It is possible to empathize with another's pain/loss/hurt with out experiencing it directly. How egoistic to think that no one other than those directly affected should have a feeling of loss? I never new espy in anyway whatsoever, but from reading the post of the people here I can understand that the world, the one I inhabit, has lost someone who was important and who was good. The world is a worse place with his loss and I feel for those who knew him personally.
There is nothing wrong with sincere sympathy. One needn't get hit buy a car to empathize and feel bad with someone who does.
False sympathy trivializes the lose of a loved one. But so does shrugging of the death of a good human being.
Be cheerful while you are alive. -- Phathotep, 24th Century B.C.
I have no idea what you mean by billing problems. I signed up in January (actually in Novemeber but it was up by January ) and I haven't paid a bill yet! I check my card and they haven't been sharging it at all except for the initial $100 upfront. I think I'm not going to worry about it, maybe I'll get lucky and get hit by a bus before it comes due.
Today I went to my preferences and remove John Katz from the list of Authors that I read. He writing is more inflamitory and less factual than John Taschek's. So come on Boys and girls, remove him from your list, If enough people do it he will be gone. And once more we can have thoughtful intellectual discussions.
I hear what you are saying and your caveat about "Western Europe" covers you butt. But in most of the world, war had been going on through the Cold War with more intensity, not less since the bomb first fell.. The nature of warfare has changed not the level of violence. The US couldn't send troops to Central America to kill commies so we used proxies, just like Russia did in Ethiopia, the Middle East, etc. The Cold war was fought, people really were killed but they were not Americans or Europeans, they were people in the poorer countries financed to fight our battles. All the bomb did was end conventional war between nuclear nations. War by proxy is the norm now.
I can only assume that the comment; "Let's compare the murder rate to Switzerland, where almost every adult male owns an assault rifle. A lot less crime there. " implies you are stongly in favor of strict gun control. After all to get the assault rifle you mention, you have to serve in the military for several years. I fully support that kind of gun control, but I'd be willing to only require a 30 day waiting period, training class, gun locks sold with guns, a maximum numer of weapons without a special permit, etc. I think that would be resonable. You wouldn't even have to join the militray. Compromise, you give a little and I give a little.
That is not true. There are certian cases that the Supreme court must hear and have no choice in the matter. Anti-trust legislation has that as a built in clause, the Supreme court has no choice in this matter.
Impediment the.xxx domain. I've said it before so this should should well practiced. The sellers of porn do no want to be sued and they do want to be filtered for the most part. Do you hear cash-for-porn businesses bitching about censorware? For the most part no. They don't want to show a 10 year old a -censored- get -censored- by three -censored- in a bowl of tepid grits. They want to make a buck, so go say it on the mountain, we need a.xxx domain! And viola the net is effectively (or as effectively as one can expect), self regulated.
I really think they should have a.xxx for all the porn sites. Not only would it be easy to block these sites a whole if you so desired but its what the porn distributers on the net want. Why all the warning before you enter a porn site, because they are pooping in thier pants over the fear of lawsuits. If they had a "redlight district" on the net, they could simply say in court, "Our site was in the.xxx domain, Billy should have known better".
Plus it would put those stinking Net censor (I mean filter) companies out.:)
(Woo-hoo I got my first Karma Point!!!)
--My name is Ian and I am responisble for this comment.
The media is, right now divided into two camps TV/internet and Newspapers. The TV and to a lesser extent internet media will tell you that a plane crashed ten minutes after it does. Now we know that a plane has crashed into the pacific, maybe where and maybe how many passengers were on board, but unless we watch the TV/update the page all night that is all we are going to know. And even if we do stay up all night we get your information in bits an pieces ("Here is a screaming parent, isn't this sad, what a tragedy, this is Dick from the beach near the Pacific"). In the morning we can wake up and get a newspaper with the summery and generally some kind of analysis.
I think the greatest difference is in the draw and audience (which are related). People are drawn to the TV and the internet for different reasons but invariably they want or expect entertainment. TV news knows especially that if they can hold you just a second longer by showing a screaming parent they may be able to get you to hold the channel through the commercials, or at least come back when they are over. The TV media then must produce a "show", the news has to be as good as the last movie you saw otherwise you are going to watch the last movie you saw, which very well may be on Cable.
Newspapers have to push, they have to make people want to read them, no one after a hard days work, is going to come home tired and think, "wow I'm sure glad I can turn on the newspaper". People who read newspapers do so actively, they have to make an effort to get one and PAY for it. For this reason newspapers tend to have a higher quality content (plenty don't, don't get me wrong).
The internet is the bastard child who hasn't quite got it figured out. You can find quality news on the web but it either has a tendency to update often or not at all. If one reads an article on a plane crash, at 10pm what are the odds that that person will read an article with the same or similar title and hour later? It may have been updated but that isn't necessarily going to get anyone to read it. And its still more of the CNN fluff that in-depth reporting. The Newspaper formatted site isn't quite what we are looking for. The internet media should take advantage of the huge groups of informed unwashed masses and use them to make/write news. Remind you of any sites you know?
-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------- CAUTION: When printed, this (these) page(s) are 100% matter. In the unlikely event of them coming into contact with antimatter in any form, a catastrophic explosion will occur which may result in personal injury, or even death. The writer of this email is not responsible for any injury or death resulting from this email. -------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------
Don't call me "Generation X," call me a child of the eighties
by Bryant Adkins published in The Reflector January 20, 1995 ------------------------------------------------ ---------------------
I am a child of the eighties. That is what I prefer to be called. The nineties can do without me. Grunge isn't here to stay, fashion is fickle and "Generation X" is a myth created by some over-40 writer trying to figure out why people wear flannel in the summer.
When I got home from school, I played with my Atari 2600. I spent hours playing Pitfall or Combat or Breakout or Dodge'em Cars or Frogger.
I never did beat Asteroids. Then I watched "Scooby Doo." Daphne was a Goddess, and I thought Shaggy was smoking something synthetic in the back of their psychedelic van. I hated Scrappy.
I would sleep over at friends' houses on the weekends. We played army with G.I. Joe figures, and I set up galactic wars between Autobots and Decepticons. We stayed up half the night throwing marshmallows and Velveeta at one another. We never beat the Rubik's Cube.
I got up on Saturday mornings at 6 a.m. to watch bad Hanna-Barbera cartoons like "The Snorks," "Jabberjaw," "Captain Caveman," and "Space Ghost." In between I would watch "School House Rock."
"Conjunction junction, what's your function?"
On weeknights Daisy Duke was my future wife. I was going to own the General Lee and shoot dynamite arrows out the back. Why did they weld the doors shut?
At the movies the Nerds got Revenge on the Alpha Betas by teaming up with the Omega Mus. I watched Indiana Jones save the Ark of the Covenant, and wondered what Yoda meant when he said, "No, there is another."
Ronald Reagan was cool. Gorbachev was the guy who built a McDonalds in Moscow. My family took summer vacations to the Gulf of Mexico and collected "Muppet Movie" glasses along the way. (We had the whole set.)
My brother and I fought in the back seat. At the hotel we found creative uses for Connect Four pieces like throwing them in that big air conditioning unit.
I listened to John COUGAR Mellencamp sing about Little Pink Houses for Jack and Diane. I was bewildered by Boy George and the colors of his dreams, red, gold, and green.
MTV played videos. Nickelodeon played "You Can't Do That on Television" and Dangermouse."
HBO showed Mike Tyson pummel everybody except Robin Givens, the bad actress from "Head of the Class" who took all Mike's cashflow.
I drank Dr. Pepper. "I'm a Pepper, you're a Pepper, wouldn't you like to be a Pepper, too?" Shasta was for losers. TAB was a laboratory accident, Capri Sun was a social statement. Orange juice wasn't just for breakfast anymore, and bacon had to move over for something meatier.
My mom put a thousand Little Debbie Snack Cakes in my Charlie Brown lunch box, and filled my Snoopy Thermos with grape Kool-Aid. I would never eat the snack cakes, though. Did anyone? I got two thousand cheese and cracker snack packs, and I ate those.
I went to school and had recess. I went to the same classes everyday. Some weird guy from the eighth grade always won the science fair with the working hydro-electric plant that leaked on my project about music and plants. They just loved Beethoven.
Field day was bigger than Christmas, but it always managed to rain just enough to make everybody miserable before they fell over in the three-legged race. Where did all those panty hose come from?
Deck the Halls with Gasoline, fa la la la la la la la la," was just a song. Burping was cool. Rubber band fights were cooler. A substitute teacher was a baby sitter/marked woman. Nobody deserved that.
I went to Cub Scouts. I got my arrow-of-light, but never managed to win the Pinewood Derby. I got almost every skill award but don't remember ever doing anything.
The world stopped when the Challenger exploded.It is to us what Kennedy's assasination was to the children of the 60's.
Did a teacher come in and tell your class? Half of your friends' parents got divorced. People did not just say no to drugs.
AIDS started, but you knew more people who had a grandparent die from cancer.
Somebody in your school died before they graduated.
When you put all this stuff together, you have my childhood. If this stuff sounds familiar, then I bet you are one, too. We are children of the eighties. That is what I prefer "they" call it.
I am a child of the eighties. That is what I prefer to be called. The nineties can do without me. Grunge isn't here to stay, fashion is fickle and "Generation X" is a myth created by some over-40 writer trying to figure out why people wear flannel in the summer.
When I got home from school, I played with my Atari 2600. I spent hours playing Pitfall or Combat or Breakout or Dodge'em Cars or Frogger.
I never did beat Asteroids. Then I watched "Scooby Doo." Daphne was a Goddess, and I thought Shaggy was smoking something synthetic in the back of their psychedelic van. I hated Scrappy.
I would sleep over at friends' houses on the weekends. We played army with G.I. Joe figures, and I set up galactic wars between Autobots and Decepticons. We stayed up half the night throwing marshmallows and Velveeta at one another. We never beat the Rubik's Cube.
I got up on Saturday mornings at 6 a.m. to watch bad Hanna-Barbera cartoons like "The Snorks," "Jabberjaw," "Captain Caveman," and "Space Ghost." In between I would watch "School House Rock."
"Conjunction junction, what's your function?"
On weeknights Daisy Duke was my future wife. I was going to own the General Lee and shoot dynamite arrows out the back. Why did they weld the doors shut?
At the movies the Nerds got Revenge on the Alpha Betas by teaming up with the Omega Mus. I watched Indiana Jones save the Ark of the Covenant, and wondered what Yoda meant when he said, "No, there is another."
Ronald Reagan was cool. Gorbachev was the guy who built a McDonalds in Moscow. My family took summer vacations to the Gulf of Mexico and collected "Muppet Movie" glasses along the way. (We had the whole set.)
My brother and I fought in the back seat. At the hotel we found creative uses for Connect Four pieces like throwing them in that big air conditioning unit.
I listened to John COUGAR Mellencamp sing about Little Pink Houses for Jack and Diane. I was bewildered by Boy George and the colors of his dreams, red, gold, and green.
MTV played videos. Nickelodeon played "You Can't Do That on Television" and Dangermouse."
HBO showed Mike Tyson pummel everybody except Robin Givens, the bad actress from "Head of the Class" who took all Mike's cashflow.
I drank Dr. Pepper. "I'm a Pepper, you're a Pepper, wouldn't you like to be a Pepper, too?" Shasta was for losers. TAB was a laboratory accident, Capri Sun was a social statement. Orange juice wasn't just for breakfast anymore, and bacon had to move over for something meatier.
My mom put a thousand Little Debbie Snack Cakes in my Charlie Brown lunch box, and filled my Snoopy Thermos with grape Kool-Aid. I would never eat the snack cakes, though. Did anyone? I got two thousand cheese and cracker snack packs, and I ate those.
I went to school and had recess. I went to the same classes everyday. Some weird guy from the eighth grade always won the science fair with the working hydro-electric plant that leaked on my project about music and plants. They just loved Beethoven.
Field day was bigger than Christmas, but it always managed to rain just enough to make everybody miserable before they fell over in the three-legged race. Where did all those panty hose come from?
Deck the Halls with Gasoline, fa la la la la la la la la," was just a song. Burping was cool. Rubber band fights were cooler. A substitute teacher was a baby sitter/marked woman. Nobody deserved that.
I went to Cub Scouts. I got my arrow-of-light, but never managed to win the Pinewood Derby. I got almost every skill award but don't remember ever doing anything.
The world stopped when the Challenger exploded.It is to us what Kennedy's assasination was to the children of the 60's.
Did a teacher come in and tell your class? Half of your friends' parents got divorced. People did not just say no to drugs.
AIDS started, but you knew more people who had a grandparent die from cancer.
Somebody in your school died before they graduated.
When you put all this stuff together, you have my childhood. If this stuff sounds familiar, then I bet you are one, too. We are children of the eighties. That is what I prefer "they" call it.
Ahem, taxpayer money is not being spent to let others view porn, rather taxpayer money is stopping people from seeing legitimate sites in addition to blocking porn.
The Libraries pay for bandwidth like many of us. They get a fixed pipeline for a fixed dollar amount. Taxpayers aren't charged extra for the porn. But if a library purchases filtering software they are spending taxpayer money. They are in fact spending taxpayer money to block sites on breast cancer, etc, etc, blah, blah.
There is larger question that we seem to be ignoring. If a library had access to all the worlds information in an easily accessible method with an very good retrieval system, should we pseudo-arbitrarily limit what library user can access? I know the internet is not this system but it is close. The reasons why libraries limit what they carry is not because it is objectionable but rather because they have a fixed income and can only choose those books (or other media) that fulfill a public demand. Once you pay for the bandwidth and operating cost the content is free.
I've always felt that libraries are a place of learning. The ugly part of this world is still a part of it.
"Of necessity, one must endeavor to think of pleasant things, but I know nothing that gives more delight to think about and to do than fücking. Every man may philosophize all he wants, but this is the utter truth, which many people understand this way but few will say." -- Niccolo Machiavelli
The distinction between you example and what is happening here is great. Everyone knows not to leave a pile of firearms in ones backyard but not everyone knows how (or has the resources) to protect thier computer from attack. A better example would be someone who's car is broken into and used for a crime. They reasonably thought thier car was reasonably secure. They could have installed one of those tire locks on it but that is an unreasonablly high expectaion. Don't blame the victim because they aren't as technologically savy as you.
"Of necessity, one must endeavor to think of pleasant things, but I know nothing that gives more delight to think about and to do than fücking. Every man may philosophize all he wants, but this is the utter truth, which many people understand this way but few will say." -- Niccolo Machiavelli
If you didn't read the article do so, it makes more sense than many of the comments I've read here do. Moving right along.
Anyone who claims that standardized test are anything like fair or who gives some sort of credibility to the idea that they measures how well you will do in collage is ignorant of the facts. Check out Frontlines special on the SAT. To paraphrase the CEO of Kaplan (the number one provider of SAT tutoring), "For $400 I can raise any kids score 200 points in a week. Did I make them smarter? No, I just taught him the tricks to do well on a standardized test. So what does it mean then. It means money not intelligence will get you into college". Or from the vice president of the company that puts out the SAT (EM?, I forget), "We know that these test don't measure intelligence, but its a metric that is now the de facto standard". No one, not even the people most intimately involved with the test, believes standardized measures anything credible.
And when did disadvantaged and minority become synonymous. Poverty is the most significant disadvantage. If you live in a poor neighborhood, you pay less in property taxes which means local schools get less money and in turn, you get less than desirable teachers, text books you probably are NOT allowed to take home, etc, etc. So now you want to take a $50 test (hope you can afford it) with no other preparation. I will bet you $1000 to $1 that anyone whose parents make over $100,000 a year will do better than anyone who's parent (notice the singular) makes less than $15,000 a year. And I will win 99 times out of 100. Poverty is cyclical. The barriers to the world we live in (yes us, reading this on our computers), are extremely difficult to surmount and it isn't just will or effort that is required. You need a family infrastructure, you need money and you need a whole hell of a lot of guts.
At least these people at Colorado College are trying to make a more fair way. This may not be the answer but it's an effort to find a solution to a system that obviously doesn't work.
------- Without spell check I'd be extinct by now.
I would like to point out that we're not being "buried in our own garbage". This is largely a view promoted by environmentalists that don't understand how big the planet is, and sometimes, "just throwing it away", is the best thing to do from a environmental perspective!
Good point we can haul our trash to some under, though not un-populated area in the stix. Unfortunately these locations are becoming further and further away from the source of the trash (cities) because of the expanding effect of cities, so it takes more enregy to get the trash to these repositories.
I don't want to start a flamewar, and I'll probably get moderated down by an eco-freak, but please concider[sic] that when you recycle something, it doesn't magically turn into another product. It requires a LOT of energy to recycle something, and contrary to what suburban SUV-drivin feel-good people thing, power doesn't come out of the wall for free.
Of course it takes energy to recycle something, but it also takes energy to manufacture something. I find it difficult to believe it takes less energy to mine ore in Argentina smelt it ship it to the US and manufacture soda pop cans than it does to collect cans locally ship the within the US (and probably the state), re-smelt and manufacture it. As to the SUV's Hallelujah! I'll take 30 miles to the gallon over 10 mpg no matter what the fashion statement, and pocket the $15,000 difference.
It needs to come from a coal, hydro (which ISN'T eco-friendly - flooded land produces methane, worse for the environment than coal!) or nuclear plant. Recycling is often worse than throwing it away!
Um...yes it is. I can't site any studies here, but I've been to reservoirs and dams and such (which also have their ecological problems, primarily dealing with inability of fish to spawn up river when their if this three hundred foot wall in the way...sort of like the difficulties of a geek getting laid...) and I've been to Eastern Europe. Coal sucks. The stuff you can see is bad enough much less the hydrocarbons.
Interestingly enough, a study done in England (Referenced in American Scientific, Sigma Xi Jorunal) indicates that recycling causes _more_ consumption, since people _feel good_ about using recycled products!
Sure more consumption but of what products? Recycled products or non-recycled products? If it's a feel good phenomenon, would people who recycle want to purchase the goods they recycle. And for that matter if you use resources more efficiently you can afford to manufacture more.
This doesn't mean a throw away culture is OK - but if you need the service or product, it might make sense. There is L O T S of room for L O T S of garbage on this planet - more than we will ever need, 'cause we'll do ourselves long in based on current population projections before this is an issue.
Sure there is lots of space. Its ridiculous to think that we could bury the planet in trash. However fatalistic attitudes on how we should use the limited resources on the planet are unlikely to lead to any meaningful adjustment of how to properly use those resources.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Recycling is last, because it doesn't work very well! Why does everyone forget about the first two, which work _Really_ well. Cut down, and reuse.
Reduce - don't get the freaking bag if you only have a few items, its okay to ask that you not get a bag. Reuse - if you have a bag at home, put it in your pocket and bring it with you, those pastic bags are both light and compact. Recycle - we are all just going to die anyway...I mean, sure when the bag is getting old recycle it.
Just because it's disposable, doesn't mean it's bad. It might even be BETTER. It might not feel good, though. Consuming resources is something we should think about, and I think people think sucking energy is OK just because it's being recycled, which sometimes is really dumb. Sure sometimes it is good to have disposable items.
A great couple of examples are needles and condoms. I wouldn't want anyone reusing those. {shiver}
Think about that when you're haulin those bottles back in your 4 ton Ford Extrusion, er, Excursion, wasting a resource we should conserve - gasoline.
If you or the (trash person) are going to be hauling it to a dump somewhere, why would it take more energy to haul it to a recycle center?
Here is a fun little trick. Just find all the male portions of grammar in a document, replace them with the female counterpart (another good trick is using "black" instead of "woman", or virtually any minority group), touch up a little here and there and see if the original document its still offensive.
This test has worked for me a lot in the past to try to determine is what is being said is bigoted. I grew up in a "traditional" (that is to say rasist and sexist) household so its tough for me sometimes to see "others" points of view.
Slashdot Mirror
It is possible to empathize with another's pain/loss/hurt with out experiencing it directly. How egoistic to think that no one other than those directly affected should have a feeling of loss? I never new espy in anyway whatsoever, but from reading the post of the people here I can understand that the world, the one I inhabit, has lost someone who was important and who was good. The world is a worse place with his loss and I feel for those who knew him personally.
There is nothing wrong with sincere sympathy. One needn't get hit buy a car to empathize and feel bad with someone who does.
False sympathy trivializes the lose of a loved one. But so does shrugging of the death of a good human being.
Be cheerful while you are alive. -- Phathotep, 24th Century B.C.
I have no idea what you mean by billing problems. I signed up in January (actually in Novemeber but it was up by January ) and I haven't paid a bill yet! I check my card and they haven't been sharging it at all except for the initial $100 upfront. I think I'm not going to worry about it, maybe I'll get lucky and get hit by a bus before it comes due.
-E
Today I went to my preferences and remove John Katz from the list of Authors that I read. He writing is more inflamitory and less factual than John Taschek's. So come on Boys and girls, remove him from your list, If enough people do it he will be gone. And once more we can have thoughtful intellectual discussions.
I hear what you are saying and your caveat about "Western Europe" covers you butt. But in most of the world, war had been going on through the Cold War with more intensity, not less since the bomb first fell.. The nature of warfare has changed not the level of violence. The US couldn't send troops to Central America to kill commies so we used proxies, just like Russia did in Ethiopia, the Middle East, etc. The Cold war was fought, people really were killed but they were not Americans or Europeans, they were people in the poorer countries financed to fight our battles. All the bomb did was end conventional war between nuclear nations. War by proxy is the norm now.
I can only assume that the comment; "Let's compare the murder rate to Switzerland, where almost every adult male owns an assault rifle. A lot less crime there. " implies you are stongly in favor of strict gun control. After all to get the assault rifle you mention, you have to serve in the military for several years. I fully support that kind of gun control, but I'd be willing to only require a 30 day waiting period, training class, gun locks sold with guns, a maximum numer of weapons without a special permit, etc. I think that would be resonable. You wouldn't even have to join the militray. Compromise, you give a little and I give a little.
E
That is not true. There are certian cases that the Supreme court must hear and have no choice in the matter. Anti-trust legislation has that as a built in clause, the Supreme court has no choice in this matter.
Impediment the .xxx domain. I've said it before so this should should well practiced. The sellers of porn do no want to be sued and they do want to be filtered for the most part. Do you hear cash-for-porn businesses bitching about censorware? For the most part no. They don't want to show a 10 year old a -censored- get -censored- by three -censored- in a bowl of tepid grits. They want to make a buck, so go say it on the mountain, we need a .xxx domain! And viola the net is effectively (or as effectively as one can expect), self regulated.
I really think they should have a .xxx for all the porn sites. Not only would it be easy to block these sites a whole if you so desired but its what the porn distributers on the net want. Why all the warning before you enter a porn site, because they are pooping in thier pants over the fear of lawsuits. If they had a "redlight district" on the net, they could simply say in court, "Our site was in the .xxx domain, Billy should have known better".
:)
Plus it would put those stinking Net censor (I mean filter) companies out.
(Woo-hoo I got my first Karma Point!!!)
--My name is Ian and I am responisble for this comment.
The media is, right now divided into two camps TV/internet and Newspapers.
- -------------------------------- --------------------------------
The TV and to a lesser extent internet media will tell you that a plane crashed ten minutes after it does. Now we know that a plane has crashed into the pacific, maybe where and maybe how many passengers were on board, but unless we watch the TV/update the page all night that is all we are going to know. And even if we do stay up all night we get your information in bits an pieces ("Here is a screaming parent, isn't this sad, what a tragedy, this is Dick from the beach near the Pacific"). In the morning we can wake up and get a newspaper with the summery and generally some kind of analysis.
I think the greatest difference is in the draw and audience (which are related). People are drawn to the TV and the internet for different reasons but invariably they want or expect entertainment. TV news knows especially that if they can hold you just a second longer by showing a screaming parent they may be able to get you to hold the channel through the commercials, or at least come back when they are over. The TV media then must produce a "show", the news has to be as good as the last movie you saw otherwise you are going to watch the last movie you saw, which very well may be on Cable.
Newspapers have to push, they have to make people want to read them, no one after a hard days work, is going to come home tired and think, "wow I'm sure glad I can turn on the newspaper". People who read newspapers do so actively, they have to make an effort to get one and PAY for it. For this reason newspapers tend to have a higher quality content (plenty don't, don't get me wrong).
The internet is the bastard child who hasn't quite got it figured out. You can find quality news on the web but it either has a tendency to update often or not at all. If one reads an article on a plane crash, at 10pm what are the odds that that person will read an article with the same or similar title and hour later? It may have been updated but that isn't necessarily going to get anyone to read it. And its still more of the CNN fluff that in-depth reporting. The Newspaper formatted site isn't quite what we are looking for. The internet media should take advantage of the huge groups of informed unwashed masses and use them to make/write news. Remind you of any sites you know?
-------------------------------------------------
CAUTION: When printed, this (these) page(s) are 100% matter. In the unlikely event of them coming into contact with antimatter in any form, a catastrophic explosion will occur which may result in personal injury, or even death. The writer of this email is not responsible for any injury or death resulting from this email.
-------------------------------------------------
Don't call me "Generation X," call me a child of the eighties
by Bryant Adkins
published in The Reflector
January 20, 1995
-----------------------------------------------
I am a child of the eighties. That is what I prefer to be called. The nineties can do without me. Grunge isn't here to stay, fashion is fickle and "Generation X" is a myth created by some over-40 writer trying to figure out why people wear flannel in the summer.
When I got home from school, I played with my Atari 2600. I spent hours playing Pitfall or Combat or Breakout or Dodge'em Cars or Frogger.
I never did beat Asteroids. Then I watched "Scooby Doo." Daphne was a Goddess, and I thought Shaggy was smoking something synthetic in the back of their psychedelic van. I hated Scrappy.
I would sleep over at friends' houses on the weekends. We played army with G.I. Joe figures, and I set up galactic wars between Autobots and Decepticons. We stayed up half the night throwing marshmallows and Velveeta at one another. We never beat the Rubik's Cube.
I got up on Saturday mornings at 6 a.m. to watch bad Hanna-Barbera cartoons like "The Snorks," "Jabberjaw," "Captain Caveman," and "Space Ghost." In between I would watch "School House Rock."
"Conjunction junction, what's your function?"
On weeknights Daisy Duke was my future wife. I was going to own the General Lee and shoot dynamite arrows out the back. Why did they weld the doors shut?
At the movies the Nerds got Revenge on the Alpha Betas by teaming up with the Omega Mus. I watched Indiana Jones save the Ark of the Covenant, and wondered what Yoda meant when he said, "No, there is another."
Ronald Reagan was cool. Gorbachev was the guy who built a McDonalds in Moscow. My family took summer vacations to the Gulf of Mexico and collected "Muppet Movie" glasses along the way. (We had the whole set.)
My brother and I fought in the back seat. At the hotel we found creative uses for Connect Four pieces like throwing them in that big air conditioning unit.
I listened to John COUGAR Mellencamp sing about Little Pink Houses for Jack and Diane. I was bewildered by Boy George and the colors of his dreams, red, gold, and green.
MTV played videos. Nickelodeon played "You Can't Do That on Television" and Dangermouse."
HBO showed Mike Tyson pummel everybody except Robin Givens, the bad actress from "Head of the Class" who took all Mike's cashflow.
I drank Dr. Pepper. "I'm a Pepper, you're a Pepper, wouldn't you like to be a Pepper, too?" Shasta was for losers. TAB was a laboratory accident, Capri Sun was a social statement. Orange juice wasn't just for breakfast anymore, and bacon had to move over for something meatier.
My mom put a thousand Little Debbie Snack Cakes in my Charlie Brown lunch box, and filled my Snoopy Thermos with grape Kool-Aid. I would never eat the snack cakes, though. Did anyone? I got two thousand cheese and cracker snack packs, and I ate those.
I went to school and had recess. I went to the same classes everyday. Some weird guy from the eighth grade always won the science fair with the working hydro-electric plant that leaked on my project about music and plants. They just loved Beethoven.
Field day was bigger than Christmas, but it always managed to rain just enough to make everybody miserable before they fell over in the three-legged race. Where did all those panty hose come from?
Deck the Halls with Gasoline, fa la la la la la la la la," was just a song. Burping was cool. Rubber band fights were cooler. A substitute teacher was a baby sitter/marked woman. Nobody deserved that.
I went to Cub Scouts. I got my arrow-of-light, but never managed to win the Pinewood Derby. I got almost every skill award but don't remember ever doing anything.
The world stopped when the Challenger exploded.It is to us what Kennedy's assasination was to the children of the 60's.
Did a teacher come in and tell your class? Half of your friends' parents got divorced. People did not just say no to drugs.
AIDS started, but you knew more people who had a grandparent die from cancer.
Somebody in your school died before they graduated.
When you put all this stuff together, you have my childhood. If this stuff sounds familiar, then I bet you are one, too. We are children of the eighties. That is what I prefer "they" call it.
Moderate the above post down. It was supposed to go into the 80's stamp article. My bad, to many windows open at once. Thanks, sorry.
-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------
- ---------------------
Don't call me "Generation X," call me a child of the eighties
by Bryant Adkins
published in The Reflector
January 20, 1995
-----------------------------------------------
I am a child of the eighties. That is what I prefer to be called. The nineties can do without me. Grunge isn't here to stay, fashion is fickle and "Generation X" is a myth created by some over-40 writer trying to figure out why people wear flannel in the summer.
When I got home from school, I played with my Atari 2600. I spent hours playing Pitfall or Combat or Breakout or Dodge'em Cars or Frogger.
I never did beat Asteroids. Then I watched "Scooby Doo." Daphne was a Goddess, and I thought Shaggy was smoking something synthetic in the back of their psychedelic van. I hated Scrappy.
I would sleep over at friends' houses on the weekends. We played army with G.I. Joe figures, and I set up galactic wars between Autobots and Decepticons. We stayed up half the night throwing marshmallows and Velveeta at one another. We never beat the Rubik's Cube.
I got up on Saturday mornings at 6 a.m. to watch bad Hanna-Barbera cartoons like "The Snorks," "Jabberjaw," "Captain Caveman," and "Space Ghost." In between I would watch "School House Rock."
"Conjunction junction, what's your function?"
On weeknights Daisy Duke was my future wife. I was going to own the General Lee and shoot dynamite arrows out the back. Why did they weld the doors shut?
At the movies the Nerds got Revenge on the Alpha Betas by teaming up with the Omega Mus. I watched Indiana Jones save the Ark of the Covenant, and wondered what Yoda meant when he said, "No, there is another."
Ronald Reagan was cool. Gorbachev was the guy who built a McDonalds in Moscow. My family took summer vacations to the Gulf of Mexico and collected "Muppet Movie" glasses along the way. (We had the whole set.)
My brother and I fought in the back seat. At the hotel we found creative uses for Connect Four pieces like throwing them in that big air conditioning unit.
I listened to John COUGAR Mellencamp sing about Little Pink Houses for Jack and Diane. I was bewildered by Boy George and the colors of his dreams, red, gold, and green.
MTV played videos. Nickelodeon played "You Can't Do That on Television" and Dangermouse."
HBO showed Mike Tyson pummel everybody except Robin Givens, the bad actress from "Head of the Class" who took all Mike's cashflow.
I drank Dr. Pepper. "I'm a Pepper, you're a Pepper, wouldn't you like to be a Pepper, too?" Shasta was for losers. TAB was a laboratory accident, Capri Sun was a social statement. Orange juice wasn't just for breakfast anymore, and bacon had to move over for something meatier.
My mom put a thousand Little Debbie Snack Cakes in my Charlie Brown lunch box, and filled my Snoopy Thermos with grape Kool-Aid. I would never eat the snack cakes, though. Did anyone? I got two thousand cheese and cracker snack packs, and I ate those.
I went to school and had recess. I went to the same classes everyday. Some weird guy from the eighth grade always won the science fair with the working hydro-electric plant that leaked on my project about music and plants. They just loved Beethoven.
Field day was bigger than Christmas, but it always managed to rain just enough to make everybody miserable before they fell over in the three-legged race. Where did all those panty hose come from?
Deck the Halls with Gasoline, fa la la la la la la la la," was just a song. Burping was cool. Rubber band fights were cooler. A substitute teacher was a baby sitter/marked woman. Nobody deserved that.
I went to Cub Scouts. I got my arrow-of-light, but never managed to win the Pinewood Derby. I got almost every skill award but don't remember ever doing anything.
The world stopped when the Challenger exploded.It is to us what Kennedy's assasination was to the children of the 60's.
Did a teacher come in and tell your class? Half of your friends' parents got divorced. People did not just say no to drugs.
AIDS started, but you knew more people who had a grandparent die from cancer.
Somebody in your school died before they graduated.
When you put all this stuff together, you have my childhood. If this stuff sounds familiar, then I bet you are one, too. We are children of the eighties. That is what I prefer "they" call it.
Thank you so much for bringing this up Robuu.
Ahem, taxpayer money is not being spent to let others view porn, rather taxpayer money is stopping people from seeing legitimate sites in addition to blocking porn.
The Libraries pay for bandwidth like many of us. They get a fixed pipeline for a fixed dollar amount. Taxpayers aren't charged extra for the porn. But if a library purchases filtering software they are spending taxpayer money. They are in fact spending taxpayer money to block sites on breast cancer, etc, etc, blah, blah.
There is larger question that we seem to be ignoring. If a library had access to all the worlds information in an easily accessible method with an very good retrieval system, should we pseudo-arbitrarily limit what library user can access? I know the internet is not this system but it is close. The reasons why libraries limit what they carry is not because it is objectionable but rather because they have a fixed income and can only choose those books (or other media) that fulfill a public demand. Once you pay for the bandwidth and operating cost the content is free.
I've always felt that libraries are a place of learning. The ugly part of this world is still a part of it.
"Of necessity, one must endeavor to think of pleasant things, but I know nothing that gives more delight to think about and to do than fücking. Every man may philosophize all he wants, but this is the utter truth, which many people understand this way but few will say." -- Niccolo Machiavelli
The distinction between you example and what is happening here is great. Everyone knows not to leave a pile of firearms in ones backyard but not everyone knows how (or has the resources) to protect thier computer from attack. A better example would be someone who's car is broken into and used for a crime. They reasonably thought thier car was reasonably secure. They could have installed one of those tire locks on it but that is an unreasonablly high expectaion. Don't blame the victim because they aren't as technologically savy as you.
"Of necessity, one must endeavor to think of pleasant things, but I know nothing that gives more delight to think about and to do than fücking. Every man may philosophize all he wants, but this is the utter truth, which many people understand this way but few will say." -- Niccolo Machiavelli
If you didn't read the article do so, it makes more sense than many of the comments I've read here do. Moving right along.
Anyone who claims that standardized test are anything like fair or who gives some sort of credibility to the idea that they measures how well you will do in collage is ignorant of the facts. Check out Frontlines special on the SAT. To paraphrase the CEO of Kaplan (the number one provider of SAT tutoring), "For $400 I can raise any kids score 200 points in a week. Did I make them smarter? No, I just taught him the tricks to do well on a standardized test. So what does it mean then. It means money not intelligence will get you into college". Or from the vice president of the company that puts out the SAT (EM?, I forget), "We know that these test don't measure intelligence, but its a metric that is now the de facto standard". No one, not even the people most intimately involved with the test, believes standardized measures anything credible.
And when did disadvantaged and minority become synonymous. Poverty is the most significant disadvantage. If you live in a poor neighborhood, you pay less in property taxes which means local schools get less money and in turn, you get less than desirable teachers, text books you probably are NOT allowed to take home, etc, etc. So now you want to take a $50 test (hope you can afford it) with no other preparation. I will bet you $1000 to $1 that anyone whose parents make over $100,000 a year will do better than anyone who's parent (notice the singular) makes less than $15,000 a year. And I will win 99 times out of 100. Poverty is cyclical. The barriers to the world we live in (yes us, reading this on our computers), are extremely difficult to surmount and it isn't just will or effort that is required. You need a family infrastructure, you need money and you need a whole hell of a lot of guts.
At least these people at Colorado College are trying to make a more fair way. This may not be the answer but it's an effort to find a solution to a system that obviously doesn't work.
-------
Without spell check I'd be extinct by now.
I would like to point out that we're not being "buried in our own garbage". This is largely a view promoted by environmentalists that don't understand how big the planet is, and sometimes, "just throwing it away", is the best thing to do from a environmental perspective!
Good point we can haul our trash to some under, though not un-populated area in the stix. Unfortunately these locations are becoming further and further away from the source of the trash (cities) because of the expanding effect of cities, so it takes more enregy to get the trash to these repositories.
I don't want to start a flamewar, and I'll probably get moderated down by an eco-freak, but please concider[sic] that when you recycle something, it doesn't magically turn into another product. It requires a LOT of energy to recycle something, and contrary to what suburban SUV-drivin feel-good people thing, power doesn't come out of the wall for free.
Of course it takes energy to recycle something, but it also takes energy to manufacture something. I find it difficult to believe it takes less energy to mine ore in Argentina smelt it ship it to the US and manufacture soda pop cans than it does to collect cans locally ship the within the US (and probably the state), re-smelt and manufacture it. As to the SUV's Hallelujah! I'll take 30 miles to the gallon over 10 mpg no matter what the fashion statement, and pocket the $15,000 difference.
It needs to come from a coal, hydro (which ISN'T eco-friendly - flooded land produces methane, worse for the environment than coal!) or nuclear plant. Recycling is often worse than throwing it away!
Um...yes it is. I can't site any studies here, but I've been to reservoirs and dams and such (which also have their ecological problems, primarily dealing with inability of fish to spawn up river when their if this three hundred foot wall in the way...sort of like the difficulties of a geek getting laid...) and I've been to Eastern Europe. Coal sucks. The stuff you can see is bad enough much less the hydrocarbons.
Interestingly enough, a study done in England (Referenced in American Scientific, Sigma Xi Jorunal) indicates that recycling causes _more_ consumption, since people _feel good_ about using recycled products!
Sure more consumption but of what products? Recycled products or non-recycled products? If it's a feel good phenomenon, would people who recycle want to purchase the goods they recycle. And for that matter if you use resources more efficiently you can afford to manufacture more.
This doesn't mean a throw away culture is OK - but if you need the service or product, it might make sense. There is L O T S of room for L O T S of garbage on this planet - more than we will ever need, 'cause we'll do ourselves long in based on current population projections before this is an issue.
Sure there is lots of space. Its ridiculous to think that we could bury the planet in trash. However fatalistic attitudes on how we should use the limited resources on the planet are unlikely to lead to any meaningful adjustment of how to properly use those resources.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Recycling is last, because it doesn't work very well! Why does everyone forget about the first two, which work _Really_ well. Cut down, and reuse.
Reduce - don't get the freaking bag if you only have a few items, its okay to ask that you not get a bag.
Reuse - if you have a bag at home, put it in your pocket and bring it with you, those pastic bags are both light and compact.
Recycle - we are all just going to die anyway...I mean, sure when the bag is getting old recycle it.
Just because it's disposable, doesn't mean it's bad. It might even be BETTER. It might not feel good, though. Consuming resources is something we should think about, and I think people think sucking energy is OK just because it's being recycled, which sometimes is really dumb. Sure sometimes it is good to have disposable items.
A great couple of examples are needles and condoms. I wouldn't want anyone reusing those. {shiver}
Think about that when you're haulin those bottles back in your 4 ton Ford Extrusion, er, Excursion, wasting a resource we should conserve - gasoline.
If you or the (trash person) are going to be hauling it to a dump somewhere, why would it take more energy to haul it to a recycle center?
Here is a fun little trick. Just find all the male portions of grammar in a document, replace them with the female counterpart (another good trick is using "black" instead of "woman", or virtually any minority group), touch up a little here and there and see if the original document its still offensive.
This test has worked for me a lot in the past to try to determine is what is being said is bigoted. I grew up in a "traditional" (that is to say rasist and sexist) household so its tough for me sometimes to see "others" points of view.
If you wanna check it out go to this page.