Prometheus98876
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Posts posted by Prometheus98876
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This is the first I have ever heard of this "Pliant" programming language. The main site will not work for me right now, and the other sites I can find give me precious little information. What is so great about this language and why would anyone care so much? What about it justifies setting up a business around it? Historically, this sort of thing has been tried : But it has been proven time and time again that it generally doesnt work.
Programming languages are themselves generally not what makes profit, what makes profit is the great software which can be profitably made with them. What is it about Pliant that lets you do this?
" This is a little like Rearden Metal -- it is very versatile but its benefits will become clear once a business is setup with a real client." - if you mean it is superficially like Rearden Metal - then sure. Both are things which were claimed to have a lot of promise, even though not everyone sees why or buys into it. Except Rearden Metal clearly shows promise upon examination by a rational and informed person. I am not sure that this is the case here.
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Well, I already covered some of the reasons why train travel is not necessarily so out of place in a relatively near future and so did you
. I thought that was one of the better decisions of the writers of the recent AS movie.In a way it might have been interesting to see what Ayn Rand might have done if she had attempted some speculative fiction and tried to predict what might be more common in the decades to proceed the publication of the book. I do not think that she should in fact have *tried* to do this, given I suspect she was not necessarily sufficiently knowledgeable about such things ( and even those that apparently are often have a poor track record for making accurate predictions, for fairly obvious reasons). Still, if I could ask her to help on the DVD commentary for AS or something, this is one thing I might ask her
Just an interesting thought...I would not read anything much into it.
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Of course, and therefore there is no reason to make the movie in the future =]
I keep giving reasons to set it in the future over and over. It is timeless not just because the general sort of events in it might happen again ( yeah, you would have to change some details ), but more because of this : "ut not for this reason; it's relevant in any day for the both broader and deeper reason that it illustrates the importance and role of the mind in life.". Setting it in the future, with essentially the same general run of events ( again with some chasnges I would imagine) makes it even easier to grasp that this applies in any era. Not just the 50/60s.
Though I am not totally against it being a "period piece" , I just t hink it works better if is not. Makes it easier to write and involves less changes I guess.
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She write it in the 50s because as someone not particularly qualified to speculate accurately about what technology might be possible in the readers future, that was all she knew. However, given her apparent statement that it is meant to be in the readers future, that does not mean that it is necessarily meant to be in the 50s.
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What I am saying is that Ayn Rand apparently said that we should pretend as though Atlas Shrugged is set at some stage in the future. Some feature where a lot of the rest of the world has succumbed to socialism ( or such) and or are suffering economic stagnation and ruin. This starts to happen in Atlas Shrugged, as evidenced very early in the book. Things become progressively worse, and a lot of technology is completely abandoned by the end of the book. Presumably because some of it is too expensive to run / the supporting technology / infrastructure required to operate it has broken down / become infeasible to use. Or one could simply blame regulations driving industries out of existence.
One could easily imagine that perhaps one might expect air travel to be more prominent in the future. But perhaps in the future presented in Atlas Shrugged, air travel has become too costly due to regulations on the fuel / air industry. And vice versa for a lot of other stuff.
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Well, I agree that it would be a mistake to modernize it for the sake of it. I do think that there are possibly valid reasons why the story may work better if some things are made to seem more "modern" ( eg, more modern trains than Ayn Rand might have intended or the book seems to suggest exist). But no more than is necessary to make the story seem to fit more into something that might happen in the future, albeit a future that might be relatively low-tech due to economic stagnation perhaps ( a good reason not to modernize a great deal at this point ). Making it very futuristic would be a mistake though I agree.
Is that important? Not necessarily...
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Eh, I might get around to watching it again at some stage. It has been a long time since I have seen it , so I cannot rule out something I missed / am forgetting entirely. I guess...
I am not convinced that any important part of the plot depends on a movie adaption necessarily being a period piece. Alright, it has trains in a prominent role, which might suggest that it is way in the past. However, one could argue that "in the readers" future ( which is what Ayn Rand said it should be viewed to be ) , at some point trains become prominent again ( possibly for economic / technological improvements in train technology). One could change the time taken I think, or change the phone scene so that Dagny has a cell , including making her go to get it if need be. Though I am not saying "Dont make it a period piece and make silly changes to prevent it being one", simply that for the reasons stated I think it is better off not being one and that I think it may be possible to make changes to make it better fit being a "timeless piece".
I do not think that it can be a timeless period piece though, it seems to be one or the other, when it comes to this movie anyway. Sure, it can be done I suppose. Not in the sense I mean "timeless" anyway. However, I am not an expert on film studies/writing, so maybe I am wrong.
Winona Ryder might be a decent choice for Kira. She could pull it off visually I think ( meaning, I think she has "the look" ). I do not really have much of an opinion on how well she would handle the other aspects oft the role.
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Sorry, yes I was talking about AS. Looks like I neglected to make that clear. I would not know about A Clockwork Orange in this regard.
As far as Kubricks talent goes : For sure he is right up there. All of his movies are pretty great for what they are. Love or hate the premises of his movies , I think one has got to admit that they are well executed. So I will may well end up concluding that applies to A Clockwork Orange as well.
Though Space Odyssey was a colossal bore and too much like what I imagine a drug-trip would be like. Not even a very interesting drug-trip
Pretty good special efffects for the time though...and I cannot say it is run-of-the mill or ordinary... -
Hhmm...well I think it is best as a "Timeless piece". That way I think that it would be easier for viewers to relate it to their situation, no matter in which decade/century the film was to be released. While I am struggling to see any particular advantage to making it a period piece. Perhaps you could elaborate on some advantages?
As for "A Clockwork Orange" - I suppose I shall have to give it a try. I indicated that what I have heard leaves me skeptical as to whether or or not I will enjoy it - however it would be nice to put that one to rest. Perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised!
As for Casey Aflek : He does not have the right "look" IMO. The character always struck me as an honest , hard-working "average man". Nobody with amazing ability, but a hard worker. Preferably an actor that has an "ordinary" look and has an "honest look" to his face or something. I would not be able to pick a particularly suitable actor off the top of my head though.
I do not have a huge problem with the choice of a black Eddie. I do think the particular actor chosen just did not have the right look however...
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As someone that has now seen a lot of the first season : Do yourself a favor and avoid the TV series. It is very poorly written and fails to capture the theme(s) of the books. They also changed a lot of things for no apparent good reason. It is just bad....and not even bad enough to be amusing.
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Welcome to the forum!
As a sometimes tutor and someone that loves to help [rational] people learn things, I have to say that I admire your apparent reasons for wanting educate people. Education is a challenging field, but very rewarding if one is able to get the right students to watch rational minds at work. Not only is in one rational self interest to seek out rational minds and to "create" them if need be, one can learn a lot by being an educator. While preparing stuff / thinking about how to formulate things for people, I have gained many insights into ways of thinking about a problem , found some gaps in my own understanding and have been given some great questions to think about!
Definitely not altruistic for me...nor you I suspect.
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When I say Big Budget, I don't mean in a Transformers sense, but more along the lines of Doctor Zhivago, or any of the old MGM epics. It takes money to make a sweeping, visually striking, well acted film. AS is obviously an epic in every sense of the word. It's sprawling, occurs over many years, contains romance, intrigue, villainy, mystery, philosophy, and yes, action sequences (the gunfight at Rearden's plant would be pretty cool to see).
Hire a good screenwriter, director, cinematographer, crew, and actors; on-site shooting and studio space, props, set design, wardrobe. To keep it a period piece you'd need to rent hundreds of old cars, build art-deco sets, and do all that good stuff. This would be a huge film crew, and a large supporting crew. We're talking serious money, and this doesn't touch on the salary good actors would be asking.
Epic is a dirty word in Hollywood these days, and Ayn Rand is downright vile.
PS: a young Rutger Hauer would have made a great Ragnar.
What, an intelligent movie based on a complicated and intelligent plot / theme? One without explosions / car chases / shooting / scenes of people sitting around in bars drinking every five minutes? I dont think Hollywood would go for that
As for "keeping it a period piece" - that is unnecessary. It is not a period piece. Despite the fact that trains and other sort of out-dated things are central to the plot / show up, it is not really a period piece. In fact, it is a "timeless piece" that Ayn Rand said should be read as though it was something that could happen sometime in the future relative to the reader ( say five or ten years down the track ). I think the movie would be best to try to stick to this, even if it means modernizing the movie somewhat. After all, making it a period piece makes it seem less relevant today than to whatever period it was meant to be set in. If there was to be a good movie, it should seem to be something that could be happen in the future, not something that might have happened fifty years ago or something.
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I have not seen A Clockwork Orange, and the superficial information I do have suggests I would not like it. I do think Godfather was pretty good for what it was. Fight Club...been too long since I have seen it and I am not sure what I would think. I have read none of the books however, so I cannot rationally claim any knowledge of how much justice they do to the books.
The point I was making was that the fact that even if those flims are a great adaptation of the books, they at best prove what I already knew : That some great books can be made into great movies ( when I was a kid, I thought Jurassic Park was a good example of this. I loved that book, and the movie was a pretty good adaptation ). Atlas Shrugged is on another league entirely though, and the fact that it worked for those movies says little about the feasibility of doing such a thing with AS.
Though as I said, I do not think it is necessarily impossible, just that I am not sure it is feasible enough for anyone to bother. Not unless they are the Galts of the film industry, and even then it would be pretty damn hard.
I hate 3d and I hate big effects. A movie that holds a good cinema language doesnt need special effects at all.
Well, I do not see any reason why movies need 3D. Sure, it was a fun gimmick at first, however the novelty wears off fast and then it becomes annoying and if anything it harms ones immersion in a movie ( at least it does for me). Not that there are many immersive movies being made.
I like good special effects, if they are are icing on a good movie and are used sparingly, no more than is necessary to make scenes just a little more visually appealing.
As far as the actual topic of the thread goes : I could not really say much on this. Christen Bale as Galt though? Hmm, not a bad actor by any means, though I am not sure anyone might think he could pull off Galts role. Though you did say "decent", not necessarily ""amazing" ....
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Leaving aside my views of quality of the movies mentioned ( Fight Club, A Clockwork Orange etc) : Sure it is possible to realize movie versions of apparently good books. Even to create movies based on those books which a lot of people enjoy.
Then again, if they were going simply for things people these days enjoy , it would probably be full of explosions, stupid stoner scenes and CGI for the sake of it *. And of course it would be done in 3D just for the sake of it .
Sarcasm and annoyance over what sort of movies are made / widely seen these days aside though...
Atlas Shrugged is a far more difficult book to convert to movie than any other book I can think of, much more so that I gather than the other books mentioned in this thread. I am no expert in such things, however from what I have seen it would take far more talent ( at least in certain areas ) than that exhibited by the creators of those films. It is a mammoth and complicated book which is not well suited for conversion into a movie in the first place.
Not all good books *should* be attempted to be made into movies. Sometimes one has to realize books and movies are very different art-forms and that what works well as one of them will not ever work well when converted to the other, at least not without a titanic struggle that might not be worth it.
I dont know that it would be impossible to make a good AS movie, however I am not sure it is worth it. It would almost certainly not do the book or its theme sufficient justice. I would think it might be better to do a movie based on a story based on a simplified theme/plot.
A movie doesnt need a big budget in order to be good.
A movie need a good script, good actors and a good director
I have always said that I would prefer a low-budget movie with crappy special effects, as long as it had a compelling story with compelling, well-acted characters. Special effects help, but they are too often an excuse not to do what actually counts properly ( cough cough Star Wars Prequel Trilogy).
* At least if you went off purely box office figures, which is NOT necessarily an intelligent thing to do to accurately assess whether or not a movie is positively received upon viewing , let alone determining if it is a good movie.
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No, you and others simply are mistaken about what the data proves. Screw you and your errors.My comments are neither hyperbole , nor am I guilty of any ad homs. Pointing out that you are acting badly / irrationally and insulting you is not the same thing. If I was attempting to negate your arguments / point by insulting you, maybe that would be an ad hom. However, I have done no such thing.Your links do not prove the point that you were attempting to make. Especially as they do not provide the full context in which I have made recent comments. Even if I was guilty of what you seem to think I am, it does not justify any of your recent comments / objections both here and via other mediums. There has been no rational reason to post any of them and most of the time you have been greviously in error anyway. And what is more : What makes you think I or anyone else cares?Face it : You are wasting your own time and are hopelessy outmatched. Put away the kindling , because you will lose if you continue to try to weild it. Kindly stop wasting time and move on.
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See , that is the thing. I already knew for a fact that Einstein himself did not entirely agree with the modern view of Relativity ( which the Wiki article describes ). Another reason why James (WDNG) should not attempt to inform people on a subject they in fact know nothing about. I would not expect James to make an honest and informed attempt to discredit myself or my ideas. Based on past dealings with him, that would be out of quite out of character. At this point, all of my dealings with him involve him making useless objections to my work / comments, apparently out of some personal prejudice.
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Any *rational* person knows that when it comes to science, it does not matter what is universally accepted to be true, or what Wiki says. What counts is the facts which one *understands* and can validate/show to be true. A lot of Einsteins ideas in this field ( and those derived from them ) can easily be shown to be false / invalid. As far as alleged proofs for some of the less rational aspects of Relativity ( such as time dilation), all that has been proven is that clocks and whatnot suffer some sort of effect under certain conditions. It does not for instance prove that time is literally dilating / contracting ( which is nonsense anyway, time is a relational concept, it makes no sense to claim it dilates/contracts).
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Yes, sadly I cannot stop you making pointess and incorrect comments. I do not care if you think my conception of space is all wrong, or if you provide me with a quote on a subject which I am sure I understand far better than you do ( Einsteins theory of Relativity and what physics claims space is). You are wasting your time, I happen to know I am correct and that your objection is devoid of any valid argument or point.
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Yeah, it is certainly one problem I fairly often give some thought to. I would hope that if someone was able to provide a better physical explanation for such things , that they might get a Nobel Prize. Though perhaps someone a little more versed in physics can explain why this may not be quite the mystery I ( and some experts like Harriman apparently) seem to think it is.
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Yeah he I bet he does, Harriman makes essentially the same points in his lecture on space ( "Physicists Lost in Space" or whatever exactly it is called). However like Binswangers lecture mentioned above, it seems to be one very few here have ever heard ( I have not heard Binswangers one yet).
I am unsure exactly what I would refer to such fields as, especially as physics offers little guidance as to what fields are ( usually approaching them from a mathematical perspective). I do not think such field would "fill the plenum" between objects , though I suppose some of space would be occupied? I am inclined to think that a "field" may be either a relationship where entities act in certain ways or perhaps some sort of exchange of entities. I am really not enough of a physicist to be very sure ( as suggested though, I am not sure that many of them are that sure anyway).
It an interesting question, however it is one that I do not feel I can provide a definite answer to.
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Huh? Yeah, for sure. I got it from the first moment. I simply mentioned that I might have the intention to share it, that's it.
Oh, I realize that. I was simply pointing out that what I initially said was not quite what I thought that I said. I was not accusing you of misunderstanding me, especially as it seemed fairly obvious that you probably knew what I meant.
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What I mean is that I am not interested if someone wishes to express that they disagree with what space is or is not. Or at least that I do not wish to discuss it in this thread. I am a little more interested if someone agrees
Also, despite saying "I dont care if you share" it around, I meant "I do not mind". A little bit of a slip of "tongue" there. -
I agree that a good looking person should not have too much trouble realizing this fact. However, some attractive looking people have trouble with this thing, at least in respect to themselves and or people of their own gender. One reason for this can be repression, some people wrongly think that assessing the attractiveness of members of their own gender is the same as *being attracted* to members of that gender. Then they take this to really illogical extremes. Religous people probably are more prone to this...
It sounds like he may think that he should be self-assured and confident ( or maybe he realizes to some extent that this is what you want from him) but that he may not be fully committed to it. Perhaps he does not really understand why it might be seen as a value to be so, maybe he just does not know how or maybe he just does not think that he has any reason to be either , so cannot bring himself to be so ( again I am speculating, obviously I do not know this person, so I can only make semi-educated guesses).
Personally I think the sexual attitude he seems to have would drive me crazy. Sex is definitely an important aspect of a romantic relationship! I can to some extent understand ( understand, not agree with ) a little nervousness if he has not yet had sex with anyone. However, it seems it is probably a lot more than that and he is just terrified to do it for some reason. I would definitely sit him down and tell him that you are bothered by the fact that he seems to be trying to maneuver around the issue. I am not sure if there would be any way for you to help him overcome his apparent reluctance, but I think this is definitely an issue that needs to be discussed frankly as soon as possible. He may not find it comfortable, however if you make it clear that you need to talk to him about it and he cannot handle that, I would get out of that relationship.
Of course, if you think that you cannot help him, I agree with the implication that the best thing to do may be to cut your losses. Or if it is too much to help him deal with alone : There are Objectivist counselors/therapists that may be able to provide some help here. Ellen Kenner and Edwin Locke are two such apparently, and someone here may be able to point you towards others and you might find this link useful : http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showtopic=12377
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[First of all : I would like to point out that I am not interested if you disagree with my conception of space. I am absolutely convinced that I am correct and I am not interested in debating this issue in this thread. If you do not agree, that is fine, I do not want to hear about it. Second of all : I do not care if anyone wishes to link/share this around, as long as I am attributed as the author).
Space is a concept which is very rarely correctly understand by anybody, including modern physicists. However, the purpose of this essay is not to discuss the confusions of others in relation to this concept, my purpose is to introduce a valid concept of space, clearly educed to its referents in reality. It is also meant as an answer to those that damn any and all concepts of empty space as invalid.
Whether or not there is any "absolute" vacuum ( even in "outer space" ) is according to modern physics debatable and there are many theories as to whether or not any such areas in space exist or not. However it is not really impossible from a metaphysical point of view ( when I say "metaphysically possible" - I mean that from a metaphysical perspective, such is not impossible ).
When one considers a "region of space", they are referring to it in relation to separation between a number of entities. This is what space is : It is a conceptual relationship and the "space" itself has no physical existence as such.
However, the separation, the geometrical relationship does in fact exist. The relationship can also be said to include the presence of absence of intervening objects ( or at least the presence or absence of such objects worthy of consideration in a given context). "Empty" refers to the fact that there are no such objects within that region. This is the so-called "void" of space and in some contexts the "void" may refer to a region of space which is alleged to be literally empty of anything at all. It is not metaphysically impossible for this to be so, it is not impossible for this relationship to exist ( again, whether or not any such regions exist is besides the point of this essay and is a question for physics to answer, not metaphysics).
Let us analyze "space " a bit more and put this another way : Space is a separation between objects. It is a relationship of positions between objects. We say space "contains" one or more objects when there are other objects which exist within the geometrical "boundary" which the bounding objects delimit.
Empty space means that there are no other objects which exist in a position which relates to the objects which are defined as bounding objects in a certain way. By which I mean that there are no other objects which exist according to the relationship of being 'between" objects bound by these objects which we are using to delimit this "space".
This is why it is metaphysically possible to have a "void" in at least one sense and why it is valid to speak of a void in at such a sense: The sense that a void is said to refer to "empty " space, to the fact that no relationships of a certain type exist in relation to the objects bound a space. It is an identification of the fact that a certain relationship does not apply in a given case/context
The void does not "exist qua void” ,it has no physical existence, however it is nonetheless a valid concept and it is appropriate to use it.
Let me make this still more clear : Does the fact which I allege "empty space" refers to itself refer to anything in reality? Yes it does. The fact that "there are no objects within this boundary" means that there are some objects in certain locations. The objects and their positions and other objects we wish and their locations are the ultimate referents we are dealing with here.
Now we relate the position of these "boundary" objects in such a way that we form the concept of a "space" between them. Then we consider any other object and we recognize the fact that these objects have location as well, however that location is not within the "space" bound by the boundary objects. We then call that space" empty space" ( or we just say its "empty") to refer to this fact.
However, some people continue to deny the validity of this concept of space and insist on arguing that “reality is a full plenum, it is filled to the brim with something “ or some such argument. However one does need to invent an aether to do away with the concept of "empty space". It is entirely unjustified and rationally impossible to defend on such grounds.
In fact it is to commit a gross error of its own. It is to assume that “empty space” reifies nothingness, that it is equivalent to claiming that the absence of something is something and that it can be said to be a concept with referents ( a valid concept). However this is false. It is the identification of a relationship, as explained above. It is not the same as saying that the void exists qua concrete entity, it is simply the statement that certain entities exist with a given relationship to each other. It is not the same as giving nothing metaphysical primacy or stature and it is most certainly not a contradiction.
In fact it is to be guilty of yet another error. It is to take the relationship "empty space" , which is an abstraction which refers to objects and their positions and replacing it with some entity which one then refers to as "the aether" However this is in fact a logically unnecessary and ridiculous thing to do and what is more it is to reify the abstract relationship of space, which is the very error aether theory advocates tend to accuse those that believe in “empty space” of!
So in short : It is metaphysically possible that regions of "outer space” ( if “outer space” is to be a valid term, it must refer generically to any region of “space” which we wish ton consider outside of the bounds of the atmosphere of Earth or whichever celestial object one may speak of “outer space” in relation to ) are empty or that they are a void. Provided one recognize that space is relational concept
One need not invent an aether for this purpose. One need not treat it as something subject to curvature ( which is just another way of reifing space and a failure to recognize it as nothing more than a relational concept).
There is no space in philosophy or physics to treat space as anything but what it is. It is time more people ( especially physicists) started doing so.
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Lots of languages try to replace C# to some extent : C#, Objective-C and many more. I do not see why this one should be any more successful than the other ones. Especially since unless this Pliant gets lots of libraries for high-performance things like game development, that is never going to happen anyway.
I had a quick look at the link you gave me : However as a programmer that already knows like a dozen languages to varying degrees of proficiency : I do not really see anything that is remarkable enough about this one to justify learning yet another one. It is not like I would be the only person in this camp. Programmers do not generally learn new languages for the sake of it, you have to give them a compelling reason to think that a given task can only be done in a given language or why doing it a yet another language would justify the bother of learning yet another language.
"Just like the benefits of C++ are visible only on large projects (on small you can use scripting) same goes for Pliant. Only a large consistent project will show clear benefits of using pliant (extensibility, expressibility, strong libraries, minimal code, high abstraction, low level optimization)"
I could say that about just about any language which supports low-level operations. Hell, I could say much of this about ASP.NET or PHP in the context of some projects. A lot of popular and powerful programming languuages have all sorts ofe benefits which are only available on larger projects of a given type .
Especially as "large" is vague. Do you mean large in terms of having a lot of lines of programming code, large in terms of the scale of the data to be processed or both?