So, using this logic, should opera companies still perform Wagner?
So we start banning and boycotting artists, professionals, and anyone else who has the audacity to advocate ideas we don't like or support?
I've seen this movie a few times before... go a few more steps along this road, and there are bonfires burning the books of these offensive creatures... a few more steps and you're burning the offensive creatures themselves...
So are we all going to have to take oaths now, swearing our personal beliefs are in sync with the times in order to practice our professions?
I for one, probably the only one, have actually used smoking tobacco therapeutically (albeit self-administered therapy).
In the late 90's I developed various neurological symptoms later diagnosed as Parkinsons. As the symptoms continued to develop they did not however, remain consistent with Parkinsons and the diagnosis was revised to "Hell-If-I-Know". The prescribed treatment was a cocktail of drugs that while they did help to relieve the symptoms, made my life a prolonged and protracted misery. I had no energy, my legs and feet would randomly swell up like balloons, my memory began to fail, etc. I very much and very actively wanted to die, and my life fell apart around me - divorce, unemployment....
Eventually, after a few years of floundering around, I began experimenting with bio-feedback and meditation to control my symptoms and slowly weaned myself off of the medicines. While generally successful, this approach was very hard to maintain and any major disruption to my mental or physical state of well-being would trigger a relapse and I would be temporarily unable to take care of myself.
One day, during a bad episode, an old man approached me and gave me a cigarette and told me to smoke it. I'd quit smoking about ten years before and had no interest in starting again, but not being particularly attracted to life at the time, I tried it. As I sat there the old guy explained to me that in the nineteenth century and before, nicotine was used medicinally and thought to improve mental acuity and concentration. I remained skeptical, but it did make it easier for me to maintain the inner balance I needed to keep my symptoms in check.
In short, I started smoking again.
Back when I was going to see a new neurologist a month, one of the questions they always asked was whether or not I smoked or drank (neither at the time), and if so, how that affected my symptoms. It struck me as odd at the time, but I did call one of my former doctors about the matter. He said that while no doctor in his right mind would recommend smoking, it was known that nicotine could affect some neurological symptoms, particularly those with movement disorders.
In the years since, I've also heard first-hand that those suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder also find smoking to be therapeutic. My relapses during this time have decreased in number from being weekly occurrences to sporadic quarterly events.
Since then, I've gotten my life sufficiently back together that I worry about the health risks involved with smoking. I tried quitting cold turkey and after about five days, suffered a relapse of symptoms. After that, I took a more gradual approach, weaning myself down while carefully taking notes with regard to my symptoms. What I've found is that two cigarettes/day or a 14mg Nicotine patch worn for a half-day is a sufficient maintenance level. At this point, I rely primarily on the patch and have been doing Okay since mid-February. I've tried reducing the patch dosage, but so far have always ended up with a relapse.
I don't pretend that this is a scientific study, but neither can I argue with the results. I don't have any regrets either. If patches were suddenly not available and I had the choice of drug-therapy, smoking, or nothing, drug therapy would still be my last choice - that life simply wasn't worth living.
It isn't exactly fair to say that UAE (Dubai in particular) is a "favorite" place to hang out by the US military in their off time - it's just a place where you're less likely to be killed/abducted/folded/spindled/mutilated. Foreigners are allowed to consume alcohol there in designated places, but public intoxication is strongly discouraged and can easily land you in jail.
There are exceedingly large numbers of immigrant laborers (and merchants) - from what I saw, most of them were Indian, Bangladeshi, or Pakistani. I speak a little Hindi and chatted with some of the shop keepers. I have a smattering of Hindi, and hung out with the Indians. I also boned up on Arabic after my first visit there, thinking that if I spoke the local language I'd be received better (Here in the states I was told I had a crappy but functional accent) but my efforts were generally unappreciated on subsequent visits.
Granted, it's been almost ten years since my last visit and things have probably changed some. For my part I found the area to be hot, miserable, and oppressive. I have no desire whatsoever to return and see how those changes have unfurled.
I've tried to teach my wife these concepts and received nothing but ridicule until her friends started becoming the finanacial version of dead cockroaches.
We don't have the biggest or best house, but we can afford it.
We don't have the biggest of fastest growing stock portfolio, but it's kept its value.
As the number of her friends with foreclosures increases, she likes our little house more and more.
Visit Galveston Bay - much of what was open water or marshland when I was a child (60's and 70's) is now full of islets or is now dry land. This isn't developed land, mind you, or at least it wasn't the last time I visited the area (5-6 years ago). Having grown up on the bay, then leaving for almost 20 years, I was shocked by what I saw - stretches of the bay I knew well growing up were unrecognizable, and the 'bait pond' (actually part of a salt marsh) no longer existed. All of the fishing shanties were still there, but obviously long abandoned.
Galveston Island itself still faces major erosion, but sea-level is the least of its worries
I'm one of those poor bastards whose livelihood depends on traditional television. There is, now, more than ever an overlap between Network Engineering and Broadcast Engineering, but they are still not identical, and the increase of overlap will never be complete.
It just so happens that by training, I'm both kinds of engineer - a happy accident rather than foresight on my part. The broadcast world is seeing this increasing gap: Broadcast engineers who can't/won't/don't want to be network engineers and just don't get 'data'. For the most part, these Broadcasters know what they don't know. On the other side you have network engineers who just don't get the peculiarities of broadcasting. Many of these network engineers have no clue about what they don't know and will argue with you at length about 'the way it's supposed to work'.
It's not a matter of incompetence so much as conflicting and disparate disciplines. What works in IT doesn't necessarily work in Broadcasting and vice versa. Boot times are a good example. A server that will boot in 60 seconds is pretty phenomenal. In broadcasting, 60 seconds of black or bars is an eternity and can cost several thousands of dollars in revenue. When that server that takes 60 seconds to boot is responsible for spot playout you've got a potential issue. (I only wish I had a play out server that would boot in 60 seconds - for me, it's more like 5 to 10 minutes)
Earlier this year, my station added a second, digital only, automation only channel. The entire play out server with storage took up only 4 RU - prett impressive really. During installation, I asked the manufacturer's rep where the monitor output was. He assumed I meant the VGA monitor. I explained to him that I was well aware of what a VGA output was and what I really meant - a parallel of the program output. It turned out there wasn't one. His advice was that I just loop the program output through a monitor, and I could never get him to understand why that was a really bad idea. He even argued with me that such things didn't exist, at least until I showed him the back plane of every other piece of broadcast gear in the plant.
Re:Does anyone in the US care about Ultraman?
on
40 Years of Ultraman
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· Score: 1
Yeah, I was really surprised to find out Ultraman was in color too. I watched the show in the early 70's - probably 72 or 73, certainly no later than 75. I also thought that the Captain's name was Hiawatha... go figure.
The problem isn't the logic, it's the premises.
Rigorously applied logic to faulty premises is nonsense.
Both guys start out with flawed premises and that is why neither presents a compelling argument. What they're doing is debate, not science. One starts with the premise that "Global Warming is real, and this is how to interpret the data" The other starts with the premise that "Global Warming is a hoax and here's why"
I've been very interested in the phenomena of global warming since I first heard about it in the early eighties. I've also had the priviledge to travel a great deal and visit glacier fields in Alaska and ice shelves in Antarctica. ALthough early on I dismissed the idea, I've come to suspect that Global warming is both real and, at the very least, accererated by Human activity.
I suspect it's real, but I don't know that it's real. I've looked at the data, and some of it clearly shows dramatic warming. Other data however, does not. The only data that I can personally vouch for is the local 'weather' data that I gather. Weather is not climate though, which for supporters of global warming is a good thing - where I live, this is one of the coolest years in a very long time.
I read a lot on the subject and there's a lot of crap out there presenting itself as science that is nothing of the kind. The strongest proponents of either side tend to spout the worst nonsense too.
I believe that the true test of what's a 'right' war is: Are you prepared to turn that other country into a gravel pit? If you're not (and I don't endorse turning other countries into gravel pits) you don't have any business going to war, and you will almost certainly lose.
I don't think we should have gone to war in Iraq. I don't believe you can wage a war against a govenrment without waging a war against its people (well, you can, but its people are most certainly going to wage war against you).
But we did.
Since we did, I don't think we can morally walk away, just apologize for the mess and wait for the violence to stop. We screwed up, and we're obligated to help clean up the mess. The fact that the Shrub has done nothing but screw up the clean-up doesn't relieve us of our obligation.
I'm a virginian who voted for Webb, and I for one and not miffed at all. I seriously considered voting Green myself, but realism kicked in - even if I liked what the Green candidate had to say, she didn't have a chance in hell of actually pulling any of it off. It's a free country, and people can vote for whomever they want for any reason they want.
I can't honestly say that I like Webb. The guy is a goober(TM). If I'd been his speech writer, his stump speech would have been: "Hi, I'm not George Allen, and I'm running for Senate... Any Questions?"
What a load of crap.
I'm not very religious (although I do practice a religion, I only barely qualify as practicing). I also have Parkinsons. Embyonic Stem Cell research MAY yield benefits some day, but it might also very well turn out to be yet another dead end - it's far from a certainty.
Similar gains might also very well come from adult stem cells. So what if it's harder? It doesn't come at the cost of executing human beings.
Josef Mengele conducted a great deal of research back in the forties, some of which might also have produce useful remedies. Still, we don't use it because the ends do not justify the means.
Well, it used to be like that in this country too, but somtime between when I was a kid (the 60's and 70's) and the time I became a parent (this year), all the rules changed. What was normal then is now criminal, and what's normal now would have been certifiably insane then.
My wife is six years younger than I am, and when we talk about our childhoods, it's like we're from different planets.
I wish I had a dollar for every time my dad said "Well, I bet you don't do that again."
Then again, by the time I was 18, I'd had more than 100 stitches and three broken bones, so, aside from the fact that none of my injuries were received in the same way, one might question whether or not I actually learned any lessons.
I work in Television, and it's true that there's some of both.
In general though, the staff of most station wants to, and is willing to occasionally annoy conservatives. Honestly, they're much more willing to annoy conservatives than liberals, but that's another story...
The real problem is the FCC. Since The Shrub took over, no one really knows what the rules are. Every broadcaster in the country has begged the commission for clear guidelines on what is and is not permissible. The FCC's response is essentially - No, you'll know you've done wrong when we fine you or yank your license.
My interest in cross-platform extends to Unix/Linux but not Mac. After enduring for two years the travesty that was Avid Airplay that were as much hardware as software, Apple will have a hard time convincing me to trust my livelihood to them again. Whatever the faults of Windows/PC, when things blow up, at least I can kludge together a solution.
I'm sure you could if you're willing to write your own code.
But if your real question is can I buy 'out of the box' solutions that only run on Linux, I don't think it's possible. I've tried.
I'm the chief engineer for a big four station in a top 100 market, and I frequently ask vendors 'Why are you doing this on Windows?' Usually the answer boils down to 'that's what the developers know.' My plant is probably 80% windows.
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So, using this logic, should opera companies still perform Wagner? So we start banning and boycotting artists, professionals, and anyone else who has the audacity to advocate ideas we don't like or support? I've seen this movie a few times before... go a few more steps along this road, and there are bonfires burning the books of these offensive creatures... a few more steps and you're burning the offensive creatures themselves... So are we all going to have to take oaths now, swearing our personal beliefs are in sync with the times in order to practice our professions?
I for one, probably the only one, have actually used smoking tobacco therapeutically (albeit self-administered therapy). In the late 90's I developed various neurological symptoms later diagnosed as Parkinsons. As the symptoms continued to develop they did not however, remain consistent with Parkinsons and the diagnosis was revised to "Hell-If-I-Know". The prescribed treatment was a cocktail of drugs that while they did help to relieve the symptoms, made my life a prolonged and protracted misery. I had no energy, my legs and feet would randomly swell up like balloons, my memory began to fail, etc. I very much and very actively wanted to die, and my life fell apart around me - divorce, unemployment.... Eventually, after a few years of floundering around, I began experimenting with bio-feedback and meditation to control my symptoms and slowly weaned myself off of the medicines. While generally successful, this approach was very hard to maintain and any major disruption to my mental or physical state of well-being would trigger a relapse and I would be temporarily unable to take care of myself. One day, during a bad episode, an old man approached me and gave me a cigarette and told me to smoke it. I'd quit smoking about ten years before and had no interest in starting again, but not being particularly attracted to life at the time, I tried it. As I sat there the old guy explained to me that in the nineteenth century and before, nicotine was used medicinally and thought to improve mental acuity and concentration. I remained skeptical, but it did make it easier for me to maintain the inner balance I needed to keep my symptoms in check. In short, I started smoking again. Back when I was going to see a new neurologist a month, one of the questions they always asked was whether or not I smoked or drank (neither at the time), and if so, how that affected my symptoms. It struck me as odd at the time, but I did call one of my former doctors about the matter. He said that while no doctor in his right mind would recommend smoking, it was known that nicotine could affect some neurological symptoms, particularly those with movement disorders. In the years since, I've also heard first-hand that those suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder also find smoking to be therapeutic. My relapses during this time have decreased in number from being weekly occurrences to sporadic quarterly events. Since then, I've gotten my life sufficiently back together that I worry about the health risks involved with smoking. I tried quitting cold turkey and after about five days, suffered a relapse of symptoms. After that, I took a more gradual approach, weaning myself down while carefully taking notes with regard to my symptoms. What I've found is that two cigarettes/day or a 14mg Nicotine patch worn for a half-day is a sufficient maintenance level. At this point, I rely primarily on the patch and have been doing Okay since mid-February. I've tried reducing the patch dosage, but so far have always ended up with a relapse. I don't pretend that this is a scientific study, but neither can I argue with the results. I don't have any regrets either. If patches were suddenly not available and I had the choice of drug-therapy, smoking, or nothing, drug therapy would still be my last choice - that life simply wasn't worth living.
It isn't exactly fair to say that UAE (Dubai in particular) is a "favorite" place to hang out by the US military in their off time - it's just a place where you're less likely to be killed/abducted/folded/spindled/mutilated. Foreigners are allowed to consume alcohol there in designated places, but public intoxication is strongly discouraged and can easily land you in jail.
There are exceedingly large numbers of immigrant laborers (and merchants) - from what I saw, most of them were Indian, Bangladeshi, or Pakistani. I speak a little Hindi and chatted with some of the shop keepers. I have a smattering of Hindi, and hung out with the Indians. I also boned up on Arabic after my first visit there, thinking that if I spoke the local language I'd be received better (Here in the states I was told I had a crappy but functional accent) but my efforts were generally unappreciated on subsequent visits.
Granted, it's been almost ten years since my last visit and things have probably changed some. For my part I found the area to be hot, miserable, and oppressive. I have no desire whatsoever to return and see how those changes have unfurled.
I've tried to teach my wife these concepts and received nothing but ridicule until her friends started becoming the finanacial version of dead cockroaches. We don't have the biggest or best house, but we can afford it. We don't have the biggest of fastest growing stock portfolio, but it's kept its value. As the number of her friends with foreclosures increases, she likes our little house more and more.
Visit Galveston Bay - much of what was open water or marshland when I was a child (60's and 70's) is now full of islets or is now dry land. This isn't developed land, mind you, or at least it wasn't the last time I visited the area (5-6 years ago). Having grown up on the bay, then leaving for almost 20 years, I was shocked by what I saw - stretches of the bay I knew well growing up were unrecognizable, and the 'bait pond' (actually part of a salt marsh) no longer existed. All of the fishing shanties were still there, but obviously long abandoned. Galveston Island itself still faces major erosion, but sea-level is the least of its worries
I'm one of those poor bastards whose livelihood depends on traditional television. There is, now, more than ever an overlap between Network Engineering and Broadcast Engineering, but they are still not identical, and the increase of overlap will never be complete. It just so happens that by training, I'm both kinds of engineer - a happy accident rather than foresight on my part. The broadcast world is seeing this increasing gap: Broadcast engineers who can't/won't/don't want to be network engineers and just don't get 'data'. For the most part, these Broadcasters know what they don't know. On the other side you have network engineers who just don't get the peculiarities of broadcasting. Many of these network engineers have no clue about what they don't know and will argue with you at length about 'the way it's supposed to work'. It's not a matter of incompetence so much as conflicting and disparate disciplines. What works in IT doesn't necessarily work in Broadcasting and vice versa. Boot times are a good example. A server that will boot in 60 seconds is pretty phenomenal. In broadcasting, 60 seconds of black or bars is an eternity and can cost several thousands of dollars in revenue. When that server that takes 60 seconds to boot is responsible for spot playout you've got a potential issue. (I only wish I had a play out server that would boot in 60 seconds - for me, it's more like 5 to 10 minutes) Earlier this year, my station added a second, digital only, automation only channel. The entire play out server with storage took up only 4 RU - prett impressive really. During installation, I asked the manufacturer's rep where the monitor output was. He assumed I meant the VGA monitor. I explained to him that I was well aware of what a VGA output was and what I really meant - a parallel of the program output. It turned out there wasn't one. His advice was that I just loop the program output through a monitor, and I could never get him to understand why that was a really bad idea. He even argued with me that such things didn't exist, at least until I showed him the back plane of every other piece of broadcast gear in the plant.
Yeah, I was really surprised to find out Ultraman was in color too. I watched the show in the early 70's - probably 72 or 73, certainly no later than 75. I also thought that the Captain's name was Hiawatha... go figure.
The problem isn't the logic, it's the premises. Rigorously applied logic to faulty premises is nonsense. Both guys start out with flawed premises and that is why neither presents a compelling argument. What they're doing is debate, not science. One starts with the premise that "Global Warming is real, and this is how to interpret the data" The other starts with the premise that "Global Warming is a hoax and here's why" I've been very interested in the phenomena of global warming since I first heard about it in the early eighties. I've also had the priviledge to travel a great deal and visit glacier fields in Alaska and ice shelves in Antarctica. ALthough early on I dismissed the idea, I've come to suspect that Global warming is both real and, at the very least, accererated by Human activity. I suspect it's real, but I don't know that it's real. I've looked at the data, and some of it clearly shows dramatic warming. Other data however, does not. The only data that I can personally vouch for is the local 'weather' data that I gather. Weather is not climate though, which for supporters of global warming is a good thing - where I live, this is one of the coolest years in a very long time. I read a lot on the subject and there's a lot of crap out there presenting itself as science that is nothing of the kind. The strongest proponents of either side tend to spout the worst nonsense too.
I believe that the true test of what's a 'right' war is: Are you prepared to turn that other country into a gravel pit? If you're not (and I don't endorse turning other countries into gravel pits) you don't have any business going to war, and you will almost certainly lose. I don't think we should have gone to war in Iraq. I don't believe you can wage a war against a govenrment without waging a war against its people (well, you can, but its people are most certainly going to wage war against you). But we did. Since we did, I don't think we can morally walk away, just apologize for the mess and wait for the violence to stop. We screwed up, and we're obligated to help clean up the mess. The fact that the Shrub has done nothing but screw up the clean-up doesn't relieve us of our obligation.
I'm a virginian who voted for Webb, and I for one and not miffed at all. I seriously considered voting Green myself, but realism kicked in - even if I liked what the Green candidate had to say, she didn't have a chance in hell of actually pulling any of it off. It's a free country, and people can vote for whomever they want for any reason they want. I can't honestly say that I like Webb. The guy is a goober(TM). If I'd been his speech writer, his stump speech would have been: "Hi, I'm not George Allen, and I'm running for Senate... Any Questions?"
What a load of crap. I'm not very religious (although I do practice a religion, I only barely qualify as practicing). I also have Parkinsons. Embyonic Stem Cell research MAY yield benefits some day, but it might also very well turn out to be yet another dead end - it's far from a certainty. Similar gains might also very well come from adult stem cells. So what if it's harder? It doesn't come at the cost of executing human beings. Josef Mengele conducted a great deal of research back in the forties, some of which might also have produce useful remedies. Still, we don't use it because the ends do not justify the means.
Well, it used to be like that in this country too, but somtime between when I was a kid (the 60's and 70's) and the time I became a parent (this year), all the rules changed. What was normal then is now criminal, and what's normal now would have been certifiably insane then. My wife is six years younger than I am, and when we talk about our childhoods, it's like we're from different planets. I wish I had a dollar for every time my dad said "Well, I bet you don't do that again." Then again, by the time I was 18, I'd had more than 100 stitches and three broken bones, so, aside from the fact that none of my injuries were received in the same way, one might question whether or not I actually learned any lessons.
I work in Television, and it's true that there's some of both. In general though, the staff of most station wants to, and is willing to occasionally annoy conservatives. Honestly, they're much more willing to annoy conservatives than liberals, but that's another story... The real problem is the FCC. Since The Shrub took over, no one really knows what the rules are. Every broadcaster in the country has begged the commission for clear guidelines on what is and is not permissible. The FCC's response is essentially - No, you'll know you've done wrong when we fine you or yank your license.
My interest in cross-platform extends to Unix/Linux but not Mac. After enduring for two years the travesty that was Avid Airplay that were as much hardware as software, Apple will have a hard time convincing me to trust my livelihood to them again. Whatever the faults of Windows/PC, when things blow up, at least I can kludge together a solution.
I'm sure you could if you're willing to write your own code. But if your real question is can I buy 'out of the box' solutions that only run on Linux, I don't think it's possible. I've tried. I'm the chief engineer for a big four station in a top 100 market, and I frequently ask vendors 'Why are you doing this on Windows?' Usually the answer boils down to 'that's what the developers know.' My plant is probably 80% windows.