Slashdot Mirror

"I don't understand this response at all. The original article examined a process, saw something that was suboptimal, and suggested an improvement. And that's considered criticizing the US?"

Uh, did you even READ the bit that Slashdot posted?

"So why was it ignored? Graphic designer Greg Storey thinks part of the reason is poor design."

The implication that the gov't ignored a dangerous warning because the formatting of the doc wasn't pretty doesn't sound like a Dilbertian caricature of the US gov't?

Maybe you should spend some time meta-moderating. It'll give you a clearer view of what I'm talking about, here. Lots of mod-points are spent every day supporting popular opinion, and typically that opinion involves criticizing the US. But, gee, by some strange coincidence, despite the random sampling of posts you see with meta-moderation, criticisms of other gov'ts just don't make their way in there. (Funny, I'd expect Tony Blair to be more popular, there.)

I hate Bush, mod me up.

He's doing quite well in his new career of playing caricatures of himself in movies, TV, and commercials.

A Good Product Manager
This person should follow the development of a product from beginning to end, and document as well as be responsible for the production of the Design Requirements.
The Product Manager should work in the business/marketing side of the company, as ultimately the customer will determine the success of the product, however they should have a strong enough background in the technologies that they aren't some caricature from a Dilbert cartoon. It isn't necessary to define individual segments of code since the basic technologies may change by the time the project moves to design and later phases - but the end results of the implementation of the elements of the product should be documented, the developers can then always know what their product should be capable of. Of course everybody who does work should be documenting their work and ideally to document specs laid out by the Product Manager to ensure consistency with all the product materials.

and get rid of "Government is your granny" entitlements like Social Security and Medicare.

Meanwhile you can take those $20 bills you're saving and roll them up into noseplugs. They might keep you from contracting something nasty from someone too poor to get treatment. While you're at it, you better invent a new savings vehicle. If you thought the Tech Bubble was bad, just wait until you see the overvaluation resulting from 300 million people trying to put their savings in the stock market.

As for your book suggestion, at least you didn't suggest Sowell's "Anointed" book where he tries to claim such subjects as "liberal" sex education and the "war on poverty" in the 60's caused more economic problems than they solved while pushing the idea that there is no "solution", that everything we do will suck for someone or another. The best thing about the book really is the reversal of roles. Most would think the (Religious) Right would be the Anointed ones, but in The Vision of the Anointed, Sowell uses the term to caricaturize liberals as they attempt to find the "perfect solution" that will make everyone happy.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go do my religion homework. Oops, I meant to say science homework. I have such a hard time keeping those two subjects separate...

--
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?

With all due respect, that's not capitalism. Everything you did after hitting the other car suffers from the "broken window fallacy" (google it) and did not benefit the economy; on the whole you did great damage, and capitalism did what it could to minimize that damage.

Under capitalism, you destroyed (most likely) two cars, took a human life (and yes, even under capitalism that's a bad thing; you have prevented that human from ever producing value of any kind whatsoever), and consumed many, many resources put to better use than medical care. (Again, see "broken window fallacy".)

Capitalism minimizes that damage by trying to efficiently utilize resources to the repair, although the medical system is pretty broken in that regard right now.

If you're going to hate it, make sure you understand what it is, not a caricature of it. I can't explain it in a Slashdot post, but for starters you need to understand the idea of capital; it isn't the primary component of the word for show. You destroyed a lot of capital, of all kinds, in your example, for no gain at all. Capitalism doesn't promote that.

Capitalism has problems, but that is not where they lie.

I agree with exactly two thirds of what you said.

1) You're spot on about Once Upon a Time in Mexico. It lacked cohesion. It left me on the outside, looking in.

2) Ronin and Bullitt have absolutely AWESOME car chases. I stopped to watch a car chase scene from Ronin in an electronics store, and I was hooked. Few movies manage to convey that "white-knuckle" tent

3) However, Bad Boys 2 was, overall, merely a poor caricature of Bad Boys. It tried to intensify the action that Bad Boys had, but only succeeded in creating ridiculous scenes that never fit together. Everything felt forced and unnatural, especially the "comedy." (Martin Lawrence on Ecstacy, making out with a corpse? Please.)
Bad Boys, by contrast, had style. It could be taken as a whole. It was over-the-top, but in a remarkably-crafted way. I should've never expected a sequel to come close.
I will have to rent Bad Boys 2 to see the car chase sequence again, though... you've piqued my interest.

3a) While I'm on a roll, let me toss in Lethal Weapon 4. That movie was a shining example of "forced." Everything was awful. From Chris Rock's out-of-place rant about cellphones (obviously ripped from his act) to the clunky dialogue between Riggs, Murtaugh, and Getz (had to look that one up)... not to mention that I've never liked Rene Russo.
As one IMDb reviewer put it, Lethal Weapon 4 was "a contrived cast reunion movie."

Umm, no. The NRA has not complained about the restrictions on ownership of fully automatic weapons in my lifetime.

It HAS complained about the restrictions on SALES of "assault weapons" (which are neither fully automatic nor military). Note that the "assault weapons" ban did NOT ban fully automatic weapons, or even restrict them. It only restricted the sales (not ownership) of semi-automatic look-alikes.

At home, I have three semi-automatic rifles, each firing the same cartridge. One of them was legally an "assault weapon". One was not mentioned at all in the Ban. The third was on the list of "exempt" weapons that were specified in the Ban as "NOT an assault weapon".

I bought all of those rifles because it amused me to own proof of the contradictions and essential idiocy of the "assault weapon ban". I didn't bother to buy a fully automatic weapon, not because such were illegal (they're not, and never have been), but because they cost more than I wanted to spend on a gun I had no use for.

Note further that, in spite of your belief that military weapons should be restricted to the military, the Second Amendment doesn't so restrict ownership of firearms. The Militia Act (written by the same Congress that gave us the Bill of Rights) specifically required every member of the militia (which was defined as every white male from 18-45, excluding government agents) to own a military weapon (the flintlock musket, at that time, was a purely military weapon - most civilian weapons of the day were too frail to meet military standards).

Finally, I am surprised to hear about a "liberal" that supports the right to own handguns. Handguns are the most regulated type of firearms in the USA, largely as a result of the Gun Control loons on the left who have been pushing for the banning of all firearms.

As far as the "liberal controlling agenda", I should note that a lot of the web sites I look at talk in equally heated tones about the "conservative controlling agenda". I strongly suspect that each side is no longer actually looking at the other side at all -- they are now both responding to their own internalized caricature of what they think the other side is and wants

No, they're responding to their own propoganda - it's not that they think the other side wants this, it's that they hope they can convince YOU that that's what the other side wants.

Under these conditions, no constructive discussion is possible

No argument there.

I suggest that everyone take a deep breath, count to ten, and remember that just about everyone is at heart a decent human being who is trying to improve his society. Once that is remembered, some common ground can be established and we might get somewhere.

Unlikely. Too many fundamental differences these days. Specifically, fundamental differences in the definition of "people" - the "right" has a more expansie definition of "people" than the "left" (for possibly the first time in history, I might add), and that particular issue won't be resolved trivially. If we're lucky, it might go as smoothly as the Civil Rights movement (which took decades to settle). If not, the Civil War is a good analogy (which only took a few years, but I know which one I'd prefer).

Yes, we all want to improve society. The problem is that for the most part, the things *I* think would be improvements would be considered absolute nightmares by most of the "left" (and a good portion of the "right"). And vice versa. I doubt seriously that you and I would disagree terribly much. But then I doubt most "liberals" would take kindly to you calling yourself one, either....

It would also be dead on to say that most Democratic rank-and-files support free speech.

"Political correctness" is a bogeyman of conservatives, but the phrase has lost its original meaning -- tailoring your message to the audience in a way which they will find "correct." Most of the examples of attempts to suppress "offensive" speech tend to come from schools and universities, and this applies just as much to conservatives trying to force creationism curricula on students and trying to ban every book that offends them on religious grounds as it does to somebody trying to get rid of Tom Sawyer because it contains "the N-word."

Most Democrats tend to be extremely supportive of free speech. I'm not going to claim that they're more so than most Republicans, but I'm going to call bullshit on anyone who claims they're less so. Sorry, but if I don't get to say, "well, on our side it's just the easily-offended wackos, but on your side it's clearly most of you," then you don't, either. That kind of caricaturizing of your opponents is why political conversation in this country is so ridiculously vitriolic right now. Don't add to it.

And, if anyone would actually bother to read the ordinance here, it's clear that its intent is to require full disclosure when someone is paying you for political communication. There's a bit of that in the news right now, you might have noticed, about columnists being paid to promote government programs without acknowledging that they're essentially functioning as advertisers. One can debate whether transparency is a worthy goal of regulation (I think it's one of the few worthy goals for regulations to have, actually), but this is not about suppressing speech, political or otherwise.

It's not just an imperfect analogy, it's false and a straw man argument. There are plenty of liberals (like myself) who do support a woman's right to defend herself with a weapon. Where we differ from, say, the NRA, is in drawing the line at what weapons are reasonable to allow. The NRA thinks everyone should be allowed to carry fully automatic military assault rifles. I think military weapons should be restricted to the military -- for civilian self-defense, handguns are sufficient.

As far as the "liberal controlling agenda", I should note that a lot of the web sites I look at talk in equally heated tones about the "conservative controlling agenda". I strongly suspect that each side is no longer actually looking at the other side at all -- they are now both responding to their own internalized caricature of what they think the other side is and wants. Under these conditions, no constructive discussion is possible -- both sides can only talk past each other and fling accusations. I suggest that everyone take a deep breath, count to ten, and remember that just about everyone is at heart a decent human being who is trying to improve his society. Once that is remembered, some common ground can be established and we might get somewhere.

Yahoo is where good ideas go to slowly die and become perverted into evil, sad caricatures of their original intent.

Yahoo Is Evil. Remember this? Yahoo routinely borgs any and all content on its servers, denying even legal heirs access to the datacloud of their deceased.

"But he came to the US and is now subject to US law."

"Lets all disregard laws that we disagree with."

Yeah, same here. You know, I think it's one of those classic cases of Bad Hollywood Thinking. In this case it's an amusing parallel to bad tech patents. Instead of "do same old process [x]....with a computer!", these guys pitch concepts that go along the lines of "same old worn out show idea [x].....with kids*!" Honestly, this is a sure sign of Grasping At Straws, or perhaps Scraping The Bottom Of The Barrel. It basically shows that the pitcher can think of no particularly creative expansion of the existing canon. Being that this is Ol' Bill Shatner, the theory probably holds.

* the usual vehicle for this is animation, in the form a a children's cartoon. Small rotund caricatures of the adult show's charaters engage in child-friendly activities.

The thing is that places do acquire reputations for a reason.


The problem is that too often, the reputation is founded on false rumors and very limited experience. That's what - both in French and English - leads to Clichés: caricatural descriptions.


I have a few friends who have travelled to France (including outlying regions beyond paris) and the only one who enjoyed the experience is someone whose wife spoke fluent French.


First, it is harder to enjoy a trip in a foreign country when you don't speak its language. It may sound weird to you, but the vast majority of humans do not speak or even understand English. The French popular culture relies heavily on spoken language, so it is hard to enjoy it if you don't understand it.

Moreover, there has been a strong Anti-Americanism sentiment in France (and more generally in Western Europe) since the start of the war in Iraq, mirroring the Anti-French sentiment in the US. It could have played a role in the bad experience as well.

Finally, even French citizens recognize that some Parisians are maybe a little too proud of themselves - but that's not a problem specific to Paris or France and certainly cannot be generalized to all the Frenchs.


This effect is aggravated by the "seemingly rude" point - there are some things people do in other cultures that strike Americans as rude. Part of that for my friends was some sort of service issue at restaurants, I forget the detail but some seemingly inconsequential thing they wanted was looked on in outrage by the waiter. Perhaps he also viewed the request as rude, but the response basically discolored my friends opinion of restaurants in France.


When travelling to a foreign country, you have to accept its customs and habits. If you step on them, you'll definitely turn people angry or annoyed. If you make a mistake and offend somebody, apologizing solves it in most cases. Unfortunately, I have to admit that I didn't see a lot of american tourists caring much about the local behavior in restaurants, hotels or museums.


(...)
While it did not make me think of all Spaniards as lunatics, it certainly made me think a little bit inside that shopkeepers there were on something of a power trip with little respect for customers.


Never *ever* touch the window display in a shop in Western Europe. That's a *major* mistake. For the shop keeper, it is about as offensive as taking a item exposed in a museum "to better see it" or to touch a XIVth century painting with your fingers "to check what kind of pigment it is". For him, that would be about the same if you threw a stone on his shop's display window.

Your experience is definitely one of "cultural gap", not a "those people are unfriendly" one. Don't expect the shop keeper to have any respect for a customer who obviously had none for him !


So reputations of other countries being difficult may stem from the degree of cultural differences between two countries. And to some extent, I have to say that given that the reputation is correct as far as the average person goes. Even though the behavior there might not really be rude, to the traveller it might seem that way and really that's the same thing as far as the traveller is concerned!


I definitely disagree with your conclusion. *Everybody* in *every* foreign culture will be annoyed, offended or angry when you stomp on their customs. The vast majority of people (at least in Spain and France, which I know pretty well) are very friendly and will be open and helpful - as long as you don't behave as some kind of barbarian from their point of view.

Before taking conclusions about the friendliness in foreign countries, always think about your own behavior first: did the inhabitants find it offensive ? Did you ask them first when you were uncertain on what was the proper thing to do ? Did you present apologises in the formal way used by the inhabitants ? In most cases, you'll find it very instructive and it will help you to enjoy your future trips much more than any "Those guys are unfriendly" kind of Cliché.

the problem with music
by steve albini
excerpted from Baffler No. 5

Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit. I imagine these people, some of them good friends, some of them barely acquaintances, at one end of this trench. I also imagine a faceless industry lackey at the other end, holding a fountain pen and a contract waiting to be signed.

Nobody can see what's printed on the contract. It's too far away, and besides, the shit stench is making everybody's eyes water. The lackey shouts to everybody that the first one to swim the trench gets to sign the contract. Everybody dives in the trench and they struggle furiously to get to the other end. Two people arrive simultaneously and begin wrestling furiously, clawing each other and dunking each other under the shit. Eventually, one of them capitulates, and there's only one contestant left. He reaches for the pen, but the Lackey says, "Actually, I think you need a little more development. Swim it again, please. Backstroke."

And he does, of course.

I. A&R Scouts

Every major label involved in the hunt for new bands now has on staff a high-profile point man, an "A&R" rep who can present a comfortable face to any prospective band. The initials stand for "Artist and Repertoire," because historically, the A&R staff would select artists to record music that they had also selected, out of an available pool of each. This is still the case, though not openly.

These guys are universally young [about the same age as the bands being wooed], and nowadays they always have some obvious underground rock credibility flag they can wave. Lyle Preslar, former guitarist for Minor Threat, is one of them. Terry Tolkin, former NY independent booking agent and assistant manager at Touch and Go is one of them. Al Smith, former soundman at CBGB is one of them. Mike Gitter, former editor of XXX fanzine and contributor to Rip, Kerrang and other lowbrow rags is one of them. Many of the annoying turds who used to staff college radio stations are in their ranks as well.

There are several reasons A&R scouts are always young. The explanation usually copped-to is that the scout will be "hip" to the current musical "scene." A more important reason is that the bands will intuitively trust someone they think is a peer, and who speaks fondly of the same formative rock and roll experiences.

The A&R person is the first person to make contact with the band, and as such is the first person to promise them the moon. Who better to promise them the moon than an idealistic young turk who expects to be calling the shots in a few years, and who has had no previous experience with a big record company. Hell, he's as naive as the band he's duping. When he tells them no one will interfere in their creative process, he probably even believes it.

When he sits down with the band for the first time, over a plate of angel hair pasta, he can tell them with all sincerity that when they sign with company X, they're really signing with him and he's on their side. Remember that great, gig I saw you at in '85? Didn't we have a blast.

By now all rock bands are wise enough to be suspicious of music industry scum. There is a pervasive caricature in popular culture of a portly, middle aged ex-hipster talking a mile-a-minute, using outdated jargon and calling everybody "baby." After meeting "their" A&R guy, the band will say to themselves and everyone else, "He's not like a record company guy at all! He's like one of us." And they will be right. That's one of the reasons he was hired.

These A&R guys are not allowed to write contracts. What they do is present the band with a letter of intent, or "deal memo," which loosely states some terms, and affirms that the band will sign with the label once a contract has been agreed on.

For most Christians, at least outside of the US, TV evangelists (Including that travesty called Jerry Falwell) are not treated or respected as leaders. They're just another talking head that are better ignored or repudiated than accepted. Christianity is not monolithic and quite diverse to the point where each local church abides by a different set of doctrine. It is just as unfair to generalize all Christians as extremists as to say all US Citizens are gun-toting, GOP-membership carrying idiots. (Which all too often, that's what the US looks like from the outside.)

This divide in the US is created as much by religious conservatives as liberals. Neither side recognises the limits of their own system of beliefs and try to impose their own on the other. Political correctness runs both ways. Both sides try to change public discourse into using their own vocabulary. There's more than enough blame to go around. This entire "debate" is a tit-for-tat spat between factions that are too self-righteous to actually coexist and listen. Everyone wants the other side to admit they're "right". It's always amusing to watch an "atheist" try to criticise a religion on their doctrine when they hardly know anything beyond two or three passages or the context those passages are written in. It is equally amusing to watch "Creation Scientists" misrepresent, misuse and misquote scientific laws and prinsiples. Both cases reveal the arrogance and presumption of superiority of the speaker. These kind of comments inflames passions and makes the job of moderates all that much harder. I would advise most of the commentators (be they religious or not) to get off their high horses and actually communicate instead of hurling insults at each other.

I have met and admired both atheists and people of religion. They're at their most admirable when they can sit down, listen, respect and sympathise with the other side. That is genuine liberalism, the ability to accomodate multiple points of view without resorting to jingoisms or caricatures. It is sad to see that that they don't get the limelight instead of some lunatic-of-the-day.

One last parting thought... Please recognise the limits of your own viewpoints and systems of belief! The Bible is not a scientific manual nor was it ever meant to be. Stop applying it as such. Science operates on a number of axioms. Chief amongst them are:
1) Scientific laws are imutable and constant across time and space.
2) Complex systems can be simplified, isolated, decoupled and reduced.
3) Reality is quantifiable and can be measured.
If these axioms are not true (Which we can't prove conclusively one way or the other.), then our current scientific system breaks down. Keep the above in mind the next time when you try to debate the veracity of God and whether Science represent absolute reality.

*********************
I am Canadian and dang proud of it! Just to clarify my position on this matter:
-I believe in evolution and advocate for it
-I am also an evangelical Christian
-I believe science and religion can coexist. Neither is right or wrong based on the other.
-Liberal :) The bleeding-heart sort.

Scientists, like everyone else except for us chatterbots here on Slashdot, are only human. So things that are theories and possibly flawed observations get treated as facts, and it takes a generation or so for the old guard to retire and for the new theories to get the proper consideration that they deserved in the first place.

I'll use Galileo as a an example. He was right with his "planets going around the sun" bit, but he insisted on sticking with a circular orbit instead of an ellipse, which meant his predictions didn't match up with observations. Deciding to publish his theory in the form of a brilliant scientist (himself) against a dull-witted fundie (a blatant caricature of Urban VIII) didn't help, either.

The sad bit, this "Scientist vs. Church" sort of story is played out as "Hack vs. Real Science", where someone with a better theory (more predictive, etc.) gets thrown out of the Church of Science because he's viewed as heretical, too controversial, or just simply too antagonistic against the current establishment.

The reason sarcasm is hard to detect is that real morons do in fact exist.

For sarcasm to work requires that you respect the speaker enough to know they aren't that dumb. For some randomly chosen internet person, that's not an assumption you can make.

For example, I've tried to satarize fundamentalists, but it just doesn't work. No made up caricature can succeed at being more silly than the real thing.

They don't "Do the Right Thing" however you define The Right Thing. And it is for this very reason that people vote right down party lines or they don't vote at all.

Example, the recent race for the Kentucky senate seat between incumbent Jim Bunning (R) and Daniel Mongiardo (D). I'm a Republican, but Bunning is a fucking loser. Not that some folks need help throwing jabs at the Republican party, but every time Bunning opens his mouth, he does damage to Republicans and those who think along the same lines as Republicans. You know the caricature that's pinned on Republicans: buddy with big corporations, insensitive to middle class Americans, whatever. Bunning is the caricature.

I strongly considered voting for Mongiardo, a state senator and an okay one at that, but I had to consider the consequences. Were I to cast my vote for Mongiardo and he were to take the seat in the U.S. Senate, I would have effectively cast a vote for every other Democratic senator and their agendas who I have zero support for. I abstained voting in that contest; Bunning narrowly won.

Were it a contest for a seat in the House, I would have voted for Mongiardo though since there's a greater sample of Representatives; there's less exposure and more balance to the institution.