The bosses of Amstel, Heineken and Grolsh are meeting in a cafe (probably for price-fixing). The waiter comes and the Heineken boss orders Heineken beer. The Amstel boss orders Amstel and the Grolsh boss orders one Amstel and one Heineken!! Noticing the incredulous stares of the others he says "Oh, it is too early for a beer".
Seriously though, why does it take at least a decade before something that is well known to scientist finds its place in the public domain, especially when the data is vitally important for the public? Is the use of a tinfoil hat warranted in this case? I think yes...
I know about this issue for more than a decade from my biochemistry-educated friends. In fact one of them after his kid was born visited me in Western Europe and the first thing he said after the greetings was "Can we find anywhere in this country a glass baby bottle?!" Turned out he had investigated thoroughly the full range of plastic baby bottles available on the market (including ultra expensive brands) and found they all release ungodly amounts of dangerous stuff (including the BPA). I had to disappoint him, but we still found a solution. One chain of supermarkets often uses fruits that are about to expire to make juice without any additives, that needs to be consumed within 24 hours. They use glass bottles with a tread. The tread could be used to attache the silicon sleeve for the baby to suck on. Case closed. Conclusion:
The nerds will inherit the Earth (our children will be healthier)!!
Don't want to be obnoxious or flaming, but isn't "putting profit over all else" the very foundation of the free market capitalism? Why this behavior surprises anyone is beyond me...
[tongue in cheek] What other result can you expect on 7th November? Why bother counting! But since there is no socialist candidate I wonder what this means...maybe that the red party (republicans) wins? Hmmm, who exactly selected this election date?..[tongue in cheek]
[Check what happened on 7th Nov 1917, 25th October according to the Julian calendar]
The last message of the financial sector to humanity, just before civilization goes to hell (written with 30 meter-high letters composed of glued banknotes):
Make it a cult movie, give different seasons to different directors. Don't be afraid to go to 16+ or even 18+ rating. Some ideas:
Season 1 - the creation of Arda. Spielberg. 14+ Season ?? - the story of Turin. Man, that's one of the most desperate fates in fiction. Fincher. 18+ Season ?? - get the female audience on board with the most beautiful love story of Middle Earth - Beren and Lutien. Minghella. 14+ (could be 16+) Season ?? - Feanor, the curse of the Silmarils. Jackson. 16+ (I was astounded by the amount of treachery and nastiness when I read that part for the first time. Singing, jolly, noble elves - yhea, right!)
As for the Hobbit - I think there is potential to make this really cool trilogy. I don't mind at all that Jackson wants to show us events that are described by few paragraphs in the appendix or in "Unfinished tales". Let's see the discussions of the White council; the growing suspicion between Gandalf and Saruman, the Necromancer, Dol Guldur and the father of Torin. The raise of Smog. The arrival of the wizards. The Dwarves of Erebor. Why not?
"The Hobbit" is just too short and childish for even one movie. It's a great idea, but let's wait and see...
"I don't doubt that humans have some effect on global warming but I'd be willing to bet that the Earth is a pretty decent self moderated stable system. Now it may kill us all in the process but in terms of life, I think that it can handle quite a bit more."
Yes and no. The famous quiz question/metaphor:
Question: If certain bacteria multiplies every minute and at the 60th minute the whole Petri dish is covered, at which minute was the dish half-empty? Answer: At the 59th minute
Do not underestimate the RATE at which we destroy the rest of the system. The rate is increasing, always increasing from the the moment the civilization model kicked in.
At my work, I am one of the members of the "workers council" (Netherlands). Few years ago we had a period when employees left citing the working conditions and pay as major motives. I mean, they said that to the council. However, everyone completely "forgot" to mention this in their exit interviews.
Therefore, when the council brought the question to the management the answer was "No-one has left because of working conditions or wages - here are the exit interviews. Case closed."
I say "circle closed". There is something deeply troubling about the absolute egoism, which seems to be the major characteristic of western societies. People want the council to make a difference yet we cannot get them to even state the issues in front of authority. Suddenly everyone becomes a pussy and goes into "have wife and kids to feed" mode. Well, how do you make ANY progress in such society where people self-censor themselves and lie to themselves just because there MIGHT be some (however minor) repercussions. And we are not talking here of being sent to Gitmo, but the remote possibility that your new boss calls the old boss or some such. Everyone likes to endlessly bitch at the coffee-corner but when the authority is present the cat steals their tongues...
I have to say that my experience in life has thought me that the real enemy of the common people is....the common people - all of us. Not the people in power - they won't stand a chance against the rest. True, they would use any trick in the book to stifle opposition and yet....they wouldn't stand a chance should the people decide to hold them accountable.
Go in front of the mirror and say 100 times pointing with your finger "You are my greatest enemy" and "Hell is other people".
Did sales go up? If not, perhaps the claim that copying is lost sales is...hm dubious?/sarcasm
You know what, I wish I had a magic wand. Then I'd stop all copying and have the dream of the Mafia fulfilled. Let's see how they like it..I predict they would die quick and miserable death while the art and innovation will, of course, survive.
And since I am at it I'd also stop people from smoking, drinking, drugs and I'd make sex not pleasurable (but keep the impulse to have kids so we can survive). Thus fulfilling "the dream" of our hugely hypocritical society and its so-called leaders. Let's see what happens on the next day. I predict WW III, shortly after the complete economic meltdown and the revolution...
Mod parent +1 000 000! How many articles we have read saying that the modern, educated male has little to do with the "patriarch" image. Damn it, wasn't there a study finding that modern males are in fact becoming ever more responsible and less cheating! You know, exactly those urban types to which our grandparents were saying that we would rot in hell for living "in the big sin cities" of today! You know the grandparents who were REALLY sexists and fucked around so much that they would put a shame to an urban Casanova of today...
On a related note here is on of my warmest family memory so far:
We are in a plane. I am sitting in the middle seat, next to the window is a dude, my wife sits next to the walk (my left). The stewardess arrives with hot drinks (tea and coffee). The safest way of distributing hot drinks is to start with the person next to the window, then the middle....All the three of us instinctively sensed this so the dude sitting next to the window reaches first, I go second and my wife - third. At that moment the stewardess scolds me and the dude for "leaving the woman last instead of letting her first" upon which my wife looks coolly at her and says "I though we are equal"
The face of the stewardess after the retort - priceless!
No. In fact it's exactly the people that know their shit that are the problem.
You see, it turns out we can trace the origin of the word "science" way back and it comes from. . . shit. I'm not joking! It's described in the book Etymologicon (highly recommended). If i remember correctly the story goes like this.
First, the word meant "to separate something from something else" and was used as a verb "to shit" (in the so called proto Indo-European language). Later, the Romans decided that if you can separate one thing from another then you know those things so they started to use the word to mean "know". By that time the pronunciation was the already familiar "scien(ta)".
Thus, the author concludes the expression "I don't give a shit" is etymologically correct plus saying someone knows their shit just means they are scientists. So they have poor grammar as per definition. QED.
Preamble: After the wall collapsed, the criminals in Eastern Europe got rich while the physics professors became taxi drivers.
Joke: A group of newly enriched criminals wanted to bet heavily on horse racing. One of them suggested that they can hire one of those impoverished eggheads to calculate the odds. So they did and bet all the money on the horse that the physicists pointed out. The horse finished last. Screaming bloody murder the criminals go back to the nerd. "What did you do, asshole, you are dead!". "The calculations are sound", shrieks the physicists, "I just had to make a few assumptions". "What assumptions". "Well, I did them for spherical horse in vacuum!"
In the Netherlands there is a legislation that every company with more than 50 employees (used to be 35) must have "workers council" that acts to create a third leg of the "table of power", the other two being the CEO (shareholders) and the Supervisory board. If anyone is interested here is the full legislation http://www.ser.nl/~/media/Files/Internet/Talen/Engels/2011/2011_WorksCouncilsAct.ashx
This legislation also serves to cover all people that are not union members and their companies do not operate under the so-called "collective labour agreement" so that they can have a saying in the running of the enterprise.
As a former citizen of totalitarian state I was curious and fascinated so I applied and was voted in. I did not look into the history of how this councils came to be until one day a colleague told me that I enjoy special protection when it comes to sacking. I was rather appalled by this because in my opinion such protection might attract the wrong kind of people to the council (absolutely not the case in my company though) and generally rigs the game. I was told then that the protection was put into place on a later stage because many companies harassed the members of the council. Another colleague chipped in at this point saying that a company he had worked for deliberately divided itself somehow to companies with number of employees just below the required (see above). Indeed a culture had spread around that being in the council is not a good career move. I was rather shocked (we, east-Europeans, who lived under the previous regime, generally suffer from shocks of disillusionment because we saw the allegedly free world as an absolute antithesis to the totalitarian regime and might have idealized...hm, a bit) and decided to learn a bit more.
Historically, this legislation has been under attack with varying intensity more or less all the time. As you already suspect recently the intensity is relatively high, what with the last government trying to turn us into little USA (very roughly said, no offense meant, you know what I mean, it's just a short way of saying it). As far as I understand, the Dutch businessmen have declared the "polder model", which the Netherlands proudly displayed in the past, dead (briefly: it comes from the water management issues in the past and boils down - as far as I see it - to not allowing that one side in any social decision-making process takes all, as in "drinks the undiluted wine" while the others "drinks pure water". If the wine must be watered i.e. compromise must be achieved, then every party will take a bit of water in their wine). Such decisions are said to take longer to work out but they endure longer and do not crash and burn because the water drinkers start appealing from the next morning.
This news devastated me. I heard that it was because "it is not profitable enough" or "not competitive enough", I even heard not too long ago that the workers councils cost jobs. Oh, the things we hear from people with vested interests...I came to the Netherlands because of this kind of social contracts, because of the yet unsurpassed "liberty-package" as I call it, because, believe it or not, I saw the episode of Cosmos back then, behind the wall, called "Travelers in space and time" where I learned that there is a country in which famous person could say "The world is my country, science is my religion" by the time of the Galileo trial. I think all this is part of the national capital of the Netherlands; very precious thing. Why someone wants to do away with it is beyond comprehension. Can anyone seriously (and without agenda) claim that the social contracts were the reason for the economic meltdown? Not competitive? Seriously? Can I, please, have Mr and Ms Cheap labor come to live here and pay Dutch prices and then let's compete on the labour market! Please! Is the solution to poverty to bring the rest of the world to its level?
Fatties were sexy throughout all of human history except the last several decades.
Skinny woman during most of history would be at a disadvantage at the first sing of food shortage. Also, if you are too small/narrow in the lower half of the body, as far as I understand, there is an increased chance of problems during child-birth. With no modern medicine around, again you are at a disadvantage. And I guess, with more than 80% of people being farmers back in the days a woman who can do this is desirable [http://www.demotivation.us/usa-vs.-russia-1249710.html]
In fact, I read somewhere that for the first time in history the top 20% of society weights less than the bottom 20%. Fat meant rich and prosperous....
Then, of course we have the ridiculous heights to which the ad industry brought the idea of a walking skeleton. I kid you not, I got scared by one such poster by H&M - the model (being way too skinny to boot) was definitely photoshoped even further!! It immediately put me in mind of a concentration camp. Revolting! I read somewhere that the hot girls of my childhood - Cindy Crawford and Elle Macpherson would not qualify today for being too chubby!?! WTF!!
Best in what respect? Like giving temporarily an advantage by promoting uncontrolled growth in a finite system (by rewarding the most destructive personal traits), borrowing from the future and the most humongous waste of resources known to History. Why don't people just THINK for 5 f...ing minutes before parroting the official propaganda?
Wonderful system, yes - look, we got iPads! Must be good!
And don't come to me with "What are you proposing, smart-ass?" cause I have, indeed, a proposition. But first, it would require tens of pages of text to describe, second, most people would disagree because it is nearly impossible to out-jump one's delusions and biases and third, if any country in the world tries it they would be conquered in 5 minutes....likely by the US (being the biggest bully in an arshole system it falls to them to destroy any attempt of change, if they miss it China and Russia will oblige).
Someone quoted it here some time ago but let's say it again:
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. Jiddu Krishnamurti
I am happy the contemporaries of Mozart did not think so and threw away all the manuscripts.
Hint: there is a bit more to this debate (e.g. why on average my favorite music is older than me), though I agree the person you replied to was mildly irritating...
Three engineers were arguing about God. God is a mechanical engineer, says one (who is, of course, himself mechanical engineer). Just look at the muscles and bones. What symphony of precision, the seamless work of joints, bones, muscles, sinews. A beauty to behold! No, no, says the other, God is an electrical/electronics engineer. Just look at the nervous system – the myriad feedback and forward loops, the firing of the neurons in the brainenough said. Chaps, you are both wrong, says the third. God is a civil engineer. Only civil engineer would put a drainpipe in the middle of a recreational area
Ah, the alien movies...my first encounter with them was a hilarious (in retrospection) textbook example of cultural shock. Picture the scene:
Easter, the whole family has gathered - 3 generations. In a communist country, where there was no advertisement and very little entertainment from the west penetrated the wall. My uncle had a video player - amazing thing for those times. You got your "under the table" tapes with horrible translation and picture quality far from perfect (Aliens was not approved by the censors for import so you got black market). So, after a while he says "I've got a new movie, don't know what it is, it's called Aliens. Shall we watch it?" I will never forget the faces of my relatives while watching....we did watch it all. No one complained that the movie is not for kids (I was the smallest - early teen) but my granny was saying every now and then "Oh my God, my God, what is this! What is the meaning of it?!". I don't think she ever grasped what was going on on the screen....
What I wanted to say is that behind the wall in those times parents were also much more relax about what movie their children will see....with my classmates we had horror movie nights where we would laugh our heads off. And everyone agreed that real life is much, much more scary than any movie...yhea, cause it's real. QED
On a related note - the most scary book I ever read was "It" by S. King. What scared me was not the clown/monster but all those nasty stories of what the people of Deri were doing to each other. I genuinely did not know at this stage of life that people can be that bad...it revolted me. It was horrible. And the horror of learning that King was not exaggerating even a little bit has never left me since...
It work like this for me - while watching the amazing visuals I was running a parallel movie in my head thinking and musing over the issues Ridley unsuccessfully tried to discus. Every now and then I would compare my "movie" with what Ridley showed us. I even "played" different dialog in my head. Thus I duped all my bulshit - meters and sat through the whole thing greatly enjoying myself.
It was such a successful strategy that I wrote positive review on a forum afterward and was politely laughed out from there. Only then I realized what exactly have I seen and that without the little trick I would have walked out of the movie midway...
Ha....Americans, you have it all easy and still complaining! Let me do you the calculation for Amsterdam.
14 Euro for ticket IMAX 3D 4 Euro public transport (the weather sucked so no bicycle) 5 Euro - popcorn + Cola
So how much did we spend with my wife for a single movie - yep, almost 50 Euro...how often we do this - once or twice per year. Used to be tens of times per year.
I am eagerly awaiting the law that will make spending money on entertainment obligatory. Create public stigma to help along. "What, you did not spend money on the latest bulshit content? You terrorist or something?"
By gorgeous space amazons hunting the Galaxy for men to kidnap to do the job of a man (changing the light bulbs, rearranging the furniture, carrying the groceries....wait, did you expect something different)!
Haven't heard anything bad about them so far. One of the few companies where, to quote T.P. "You can go inside and talk with the person whose name is above the door. It usually means it is not run by crooks" [from "Going postal"]
And their products are excellent! I know there was a price tag mentioned in the question, but if you want to have superb quality in-ear headphones, get Sennheiser IE 7 model. I have had the pleasure of winning every argument "why do you need anything above MP3 192 kbit quality if you cannot hear the difference" with those headphones and good MP3 player that can play FLAC files [I buy Creative or Cowon]. People invariably find their jaws at knee level after sampling my personal audio combos...
Slashdot Mirror
The bosses of Amstel, Heineken and Grolsh are meeting in a cafe (probably for price-fixing). The waiter comes and the Heineken boss orders Heineken beer. The Amstel boss orders Amstel and the Grolsh boss orders one Amstel and one Heineken!! Noticing the incredulous stares of the others he says "Oh, it is too early for a beer".
Seriously though, why does it take at least a decade before something that is well known to scientist finds its place in the public domain, especially when the data is vitally important for the public? Is the use of a tinfoil hat warranted in this case? I think yes...
I know about this issue for more than a decade from my biochemistry-educated friends. In fact one of them after his kid was born visited me in Western Europe and the first thing he said after the greetings was "Can we find anywhere in this country a glass baby bottle?!" Turned out he had investigated thoroughly the full range of plastic baby bottles available on the market (including ultra expensive brands) and found they all release ungodly amounts of dangerous stuff (including the BPA). I had to disappoint him, but we still found a solution. One chain of supermarkets often uses fruits that are about to expire to make juice without any additives, that needs to be consumed within 24 hours. They use glass bottles with a tread. The tread could be used to attache the silicon sleeve for the baby to suck on. Case closed. Conclusion:
The nerds will inherit the Earth (our children will be healthier)!!
Only if the corners are rounded!
Don't want to be obnoxious or flaming, but isn't "putting profit over all else" the very foundation of the free market capitalism? Why this behavior surprises anyone is beyond me...
[tongue in cheek] What other result can you expect on 7th November? Why bother counting! But since there is no socialist candidate I wonder what this means...maybe that the red party (republicans) wins? Hmmm, who exactly selected this election date?..[tongue in cheek]
[Check what happened on 7th Nov 1917, 25th October according to the Julian calendar]
The last message of the financial sector to humanity, just before civilization goes to hell (written with 30 meter-high letters composed of glued banknotes):
"We apologize for the inconvenience!"
Perhaps someone voted your signature down? There should be space between "the" and "tech"....
Oh yhea! So how about those 15 years old female athletes? They should also have birthed a child?
Genius!
Yep! I was thinking the same.
Make it a cult movie, give different seasons to different directors. Don't be afraid to go to 16+ or even 18+ rating. Some ideas:
Season 1 - the creation of Arda. Spielberg. 14+
Season ?? - the story of Turin. Man, that's one of the most desperate fates in fiction. Fincher. 18+
Season ?? - get the female audience on board with the most beautiful love story of Middle Earth - Beren and Lutien. Minghella. 14+ (could be 16+)
Season ?? - Feanor, the curse of the Silmarils. Jackson. 16+ (I was astounded by the amount of treachery and nastiness when I read that part for the first time. Singing, jolly, noble elves - yhea, right!)
As for the Hobbit - I think there is potential to make this really cool trilogy. I don't mind at all that Jackson wants to show us events that are described by few paragraphs in the appendix or in "Unfinished tales". Let's see the discussions of the White council; the growing suspicion between Gandalf and Saruman, the Necromancer, Dol Guldur and the father of Torin. The raise of Smog. The arrival of the wizards. The Dwarves of Erebor. Why not?
"The Hobbit" is just too short and childish for even one movie. It's a great idea, but let's wait and see...
"I don't doubt that humans have some effect on global warming but I'd be willing to bet that the Earth is a pretty decent self moderated stable system. Now it may kill us all in the process but in terms of life, I think that it can handle quite a bit more."
Yes and no. The famous quiz question/metaphor:
Question: If certain bacteria multiplies every minute and at the 60th minute the whole Petri dish is covered, at which minute was the dish half-empty?
Answer: At the 59th minute
Do not underestimate the RATE at which we destroy the rest of the system. The rate is increasing, always increasing from the the moment the civilization model kicked in.
At my work, I am one of the members of the "workers council" (Netherlands). Few years ago we had a period when employees left citing the working conditions and pay as major motives. I mean, they said that to the council. However, everyone completely "forgot" to mention this in their exit interviews.
Therefore, when the council brought the question to the management the answer was "No-one has left because of working conditions or wages - here are the exit interviews. Case closed."
I say "circle closed". There is something deeply troubling about the absolute egoism, which seems to be the major characteristic of western societies. People want the council to make a difference yet we cannot get them to even state the issues in front of authority. Suddenly everyone becomes a pussy and goes into "have wife and kids to feed" mode. Well, how do you make ANY progress in such society where people self-censor themselves and lie to themselves just because there MIGHT be some (however minor) repercussions. And we are not talking here of being sent to Gitmo, but the remote possibility that your new boss calls the old boss or some such. Everyone likes to endlessly bitch at the coffee-corner but when the authority is present the cat steals their tongues...
I have to say that my experience in life has thought me that the real enemy of the common people is....the common people - all of us. Not the people in power - they won't stand a chance against the rest. True, they would use any trick in the book to stifle opposition and yet....they wouldn't stand a chance should the people decide to hold them accountable.
Go in front of the mirror and say 100 times pointing with your finger "You are my greatest enemy" and "Hell is other people".
Did sales go up? If not, perhaps the claim that copying is lost sales is...hm dubious? /sarcasm
You know what, I wish I had a magic wand. Then I'd stop all copying and have the dream of the Mafia fulfilled. Let's see how they like it..I predict they would die quick and miserable death while the art and innovation will, of course, survive.
And since I am at it I'd also stop people from smoking, drinking, drugs and I'd make sex not pleasurable (but keep the impulse to have kids so we can survive). Thus fulfilling "the dream" of our hugely hypocritical society and its so-called leaders. Let's see what happens on the next day. I predict WW III, shortly after the complete economic meltdown and the revolution...
Mod parent +1 000 000! How many articles we have read saying that the modern, educated male has little to do with the "patriarch" image. Damn it, wasn't there a study finding that modern males are in fact becoming ever more responsible and less cheating! You know, exactly those urban types to which our grandparents were saying that we would rot in hell for living "in the big sin cities" of today! You know the grandparents who were REALLY sexists and fucked around so much that they would put a shame to an urban Casanova of today...
On a related note here is on of my warmest family memory so far:
We are in a plane. I am sitting in the middle seat, next to the window is a dude, my wife sits next to the walk (my left). The stewardess arrives with hot drinks (tea and coffee). The safest way of distributing hot drinks is to start with the person next to the window, then the middle....All the three of us instinctively sensed this so the dude sitting next to the window reaches first, I go second and my wife - third. At that moment the stewardess scolds me and the dude for "leaving the woman last instead of letting her first" upon which my wife looks coolly at her and says "I though we are equal"
The face of the stewardess after the retort - priceless!
No. In fact it's exactly the people that know their shit that are the problem.
You see, it turns out we can trace the origin of the word "science" way back and it comes from. . . shit. I'm not joking! It's described in the book Etymologicon (highly recommended). If i remember correctly the story goes like this.
First, the word meant "to separate something from something else" and was used as a verb "to shit" (in the so called proto Indo-European language). Later, the Romans decided that if you can separate one thing from another then you know those things so they started to use the word to mean "know". By that time the pronunciation was the already familiar "scien(ta)".
Thus, the author concludes the expression "I don't give a shit" is etymologically correct plus saying someone knows their shit just means they are scientists. So they have poor grammar as per definition. QED.
Hilarious!
Preamble: After the wall collapsed, the criminals in Eastern Europe got rich while the physics professors became taxi drivers.
Joke: A group of newly enriched criminals wanted to bet heavily on horse racing. One of them suggested that they can hire one of those impoverished eggheads to calculate the odds. So they did and bet all the money on the horse that the physicists pointed out. The horse finished last. Screaming bloody murder the criminals go back to the nerd. "What did you do, asshole, you are dead!". "The calculations are sound", shrieks the physicists, "I just had to make a few assumptions". "What assumptions". "Well, I did them for spherical horse in vacuum!"
In the Netherlands there is a legislation that every company with more than 50 employees (used to be 35) must have "workers council" that acts to create a third leg of the "table of power", the other two being the CEO (shareholders) and the Supervisory board.
If anyone is interested here is the full legislation http://www.ser.nl/~/media/Files/Internet/Talen/Engels/2011/2011_WorksCouncilsAct.ashx
This legislation also serves to cover all people that are not union members and their companies do not operate under the so-called "collective labour agreement" so that they can have a saying in the running of the enterprise.
As a former citizen of totalitarian state I was curious and fascinated so I applied and was voted in. I did not look into the history of how this councils came to be until one day a colleague told me that I enjoy special protection when it comes to sacking. I was rather appalled by this because in my opinion such protection might attract the wrong kind of people to the council (absolutely not the case in my company though) and generally rigs the game. I was told then that the protection was put into place on a later stage because many companies harassed the members of the council. Another colleague chipped in at this point saying that a company he had worked for deliberately divided itself somehow to companies with number of employees just below the required (see above). Indeed a culture had spread around that being in the council is not a good career move. I was rather shocked (we, east-Europeans, who lived under the previous regime, generally suffer from shocks of disillusionment because we saw the allegedly free world as an absolute antithesis to the totalitarian regime and might have idealized...hm, a bit) and decided to learn a bit more.
Historically, this legislation has been under attack with varying intensity more or less all the time. As you already suspect recently the intensity is relatively high, what with the last government trying to turn us into little USA (very roughly said, no offense meant, you know what I mean, it's just a short way of saying it). As far as I understand, the Dutch businessmen have declared the "polder model", which the Netherlands proudly displayed in the past, dead (briefly: it comes from the water management issues in the past and boils down - as far as I see it - to not allowing that one side in any social decision-making process takes all, as in "drinks the undiluted wine" while the others "drinks pure water". If the wine must be watered i.e. compromise must be achieved, then every party will take a bit of water in their wine). Such decisions are said to take longer to work out but they endure longer and do not crash and burn because the water drinkers start appealing from the next morning.
This news devastated me. I heard that it was because "it is not profitable enough" or "not competitive enough", I even heard not too long ago that the workers councils cost jobs. Oh, the things we hear from people with vested interests...I came to the Netherlands because of this kind of social contracts, because of the yet unsurpassed "liberty-package" as I call it, because, believe it or not, I saw the episode of Cosmos back then, behind the wall, called "Travelers in space and time" where I learned that there is a country in which famous person could say "The world is my country, science is my religion" by the time of the Galileo trial. I think all this is part of the national capital of the Netherlands; very precious thing. Why someone wants to do away with it is beyond comprehension. Can anyone seriously (and without agenda) claim that the social contracts were the reason for the economic meltdown? Not competitive? Seriously? Can I, please, have Mr and Ms Cheap labor come to live here and pay Dutch prices and then let's compete on the labour market! Please! Is the solution to poverty to bring the rest of the world to its level?
It maybe anecdota
He sleeps very well, I guess. On a pillow made of money...
Disclaimer: I have no idea what actually transpired but such "unfortunate events" exactly in the right time always make my skin crawl....I smell a rat
Fatties were sexy throughout all of human history except the last several decades.
Skinny woman during most of history would be at a disadvantage at the first sing of food shortage. Also, if you are too small/narrow in the lower half of the body, as far as I understand, there is an increased chance of problems during child-birth. With no modern medicine around, again you are at a disadvantage. And I guess, with more than 80% of people being farmers back in the days a woman who can do this is desirable [http://www.demotivation.us/usa-vs.-russia-1249710.html]
In fact, I read somewhere that for the first time in history the top 20% of society weights less than the bottom 20%. Fat meant rich and prosperous....
Then, of course we have the ridiculous heights to which the ad industry brought the idea of a walking skeleton. I kid you not, I got scared by one such poster by H&M - the model (being way too skinny to boot) was definitely photoshoped even further!! It immediately put me in mind of a concentration camp. Revolting! I read somewhere that the hot girls of my childhood - Cindy Crawford and Elle Macpherson would not qualify today for being too chubby!?! WTF!!
Best in what respect? Like giving temporarily an advantage by promoting uncontrolled growth in a finite system (by rewarding the most destructive personal traits), borrowing from the future and the most humongous waste of resources known to History. Why don't people just THINK for 5 f...ing minutes before parroting the official propaganda?
Wonderful system, yes - look, we got iPads! Must be good!
And don't come to me with "What are you proposing, smart-ass?" cause I have, indeed, a proposition. But first, it would require tens of pages of text to describe, second, most people would disagree because it is nearly impossible to out-jump one's delusions and biases and third, if any country in the world tries it they would be conquered in 5 minutes....likely by the US (being the biggest bully in an arshole system it falls to them to destroy any attempt of change, if they miss it China and Russia will oblige).
Someone quoted it here some time ago but let's say it again:
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
"Music was always disposable"
I am happy the contemporaries of Mozart did not think so and threw away all the manuscripts.
Hint: there is a bit more to this debate (e.g. why on average my favorite music is older than me), though I agree the person you replied to was mildly irritating...
Three engineers were arguing about God.
God is a mechanical engineer, says one (who is, of course, himself mechanical engineer). Just look at the muscles and bones. What symphony of precision, the seamless work of joints, bones, muscles, sinews. A beauty to behold!
No, no, says the other, God is an electrical/electronics engineer. Just look at the nervous system – the myriad feedback and forward loops, the firing of the neurons in the brainenough said.
Chaps, you are both wrong, says the third. God is a civil engineer. Only civil engineer would put a drainpipe in the middle of a recreational area
Ah, the alien movies...my first encounter with them was a hilarious (in retrospection) textbook example of cultural shock. Picture the scene:
Easter, the whole family has gathered - 3 generations. In a communist country, where there was no advertisement and very little entertainment from the west penetrated the wall. My uncle had a video player - amazing thing for those times. You got your "under the table" tapes with horrible translation and picture quality far from perfect (Aliens was not approved by the censors for import so you got black market). So, after a while he says "I've got a new movie, don't know what it is, it's called Aliens. Shall we watch it?" I will never forget the faces of my relatives while watching....we did watch it all. No one complained that the movie is not for kids (I was the smallest - early teen) but my granny was saying every now and then "Oh my God, my God, what is this! What is the meaning of it?!". I don't think she ever grasped what was going on on the screen....
What I wanted to say is that behind the wall in those times parents were also much more relax about what movie their children will see....with my classmates we had horror movie nights where we would laugh our heads off. And everyone agreed that real life is much, much more scary than any movie...yhea, cause it's real. QED
On a related note - the most scary book I ever read was "It" by S. King. What scared me was not the clown/monster but all those nasty stories of what the people of Deri were doing to each other. I genuinely did not know at this stage of life that people can be that bad...it revolted me. It was horrible. And the horror of learning that King was not exaggerating even a little bit has never left me since...
It work like this for me - while watching the amazing visuals I was running a parallel movie in my head thinking and musing over the issues Ridley unsuccessfully tried to discus. Every now and then I would compare my "movie" with what Ridley showed us. I even "played" different dialog in my head. Thus I duped all my bulshit - meters and sat through the whole thing greatly enjoying myself.
It was such a successful strategy that I wrote positive review on a forum afterward and was politely laughed out from there. Only then I realized what exactly have I seen and that without the little trick I would have walked out of the movie midway...
Ha....Americans, you have it all easy and still complaining! Let me do you the calculation for Amsterdam.
14 Euro for ticket IMAX 3D
4 Euro public transport (the weather sucked so no bicycle)
5 Euro - popcorn + Cola
So how much did we spend with my wife for a single movie - yep, almost 50 Euro...how often we do this - once or twice per year. Used to be tens of times per year.
I am eagerly awaiting the law that will make spending money on entertainment obligatory. Create public stigma to help along. "What, you did not spend money on the latest bulshit content? You terrorist or something?"
By gorgeous space amazons hunting the Galaxy for men to kidnap to do the job of a man (changing the light bulbs, rearranging the furniture, carrying the groceries....wait, did you expect something different)!
Haven't heard anything bad about them so far. One of the few companies where, to quote T.P. "You can go inside and talk with the person whose name is above the door. It usually means it is not run by crooks" [from "Going postal"]
And their products are excellent! I know there was a price tag mentioned in the question, but if you want to have superb quality in-ear headphones, get Sennheiser IE 7 model. I have had the pleasure of winning every argument "why do you need anything above MP3 192 kbit quality if you cannot hear the difference" with those headphones and good MP3 player that can play FLAC files [I buy Creative or Cowon]. People invariably find their jaws at knee level after sampling my personal audio combos...