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How utterly stupid do you think Christians really are? As if faith cuts out half your brain? Give me a break. Caricaturing them will do nothing to promote the anthropic principle.

Agreed, I think it positively brilliant, especially the way Bruce seemed to be the only "normal" person in a world full of freaks and caricatures.

You state the the assumption that there are many people who could do what Steve is doing is plainly incorrect because the US can not find a compelling candidate for president. That's flawed logic.

I cite that example as proof by demonstration that exemplary leaders are rare in general, not just in business. But politics being so corrupt, I understand how you missed my point.

I'm also not willing to follow your logic that Steve Jobs is a giant among insects - which seems to be your claim.

I find the example of Steve Jobs to be compelling even considering that the technology field offers many brilliant, interesting, and influential characters. The CEOs of these businesses are inevitably talented peoples. But even among these, Steve Jobs' track record is remarkable.

Finally if the influence of personality of the CEO on the organization as a whole is well documented than I am generally interested in reading more about it.

How about you start with Jack?

I'm not interested in hearing people try to tell me that Bill Gates is a tyrant out for world domination - especially if those same people are telling me that deep down Steve Jobs just wants to deliver quality products. Those are not people - those are caricatures.

When one reads widely, the same characterizations keep coming up, from disparate and varied source. Your skepticism is understandable, but the facts are dramatic enough to inspire two documentaries!

In my day to day experience the people I meet are neither angels nor demons.

So you extrapolate your mundane experiences to the rest of the world? Your homily is more true than false, but most famous people are notorious for valid reasons.

You state the the assumption that there are many people who could do what Steve is doing is plainly incorrect because the US can not find a compelling candidate for president. That's flawed logic - the problem may be with the system we use for selecting candidates and not with the pool of candidates. I believe that to be the case. I think there are many men and women who could make a very good president - certainly far better than either Bush or Kerry.

I'm also not willing to follow your logic that Steve Jobs is a giant among insects - which seems to be your claim.

Finally if the influence of personality of the CEO on the organization as a whole is well documented than I am generally interesed in reading more about it. I'm not interested in hearing people try to tell me that Bill Gates is a tyrant out for world domination - especially if those same people are telling me that deep down Steve Jobs just wants to deliver quality products. Those are not people - those are caricatures.

In my day to day experience the people I meet are neither angels nor demons - and I could not categorize myself or anyone I know accurately in a short one or two line synopsis. And yet people continue to act as though public personalities - about whom we know the least - are some how fundamentally easier to know and understand than our own neighbors and co-workers.

Lives and people and the world in general are more complex than that.

-stormin

Yes, Simpsons was the cornerstore of comedy one time. Not only did it have a comic sense and timing, but also it had the gumption to take the joke on American masses, whilst selling itself to them. It had a great sense of poking fun at the racial discriminations that exist in the american society, yet had the charm brought by breaking the very same prejudices.

However, the last couple of seasons have been a mere caricature of the show, as well as the characters. Like someone else said on here, its now formulaic - no longer the greatest show in 20th century

People who like western style rpgs are generally bored with the whack-a-mole crap interspersed with nonsensical cutscenes which fails miserably at bringing even a modicum of cohesion into their ridiculous plots which is found in Japanese rpgs, that's all. Different tastes. Some people prefer poorly-animated, androgenous, noseless freaks, some people prefer to stay away from teeny bopper two-dimensional caricatures.

I would argue two points.

First, once you get an iconic person, that's it. The game is up for quite a while. Ever notice how all the caricatures of muscle-types take after Governor Arnold? Or how all psychiatrists take after Freud? This is not because we haven't had people with more muscles (we have) or analysts who have not helped larger numbers of people. When you have an icon, you might as well keep it. It's a reference that everyone already "gets".

Second, I would argue that as time goes on, it becomes harder and harder to dominate a field. Look at da Vinci. He was a brilliant man to be sure. But if he were alive today, he'd never have been able to master so many fields. There is just so much research out there about the most minute aspect of any field that no one would have time to keep up. And why would we idolize the guy worked in one very small subset, when these people of past years could dominate so many fields? In a way, they had it easy. Anything they looked at represented a new area of science much the way that any explorer who sailed from Europe a thousand years ago would have been able to claim a new territory. It's much harder now; I've tried!

Also, for those of you who have read the story, I suppose the article should not have asked "Will there be another Einstein?", but rather "Will there be another ThatGeek?". And no, there won't be as I've already registered the nick.

Did I miss anything?

Uh, what were you aiming at?

Your concept of those you oppose is rather flawed. Better work on your understanding of them, because your caricatures only earn 'insightful' markups in an echo chamber like this one. You'll be in trouble out in the real world.

As are your's. You regurgitate the party line well, though, so I suppose you should get points for non-originality.

I have my personal observation as experience. I have observed what is taught in the local schools, and I have talked with the teachers who spout this babble.

You march to this drum quite nicely. Thank-you for providing the example which you requested. Oh, I know, you believe that you have the weight of scientific evidence on your side. Your need to attack what you don't seem to be able to grasp is a bit disappointing.

I mean you do follow the same patterns as such great institutions as the medieval Catholic church, the Flat Earth Society, and I'm sure many others.

<more drivel>

All of the interesting questions I have seen triggered by ID debate were old, interesting questions in biology that were already in intense study by scientists working in evolution.

I very much doubt ID has forced more self-analysis in these sciences than the gradualist-vs-saltationist or gene-vs-species selection debates, for example, which have been going on publicly strong (at least to untrained lay eyes) for decades.

On the contrary, I've often seen ID debates distort or silence the interesting debates in science and force researchers to play politics and present a unified front that plays to the caricature of evolution research presented by ID: the idea of darwinism as converntional wisdom that suffers no criticism or scientific analysis.

The positive change introduced by ID, I hope, is in the teaching of science, and by extension in correcting a fundamental misconception of science in the general public.

I think a significant source of the support for ID, and the accusations of hypocrisy against science, are due to a widening gap of communication and understanding on the most basic concepts between the average citizen and the people who do research. The scary thing is that this is not due to advanced concepts beyond the reach of a non-specialist, but on the very basic ideas of logic, science, objectivity, etc. The general population has a very post-modernist view of science in general, which is a concern considering current civilizations are so dependant on science, and said populations are not particularly post-modernist per se.

Based on the results, schools seem to be in the business of producing citizens trained in 'scientific facts' rathan than science as a discipline. From college and general interactions with people, I have gotten the impression that ID proponents are often quite correct complaining about evolution being taught as a 'final and complete truth' in US high-schools... the same, unfortunately, applies to practically everything else taught as science at that level too.
I don't know if this would be a problem of curriculum, methodology, or just the lack of engagements of students in the inquisitive process.

There is no fundamental difference between the way most people understand evolution vs ID. This does not mean ID is science, it means evolution is being understood as religion.

Rather than correcting a deficiency in the understanding of science by students, however, ID proponents just ask that their 'final and complete truth' be taught as well. That they do not see the fundamental difference between the two 'theories' speaks of their misunderstanding of science, but more important is that from the POV of a large and diverse demographic, they are objectively right.

I'm utterly impressed by this. I think the PATRIOT act was originally passed because it ram-rodded through congress without giving anyone a chance to really look into it's dark underbelly.

It was a civil liberties nightmare. I'm so glad Bush and the Republican party got their comeuppance on this one. Now if we could only find a decent USSC candidate that doesn't want to further erode civil rights.

And to make it even sweeter - I noticed the cover of Newsweek had a caricature of Bush in a bubble. As someone elsewhere posted, when Clinton visits Europe or Asia he's treated like a rock star. When George W. Bush visits those countries mass demonstration and protests erupt.

I'm very interested in your explaination of dark matter as a plasma physics phenomenon. Is it in your newsletter? :P

From what I've seen, astronomical press releases are pretty funny to astronomers too. I don't think any scientists are actually as clueless or whimsical as they're usually portrayed (well, caricatured).

But puh-lease: "do this(tm) because I said so" ?? Somehow I would not call that caricature of religion "mature".

I didn't become Catholic until I was 29. No one else in my family is a Christian, let alone a Catholic. I made my own choice. Before I became a Catholic I spent some time in India and exposed myself to a broad array of religious and spiritual opinions and experiences. And by the time I was 29, I felt that I was finally mature enough and experienced enough to figure out where "home" was. And that was the Catholic Church.

But you should really take a look at that encyclical. It's really quite astounding.

I agree! As a girl, I don't care that there are big breasted girls in video games because I understand the industry and what sells to men and games such as Dead or Alive don't just sell because of the gameplay. I'd like a choice in what I represent myself as in a game though, that's the point.

(Side note: a lot of people seem to be interpreting the word "realistic" as ugly. I don't mean it that way. There are lots of real people who aren't ugly, but don't have F-cups either.)

When I play Resident Evil and Jill Valentine is running around in a tube top and shorts, I can vaguely see the practicality in that. It doesn't entirely make sense why one would wear a tube top to fight zombies but it's better than say, a bikini. Plus, she's anatomically possible.

It can be related to women's magazines -- women want to be the people on the cover. They want to have that hair, that perfect skin. This is why female characters in video games are so appealing. We want to be them, to be like them and the illusion that we can be is entirely gone, I think, once it hits that these women have bodies that could never be naturally achieved. It doesn't mean we hate our bodies as they are -- it means that our motivation to interpret ourselves as strong and efficient like these characters is diminished.

Consumer-wise, the industry is still under the impression that girls just don't play video games. Or at least, don't play them well. And when they do find that a game hits home with females, it's a game like The Sims, which tends to be more gender-neutral. FPS such as Quake, counter-strike, Halo, etc. are still assumed to be favored entirely by males and just because not a hugely significant amount of girls are plunking money for a FPS (or if they are, the clerks ask them if they need a gift receipt -- this has happened many times to me) many of them conclude that it must be because they're not interested. But if they are interested (according to the numbers) in The Sims, that must be all they'd be interested in!

It's funny the reaction I get when people hear me list my choice in games. One of the highest-rated games for women is The Sims...I prefer FPS like Doom 3 and Halo. Furthermore, they're surprised that I'm actually good at them. What a concept. I've had parents express shock. I think they expected me to tell their sons video games are a waste of time, not sit down with them and play.

What if the chick wants to be "falling out of her clothes" because IRL she cannot get any guy to look at her because shes ugly. On the PC your just a voice. I know quite a few chicks who play WoW and go on vent, and are absolutely fawned over by everyone.

That's her choice, but I'm just saying it wouldn't be mine. As long as there *is* a choice of female avatars to choose from, I'm happy. But I get annoyed when every option looks like a gross caricature of a porn star, because it assumes that it's what every girl wants to imagine herself as and what every guy wants to see. More choice, and especially more realistic choices, can hardly be a bad thing.

(Side note: a lot of people seem to be interpreting the word "realistic" as ugly. I don't mean it that way. There are lots of real people who aren't ugly, but don't have F-cups either.)

Don't take the sharp bits off the saw because sharp bits are not friendly to humans--let the saw have sharp bits because it's in the nature of the tool to work that way.

That's really a caricature of his position. He's not saying make the tools less useful, but make them more intuitive and make it difficult to do the wrong thing and cut yourself. Simplify them and don't have so many buttons on your saw all with cryptic icons jammed next to each other (remind you of any software?) that the user isn't sure what each one does and could press something dangerous by accident. Then when you have a new feature like 'loosen blade' add another button, and hope the user doesn't try it when in use.

I think the latter approach might be more interesting. We've tried to use the GUI to "intuitively" show the user what to do, but frankly this only worked when you had like a dozen tool icons to pick from. Software now has so many features, so many file formats, so many protocols and stuff, that GUIs are just really complex. So what if there's a button for everything? Most people can't find the buttons because there so many layers to the GUI. People thought it would be easy because you could just "press a button", whereas a lot of the power is in scripting and modeling stuff.

The problem lies with the assumption that all those features need to be exposed to the user all at once. There are established methods for cutting down on the features exposed, but the most important one is to go for 'convention over configuration' (a RoR phrase, but applicable here) - don't make the user choose unless they want to, and when they do want to tweak make it obvious where they would go. There are sensible defaults for most things, but they're not often chosen, or even thought about.

The aim of the interface should be to simplify the tasks to the point where the user can just start their main task and then add other stuff later if they need to. Now I'm not very keen on the MS 'Task based' approach, and Apple, frankly, has lost its way by abandoning consistency, but this stuff isn't rocket science. Your software should teach people to think about and organise information. It should guide them to do the right things and not the wrong things. It should make decisions for them and then let them easily modify those defaults if they need to.

I don't feel we're stuck with bazillions of Word documents because it made the computer easy to use and natural. We're stuck with them because MS wanted to lock its customers into one solution, and left it with a borked binary format to ensure that. Word is an example of almost everything that's wrong with GUI design in software today - the cryptic buttons, ad-hoc styling, overloaded menu bar, inconsistent behaviour when printing, attempts to auto-style which get in the way, 'handy-hints'.

A counterpoint to that approach from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry -
"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

Well you will have plenty of privacy in that casket when they send contaminants in the water, small tactical nukes in the airport and so on and so forth.


Apparently you are operating under the assumption that you will live forever... boy, do you have a big surprise coming.


I myself think this government is doing a piss poor job, but I don't think complete anonymity is the way to go.


It is not the government's job to protect you from any possible source of danger. For them to do so is essentially impossible. Anyway, the ultimate responsibility for your safety (or the safety of any individual) lies with you (or the individual in question).

Anway, that you cannot be required to identify yourself to anyone else is a fundamental right of free men. The parent post has it right, IMO. I'd just as soon see the terrorists "win" (whatever that means) befor seeing this country reduced to a caricature of itself, relative to the freedoms of the individuals which compose it.

I would suggest that "omgwtf we rule 'cos we have CARS! F*ck public transport! YEEE-HAW!!!" is an inaccurate caricature of America. Many cities do in fact have decent public transportation systems. Do we come up short in many cases? Sure, particularly in densely populated suburbs. But it's not just because we've got some sort of cowboy cultural hostility to the idea.

For one, extending public transportation systems (typically some sort of rail system) to cover larger and larger areas costs a lot of money upfront. Many communities either don't have the money, or have other pressing problems that cause public transportation to be overlooked. Even in places like where I live, where transportation is one of the top political concerns, the (popular) idea of extending mass transit further to the suburbs has proven difficult to implement due to the cost.

Also realize that the United States is not nearly as densely populated as many other developed countries. It has many rural, sparsely populated communities. For these situations, public transportation simply isn't efficient or practical. Unless you expect entire communities to abandon their homes and move en masse to the cities, you need cars and roads to service those communities.

It is imperative that I give you the following information, which Pres. George W Bush, Jr. wants concealed from the public. So, without further ado, I present you with this all-important piece of information: Bush's mentality reminds me of the stereotypical bureaucrat who cannot function unless he can "find it in the manual". But let's not lose sight of the larger, more important issue here: Bush's disruptive statements. While he has a right, as do we all, to believe whatever he wants about exclusionism, I do not propose a supernatural solution to the problems we're having with him. Instead, I propose a practical, realistic, down-to-earth approach that requires only that I carve solutions that are neither exploitative nor imprudent. Bush plans to blame our societal problems on handy scapegoats. He has instructed his votaries not to discuss this or even admit to his plan's existence. Obviously, Bush knows he has something to hide.

I, for one, thought it couldn't be done, but, once again, Bush's pronouncements have sunk to a new low. If Bush had even a shred of intellectual integrity, he'd admit that it may seem difficult at first to follow knowledge like a sinking star beyond the utmost bound of human thought. It is. But I am hurt, furious, and embarrassed. Why am I hurt? Because he says that he has the linguistic prowess to produce a masterwork of meritorious literature. You know, he can lie as much as he wants but he can't change the facts. If he could, he'd indeed prevent anyone from hearing that he is like a magician who produces a dove in one hand, while the other hand is busy trying to caricature and stereotype people from other cultures. But this is something to be filed away for future letters. At present, I wish to focus on only one thing: the fact that we ought to discuss, openly and candidly, a vision for a harmonious, multiracial society. That'll make Bush think once -- I would have said "twice" but I don't see any indication that he has previously given any thought to the matter -- before trying to desecrate religious objects. Why am I furious? Because Nature is a wonderful teacher. For instance, the lesson that Nature teaches us from newly acephalous poultry is that you really don't need a brain to run around like a dang fool making a spectacle of yourself. Nature also teaches us that teenagers who want to shock their parents sometimes maintain -- with a straight face -- that arriving at a true state of comprehension is too difficult and/or time-consuming. Fortunately, most parents don't fall for this fraud because they know that we are a nation of prostitutes. By this I mean that as long as we are fat, warm, and dry we don't care what Bush does. It is precisely that lack of caring that explains why I wouldn't judge Bush's chums too harshly. They're surely just cannon fodder for Bush's plot to replace Robert's Rules of Order with "facilitated consensus building" at all important meetings. And why am I embarrassed? Because "Bush" has now become part of my vocabulary. Whenever I see someone distort the facts, I tell him or her to stop "Bush-ing". Bush has always promoted the trendiest causes, the causes that all of the important people promote. Let's remember that. Some callous nabobs of sexism are actually considering helping him purge the land of every non-insecure person, gene, idea, and influence. How quickly such people forget that they were lied to, made fun of, and ridiculed by Bush on numerous occasions.

The quest to understand how Bush can be so snotty raises far more questions than it answers. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but you get the general drift. Given his propensity for repression in the service of paradigmatic integrity, it is little wonder that I believe I have finally figured out what makes people like him step on other people's toes. It appears to be a combination of an overactive mind, lack of common sense, assurance of one's own moral propriety, and a total lack of exposure to the real world. In a sense, on the issue of imperialism, he is wrong again. Sure, "salaciou

have had enough of NASA! Let me cut to the chase: NASA's true goal is to promote group-think attitudes over individual insights. All the statements that its satraps make to justify or downplay that goal are only apologetics; they do nothing to stand as a witness in the divine court of the eternal judge and proclaim that I'd advise NASA to stop being so morbid. Listen up: If you've read any of the power-hungry slop that NASA has concocted, you'll undeniably recall NASA's description of its plan to make bargains with the devil. If you haven't read any of it, well, all you really need to know is that just the other day, some of NASA's unconscionable understrappers forced a prospectus into my hands as I walked past. The prospectus described NASA's blueprint for a world in which the most devious flimflammers you'll ever see are free to make foul evil-doers out to be something they're not. As I dropped the prospectus onto an overflowing wastebasket, I reflected upon the way that NASA keeps saying that people don't mind having their communities turned into war zones. Isn't that claim getting a little shopworn? I mean, its older ramblings were inaniloquent enough. Its latest ones are certainly beyond the pale. If I didn't sincerely believe that in plain language, NASA's reinterpretations of historic events bespeak a spiritual crassness, a materialistic and short-sighted stupidity that will emphasize the negative in our lives instead of accentuating the positive before you know it, then I wouldn't be writing this letter. Who is behind the decline of our civilization? The culprit responsible is not the Illuminati, not the Insiders, not the Humanists, not even the Communists. No, the decline of our civilization is attributable primarily to NASA.

Consider the issue of abominable mysticism. Everyone agrees that NASA seems to think that it is right and everybody else is wrong, but there are still some vulgar, sinful slobs out there who doubt that this is a frightening realization. To them I say: Nerdy menaces serve as the priests in NASA's cult of rotten, incorrigible militarism. These "priests" spend their days basking in NASA's reflected glory, pausing only when NASA instructs them to censor by caricature and preempt discussion by stereotype. What could be more doctrinaire? The most appealing theory has to do with the way that I once overheard it say something quite astonishing. Are you strapped in? It said that every featherless biped, regardless of intelligence, personal achievement, moral character, sense of responsibility, or sanity, should be given the power to reward those who knowingly or unknowingly play along with its belief systems while punishing those who oppose them. Can you believe that? At least its statement made me realize that we are observing the change in our society's philosophy and values from freedom and justice to corruption, decay, cynicism, and injustice. All of these "values" are artistically incorporated in one person: NASA. Knowledge is the key that unlocks the shackles of bondage. That's why it's important for you to know that NASA does, occasionally, make a valid point. But when it says that truth is whatever your grievance group says it is, that's where the facts end and the ludicrousness begins. One might conclude that NASA has refused to make a public apology for its eccentric apothegms. Alternatively, one might conclude that no group has done so much to eavesdrop on all classes of private conversations as NASA's surrogates. In either case, NASA's hypnopompic insights are a load of bunk. I use this delightfully pejorative term, "bunk" -- an alternative from the same page of my criminal-slang lexicon would serve just as well -- because there are two sorts of people in this world. There are those who marginalize me based on my gender, race, or religion, and there are those who weaken the critical links in its nexus of unctuous paternalism. NASA fits neatly into the former category, of course.

NASA, already oppressive with its blasphemous perversions, will perhaps be the ultimate extermi