Agamemnon

China has the advantage of a politically-driven program. That launched the Soviets into orbit, after all.

Rest assured that no matter were you are, you are never far from our thoughts. I wish you all the best.

I'm not a racist either, but my understanding is wearing thin. One day, I'm sure I'll be one.

I had some issues too, took ages to get there.

Making a manned flight to the Moon again would essentially mean starting from scratch with the hardware. The old way is hardly applicable anymore and spaceshuttle tech is not deisgned for it either. What that means is a MASSIVE expenditure in R&D, for questionable benefits.

Let's face it: what the hell do we need people on Mars for? Science certainly hasn't considered necessary before, considering the massive risks involved with such an undertaking. Probes have done pretty well up to now, why risk lives and spend truckloads of money? Manned spaceflight (especially beyond immediate orbit) is fiendishly dangerous, hellishly expensive and largely pointless for anything but PR.

Again, the answer is likely to be Politics. In this new plan, Bush seems determined to issue a statement "USA Will Forever Rule This and Any Other World!"

It was Clarke who said it best: "There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags don't wave in a vacuum."

Double standards, don't you just love those?

*sigh*

The future is coming, and I don't like the looks of it.

Or his Autumn Blade stuff, or his vehicle catalogs? By their sheer volume, they exceed the Chromebooks.

"Noir" by K.W Jeter. It's an absolutely sick book in some aspects, but it's definitely Cyberpunk.

Hmm, interesting point, and one that I can see the motivations behind. I'm not saying it's something that is likely to happen, but that is one way it could.

You do that.

Mine is ... complicated. It revolves around the pursuit of happiness and good food. Also, I need to get in shape (miltary service starts in next Jan).

Nice rant, but not really on the target here.

wow, Harry the badass!  I ought to get some more presentable piccies there, too.

I've written for quite a while, and found my skills improve from abysmal to merely bad. My typical approach is to start from a person, and work outwards. Most of the time, the story is alive while written and even drastic changes can take place. My worst quality is writing chapter fragments to be bridged together instead of a cohesive whole, but I've tried to eliminate that for the simple reason that it makes finishing stories very difficult. My worst quality as a writer is doubtlessly being impulsive, which means I have a dozen half-done stories.

If you are interested in the genre, I'd recommend you read some of Gibson's books, and maybe watch some movies for visual inspirations. Johnny Mnemonic is often justly bashed for being a horrible movie, but it gets the look pretty much right. Based on that, try to write a short story or simply a "scene" of the life of a character. Don't do what I did, which was to write a novel-length story as my first work.

You can check out some of my writings at cyber203x.cjb.net, including the aforementioned e-novel, Stealing the Fire. I don't necessarily recommend reading that, as the plotline is bad, some of the writing lacking and some parts of it frankly atrocious.

They probably did, but thought their intended target audience wouldn't. To quote the Master, "Disbelief didn't so much need to be suspended as hung, drawn and quartered."

Tolkien said that about Shakespeare, in case anyone cares.

Congratulations, Nina.

Good luck for 2004, everyone.

I sleep, roughly 10-13 hours of every day, chat on irc and watch tv. nothing more strenuous for me right now.

It is a sad fact that piracy is widespread, but such it remains. My brother does it, mostly music and movies, and convincing him to stop would be like converting the Pope to Buddhism. Ain't gonna happen.

I'm quite familiar with the tools used, having had to repair damage wrought by them on a few occasions. The bottom line is ease. Downloading a movie takes on average something like 3 clicks of a mouse. The risk of getting caught is negligible.

Is it a wonder that this branch of crime is ever-growing? It doesn't take skill, doesn't require risk, only a decent computer and a connection. The tools are publicly available and easier to use than the latest version of Word.

Who is to blame?

If you ask me, the answer is deadly simple. Shawn Fanning, the "genius" behind Napster. Internet piracy was rampant before its release, but it brought a whole new group of criminals, the "script kiddies".

Consider my cousin, an absolute zero in school and a lazy twit with a 20-word vocabulary. He had, when I last checked his PC, 800 megabytes of mp3s, all downloaded courtesy of Kazaa. Napster opened up a can of worms that should have stayed closed. I know not Mr Fanning's intentions, but he should have taken the time to consider the effects of his actions.

Hmm, I cannot say I noticed a difference in the Gandalf and Balrog scene. It all went just as I remembered it.

In the theatre release, Faramir simply stated that Boromir was dead, there was no explanation given to it. It was the scene most needing of an extension, methought.

I'd just get a new body, this current model is beginning to vex me.

Hum, i'm pretty sure I timed it

Edit: Just checked the back of the box. It states that 42 minutes of footage were added and the total time is indicated to be 214 minutes.

You must be living in some kind of time dilation field, I reckon.

There was about 40 minutes of stuff added to the Two Towers, making its total length about 230. The extended FotR was about the same. Realistically, I doubt the final RotK can be much about 240-250 minutes, so the entire series would take roughly 640 minutes from Bilbo sitting down to write in Bag End all the way to Samwise returning home from seeing Frodo off at the Grey Haven.

*Aga sings "happy birthday to you" in his horribly off-key fashion*

I think one point that many fans are reluctant to admit is that Tolkien was not a very good writer of novels. His dialogue tends to be overly verbose and fairly rigid, too. Not the kind of stuff people would actually say, really.

Note that this does not change the fact that Lord of the Rings is one of the most influential books of the last 100 years or so.

I feel at peace, which is rare indeed. I suppose reality will catch up with me on Monday, but that cannot be helped, alas.