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What Did You Change Your Mind About in 2007?
chrisd writes "The Edge 2008 question (with answers) is in. This year, the question is: 'What did you change your mind about and why?'. Answers are featured from scientists as diverse as Richard Dawkins, Simon Baron-Cohen, George Church, David Brin, J. Craig Venter and the Astronomer Royal, Lord Martin Rees, among others. Very interesting to read. For instance, Stewart Brand writes that he now realizes that 'Good old stuff sucks' and Sam Harris has decided that 'Mother Nature is Not Our Friend.' What did Slashdot readers change their minds about in 2007?"
Mother Nature is not now, nor has she ever been, looking out for us.
I would go further and say that, not only is she not looking out for us, but Mother Nature is a bitch.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I really wish I had eaten pizza last night instead of ordering takeout Chinese.
Other than that, I can't think of anything.
Unix.
[Peorth@Avalon ~]$ uptime && uname -a 12:52PM up 19:03, 1 user, load averages: 0.11, 0.05, 0.02 FreeBSD Avalon 6.2-RELEASE-p9 FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE-p9 #0: Thu Nov 29 04:07:33 UTC 2007 root@i386-builder.daemonology.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC i386
"...Sleep comes like a drug in God's country Sad eyes, crooked crosses in God's country..."
It has a disciplining effect on the entire organization since the punishment for immaturity is harsh and tangible.
An additional benefit is that it has a rather sobering effect on local know-it-all's when they see that their work is in fact inferior to what we can get from a third world sourcing partner. After this sort of ego bruising they are more ready to accept modern and mature practices.
TCAP-Abort
I changed my mind about the war in Iraq because of Ron Paul. I was always sympathetic to the idea of bringing liberty to those overseas, but it is clear now that the source of liberty is individual choices not government ones. Ron Paul made it clear and final that the war is not helping the freedom of the people over there, and it is obviously not helping the freedom of people over here, and is directly responsible for the rise of a police state mentality in the USA, and is contributing greatly to our ongoing economic collapse. As Ron Paul once said, if we want wars all over the planet and want the government babying people from cradle to grave - then we must have an IRS and massive debt. But if we want freedom and liberty, then yes we can get rid of them.
Before 2007, I was doubtful about whether this country had any hope for change. Whether or not he wins, he represents what this country needs.
If you don't already know about him, his website is helpful: http://ronpaul2008.com/
This slashdot-related signature is a stub. You can help kihjin by expanding it.
In a simple ceremony I married my sweet heart with whom we'd been together for 8 years. That was an achievement I guess.
I know everyone is complaining that oil and gas is way too expensive. They are wrong. I used to think the same way. I saw a nice chart showing gasoline prices adjusted for inflation over a period of about eighty years. You know what? It really hasn't changed that much. It was still higher in 1981 than it is now. What has changed is a decrease in our earning power.
Proof that gasoline is still too cheap: I still see tons of Hummers, Expeditions, Navigators, Armadas, Sequoias and other mondo SUVs (aka Urban Assault Vehicles) on the road.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I switched from XP to openSuSE in March, and decided it was too hard to work with, to the point that I pined for Window's familiarity. Temporarily lacking an XP CD, I downloaded Ubuntu as a stopgap. And decided I didn't need that XP CD after all.
it's not *all* that bad, actually
I am trolling
I finally realized that I was never going to have a flying car.
That is... "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters"
I realized it isn't really about stuff that matters.
They are just out to control us all.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Calling David Brin a scientist is like calling Josef Stalin a humanitarian.
Brin is the King of Hacks.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
I changed my mind about absolutely nothing. As I'm always confidant with what i want to believe/feel the first time.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
..who saw Sacha Baron-Cohen instead of Simon Baron-Cohen?
The biggest thing that I changed my mind about was drugs. After smoking bud, it opened my world up to wonderful things like E and acid and such.
Blue. No yel-- Auuuuuuuugh!
I thought the Democrats would run things better than Bush in 2007. Turns out they were worse. Quite a feat given what a numbskull Bush is. At least they took the challenge seriously.
I still think it is an awesome company, just now I think it is a little TOO awesome. They're starting to scare me.
I have to post this anonymously because my employer does not like me talking about them.
I realized that thanks to /. the love of my life (as far as i know) will never reciprocate, thus leaving me single. yet again.
I've traditionally voted Republican because I'm a social conservative. In 2007, Bush and the Congressional Republicans behaved so irresponsibly that I wanted them out.
So I leaned Democrat. Until I saw that the Democratic Congress rolled over for Bush just as much as the Republicans did.
Now I don't know how to lean. Now I just despair.
can effect any type of meaningful change.
........ on and on
.... now in my 50's I see that this just a bunch of horse-shit. I'll still vote (as I have since I turned 18) .... but to invest any time, money, or emotion in the political process ----- fuck that shit.
Healthcare reform, acting on global warming, tax reform, ending a meaningless war, supporting the middle class, fighting terrorism at its roots ( in the Madrases ) and local Muslim populations (versus invading random countries like Iraq or Iran), energy independence
Since a teenager I've been at least tuned into the issues / politics - and would get wrapped up with one candidate or another
Its not the years, its the mileage
The more I see of the Presidential candidates on the Republican side, The more I see fascists running for Dictator in Chief, that a Gulliani presidency will mean a police state, a Huckabee presidency will will bring a theocracy and only the Republican who isn't bone chilling frightening is Ron Paul. When did the Republicans becomes Fascists?
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
I realized that all the really smart people around are not that smart. They know some stuff but will not/cannnot apply it and so they squander their intelligence...
To see a few of my Android apps goto: www.hartwired.com
Nowhere in the summary did any of the links point to the bloody index!
Isn't it still generally accepted to start at the beginning when reading, or has digg finally removed all semblance of intelligence from the general public?
After this sort of ego bruising they are more ready to accept modern and mature practices. Play $DEITY somewhere else, not with workers. If one has to add fear (by offshoring) over their heads to drive a point, something is terribly wrong.
You're part of what makes people hate offshoring, you use it for fear, and not productivity.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
well, not willing to, more like "forced to" accept triple the workload they used to, resulting in fatigue around which an entire industry of pharmaceuticals arose to keep them up with stims rather than labor regulations to keep offshoring down so they can live healthy lives which involve rest and the possibility of actually speaking with and raising their kids.
and of course they have to accept the erosion of their middle class status to the point they will never ever retire and can't ever afford a house.. "as the rents go up, and job opportunities go down"
yes i'm sure our descent into third world status will "only" harm the "immature"
and where do you get off declaring what is and is not mature? did it ever occur to you that you may be the one who isn't mature. Usually the ones who believe themselves far enough above others to pronounce judgment are themselves the fools.
But yeah, go ahead and support the destruction of the middle class for your twisted sense of self righteousness regarding other people's maturity.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I changed my mind about religion, ironically it was because I started going back to church that I realized I didn't believe any of it.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
I changed my opinion about the future of the United States and Capitalism. I was completely pesimisstic and was predicting complete economic and social collapse. But, thanks to Ron Paul, I realized that it was possible to go back to what made America great, and away from this welfare/warfare fascist/socialist mess that will eventually bankrupt the country. Thanks to Ron Paul, I also changed my mind about the Federal Bank. I always realized that the bank was the reason for the housing and dot com bubbles, but I always assumed that the bank was necessary, but Ron Paul made me realize that a better system is possible.
At the start of the year I still thought the big labels hadn't figured out to work with the internet and were going to litigate my favourite websites into submission, but they've finally got it and made deals instead of suing potential business partners. At the start of the year I was steadfast in my opinion that music labels were going to collapse, by the end of the year I've got the feeling that they might just make it through.
A year ago I thought the housing market was great.
Now I changed my mind.
At the start of 2007 and after a Democratically controlled Congress was sworn into office I was of the opinion that impeachment should be off the table while Congress got down to some real business with a President that recognized the winds of change. I couldn't have been more wrong.
When Steven Colbert wasn't elected to the Republican ticket!
In the next 5-10 years it will be the place to live.
global warming will soften some of the colder months.
the CAD is already worth more than the USD
Canada is actually tech friendly, and looks like it will remain so for the forseeable future, so it will attract the talent the US has been crushing to death under IP laws.
Canada, land of the free, home of people with a spine, the future of north America.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Why not third party?
I'm a Government conservative and a social liberal (I think we should stop violating the Constitution, get rid of the IRS, stop these stupid wars, religion doesn't belong in Government, I don't give a rat's ass who you sleep with, and I don't see why gays can't get married). I vote third party and if there's not third party candidate, I abstain with the naive hope that the politicians will notice somehow.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
I thought the iPhone was just a phone only a pretentious dickwad would buy and that it was incredibly crippled as a phone (lacking basic MMS support, video recording, customizable ringtones, Bluetooth (tethering/object transfer), replaceable batteries, 3G speeds, standard mini-USB charging port, 3rd party applications (Java or otherwise), GPS, memory card slot, etc., all things my current phone had). I fell in love with the slow Edge web browsing and the e-mail client though so I decided to become a pretentious dickwad and bought one. Unlike the Apple commercials with the Guido guy though, I really still need two phones... one for e-mail and web browsing, and one to act as a regular phone to do everything else. I wish it was easier to swap the SIM card back and forth between the iPhone and my old phone or have two identical SIM cards so I could use either phone at the same time.
I am by nature a very tolerant person, but it is time for all good people to actively refute the ideas of the intolerant fundamentalists of all stripes. I am appalled that there are politicians in the USA who think it is OK to condemn people due to their religious beliefs, or lack of belief. For example, Bush isn't sure atheists are citizens. Some politicians think they should be able to tell you what you do in the privacy of your own home. But these guys are pikers compared to Religious fundamentalists. Even peaceful, tolerant Canada had to deal with this, Teen killed by father, and if we scoot over to Afghanistan we have the Taliban executing people who dare to try to educate girls.
Peaceful discourse is our best weapon.
Happy New year.
Anarchists never rule
Or fractional reserves or other commodity-based or scheme that allows competetive currencies to compete internally against the greenback. Anything that prevents the fed printing whatever they want whenever they want without the market being able to fight by fleeing to something that might hold value.
I thought this was one of Paul's most esoteric or kooky ideas, but it seems more clear that the fed plus congress have every interest in printing dollars for handouts, good intentioned programs, pork, and world building. They have little intention in preserving the buying power of the dollar. Dollar deflation really hits savers and people that live paycheck to paycheck.
The world situation is really what dooms the fiat dollar. We now have competetive world currencies that holders can trust. And if the monopolies in using dollars to purchase oil for OPEC ever end, the shit could hit the fan.
As things stand now, we have already hurt ourselves, as we now have to compromise our policies to the Chinese, Saudis, or others that help prop up our dollars, lest we offend.
1. O.K. I believe in global warming now. I heard a lot of dissenting evidence but it appears to be tainted.
2. Video Games do affect behavior in many children. Studies and family members in the field of education with years of observational experience have made me switch my opinion. I'm still not a big fan of government intervention on the subject, though.
3. Linux is ready for the desktop thanks to the EeePC. In fact, much of open source appears to be ready to eliminate the needs or even desire for a commercial alternative. Linux, OpenOffice, Firefox. I no longer feel like I'm having to settle for second rate in order to save money. I'd actually choose them even if the alternatives were free.
4. Slashdot is moderated largely by hypocritical children who will mod up popular opinion and mod down unpopular posts regardless of accuracy. I predict the slow demise of Slashdot as the comments area, a once fertile land of discussion and intelligent observation becomes a members only arena linux/mac fanboys and video gamers who can't envision anyone else's opinion being right other than theirs. It will be a place where where speaking ill of religion, republicans or windows will be given an automatic +2 informative while speaking ill social web sites, video games, or modding practices will be an auto -2 troll.
All four are great discoveries and lifestyle changes for me.
Happy New Year.
Just trying to be honest. I've almost completely cut sugar out of my diet, and I feel better to show for it.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
Ubuntu 7.1 finally made me realize that it is actually possible to use Linux as a Desktop OS. For at least 10 years Linux had been the ugly OS I only accessed via SSH on my server.
I didn't change my mind, I just rewrote my past comments.
Not because it applied, but because it would make you agree.
Why are they killing people? For liberty! We like liberty, so it makes it okay to kill people: it's for something we like!
You can't take the sky from me...
In early 2007 I thought I might be able to vote for Ron Paul against certain Democrats if it came down to that (unlikely).
After learning more about Dr. Paul: that he hasn't felt the need to educate himself about the scientific facts about evolution and rejects it, though wasn't willing to raise his hand during the televised debate where the candidates were asked that question; that he calls abortion "Murder"; and, most critically, that he wants to remove the ability of the federal government to intervene in violations of chuch/state separation.
If the founding fathers got nothing else right with our country, they got the separation of church and state right. Integrating religion and state power is a sure path to tyranny.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
No party should EVER control both the legislative and executive branch at the same time. Not the repub party, not the dem party, not the green party, not the communist party, not the toga party.
The more gridlock, the less that gets done. The less that gets done, the less we get screwed.
Gone!
I finally changed my mind that 2007 will be the Year of Linux on the Desktop...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
You may now commence modding me down...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
It happened so that 2007 was a year in which many things went wrong, and I was really upset with my [lack of] performance. However, on December the 31st I concluded that everything can also be interpreted as good news, because after analyzing the failed projects, I noticed that the bottleneck was in me, and not in my colleagues, friends, or the environment.
:-) 2008 will tell.
In other words, things are [relatively] simple now, because I only have to focus on myself (there is no need to "change other people" or "alter my environment", etc). Of course, this may also be nothing but lying to myself and trying to excuse the poor results of 2007
The saddest poem
This will probably be out of place here amongst the /. crowd. But I met the absolutely most beautiful woman on the planet, inside much more so than outside this year. And the whole experience changed me and my mind on the value of emotion in general. I am still dealing with the fallout from realizing I have been an emotional equivalent to a black hole up until now.
:)
It used to be hard to say stuff like that, even to myself. But not any more, personal growth is always a good thing to achieve. And no she wasn't a girlfriend or anything like that either before anyone asks.
Oh and tv. It is now almost entirely out of my life, to be replaced by real life things like skydiving and adrenaline rushes.
That the local developers gets 'inspired' a bit is a secondary effect. It's not like their job is in danger since we're hiring like crazy. It's mostly management who's in hot water now and needs to wise up fast. This is poetic since they were the ones who started this outsourcing business.
I might be pompous but I sure as hell can spot both immature practices (by the organization) and developers who needs to get out of the 80's. I get solid CMMI 5 stuff from the sourcing partner. Some of our own stuff looks pretty pathetic in comparison.
TCAP-Abort
I read the interview-type-thing they had going on with Baron-Cohen (mainly because I've read some of his stuff, and his cousin is really funny). I worry about his attitude to equality though; perhaps this is just something which comes with age... he said;
"I still believe in it some aspects of the idea of equality, but I can no longer accept the whole package. The question is, is it worth holding on to some elements of the idea if you've given up other elements? Does it make sense to have a partial belief in equality? Do you have to either believe in all of it, or none of it? My mind has been changed from my youthful starting point where I might have hoped that equality could be followed in all areas of life, but I still see value in holding on to some aspects of the principle. Striving to give people equality of social opportunity is still a value system worth defending, even if in the realm of biology, we have to accept equality has no place."
It might be true that under his conception of biology equality has not place, but I think equality has more of a role to play that he seems to be allowing it. Firstly he could easily accept moral equality; that fits with his equality of social opportunity but also seems to fit nicely into a conception of "biological" equality. I also think if you take a commitment to equality of social opportunity then you'll probably have to bring in a great whack of economic equality because otherwise social situations just end up layered with complex social inequalities based on pride/respect people attach to themselves and others. Equality completely could still be achieved though through some kind of idea like Van-Parijs's "undominated diversity" could work (an idea, stated very basically, of "how much would we have to pay you to swap places with that person including all their physical defects") that way you have equality between complete endowments, even if not directly between each individual element.
But then again, I guess some people think other values are more important than equality - liberty seems to be a popular one (and in extremes they seem to me to be pretty opposed...), but I'm sure there are other principles as well people like; fraternity/community?
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
I think everybody have changed their mind about multiple things, but don't actually remember what they thought about it a year ago. There may even be areas where we would be choked to find out what we were thinking a year ago. Sometimes experience can change your opinion faster than you would have thought possible without even noticing the change.
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
Whether or not nature is our friend, Sam Harris is still a divisive, cherrypicking, spitemongering tool.
Yes.
I definitely gave up on trying to find a Wii in a store in 2007. I'm hoping 2008 will be better. ;)
http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_12.html#buss
I seem to be changing my mind about that one on a constant basis.
sig has been sent away for a few small repairs...
I've decided that health care insurance should be purchased (or not) by individuals or families like any other insurance. There is nothing ethically intrinsic to health care that would mandate it as an entitlement either from our employers or the government. It certainly isn't the most basic need - food and housing seem more important to me.
We've grown accustom to having it provided to use but that is just a historical artifact. (Employers started providing health care benefits after WW2 when they were limited in their ability to offer higher salaries.)
"Written on the pages is the answer to the never ending story..."
just start saving now, mr hiller has a flying car model in actual production for a couple mil.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
"a once fertile land of discussion and intelligent observation"
Really? When was that?
Happy New Year 2002!
120 characters isn't enough to explain it.
Can you name one realistic contender in this election cycle that doesn't profess belief in the great sky wizard?
I no longer believe there will be cake.
the alternatives are untenable. mother nature IS yOUR friend, fauxking murderous greed/fear/ego based glowbull warmongering spiritdead control freaks are not.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071229/ap_on_sc/ye_climate_records;_ylt=A0WTcVgednZHP2gB9wms0NUE
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/opinion/31mon1.html?em&ex=1199336400&en=c4b5414371631707&ei=5087%0A
is it time to get real yet? A LOT of energy is being squandered in attempts to keep US in the dark. in the end (give or take a few 1000 years), the creators will prevail (world without end, etc...), as it has always been. the process of gaining yOUR release from the current hostage situation may not be what you might think it is. butt of course, most of US don't know, or care what a precarious/fatal situation we're in.
for example; the insidious attempts by the felonious corepirate nazi execrable to block the suns' light, interfering with a requirement (sunlight) for us to stay healthy/alive. it's likely not good for yOUR health/memories 'else they'd be bragging about it?
we're intending for the whoreabully deceptive (they'll do ANYTHING for a bit more monIE/power) felons to give up/fail even further, in attempting to control the 'weather', as well as a # of other things/events.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=video+cloud+spraying
dictator style micro management has never worked (for very long). it's an illness. tie that with life0cidal aggression & softwar gangster style bullying, & what do we have? a greed/fear/ego based recipe for disaster.
meanwhile, you can help to stop the bleeding (loss of life & limb);
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/28/vermont.banning.bush.ap/index.html
the bleeding must be stopped before any healing can begin. jailing a couple of corepirate nazi hired goons would send a clear message to the rest of the world from US. any truthful look at the 'scorecard' would reveal that we are a society in decline/deep doo-doo, despite all of the scriptdead pr ?firm? generated drum beating & flag waving propaganda that we are constantly bombarded with. is it time to get real yet? please consider carefully ALL of yOUR other 'options'.
the creators will prevail. as it has always been.
corepirate nazi execrable costs outweigh benefits
(Score:-)mynuts won, the king is a fink)
by ourselves on everyday 24/7
as there are no benefits, just more&more death/debt & disruption. fortunately there's an 'army' of light bringers, coming yOUR way.
the little ones/innocents must/will be protected. after the big flash, ALL of yOUR imaginary 'borders' may blur a bit? for each of the creators' innocents harmed in any way, there is a debt that must/will be repaid by you/us, as the perpetrators/minions of unprecedented evile, will not be available. 'vote' with (what's left in) yOUR wallet, & by your behaviors. help bring an end to unprecedented evile's manifestation through yOUR owned felonious corepirate nazi glowbull warmongering execrable. some of US should consider ourselves somewhat fortunate to be among those scheduled to survive after the big flash/implementation of the creators' wwwildly popular planet/population rescue initiative/mandate. it's right in the manual, 'world without end', etc....
as we all ?know?, change is inevitable, & denying/ignoring gravity, logic, morality, etc..., is only possible, on a temporary basis. concern about the course of events that will occur should the life0cidal execrable fail to be intervened upon is in order. 'do not be dismayed' (also from the manual). however, it's ok/reco
Penn & Teller's Bullshit! was very eye opening in regards to their episode on Recycling. Up until that point I thought that recycling was actually doing some good but after watching the show it looks like a lot of it is worse for the environment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit!
Every year, it sounds like a collection of trolls interspersed with a few insightful individuals. Some of these trolls use this annual interview as a platform for their beliefs, usually anti-faith. Yes, we realize that most scientists and "thinkers" are agnostics or atheists, and they are every year. How is this a change? We have David Bodanis calling the Bible "inane" based on an belief about the city of Jericho that is actually still subject to debate. We have Patrick Bateson begging questions about alleged biblical inconsistencies. And what is Alan Alda doing in there? I suppose they wanted a celebrity affirmation of their attitudes. It really doesn't make any sense; as the only person that doesn't seem to know that Alan Alda is, has been, and probably always will be agnostic, is Alan Alda. This isn't news.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
1. O.K. I believe in global warming now. I heard a lot of dissenting evidence but it appears to be tainted.
Glad to hear it. Now we need to figure out if we can stop it, slow it, or survive it. If the latter, it won't be superstorms and tsunamis that destroy the human race, it'll be lack of water and changing environmental landscapes that countries fight over that'll end humanity.
2. Video Games do affect behavior in many children. Studies and family members in the field of education with years of observational experience have made me switch my opinion. I'm still not a big fan of government intervention on the subject, though.
I'm just glad that also instilled in us is the restraint to not harm other people. TV and video games make us consider more "solutions" to problems than we might otherwise -- both violent or reasonable.
3. Linux is ready for the desktop thanks to the EeePC. In fact, much of open source appears to be ready to eliminate the needs or even desire for a commercial alternative. Linux, OpenOffice, Firefox. I no longer feel like I'm having to settle for second rate in order to save money. I'd actually choose them even if the alternatives were free.
I'm thinking it's the web browser that is making Linux more palatable. Many families don't care about XP/Linux/Mac so much as Gmail/Shutterfly/Online News. Now that applications aren't OS specific, as long as your OS has a browser and isn't ticking you off detecting devices, it's all good.
4. Slashdot is moderated largely by hypocritical children who will mod up popular opinion and mod down unpopular posts regardless of accuracy. I predict the slow demise of Slashdot as the comments area, a once fertile land of discussion and intelligent observation becomes a members only arena linux/mac fanboys and video gamers who can't envision anyone else's opinion being right other than theirs. It will be a place where where speaking ill of religion, republicans or windows will be given an automatic +2 informative while speaking ill social web sites, video games, or modding practices will be an auto -2 troll.
I think you're confusing Slashdot with the Internet in general. More people, more variety. Certain personalities wise up once they get a username and start getting called out for continuously trolling or being a jerk (as viewed in historical posts). Others...well, there's always the antagonizers.
Happy New Year!
For the last couple of years I had been quite excited about the upcoming "Longhorn" with its journaling file system et. al.; when "Vista" was finally released with all the good bits stripped out at a bewildering range of prices that all boiled down to "Pay the highest price you see or when you install it you'll find some random features disabled" I was hugely disappointed. I'm now a confirmed Linux user.
My entire life I have been seeking happiness by default. In 2007, I made the choice to seek a more meaningful life, in spite of whatever happiness or misery it may bring.
This is a rewarding but challenging way to live.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
Ron Paul has repeatedly said that some of his personal heroes are Martin Luther King Jr and Ghandi -- very odd choices for a white supremacist. He also said in an interview that he would consider someone like Walter Williams, a black economist, as his running mate.
The article posted has long since been dismissed as the writing of a ghost writer that was subsequently removed from his staff. His public life of service has shown no other evidence of any racism beyond this single article from the early nineties as was covered in Free Market News
From that article is the following quote by Ron Paul:
It really is amazing that in 10 terms in congress and being in the public spotlight for 30 years, this is the only thing that the media can dig up against Ron Paul.
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
Also, that physical chemistry in love isn't something to be avoided. --I'd come to mistrust 'chemistry', considering it a type of trap designed to stick you with partners who were hell-bent on destroying you, and opted instead for people who I could be friends with. My humbling lesson of 2007 was that unless you have both chemistry and friendship, a relationship can't work very well, and that women who are out to destroy you are there because you seek them out. As always, internal work is the thing to focus on.
Also realized that it's not just okay to bear feelings of love for somebody society may not deem them appropriate for you to love, (affection for another man's wife/girlfriend, or somebody who isn't your parter etc.), but that it's a million times easier and less destructive than trying to deny those feelings. Instead you can say openly to all involved, "Hey, I love this woman!" and the world isn't going to end. Being in love doesn't mean you have to seek a relationship or even deepen the emotional ties, and just being open about it relieves all kinds of tensions. Everybody knows everything on some level anyway. I and several other people around me went through these tough lessons in 2007 to discover more about how it all works.
Also decided that brie is actually pretty great when you have it on bread.
-FL
United Church of Christ (UCC) is a mainline protestant denomination, tends to be somewhat Calvinistic in it's viewpoint, which makes it a close relative to Presbyterianism.
That generally makes them socially tolerant, if not socially active.
Theologically, Calvinist churches tend to be philosophical about spirituality, and are not generally on a mission to convert you to their particular denomination; in general, such attempts are considered somewhat out of character.
If Obama grew up in this tradition, he is likely to be Christian, but very tolerant of other people's beliefs, even if at odds with his own.
I guess you could call that changing my mind.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
From the RSS feed, I thought this was lifehacker for a minute.
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
I've decided to like Microsoft.
NOT!
Table-ized A.I.
This shouldn't be surprising, even though it is. When you think about the human environment a little it suddenly seems inevitable.
Some decades ago, during the period where dolphin intelligence appeared to be an active topic in biology, at least from the point of view of a non-biologist, I recall reading an argument that the biggest force driving the evolution of the dolphin brain was other dolphins. That their society had become a feedback loop encouraging further changes.
What struck me at the time was that this was even more true for humans, that the biggest impact on the evolution of humans is other humans, especially since humans had these effective and efficient mechanisms for transmitting beliefs about other humans around... in words and later in writing. And they act on these beliefs in ways that impose heavy selection pressure on themselves and each other, through wars, religions, technology, and so on.
In fact a common metaphor for all these beliefs is that of "memes", mental genes. That these beliefs act *like* genetically transmitted material, that they compete and evolve. What this information is saying, to me at least, is that not only do they do that... but they also have an effect on genes as well. Now I'm not saying that memes are carried genetically... some memes even seem to have the effect of reducing the reproductive fitness of their carriers... but that their existence as a *common* selection mechanism for large groups of people is acting as a selection pressure for people who have the ability to survive and flourish in the presence of these memes. As memes change, then, the pressure changes, and other genetic factors become selected for.
The biggest force driving the evolution of the human species right now is other humans.
The transmission mechanism for this force is memes.
I went from being pro Fair Tax to being skeptical. There are a few questions I'd need to see satisfactorily answered to become pro Fair Tax again.
My biggest concern is that it would push American buyers of certain goods overseas and destroy our manufacturing capabilities in those areas. In the early 1990s, we had a luxury tax on new cars, boats, and jewelry over a certain value. Estimates were that we would raise something like six billion dollars in the first year. What really happened is that people quit buying those items in the United States and we only raised a few million in taxes on the items while gutting those industries. I think it especially hit the boat building industries hard. We certainly don't need to accelerate the rate at which we export our manufacturing overseas.
Another concern is that people will change their purchasing habits dramatically and the revenue raised will be far less than what is forecast. The result will be an escalating tax rate. The assumption that we won't change our purchasing behavior doesn't seem to be very likely.
Finally, of course, I think that it will push more and more of the taxes onto the middle and upper middle class. If you make ten million a year, and spend a million, you'd be paying about $300,000 in taxes for an effective tax rate on income is 3%. If you make a hundred thousand and spend seventy thousand on goods and services, you're going to be paying about $21,000 in taxes and the effective tax rate on income is 21%.
Even before this change, I considered a flat tax with NO exemptions the better method. I think that even more now.
Not much more to say than that.
you making the assumption that the only way that you can believe is by going to church every sunday. that's not really true, a major reason for going to church is to worship with others and strengthen your faith. I did go to church when I was very young but to tell you the truth it never really did anything for me, it felt like a chore- like everyone went because they felt they needed to rather than wanting to srengthen their faith. it felt hollow to me and I choose to believe my own way, to read the bible myself rather than having everything dictated to me by someone else. years later, I went to college and met new friends, many of which were very religious and I decided to go with them to church again. I thought it would be different this time but it wasn't. going to church and worshipping with them made me re-evaluate what I believed and why I believed it. It was out of a curiousity and respect for religion that I attempted to strengthen my beliefs in church which ironically lead me to reject the entire faith. the church its self really wasn't the problem, it just lead me to examine what I believed in greater detail.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
The following are my personal notes on the article, written and organized as I read it:
This is a really good article, though like past years, you can know the general lean (political, philosophical and scientific) of the participants before you begin. However, there are always answers that go up against the grain, and these are the ones I find most interesting. Some of the answers are pretty fascinating, like this one from Joseph Ledoux:
What's so fascinating about this answer to me is that it is something that's been clear to me, upon reflection, for many years. I have a clear "memory" of my second birthday, even though this is a time from which most persons don't have memories. Now, it's known that that being able to form sentences early (which I was able to do) helps in the creation of memory; being able to "narrate" thought allows us to construct some sort of record of events better. However, around the age of 11 or so, I began to realize that I was not remembering the event so much as my prior recollection of it. This meant I began to be very careful about my use of memory and how much I trusted my own mind, which I know to play tricks on me at times. It's known that, even for a mentally well person, a long-held falsehood can become true for the person simply because they create a memory of the false event. Also, philosophy has been aware of the importance of this sort of trick of the mind for some time. It's interesting to see science just now approach it, and it is instructive in how scientific paradigm (e.g., that memory functions like a hard drive) can override the obvious conclusions of self-reflection.
A lot of the answers touch on classic issues in the philosophy of science, a field some scientists love (most geologists, theoretical physicists) and others hate (most biologists). Karl Sabbagh's answer about expertise is right and wrong in equally interesting measures (yes, one should not trust experts unguarded, but, no, your judgement is not as good as an expert's in an area of their expertise, per se). Piet Hut's answer about explanations is sort of trivial for anyone who knows philosophy of science, but a good example of the problem (or explanation--hah!) for the neophyte. Colin Tudge's answer about the limits of science is simillarly instructive and worth repeating (in part):
got my divorce sorted out on christmas day. about time as well. crazy bitch was getting on my nerves
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Seriously. ALSA is a mistake and should be treated as such. Get OSS4 instead.
systemd is not an init system. It's a GNU replacement.
is how many times did John Kerry flip-flop in 2007? ;-)
Not flaming, just going to correct you before you believe and therefore spread more erroneous FUD. Just FYI, back before medicare and medicaid, health care insurance-or just simply paying for it out of pocket-was *much* cheaper(as a percentage of joe working class raw median take home pay). This is from personal "been there" experience, I am old enough to comment on this, not out of a book or anything. The feds jumping in and controlling it caused instant huge price increases and it has never even gotten close to being a deal like it used to be. It was so freaking cheap guys used to go door to door selling policies.
In other words, stop drinking the new age welfare state koolaid without some historical perspective. Was it perfect? No it was not, but for joe regular worker right down to sub one dollar an hour range (when I started full time working it was still well under a buck an hour), health care coverage or direct hospital/medical bills were just not that bad, they just weren't for the most part. Right now, it is WAY more expensive, inflation adjusted or not, just way more expensive. Same with education. The feds being involved with education has doubled the cost and reduced actual knowledge transferred. Again, went to school before the department of education was around as an official cabinet level deal. sorry, education since 1980 is not any better and in a lot of ways it is worse. That entire department is not needed whatsoever for any purpose other than to coordinate mass children brainwashing. That is the number one goal of the department and always has been, to convert over younger generations to be big brother/corporate drones.
I am sort of surprised the europeans fell for it hook line and sinker, given they saw in their own backyards how this whole scam with brainwashing children worked out with hitler and stalins regime, but so it goes, they fell for it and are now so hooked on it it has reached cult like behavior. Oh well...some people just refuse to admit they have been long term conned so they defend being conned/exploited/taken advantage of. There's a term for it, it is called "stockholm syndrome".
The feds screw up all the time, some is necessary, most is not, and at best they add a huge layer of bloated bureaucracy who exist solely to shuffle paperwork around.
The Obligations and Responsibilities of The Scientist:
http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_3.html#lederman
Dr. Lederman is the Nobel laureate who was interviewed on Slashdot several years ago. If you haven't read that interview, you owe it to yourself to do so now.
Link: http://slashdot.org/interviews/00/01/14/0948201.shtml
Others just make multiple accounts.
I thought it was going to be a version of windows that I could finally tolerate, and would finally have something that vaugley resembled security.
Ah well, at least I never actually put down money for it.
Wow, I gotta admit - that is a very large collection of what amounts to mini essays by a very very large number of people, from a very diverse range of disciplines and backrounds. I really recommend randomly clicking through large number of pages they have, all filled with thoughts and essays from a whole wodge of people in, and in orbit around, science. I accidentally blew through an hour on that list.
Whereas before I tried to hang on to some shred of my humanity.
Now I have let go and am in freefall.
Until I cease to exist.
Up until this year, I regarded virtualization asjust another buzzword, and a cheap and easy way to avoid having to think through and develop good IT policies and get good admins and other support people.
After having worked with someone who really knew their stuff as far as virtualization was concerned, I now realize that I was wrong, and that virtualization is a powerful and very useful tool to have in one's arsenal.
The system has failed you, don't fail yourself. --Billy Bragg
I was elated when the Democrats took the House and Senate...I thought that in 2007 they would stick it to bu$h and expedite the process of getting our troops home from Iraq and undo other of his stupid policies. Unfortunately, they did not deliver, and have had nothing but failure after failure. All they do is whine that they're being obstructed by this or that, and roll over for bush half the time! That's not the kind of leadership I want to follow. I think I'll vote independent this year.
The aeolian harp in my backyard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko4rBbMc59M
I finally got it: the richness of the harmonics, the music in its cycles and the feeling of being bathed in low frequencies. Everyone should have one, it's like a radio that trains you to hear pop music in the drone of the fridge or the ceiling fan.
Among the exceptions, some guy named Kevin Kelly: Much of what I believed about human nature, and the nature of knowledge, has been upended by the Wikipedia. http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_6.html
I used to ignore them ... let them slowly accumulate until new ones weren't noticeable.
This year I realized that GCC wasn't trying to annoy me. It was trying to help.
... also, I can kill you with my brain.
In 1980, film critic Roger Ebert http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/ rated "The Whole Shootin' Match" three stars. In 2007, after the indy film's creator Eagle Pennell had died of being a drunk, Ebert added a star. The film was the inspiration for Robert Redford's sundance festival and for Richard Linklater's (dazed and confused, slacker) becoming a filmmaker.
Perhaps the most beautiful girl in the room. And depending on the street, probably top three.
To do list for Windows
with your choice of the word 'root' as a metaphor for origin like that. For me that analogy is really
supposed to mean 'why?' as:
You said:
I changed my mind on the way I influence things:
I am lving in a foreign Asian country. Whether from my upbringing or my natural principles, I believed in being very passive
in terms of how I influence a foreign culture. My original point of view was that I should fully respect ALL
of the foreign culture as a macro entity, and never complain about or try to change things at a micro level. This is very important IMO. You should not take yourself too seriously in life. We are all tiny grains in this universe. But, we should remember that we are part of mankind ( a sligtly bigger grain in the universe) and that our everyday decisions and influences do add up each day. Collectively if something changes, it is often as a result of the efforts of many people - not just one person. I believe in people power so long as we are not all sheep. We should be able to lead ourselves. My point is that we have to be careful with our influennces and desire for change:
My original point of view was that 'If I change things at a micro level, then maybe I will affect the whole macro entity.'
My point of view has changed a little. I still believe it's wrong to try and influence or change someone elses culture,
but you should complain or influence things a little. This is because if we don't, we deny our human spirit.
It's natural for a spirit to want to participate, and be involved in the society they live in as a minority.
So, I am a minority resident in S. Korea. Now, I use my voice a little more.
There's some more interesting (scientific) commentary on this on the Cosmic Variance blog:
http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/01/01/what-have-you-changed-your-mind-about/
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
You're confusing an investment (college education) with a consumption good (gas).
Well, I used to think that some balance of interests was possible in copyright and patent law. The events of 2007 convinced me otherwise - we have a stark choice, their abolition or continued tyranny. There is no real in-between that can be maintained for any length of time. If you look at the history of technological innovation, you realise it's been shaped by the patent system. Like a chinese bound foot is shaped. It's ultimately disgusting and needs to stop.
The answer to the title question, what I changed my mind about, is open source. In particular, I've decided that I dislike the concept of what could only be best described as communism in its purest form, the idea that I as a developer am somehow obligated to give my hard work away for all to scrutinize, criticize, and quite likely plagiarize in some fashion. Do auto manufacturers give their cars away (or even sell them at manufacturing costs, turning no profits)? Do workers at a meat-packing plant slave away for free? Do software developers invest large amounts of personal time and possibly even financial resources to produce solutions to problems, only to give the results away to anybody who comes asking for it?
Unfortunately, in the above scenarios, common sense dictates the outcome of only two of the three presented. There are in fact people who sacrifice themselves for the public, out of some misguided sense of altruism or pride, but many of those who benefit from that gift of code are probably laughing themselves to sleep in amazement that somebody would feel any obligation to show gratitude. Personally, I use open source software, and quite shamelessly, because it's there to use. I'll use it, and I'll never thank the people that wrote it, nor will I give them money or praise or anything else, simply because they're begging to be exploited.
I, for one, will continue to exploit the hard work of the developers of grep, sed, and all kinds of fun tools. After all, thanks to the communist movement, I own that software just as much as the original developers do...
Yep. After paying for PClinuxOS, installing it (after reading glowing reports), then deciding it looked to much like Windows, reverted back to Ubuntu.
Why?
Well if a desktop looks too similar to your standard XP gui, you half expect to get property sheets and other info. The gui is made to look like XP, but doesn't react the same. Windows is always there in the back of your head when your operating PC/OS.
Ubuntu's gui on the other hand is different enough that you have to learn the way the gui operates. Its easier to do that than learn an XP variant.
Maybe it's the difference between KDE and Gnome?
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
... welcome our Ron Paul overlords.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Engineers have lost control of their IT departments. In truth, this might have happened long ago, but as the topic suggests, I've just come to that conclusion this (now past) year.
For a long time now MBA's, and management types in general have struggled to understand, cut costs, and in general quantify something that is not quantifiable. After all, if a system administrator does their job correctly, you never know they're doing their job at all.
So the management types end up coming up with obtuse questions for which they expect hard answers. How many trouble tickets a day should a system administrator be able to close? Why didn't you have a "satisfactory" response from the end user when you closed the ticket? What justifies "spending extra time" on a problem? Why wasn't something done to prevent the problem?
These are all arbitrary questions that can't be answered with simple solutions. More importantly, these are all arbitrary questions that can't be quantified. They don't fit well into a spreadsheet. They don't take into account being woken up in the middle of the night, and prodded for an answer. They don't take into account carrying a pager 24/7. They don't take into account someone saying something to you in a hall way, and expecting you to remember it like your life depends on it. And they certainly don't take into account the basic fact that computer administration is an art, not a science.
So the MBA's of the world have started "laying down the law." Everyone must start work at 8AM, no exceptions (we don't care when you were paged). You must track all of your time spent through out the day (no potty breaks for you!). You must close X amount of tickets a day. You must carry on doing the work of the department, even though we have cut half the positions in an attempt to bolster the management bonuses. You must keep abreast of all current changes in technology, in your personal time. You will be expected to be able to answer about any new technical matter, but you can not spend work time learning about it, unless it was approved in writing first.
System administration in the way that I know it, having grown up in Bell Labs (literally), will go the way of the computer operator. There will be set shifts. There will be a union. There will be no creativity. Everything will be done in an organized fashion, and signed in triplicate.
No exceptions.
People tend to treat culture as if it's some holy system deserving of respect. Culture is a label slapped on the status quo of an arbitrarily defined subset of people at any given point - and is constantly in flux. If your own sense of logic and decency say something's right, then try and convince others - those others are people to, and as such are capable of deciding whether they want to incorporate your ideas into their lives. Don't worry so much about contamination. It's really a non-issue.
That being said, there's nothing wrong with respecting the existence of traditions and subjective preferences - but there's also nothing wrong with introducing your own previously foreign experience into the mix.
Of course, it sounds like you're beginning to come around to that view. Don't be afraid to go all-out with it.
I agree with your sentiment overall, but don't you worry that some quieter traditions will die out if they're not protected? Certain memes are insidiously catchy, but not necessarily beneficial.
In other words, how ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
I made the account in fall 03 if memory serves me correctly.
4 years at 365 days a year = 1460 days.
This means 1.36 posts a day on average.
that's sure a lot of leisure time!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
That is a really REALLY silly point of view.
It assumes that culture is something static, external to us, that we at best leave alone, lest we inadvertently damage it somehow.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Culture is what we do and why we do it. If everyone acted like you -- careful not to work for change, then we'd still be living in caves and still perform whatever cultural rituals our ancestors did back then, in the caves.
No, a living culture needs the oposite: People who are creative. People who are passionate. People who figth for what they believe in. People who create something NEW. People who critisize old habits that they find faults with. People who use their voice.
The fact that you're living as a minority makes no difference whatsoever, cultures where *always* formed in no small part trough influences from travellers and immigrants. More variation, new impulses, a fresh look on things is a strong -plus- for a culture, not a minus. Even though yes it often leads to increased friction in the short term. (all change comes with friction so this is non-surprising).
It's hardly an accident that so much new art, new music, new literary works, new architecture, new religions, whatever sprang up exactly where diverse people-groups rubbed up against eachother. It's no -accident- that islam, judaism and christianity arose where they did, to take one random example -- that *IS* where Africa, Asia and Europe rubs into eachother.
I changed my mind about Macs. That is, I realised Vista was actually a steaming pile of poo for something that took so many years of development and switched. I haven't looked back since.
Has everyone noticed that Simon Baron-Cohen is in fact the cousin of Sacha?
Though I'm sure he's done plenty of important work of his own...
I love Dawkins' point about the difference in how we view politicians vs scientists who change their minds. I never did understand why some people criticize politicians for changing direction- that should be a virtue.
Am i the only one who misread that and was eager for a comment? I need more coffee these mornings...
The American Dream, pre-marketing myth, was that anyone could come to America, no matter how poor, how little they understand English, whatever their religion, etc., and try to succeed and keep the fruits of their labor. The American Dream was that if you worked hard, you could succeed to the best of your ability.
:)
In America, any Native Son could grow up and become the President of the United States. The Head of State COULD be anyone. In Europe, to be Head of State, the best solution was for your father to be Head of State, and be the oldest son. Any other path involved being related to the Head of State, and the right people dying off. You can joke all you want about Bush being President because his father was, but only TWO Presidents are the son's of other Presidents in the US... what percentage of Monarchs are related to the previous Monarch?
Before the New Deal and the "New American Dream," there was no IRS, INS, W-2, W-4, 1099, I-9, SSA, etc. You wanted work, you got up early and looked for work. Some jobs lasted a day, some a week, some months, but whatever your wages were, you kept them. The Media loves to mock the "Mexican Day Laborer" that stands around at Home Depot looking for work for a day... my grandfather was telling me that during the Great Depression, that's how his father got work essentially. There was no "employment law," you went and got work.
This was in contrast to Europe (particularly England) where all national wealth either theoretically belonged to the Crown or was owned by a small class of aristocrats. In the US, not everyone owned land, but everyone COULD own land. Sure they might not be able to afford it, but you could legally buy land. You didn't have to be the Heir to the the current Heir to the old Feudal Lord that owned the land and just rented it out to the people.
After WWII, the suburbs were created because massive numbers of men ages 18-30 showed back up, got married, and wanted houses quickly. The rest of the country felt that nothing was too good for the men returning victorious, and numerous benefits were created for Vets (and a desire to keep them from immediately flooding the labor market and causing massive unemployment, so the Gov't got some to go to college, etc.). America had unprecedented wealth, both because WWII R&D translated into massive improvements in manufacturing creating massive wealth, and as a percentage of global wealth, America exploded because it hadn't just had its cities leveled for the second time in 30 years. This resulted in massive money for conveniences (kitchen appliances that we take for granted generally date to the 1950s through 1970s), freeing up leisure time.
The middle class as a concept, spoiled, pampered, wealthy, was founded in this time frame. Wealth exploded, and the "Greatest Generation" happened to be in the position to move up with it. They gave their children unprecedented advantages, and the Baby Boomers became the first generation to define education as lasting through age 22. Public education started with 1-8, then 1-10, 1-12 and K-12, and now Pre-K:16. What happens as things become standard, they stop attracting a premium. A high school diploma received a premium wage when most people went through 8th grade, college did as the diploma was normal.
The fact is, unless you "NEED" the education (technical, specialized education), the ever increasing baseline of education to signal "I'm
My biggest realization is related to this as well. 2007 was the year where I realized that I will not adapt and have no desire to engage with "the next generation" who is now online. I personally can't stand seeing online discussions filled with nothing but people chiming in without anything to say. I don't know if it's self absorption, arrogance, or something else entirely, but why post comments that only say LOL, OMG, QFT, FTMFW, etc? I used to love reading message boards for the variety of ideas and arguments. While there have always been trolls and garbage to sift through, you could still get to decent content. Now I've stopped reading a number of sites I used to enjoy because all I see are people who post their acronymed reactions and insults that they think are arguments. Slashdot has held up so far, but you can certainly notice a shift towards this trend in both the comments and the moderating. I'm hoping the trend doesn't continue, but it probably will unless adjustments are made to the moderating system.
2007 was the year that I decided that I'm an Online Curmudgeon. Now get off my lawn.
You decided this last year? Seriously? I felt this way five years ago. Maybe more. I finally just realized that it's Sturgeon's Law at work: 90% of the comments will be crap (mostly of the varieties you describe) but 10% of them are genuinely interesting, informative, or insightful. So when I've got time to spare, I'll wade through the 90% to get to the 10%. Other times, it's just not worth it. But I don't think slashdot itself has changed that much in this past year, or even the past five.
There's at least one area where good ol' stuff doesn't suck, which many people discovered during the big ice storm last month. An acquaintance related how the power went out at her office building. They had a generator, but it only powered the phones and the computers, which left them trying to work in the dark. But that wasn't the problem. A disaster of a sorts quickly became apparent as they discovered that their automatic, electrically-operated flush toilets no longer functioned.
Proverbs 21:19
It (fairly reliably) sifts out the good 10% (or at least the top 5).
-
I have worked in many countries, in different continents (more than a couple of days, mind you) and never ever in all my years had worked more than 7 or 8 hours a day regularly. I also visited many offices (US included) and while there was the typical workaholic plenty of people left the office at 17:00 or 18:00 sharp every day.
There is the odd day everything goes bananas, but that is a very rare exception, not the rule.
If you are not able to put limits and to enter into a fair relationship with your employer, don't blame the world economy, blame is closer to home. No, actually it lives with you. Stop feeding it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I was struck by Terrence Sejnowski's observation that cortical neurons (in humans) are "more capable" than we ever thought, an observation drawn from fly neurons orders of magnitude less numerous than ours, yet just as able for their assigned tasks.
If we've learned anything from computers, it's that B. F. Skinner's reflexology is not only bunk, but trivial, uninteresting bunk. Look what a dragonfly, e.g., does: Its "brain" is in its eyes, and scarcely anywhere else, and yet it can patrol an area larger than Kansas City (relative to itself), seek, acquire and target an object which is taking evasive action, pursue and kill (or pursue and mate with) it, eat, seek a reed tip to refuel, clean and maintain itself, then relaunch and do the same thing again, exceeding Department of Defense mean times to failure by a factor of ten or a hundred thousands. Also, a dragonfly can compensate for external conditions -- a barn swallow attack, e.g. -- without ever being programmed for it. Dragonflies were shaped by 300 million years of evolution to fill a particular niche, and anyone who comments blithely about "instinct" is simply not aware of what the beastie is doing.
When it comes to Skinner and his pigeon boxes, the best that can be said is that the man achieved tenure in his milieau with a laughably inappropriate and minimalist appreciation of reality. Bad old stuff sucks, for sure. The best of the oldschool behaviorists, such as Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz, were at least looking in the right direction.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
Where did you see anything about a clergyman or a bureaucrat? Marriage is a ceremony where you and a partner confirm and celebrate your love, possibly in front of friends. If a clergyman was involved, that was a personal choice to put the celebration in a religious context. No one said the clergyman was there to sanctify their togetherness, if he was there it was because the two people involved already have religious feelings and likely most of their friends and family do too. If this was a state sanctified marriage, more than likely the bureaucrat was there to sanctify the tax write off, not their love.
In short, you are trying to make some silly point about individualism by pissing all over something that obviously made this guy happy. That's a really crass and disrespectful thing to do.
By the way, are you single?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Traditions die off all the time. Sometimes, there's really a loss; sometimes nostalgia just makes it feel as though there is. But that's life. Society doesn't stand still - it never has, and never will.
Jobs are an economic commodity, not the base of dreamy prospectus about how life should be.
You ignore that at your own peril.
In any case, what you describe as thee American Dream was built in ferocious militarism and enforced economic inequality.
It could not last and in general terms the ending of it will be seen as a good riddance, even by US historians in the future (honestly pal, do you think it is ethical that every time you have nothing to do with your military industry you go and kill hundreds of thousands of people so you can enjoy an unsustainable level of comfort?)
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Many people in rich countries do not know what poverty is, even people considered poor there.
I will tell you what it is: having to bury you mother in a communal grave because you don't have money.
Think about that before repeating such idiotic asseverations.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I used to think Digg was a good resource for technology news or to get a pulse on what's going on in geekdom. My opinion has changed as of 2007.
Digg swithed from being technical news, to general news. Unfortunately, it might as well just have switched from a Technology site to a Politics site.
The more sensational the story, the more popular. Accuracy holds a distant fourth behind: How bad it makes readers chosen social opponents look or how funny the article is.
Attempts to "filter out" politics from Digg (and other social news sites) are futile because the zealots will intentionally mis-categorize stories to screw those who filter. The likelihood of an article being buried due to the submitter using the wrong category decreases significantly if the article a video of some entertainer saying something negative about President Bush or Ann Coulter. Opinions of these characters aside, BUCK FUSH OMGLOL stories are getting old. And who the hell cares about Ann Coulter? She's a worthless nobody who wrote a few books consisting mostly of angry-at-lefty slime.
Digg/social news sites carry articles that skew toward one of the following: College Students (18-24) and their oh-so-important opinions about *everything*, fanboys of Apple, or Gaming Console X, Conspiracy nuts, Gossip addicts, or people who think they can make lots of money if they just get their blog on the front page. There are very few sites that I actually feel dumber after having visited their "comments" section. There's a whole World Wide Web out there and these are the top 10 stories of the day?!.
Finally, I'm really tired of the icon trash. Every article on the web looks like it crapped 35 small square pictures just after it was done being written. Do we, as users, need the opportunity to opine on everything we read to 35 different sites? Lets get some more sites. Hell, screw the article, just put up a bunch of pages with little square icons. I don't want to Digg, Slash, StumbleUpon, Netscape, or Delic.io.us it. I want to read it. It's nitpicking, but it really is distracting.
Maybe there's a Social News site out there that doesn't fall prey to these 5 items, but I've yet to see it.
2007 was my first full year as an atheist. I had been Christian for 25 years.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
To affect is to effect an effect.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
For me, two things died over the last couple of years:
1) The ability to agree to disagree. You can't discuss politics in a group of anything but your closest friends. Not only is $MYSIDE correct, it's the only one that makes any sense whatsoever. Dissenting opinions need not apply. That's not healthy.
2) Any faith that the government, at any level, can do anything effectively. Katrina wasn't just a Federal failure, and one can argue there are even worse issues looming (mortgage bailout is S&Ls all over again, horrible problems in public schools and services, overweighted health insurance, I can keep going).
I think Zappa said that "government is the entertainment division of big business." It's beyond me how anybody can continue to believe the government is capable of anything beyond further screwing things up.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
You link to a BBC article about "possible" mass famine on a world-wide scale....and then suggest the US would be susceptible to somekind of famine?
;)
I have to ask: are you serious?
Say what you want about Ron Paul but your statement can't stand. The US - with all of those middle states (great for ag, btw) - and you insinuate we are going to starve to death? Seriously. There is almost zero chance of that happening. Why? I am glad you asked.
If there is one thing the US has plenty of - it's farmland. Land to grow things on. Land that, right now, the government pays you NOT to farm. Yes, you read that correctly...the US government still has the CRP Program And it's not some small program. Each state has their own version but the premise is basically the same: govt pays you not to farm your land. We have this program for a lot of different reasons but that's not the point. The point is, if you opened up the spigots and started growing as much as you could, we'd be up to our eyeballs in food. There is that much land in the USA. The question is: will you have a society in place that can deliver it to people?
Methinks you also need to read some US History and understand one of the things we've always been great at: Agriculture. Ever hear of John Deere? Or George Archer and John Daniels (Archer-Daniels Midland)? How about Texas Agriculture and Mechanical University (TX A&M)? The US are experts at producing food. We will be the last ones to starve in a worldwide famine of anykind.
I am lving in a foreign Asian country.
All Asian countries are foreign... unless, of course, you're living in one.
It feels like there's nothing we can do to stop idiots like Ted Stevens from getting elected.
Did I miss something about Stevens? Did he say something outrageous like like propose logging every packet in order to help fight terrorism? I mean, it can't just be the "series of tubes" thing, right? Look, I like Jon Stewart as much as the next guy, probably more so, but continuing to make fun of him like that just seems to make it apparent that there really wasn't all that much to make fun of. I mean, the guy uses a perfectly reasonable analogy to convey the point that the Internet itself is merely a conduit of information, and is not responsible for the "dump-trucks" full of crap that are congesting it, and all of a sudden he becomes the poster-boy for elderly computer illiteracy? I don't get it.
Does anyone here really think Stevens was under the mistaken impression that the Internet is physically implmemented in the form of hollow cylindrical tubes through which we push little capsules containing IP packets written on paper, like at the drive-thru teller at the bank? Can I get a show of hands? Anybody?
Please, please, please tell me it's not just the tubes thing.
It's partly a waste of time, because even if the creationist idiot reads it he won't understand, but it's worth saying for the sake of the people who are still learning their 8th grade science and are still on the fence.
Worth saying again and again and again, unfortunately.
And again.