poo. The book is beyond bad. It's dreadful. It's crap. It's major shit. My god, I can't believe I wasted a couple of hours of my life on that garbage!

        Perhaps it makes more sense to read Philip K. Dick's stuff sequentially, starting with his early short stories. That way you can get into his deliciously paranoid mindset. He was the pioneer and absolute master of that unique sense of foreboding that made films like Blade Runner [imdb.com] and Total Recall [imdb.com] so interesting.

      • I am on the side of the original poster, Do Androids... is an excellent book filled with great ideas.

        Dick turned down big bucks when the studio wanted to suppress the original work and put of a piece-of-shit 'book of the movie' based on the script instead. That took guts and integrity on his part.

        However, I'm not surprised that if you came to the book through the glitzy movie which homogenized the ideas in the original, you were disappointed. IMHO it doesn't reflect well on you that you would have been happy with a rehash of the script in the book (what would be the point? You already saw the film) and not the challenging and valuable document you got instead. :-(
    • The long developmental time for films is a frustrating and, sometimes, sad thing. One of our greatest writers, Philip K. Dick, died just before getting to see the screen adaptation of his fabulous novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.

      That said, he apparently *loved* the bits of the unfinished film that he was shown. (My source: the rather excellent book "Future Noir: the Making of Blade Runner", by Paul M Sammon).

  • RealOne Player Here (Score:3, Informative)

    by eviltypeguy ( 521224 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @07:30PM (#3576223)
    There is NO direct link to the download because of theregistration process.

    Here is how to get it:

    1) Goto http://scopes.real.com/real/player/unix/unix.html
    2) Fill in the form and Choose Linux 2.x (libc6 i386).
    3) click on "Download Community Supported Player"
    4) Don't click on the normal download links. Go look at the very
    bottom of the page. You will see

    " RealOne Player for Unix - Preview Release
    If you would like to try the alpha version of RealOne Player for
    Linux 2.2 x86, use the button below."

    5) Click on that button and download.
  • OK, so apparently these "Cool Chips" are based on quantum phyics... where can I find a good "Quantum Mechanics for Dummies" book? (seriously)

    I'd settle for a good "introduction to quantum physics" article, but I think I need something to help me get my brain wrapped around these concepts. I understand the whole multiple universe thing (sort of), but it just seems so mind-blowing.
    • If you're serious about understanding the topic, and not just looking for a "QM in 21 days for Idiots in a Nutshell" version, hunt down Richard Feynmann's "Lectures on Physics" series, especially Volume III (IIRC). He was an incredibly intelligent man, and a gifted communicator; the lecture series is a good (if complex) read.

      Russ %-)
    • Check out Kuro5hin.org for 2 good articles by a guy trying to get his Doctorate in particle physics. The first article is: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/5/1/3712/31700

      The second is: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/5/14/19363/8142

      Both are general physics introductions, but they talk about quantium structure. There are also several good articles on howstuffworks.com explaining specifics of physics in detail.
    • Er, there's this nifty layman's book called A Brief History Of Time by Steven Hawking. I found this book particularly interesting because he explains everything in nice simple terms and doesn't assume you've just taken a college-level calc course. Of course, i'll probably get flamed to a crisp for even mentioning this book or something.

  • This script thus far is HORRIBLE (Score:4, Informative)

    by ShieldWolf ( 20476 ) <jeffrankine@nets[ ]e.net ['cap' in gap]> on Thursday May 23, 2002 @07:47PM (#3576293)
    I am a huge fan of the book but has anyone read the scriptment that OSC put up on the net? Ughhhh it was BAD It sounded more like Wing Commander than Ender's Game. Anderson is turned into a woman, Bean is more prominent in order to do the sequel (sidequel), Peter and Valentine are removed from the story altogether. The P and V thing I understand, a lot of the other stuff just shows how bad a FILM writer OSC is.

    my $.02

    • Keep in mind that a 100-page book tells about as much story as a two-hour movie. Ender's Game is more than 300 pages. Some stuff has to be left out or changed. And also keep in mind that the very early draft that Card put online three or four years ago is NOT "the script thus far." It was written before he realized there were enough good child actors to keep the focus of the story on the children, and before he wrote Ender's Shadow.

      Anderson is turned into a woman
      So what? Point to one place in the book where Anderson's gender makes the slightest bit of difference. In a visual medium, Anderson works better as a foil to Graff as a woman.

      Bean is more prominent in order to do the sequel
      Bean is more prominent because he's an interesting character. Card regretted not doing more with him in the first place, that's why he wrote ES. Exploring the superficial similarities and subtle but important differences between Bean and Ender is interesting enough to warrant combining EG and ES into one movie--Card originally planned to do them separately.

      As for Peter and Valentine, the reason EG is the book Card is trying to get filmed, instead of some of his other wonderful novels, is that the main storyline would work as a movie. Peter and Valentine aren't part of the main storyline. In Card's original short story, they didn't even exist. The story works without them, and their subplot would make for pretty boring cinema--all they do is talk and write. There's some stuff that works better in text, and some stuff that works better in drama. Peter and Valentine are firmly in the former category.

  • Q - Heat can't disappear, so where does it go?
    A - To the other side of the chip. From there it still has to be dissipated like normal except that the cool side stays cold and can be used to cool, for example, computer chips or the inside of a refrigerator.

    Like the McDLT [bertlesman.com] - The HOT side stays HOT and the COOL side stays COOL!

  • my life makes it to the big screen!

  • BBC Ogg streams (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dicky ( 1327 ) <slash3@vmlinuz.org> on Thursday May 23, 2002 @07:54PM (#3576316) Homepage
    At least one of the BBC Ogg streams was still running 5 minutes ago because I was listening to it on my iPAQ...

    It's really nice to get quality radio on a non-traditional device. I should mention that I'm posting this from my iPAQ too :-)

    • I'd love to know which stream you were listening to because my scheduled capture of the 1830 comedy on Radio 4 failed last night, and I'm desperate to find a way to get captures before Monday's I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue!

      The BBC Ogg test page states the test period finished on 2002/05/19 however I was able to record ISIHAC from Radio 4 on Monday 2002/05/20.

      Incidently I have no idea of the legality or otherwise of capturing the live stream (using nothing more than a Cronjob'd "wget" BTW) but it strikes me that if you can make personal tape recordings from trad. radio then this sort of timeshifting is no more harmful...

      *sob* please tell me I'm not going to have to go dig out one of those obsolete audio tapes in time for Monday *sob*. I want my, I want my, I want my Ogg R4...

      • The Radio6 (aka 6music) stream is still there, but it looks like the others have gone :-(

        A mate of mine has a more complex system, written in Perl, which parses the Radio 4 online listings and downloads everything, splitting the stream up into individual programs - we were planning on re-writing it in Python using PyOgg. He's going to be mightily pissed-off.

        All is not lost for you, however. You can hack something up with a combination of trplayer, vsound and lame (or something similar). Google for it or drop me a line for more info. It's no good for me, since there's no realplayer for Linux-on-iPAQ, which is where streaming really shines...

        Oh, and Fanshaw Explains (or something like that) isn't in the same league as ISIHAC :-)

  • from the Cool Chips FAQ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ian Peon ( 232360 ) <ianNO@SPAMepperson.com> on Thursday May 23, 2002 @08:08PM (#3576360)
    Raising those funds --
    $10-15 million, not a massive sum by any means -- is what we need to do next

    I wonder if I can use that quote at my next job interview?

  • speed record (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dajr ( 64457 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @08:28PM (#3576418) Homepage
    The record in question is for a single tcp stream. Internet2 (and the canadian network, and GEANT in the EU) is capable of carrying considerably more than the 400Mb/s of the Alaska -> Amsterdam record (I'm associated with I2 and I can do 800Mb/s from my desktop - with udp.) It gets extremely tricky doing fast tcp with the latencies involved over such large distances. Try one day and you'll see. You're having to keep ~200-300Mbits in the pipe at one time. Drop a couple of packets, the connection collapses, and you have to wait for the pipe to empty. Do a goodle search on "bandwidth delay product" and read on.

  • Nooo! Not Ender's Game! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jayed_99 ( 267003 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @09:27PM (#3576658)
    Francis Ford Coppola *might* be able to turn Ender's Game into a good movie. I have strong doubts that any other popular Hollywood director could.


    The thing that makes Ender's Game such a great book is that the small unwashed masses of alienated, hyper-intelligent geeks could truly empathize with Ender on an emotional level. We can understand his trials and feel his pains. We can also understand his pyrrhic victories. The rest of the books are good (for the most part) but that visceral sense of identification gets left behind. And, in Ender's Shadow, Card tries to shift that sense of identification from Ender to Bean. He fails miserably. He comes closer, yet also fails with Qing-Jao.


    In the first book, Ender's Game, Card forges an emotional envolvement with Ender. (Well, if you're an alienated, hyper-intelligent geek anyway). The rest of the books in the initial series -- Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind -- are good. He comes closest to reforging that emotional link in the Xenocide/Children of the Mind sub-duology with the character of Qing-Jao. He doesn't quite make it though...I can truly empathize with a braniac with no friends, an obsessive-compulsive super-braniac is a bit beyond my league.


    He repeats himself in the sub-duology of Ender's Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon. Yes, Bean is super-smart. But he's a genetically engineered human. Card has once again taken what worked with Ender and altered the character so much that readers can't truly relate.


    Damn, I've been rambling. The point that I'm trying to emphasize (out of the many points that I've made) is that the appeal of Ender's Game is that readers could honestly and wholely identify with the main character. I don'think that the same sense of identification will come across on the screen.

    • Francis Ford Coppola *might* be able to turn Ender's Game into a good movie. I have strong doubts that any other popular Hollywood director could.
      It's just as well that they are not using a Hollywood director then - they are using Wolfgang Peterson. Sorry guys, but Hollywood has hit a low point, probably due to creative control by uncreative people that want to rip off writers, directors, the public, the IRS etc, while being more interested in copying what the other studios are doing or remaking sitcoms than making something watchable. Most of the best of the recent "Hollywood" productions are made somewhere else with Hollywood money (eg.LOTR, Matrix, Ep2), and have managed to escape whatever it is that stifles Hollywood movies.

      Lucas and Speilberg didn't get to where they are by being good directors (but I'm not saying they are bad directors), they got there by playing the Hollywood game. Even after "Alien", Sigorney Weaver had to go through embarassing auditions that closely resembled a casting couch (for her role as a businesswoman in the film "Working Girl"). Hollywood isn't about movies anymore, it's just about greed and profit. Enough ranting, I'm sure someone will post good counter-examples to give me hope. Strangely, a lot of the best Hollywood films I've seen lately have been about why Hollywood is bad (Timecode, Jay & Silent Bob, etc).

      Ok - more ranting. At least while Hollywood is a corrupt cesspool it lets other countries profit by making the movies there. People in the USA shouldn't worry, it's not as if any taxes would be paid to the USA, and it's not as if long term jobs would go to those that are not relatives, cronies or willing to humiliate themselves for a chance anyway.

    • He's so far beyond smart, that even if you're smart, you're supposed to be alienated. And as he is, he is paying the ultimate price (his early death) for it. Now, you may sympathize -- since everyone different typically pays some sort of price, extracted by some peer group at some point -- but you cannot know him. Bean is also an asshole. He's out to accomplish his goals, and he's only really capable of non-manipulative human contact if he has nothing left to accomplish. If he's trying to do something, then look out -- he'll play everyone around him as he feels will best achieve his goal. Ender was unlike bean; Ender was a Carnegie sort of leader. He rallied people around him because he lifted them up and up, until they followed him out of love and admiration. That's why Ender was loved, and Bean does not inspire the same. But Ender grew up with 5 years of loving parents; Bean hid in a toilet to escape being killed as a baby, and spent his first few years staying alive on the streets.
    • Francis Ford Coppola *might* be able to turn Ender's Game into a good movie. I have strong doubts that any other popular Hollywood director could.

      Which of course includes the director of Das Boot? (Yes, that's Petersons.) If I remember correctly, that's one of Coppola's favorite flicks.

      The thing that makes Ender's Game such a great book is that the small unwashed masses of alienated, hyper-intelligent geeks could truly empathize with Ender on an emotional level. We can understand his trials and feel his pains.

      "We"? Only on Slashdot would someone just in passing assign themselves the label "hyper-intelligent." Now if someone would only write a book where all of us uber-talented movie critics could have someone to identify with...

  • Quality of BBC streams (Score:4, Interesting)

    by galaga79 ( 307346 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @10:46PM (#3577007) Homepage
    While I never got a change to try out the BBC Ogg Vorbis streams (because my net connection is a mere 56k modem shared to 3 computers) I am quite interested to hear how it would have sounded with the encoding settings they have used. Below is a quote from the BBC website explaining the settings they used.

    Currently there is a Radio 4 stream, and two Radio 1 streams using different quality settings to ices. The _low is using -q 0, whilst the _high is using -q 3. I'd be interested to know if anyone can tell much difference between them (challenge for all you audiophiles out there :)

    Now I have been mucking around with Ogg Vorbis for a few months and I have encountered some quite impressive results. On my website I have music downloads and I store them at -q 2, which equates to a nominal bitrate of 80-96 and in my opinion is on par with a MP3 using VBR ranging between 112-160. At this setting it still has a few minor artifacts but for the most part they aren't noticable and thus makes a good setting for free music downloads.

    Furthermore I encode my CD collection at -q 5 and on my decent stereo and headphones I can't tell the difference between the original CD and the Ogg Vorbis track. For those interested this stores my guitar based music at an average bit-rate of 160-190 and electronic at 190-250 roughly speaking.

    Anyway long story short, from my past experience it sounds like the high quality stream at a quality setting of 3.00, which I am guessing equates to a nominal bit-rate of 135 or so would have sounded pretty darn good. Definitely better than FM reception and perhaps almost as good as CD quality depending on the setup used. Can anyone verify or comment on this?

  • ogg? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by matticus ( 93537 )
    is it just me, or is Ogg Vorbis kind of a dumb name for a multimedia format?
    I'm sorry, I don't mean to troll, I just want to find people who agree. Think of this-"I have 5600 MP3s".
    Now replace it- "I have 5600 [Ogg Vorbis's|Ogg Vorbis Multimedia Files|Ogg Vorbis Audios]".
    It doesn't work. It's like legos. You don't say I have 2030 Lego brand entertainment bricks, or 2030 Lego bricks. You say I have 2030 Legos. This, imho, is Ogg's greatest downfall. The project works great, the compression is good, the audio sounds pretty dang good, but it will never catch on, first because of the large installed base of mp3s and players, and second, because it just sounds dumb.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Well, you would either say "5600 oggs" or more likely "5600 songs". If a technology is good enough it becomes transparent enough to ignore, in the way that no-one would say 'do you want to sit on the couch and watch a VHS tape tonight'

      Oh, and you picked the worst possible example with Lego, the plural of lego is lego, and the correct thing to say actually is "Lego bricks" (or just plain "bricks" if the context is obvious).

      Oddly enough I've only encountered this mistake when talking to Americans about lego, everyone else seems to get it right... then again Americans don't seem to know the difference between cinemas and theatres and have mangled the pronounciation of 'Aluminium' so badly that the derivative word 'Aluminiuming' is impossible for them to say, so I guess they can't really be trusted with custodianship of the English language!
    • I have never ever heard anyone refer to lego bricks as anything other than lego bricks or lego pieces. Calling them legos just sounds odd - like calling all the various meccano pieces meccanos.

      And although I talk about mp3 files a lot, I have never been tempted to call them mp3's. Usually I call them songs, tracks, mp3 files or music files. Iff I used Ogg Vorbis more I would probably call them songs, tracks, vorbis files, ogg files (although that could be confusing when Ogg Tarkin gets developed) or music files.

      Null issue - anyone not trying to be lazy in speech or in type will be fine with this.

  • Okay, any Swedes out there? I've been trying to get SR to move away from RA and embrace Ogg Vorbis. It would be great if we could get together, write up something official'ish and all sign it.

    If that is not your thing, consider simply emailing SR and let them know that you would prefer Ogg Vorbis.

    When I did this a year ago they argued that a) RA is available for 'all' platforms and that b) HTTP is not suitable for streaming. I think those are pretty weak arguments, and so in about two months (making it a year since last time) I will again make my voice heard.

    Also, that was before BBC did their tests, so that is new ammunition, especially if they start using it for "real".

    Email me if you want to join up.

    We're _paying_ SR via taxes, remember that. They should listen to us.

  • Wether their cooling chips work or not, the company deserves some credit for a) posting a fairly informative FAQ (with references to peer-reviewed pub), b) making that FAQ available in a text-only version which will hopefully not get slashdotted again, c) using the following sentence: "However, the equipment needed to build chips capable of being accurately tested for cooling is expensive, and a royal pain to set up and calibrate.", d) giving our the name and e.mail of their two contacts, a suit *and* a geek.
  • Screw "Ender's Game", the movie... when do we get "Ender's Game", the GAME? I mean, come on, it's right there in the title!

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