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I read the book a few years ago - it was a bit confusing but pretty decent nonetheless. I'm told the TV series differs significantly from the book.
For your sake I hope any additional seasons also vary from the 2nd and 3rd books in the trilogy. I found them to be completely unreadable.
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I hated the audio book. I was listening to it and noticed I was about 32% of the way through the book before I thought I knew what the plot was. At half way, I stopped listening as it didn't make any sense. I agree with most of the 1 star reviews on Amazon.
Hogan
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Yes, the writers did an excellent job of compressing the story without losing the heart of the story.
Although I must admit that I was looking forward to seeing how they handled the "Turkeys and Sharpshooter" parables. (they handled it by cutting it out entirely, no loss to the heart of the story).
In case you are curious about what I am talking about.
Early in the story, there is a shadowy group known as the "Frontiers of Science". They gather top level scientists to discuss the disturbing issues involved with advanced science experiments returning random results. In fact, the one character that commits suicide actually had her mentor comment on the strange results from an atom smashing run before she actually faxed him the results. (he physically had in his hands results with a fax transmission time stamp before she actually sent it to him) This was the final act that freaked her out and sent her over the edge to suicide. The "Frontiers of Science" group was trying to make sense of the collapse of our scientific research by discussing two parables.
"The Turkeys"
The turkeys are born into a confined space (their coop). They explore the space and find many interesting things. The farmer comes every day at noon time and leaves food for them. They take this as a law of nature. Food arrives at noon. They build science laws around the restricted coop space, the objects found in the space and the arrival of the food. They build religious reasons for the supply of food. They have politicians and leaders who take credit for the arrival and distribution of the food. Their world is complete and well described. Until Thanksgiving when the farmer arrives with an axe instead of food and starts to harvest the turkeys. Their entire world, built on false assumptions collapses.
"The Sharpshooter"
A sharpshooter takes a target and proceeds to place perfectly spaced bullets in the center of the target. These punch holes in the target. A two dimension species lives on the surface of the target. They have no knowledge of the sharpshooter but they discover the holes in the fabric of their reality. They study the holes. The size, the distribution and the distance from one hole to another. They build an entire science around the holes. They are completely unaware of the true source of the holes and their non-purpose. The sharpshooter can take a new target and place a completely different set of holes in the target. The original group of science collapses, it was built on bad assumptions.
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In the framework of the "3 body problem" story the metaphors were meant to help advanced scientist deal with their nervous breakdown when settled theories and experiments that had been done hundreds of times all over the world suddenly started producing random results. Products developed with the practical application of those theories (cell phones, nuclear fission reactors, etc.) all still worked but the high energy colliders were now producing random results throwing everything that had been settled science for the last 50 years into question. Science research had come to a screaming halt.
Just think about it. What would happen if the career that you had chosen, all the knowledge you had acquired in a lifetime of work were suddenly shown to be false. Yet the products you built were working just fine. But the future products you are envisioning (using the same successful techniques that you know built the products in use today) don't work! Impossible you say. See it must work, it worked before in the old products but not the new ones. You might have some psychological distress and question the meaning of your existence. This was the point of the unexplained suicides among the best and brightest in the scientific community in the story.
In the story there is a reason for this phenomenon.
I won't spoil the story by revealing it here but there is a reason.
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Wow - apply that hypothetical to code development...
Let's say your wrote a simple "Hello World" program on Monday, and it worked as expected, displaying "Hello, world!" on the screen. On Tuesday, you simply recompiled the same program, and it compiled successfully, but the compiled application doesn't do what it used to do. At all.
We wouldn't be able to write working software (so no change at Microsoft, right?  )
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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There would never be a Windows 12!
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I've seen just the first episode but the skeptical me thinks that the metaphors instead of "help advanced scientist deal with their nervous breakdown when settled theories and experiments that had been done hundreds of times all over the world suddenly started producing random results" they rather help not so advanced script writers/producers deal with the hypothesis of the "capricious God"  . There is a good chance that any scientist worth his salt, and even more so "advanced scientists", has considered the idea of the Simulation hypothesis[^].
The discussion here would be too long and would probably run afoul of lounge rules. Besides, as I've said, I've seen only the first episode and I am probably prejudging.
Mircea
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Yes, keep watching.
As I said before this version cuts out the Turkeys and Sharpshooter discussion entirely. (I watched the Chinese version that covered the same ground in 43 episodes (25 min each)). In that version several episodes were dedicated to the mysterious Frontiers of Science organization and the Turkeys and Sharpshooter stories. I started reading the first book but stopped in the brutal Chinese Cultural revolution and did not pick it up again. It was not until the Chinese version (with subtitles) that I was exposed to the rest of the first book.
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Amazon Prime also has "Three-Body" which is a chinese(?) version which runs to 30 hours.
Not sure how either corresponds to the original book even though I read it. There are 4 books in the series.
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Where do the books end in the 400 year timeline?
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Wordle 1,011 6/6
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Five attempts inspite of getting three greens π early on.
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Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have. -Anon
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. -Frederick Nietzsche
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Wordle 1,011 3/6*
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"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Ok, I have had my coffee, so you can all come out now!
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Jeremy Falcon
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Hi All,
How does your company handle documentation of code? I can see the point once it's nailed down, a couple of pages it does this helps (algorithm, inputs & outputs), however this place doesn't do Software or Electronics (they have started to!) they have this thing of process flow charts. While this is possible with some simpler rigs (mostly embedded) with Windows code the shear size of a DLL prevents a flow chart for it. So what is a better way, I have come across Jackson diagrams which I did back at college when Pascal was the thing. They seem to muddy the water... any suggestions any one?
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glennPattonWork3 wrote: How does your company handle documentation of code?
hahahahah deep breath ... hahahahahah
Our code base is ancient; most of the base documentation was written decades ago (yes, decade)
We have word documents for each module describing what it does, business model and a description of the UI/UX and the database tables and the error messages; the word documents are in source control.
The code itself is , err, well, documented.
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
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Quote: Our code base is ancient; most of the base documentation was written decades ago (yes, decade)
I laugh at you calling a decade ancient. My program is 3 decades old and still actively coded (though not for too much longer). The last good documentation was written 15 years ago.
Bond
Keep all things as simple as possible, but no simpler. -said someone, somewhere
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