Beat me to the punch. It was not awesome, and I honestly think most people who are saying it was awesome are really saying "It was awesome to a lot of [undefined vague general] people, even though it wasn't really awesome to me, but since I don't want to buck the [non-existent] crowd, I too will define it as awesome."

I was 7 when the original Tron movie came out. I was at the time your average kid with a home (TI-99-4A) computer. I read Byte magazine; I programmed a little basic. I was in short exactly the sort of nerd for whom Tron was supposedly created. All of the premises of Tron then were laughable, the plot was trite and boring, and even the graphics weren't anything to write home about (because the technology WAS too new). It was so completely out of the bounds of anything possible (and it was making false and stupid statements about things which we DID know about), that even as a seven year old, I couldn't enjoy the movie. I don't know who actually liked tron. I think maybe it was the gamer/stoner crowd more than the geek/nerd crowd. In any case given the above description of the first movie, I can say that the second movie definitely fully lived up to the first.

Actually, after re-reading your hard "scifi" definition again, I would have to say that it is almost as far off as your other definitions, but in the opposite direction. My personal definition (and that of most reviewers and aficionados) would probably be closer to "Hard sci-fi examines the potential future results of unlikely but theoretically possible events using ONLY known and accepted scientific principles and processes" I would say that any breach of scientific law, no matter how it was explained would push the work from hard science fiction into science fiction. In general hard science fiction tends to focus on the sociopolitical implications of the use or lack of use of a particular technology or technologies, rather than on potential future "discoveries". YMMV

Just because you have personal definitions which you can articulate well, does not mean the rest of the world has to use them as well. You are both linguistically and historically inaccurate in your definitions. Just a few points...

1. SciFi as a term has historically been used almost exclusively to describe science fantasy (Movies, Pulp Magazines, etc. which claim a science cause for some plot devices but which are fundamentally not in line with any known scientific principles). Lovers of Science Fiction have often complained when the term SciFi was applied to "Hard" or "Semi-hard" science fiction, because they didn't want "real" science fiction associated with "scifi".

2. Science Fiction tends to differ from sci-fi, not in the "number of breaches" that are allowed (Your artificial decision that it must be exactly two is so laughable that it's hard to even address this point with a straight face), but in that (and this is not a definition but merely anecdotal evidence) it is A) Fully internally consistent (where many [perhaps even most] sci-fi works are not) and B) It takes the time to give a plausible (not realistic not necessarily extrapolated from known science; but plausible in the context of the work) explanation for any and all differences from science as we know it. This explanation may be cursory ("The principles which enabled the creation of the first star drive were now a common gradeschool subject") and sidereal to the primary plot, or it may be extensive and integral to the plot.

3. You are right on the money with your definition of Hard Science Fiction (There's no such thing as hard "SciFi" as per my historical note above) but it's still your definition not "THE" definition and I could probably give one that is a better fit.

Again I am not claiming to be definitive, but if my thoughts above were taken as definitive they would be both more precise and more accurate than your ludicrous personal definitions.

Of course it still breaks down when you ask what would have happened if she had left the keys in the folder and closed and locked it.

Actually, the analogy would be that she had the keys for the filing cabinet in a file in the cabinet (Entirely plausible if not probable), then threw out that folder to make space (also plausible if the secretaries I've known are any measure), and finally closed and locked the cabinet and wondered why she couldn't open it.

.oO{I posted a sign that said No Solicitation, No Newspapers, No Flyers - Violators will be shot.

They kept coming.

I stayed home from work on the day the papers were delivered one week. Waited just inside the front door with the shotgun. When pimply-faced jerk showed up, I shoved the shotgun in his face and told him the next time he set foot on my property I was going to shoot first.

They stopped coming.}

The above is a description of a deep-seated fantasy and has not been nor ever will be acted upon by the author of this post... Unless you're the one who keeps delivering the stupid things to my door, in which case, I'm totally serious.

Who can say what PROD01 does when that server may eventually be re-purposed to something other than what it is currently used for; this is a normal and natural evolution of server function in the sysadmin world, but it is still useful to have a tag which sticks to that particular piece of hardware, regardless of where it moves, thus the arbitrary but consistent naming schema.

It helps to have a human-readable/remember-able name for the server instead of a collection of gibberish which, though it may translate eventually into some useful information, is so hard to remember that it takes longer than just looking it up on the chart of server names on the wall. The names must be arbitrary because the server must be able to be repurposed, but the names must be consistent or they do not offer any mnemonic assistance.

We name servers for one group out of one arbitrary category (say mythical monsters) and servers for another group out of another (say SF authors). This allows the name to communicate some information directly (info which is unlikely to change even if the server's role is changed within that group). While all other information can quickly be found on the wiki or a printed out chart, which actually happens faster than deciphering that at13g3d12 is the 12th dev server for group 3 in the at&t datacenter rack 13. (It really is faster to look it up than to decode even that simple of an encoded name.) Finally, for an individual dev working on several projects it is much easier to remember that the billing project is on mothra while the reporting project is on grendel than it is to remember that one is on at13g3d3 and one is on at13g3d4.

My company actually switched from an arbitrary but consistent naming convention to a strictly encoded naming convention and quickly switched back when the loss of efficiency and productivity was actually measurable.

The difference, is that while the total_annual_cost variable should and will never hold anything other than the "total annual cost", HappyZippers may eventually be re-purposed to something other than what it is currently used for; this is a normal and natural evolution of server function in the sysadmin world, but it is useful to have a tag which sticks to that particular piece of hardware, regardless of where it moves.

And for the same reason that we name the variable total_annual_cost instead of c113, it helps to have a human-readable/remember-able name for the server instead of a collection of gibberish which, though it may translate eventually into some useful information, is so hard to remember that it takes longer than just looking it up on the chart of server names on the wall. The names must be arbitrary because the server must be able to be repurposed, but the names must be consistent or they do not offer any mnemonic assistance.

We name servers for one group out of one arbitrary category (say mythical monsters) and servers for another group out of another (say SF authors). This allows the name to communicate some information directly (info which is unlikely to change even if the server's role is changed within that group). While all other information can quickly be found on the wiki or a printed out chart, which actually happens faster than deciphering that at13g3d12 is the 12th dev server for group 3 in the at&t datacenter rack 13. (It really is faster to look it up than to decode even that simple of an encoded name.) Finally, for an individual dev working on several projects it is much easier to remember that the billing project is on mothra while the reporting project is on grendel than it is to remember that one is on at13g3d3 and one is on at13g3d4.

My company actually switched from an arbitrary but consistent naming convention to a strictly encoded naming convention and quickly switched back when the loss of efficiency and productivity was actually measurable.

To me (and IANAL as will be obvious), the VA court seems to have gotten it completely wrong not just with respect to the technological questions but with respect to the basic question of what freedom of speech entails.

Since when did the right to "free speech" include the implicit right to free anonymous speech? Sure you have the right to speak your mind, especial as part of the political process, and certainly you should be able to do so through any reasonable medium to which you have access, and certainly methods which are intrinsically anonymous are not excluded from this right, but that you should be able to do so in such a way that no one knows who is responsible for the speech via a communication medium which is intrinsically not anonymous is almost certainly not the intention of the founding fathers or advantageous to a healthy democracy.

If I choose to shout my political views down main street, I must be allowed to do so (within limits), but that doesn't mean that I can't be required to take off the Halloween mask (unless the mask is intrinsic to the message, and even then in some cases).

I'm sure there will be a hundred responses with case law that presumes to bring anonymous speech within the protection of the first amendment, so let me forestall such responses by saying that regardless of the relevant case-law, from the perspective of a healthy democracy in the 21st century, I think that freedom to speak anonymously should not in fact be considered a right even if it in law currently is considered so. The only valid argument I can see for anonymous speech is that an antagonistic government can know its enemies if anonymous speech is not protected; but a government that chooses to ignore the rights of the people to be free from government censure for political speech will just as quickly ignore their right to anonymous speech regardless of what the constitution or case law may say

.oO{Hey, that sounds about like what we've got right now anyway}