I agree with you, and I'm not suggesting it's a panacea for replacing communication. Communication and compromise are both elements I've stressed.
However, there are simply times when discussion becomes irrelevant. A recent (trivial) example: working on a DIY project, we had to place stick-on vinyl tiles onto the floor in our pantry. The floor was old concrete, badly laid, and very uneven. I told my wife that we would have to level if off first for the tiles to stick properly, otherwise they'll just peel off. My wife can be impatient with such things, and she kept insisting, no, it's fine, it'll work, don't be so negative.
I was starting to get annoyed, and so was she. I kept explaining, but it just didn't matter. So, realising it wasn't worth getting worked up over, I did as she asked ("Yes, dear")... and the tiles didn't stick properly. She admitted it, and apologised, and we then proceeded to fix the situation.
The point is, no matter how rational and logical you are, no matter how much you discuss, and work towards consensus, there will always be situations where one of you is completely irrational. Humans are like that:) And it's at times like that, that you have to swallow your pride, and do it.
Based on nothing, eh? Interesting. It does, indeed, work for me, so I gather "personal experience" is not the sort of experience you're looking for.
Well, all I can say is that every single married couple I know (I know quite a few) has said to me that their number one rule for success has been communication. Every single couple I know who has gotten divorced (including my own mother and father) has told me that lack of communication was a big issue in their break up.
Hey, not terribly scientific, sure, but let's just say that in the 9+ years of our relationship together, not once have we ever felt that it's been in danger.
As for "Yes, dear." It's not about grovelling. It's not about being a door-mat. It's not about actually saying, "Yes, dear." It's about compromise, and accepting that there are other things that the other person wants, or believes, no matter how irrational, stupid or obvious it is to you. Oh, and it does actually work both ways, not just a man agreeing with a woman.
My experience tells me otherwise. You normally both end up going to bed feeling really shitty, and things get left unsaid. You have a bad night sleep, because you're worried, and wake up the next day feeling crap, thoughts stewing in your head, often blaming the other person. Very often, it's easy to just sweep it under the carpet and things get left unsaid. Overall, things get worse.
Actually, it should be, "Never go to sleep angry." Normally we end up going to bed, and after a few minutes, we're feeling crap, and start discussing rationally.
I'm not saying it's not important to know when to walk away for tempers to cool (that's definitely good advice) but leaving things hanging in the air for any length of time, even for sleep, is not good.
Yeah, some good advice. I'm married, and while my wife isn't geeky, the same "rules" apply in all marriages, IMO:
Always communicate.
Never go to bed angry.
Learn to say, "Yes, dear."
Learn to accept the things you don't have in common, rather than just focusing on the things you do have in common.
Remember to always listen, as this is mostly all that is often needed.
Best of luck for your future together! I don't regret getting married for a second.
PS. Also, let her win at things, no matter how good you are. Trust me on this one. Oh, and when you ask her if she's okay and she says, "Nothing's wrong.", give her a hug, because something is definitely wrong!
Can't the franchise just die after the horrible efforts done by Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Alien Resurrection and David Fincher's Aliens 3? I think these films ruined Aliens forever.
After Alien Resurrection, I must admit that I then realised Aliens 3 was actually not such a bad film after all.
The only way one could possibly care is if one thinks animals are akin to humans in terms of having sentience or a "soul" of some sort.
Why should that be the criteria? How about caring because it's another living creature? But since you asked, animals do demonstrate intelligence and emotion - plenty of evidence to back that up.
There's nothing trendy in respecting life. It's to be human. In the words of Bernard Shaw:
"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them, that's the essence of inhumanity."
Sure, but I never claimed organic was. I'm speaking specifically about the OP's claim that "there's no really any reason why technologically made or improved food would be more riskier".
IMO, the best solution is organic and free-range, as a minimum standard. (Although free-range has also been shown to have been abused, so perhaps something better would be needed).
I think you're missing the point. I'm not arguing against the killing of animals (although I do respect those who take a stand against it). I said quite clearly, I'm not a vegetarian. I don't mind people eating meat.
The point is that we torture them for their entire, short, miserable lives. Lions don't imprison 823 million impala in huge concentrations, artificially increasing their weight to grow abnormally fast in shorter time spans and thereby crippling some 27% them, keeping them in their own shit for so long that they suffer burns on their legs.
And unless you consider humans to be just dumb beasts that simply cannot make ethical choices, saying it's "nature" is a cop out. We can change things. Compassion in World Farming is a good place to start.
"That is technological improvement, so there's no really any reason why technologically made or improved food would be more riskier."
Of course, the welfare and quality of life of the animals that make up our food is of no concern to you? Or the effect on the environment? Just that the food is not "risky" to your health?
I'm not a vegetarian, but frankly, the shit that we're doing to our animals to mass produce meat cheaply is disgusting.
And define "risky", because from here I'm sitting, there are a large number of direct and indirect risks we suffer thanks to mechanisation and industrialisation of our food supply. Environmental destruction, such as poisoning our water supply, the earth, and the air. Increased risks of diseases, too. IMO, things like swine flu are direct results of the mechanisation and industrialisation of our food process.
It is no coincidence that La Gloria (which is suspected of being ground zero for Swine Flu) just happened to have a huge hog farm operated by Granjas Carroll (50% owned by Smithfield Foods). Their hog operations generate lagoons of waste stuffed with antibiotics, ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, cyanide, phosphorous, nitrates, heavy metals - all sorts of shit that isn't shit.
Slashdot won't let me C&P the URL properly, so combine it together: http://www.rollingstone.com//politics/story/12840743/porks_dirty_secret_
the_nations_top_
hog_producer_is_
also_one_of_
americas_worst_polluters
"In North Carolina alone [Smithfield's lagoons of waste] have spilled, in a span of four years, 2 million gallons of shit into the Cape Fear River, 1.5 million gallons into its Persimmon Branch, one million gallons into the Trent River and 200,000 gallons into Turkey Creek. In Virginia, Smithfield was fined $12.6 million in 1997 for 6,900 violations of the Clean Water Act - the third-largest civil penalty ever levied under the act by the EPA. It amounted to.035 percent of Smithfield's annual sales."
It's not just our meat, either. Chlorine being used to wash "ready to eat" foods? Growth hormones, antibiotics and all sorts of shit in milk? What about pesticides? Just recently saw a report that suggests the cocktail of pesticides could be behind Colony Collapse Disorder. Carcinogenic ingredients being added to food?
Again, IMO, the incidents of cancer that we're seeing these days are directly linked with what we're doing to our food supply.
Technology's a great thing, except when it gets in the hands of greedy, unethical bastards who couldn't give a shit except to their bottom line.
Actually, the article linked to claimed that cafe owners love the trend. Why?
"If there was nobody in here, people would say 'That place is no good,' " said Dale Roberts, who owns the Java Shack. "It feeds on itself. If you go to a movie theater and see a long line, people want to see that movie. It's the same thing for a coffee shop."
Even though there are obviously parallels with Apartheid, I think there are much closer parallels to the recent and growing xenophobia against immigrants (illegal or not) in South Africa. Incidentally, there's a good interview with Blomkamp here where he notes that both of these played crucial roles in the film. He also mentions that in the first week of filming, the recent xenophobic riots took place where people were murdered and burnt alive etc. Alive in Jo'Burg was also clearly influenced by xenophobia.
Essentially, the main complaint he has is that the creative industry is going to be governed by a handful of companies (an oligopoly) or a single company (a monopoly), and that this has great risks for the creative industries because said company/companies will be able to impose their will on the creative artists e.g. what books they'll stock/sell, what price they'll pay for it, and sell it at, etc.
The only way to combat this is to ensure that there are no "gatekeepers", and that there is healthy competition.
However, he's saying that the cost to enter the market for these competitors is becoming too high because of deals involving copyright issues that place Google and Amazon at the forefront since they can afford to pay the high sums being asked for.
So, he's saying that RIAA, the MPAA, the Author's Guild and the like should make it much cheaper and easier for people to get into the market to sell stuff. FTA:
What if the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) had started out by offering MP3 licenses on fair terms to any wholesaler who wanted to open a retailer (online or offline), so that the cost of starting a Web music store was a known quantity, rather than a potentially limitless litigation quagmire?
What if the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the North American Broadcasters Association made their streams available to anyone who paid a portion of their advertising revenue (with a guaranteed minimum), allowing 10 million video-on-demand systems to spring up from every garage in the world?
What if the Authors Guild had offered to stop suing Google for notional copyright violations in exchange for Google contributing its scans to a common pool of indexable books available to all search-engines, ensuring that book search was as competitive as Web search?
Dunno, it seems to me that he's just describing basic economics, and the dangers of monopolies and oligopolies.
Full story requires payment or subscription (which I don't have), but the blurb reads:
It has been established that, owing to the proximity of a resonance with Jupiter, Mercury's eccentricity can be pumped to values large enough to allow collision with Venus within 5 Gyr (refs 1-3). This conclusion, however, was established either with averaged equations1, 2 that are not appropriate near the collisions or with non-relativistic models in which the resonance effect is greatly enhanced by a decrease of the perihelion velocity of Mercury2, 3. In these previous studies, the Earth's orbit was essentially unaffected. Here we report numerical simulations of the evolution of the Solar System over 5 Gyr, including contributions from the Moon and general relativity. In a set of 2,501 orbits with initial conditions that are in agreement with our present knowledge of the parameters of the Solar System, we found, as in previous studies2, that one per cent of the solutions lead to a large increase in Mercury's eccentricity - an increase large enough to allow collisions with Venus or the Sun. More surprisingly, in one of these high-eccentricity solutions, a subsequent decrease in Mercury's eccentricity induces a transfer of angular momentum from the giant planets that destabilizes all the terrestrial planets approx3.34 Gyr from now, with possible collisions of Mercury, Mars or Venus with the Earth.
Universal Law of Twitter ...
on
One-Tweet Wonders
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Krou's law: There is, on average, only one tweet per twit.
Unbiased? Maybe it's different in the States, but when I left school in South Africa and did some "real world" reading, I quickly realised just how biased my state education actually was. From what I can tell, the same is true here in the UK, albeit a bit more subtle. My history education, just for starters, was a pile of garbage, maintaining the State view of "black people were completely useless until the white men came", while even learning a language like Zulu was skewed: the only things we learnt was crap like "Clean the windows", and "Make me tea", emphasising the attitude of master-servant.
... who find is very suspicious that a robot from the future that pretended to be our friend is now pushing through legislation to increase our dependence on machines and technology?
Sure, and I totally agree; I want things to go further, but I favour the Dutch model because it's the one most likely to be accepted and/or implemented initially. Once that's done, hopefully it can be improved.
Actually, I think you completely misunderstand why many people want drugs like marijuana legalised.
It's not just so you can light a joint any time that you want without risk of being caught. There are a lot more important issues here.
It's because the current system is harmful, wastes money, and doesn't work. It's got sweet FA to do about taking the drugs themselves to solve society's problems. It's about legalising drugs in order to solve problems the Drug War and prohibition creates. It's about solving the issues of: wasting public money in a drugs war that has had no tangible effect; treating drug users as criminals and overburdening the prison population (not to mention the cost of incarceration, the cost to the economy, and the social costs as well); it's about focusing on the real issue, which is addiction and rehabilitation.
Sit down and read through this website and hopefully you'll understand why the War on Drugs is bogus, and why marijuana (at the very least) should be legalised. I, myself, take the view that the Dutch model is the way to go (so I go further than just legalisation of marijuana).
Incidentally, in my opinion it's not that the voting public don't want it, it's that it's not an issue on the agenda in the media itself, which shapes the opinions of the voting public (never mind that the US government and certain banks have and continue to make extremely large profits as a result of drugs). The "War on Drugs" has been and is extremely lucrative for big business, and for the government, in terms of profits and control, and that's one of the underlying reasons why the myths of the dangers of legalising drugs like marijuana continue to dominate discourse.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with you, and I'm not suggesting it's a panacea for replacing communication. Communication and compromise are both elements I've stressed.
However, there are simply times when discussion becomes irrelevant. A recent (trivial) example: working on a DIY project, we had to place stick-on vinyl tiles onto the floor in our pantry. The floor was old concrete, badly laid, and very uneven. I told my wife that we would have to level if off first for the tiles to stick properly, otherwise they'll just peel off. My wife can be impatient with such things, and she kept insisting, no, it's fine, it'll work, don't be so negative.
I was starting to get annoyed, and so was she. I kept explaining, but it just didn't matter. So, realising it wasn't worth getting worked up over, I did as she asked ("Yes, dear") ... and the tiles didn't stick properly. She admitted it, and apologised, and we then proceeded to fix the situation.
The point is, no matter how rational and logical you are, no matter how much you discuss, and work towards consensus, there will always be situations where one of you is completely irrational. Humans are like that :) And it's at times like that, that you have to swallow your pride, and do it.
100% correct, would definitely mod you up if I could.
Based on nothing, eh? Interesting. It does, indeed, work for me, so I gather "personal experience" is not the sort of experience you're looking for.
Well, all I can say is that every single married couple I know (I know quite a few) has said to me that their number one rule for success has been communication. Every single couple I know who has gotten divorced (including my own mother and father) has told me that lack of communication was a big issue in their break up.
Hey, not terribly scientific, sure, but let's just say that in the 9+ years of our relationship together, not once have we ever felt that it's been in danger.
As for "Yes, dear." It's not about grovelling. It's not about being a door-mat. It's not about actually saying, "Yes, dear." It's about compromise, and accepting that there are other things that the other person wants, or believes, no matter how irrational, stupid or obvious it is to you. Oh, and it does actually work both ways, not just a man agreeing with a woman.
My experience tells me otherwise. You normally both end up going to bed feeling really shitty, and things get left unsaid. You have a bad night sleep, because you're worried, and wake up the next day feeling crap, thoughts stewing in your head, often blaming the other person. Very often, it's easy to just sweep it under the carpet and things get left unsaid. Overall, things get worse.
Actually, it should be, "Never go to sleep angry." Normally we end up going to bed, and after a few minutes, we're feeling crap, and start discussing rationally.
I'm not saying it's not important to know when to walk away for tempers to cool (that's definitely good advice) but leaving things hanging in the air for any length of time, even for sleep, is not good.
Is your wife a goer, eh? Know whatahmean, know whatahmean, nudge nudge, know whatahmean, say no more? ;)
Yeah, some good advice. I'm married, and while my wife isn't geeky, the same "rules" apply in all marriages, IMO:
Best of luck for your future together! I don't regret getting married for a second.
PS. Also, let her win at things, no matter how good you are. Trust me on this one. Oh, and when you ask her if she's okay and she says, "Nothing's wrong.", give her a hug, because something is definitely wrong!
After Alien Resurrection, I must admit that I then realised Aliens 3 was actually not such a bad film after all.
Me and my squad of ultimate badasses will protect you!
Why should that be the criteria? How about caring because it's another living creature? But since you asked, animals do demonstrate intelligence and emotion - plenty of evidence to back that up.
There's nothing trendy in respecting life. It's to be human. In the words of Bernard Shaw:
Sure, but I never claimed organic was. I'm speaking specifically about the OP's claim that "there's no really any reason why technologically made or improved food would be more riskier".
IMO, the best solution is organic and free-range, as a minimum standard. (Although free-range has also been shown to have been abused, so perhaps something better would be needed).
I think you're missing the point. I'm not arguing against the killing of animals (although I do respect those who take a stand against it). I said quite clearly, I'm not a vegetarian. I don't mind people eating meat.
The point is that we torture them for their entire, short, miserable lives. Lions don't imprison 823 million impala in huge concentrations, artificially increasing their weight to grow abnormally fast in shorter time spans and thereby crippling some 27% them, keeping them in their own shit for so long that they suffer burns on their legs.
And unless you consider humans to be just dumb beasts that simply cannot make ethical choices, saying it's "nature" is a cop out. We can change things. Compassion in World Farming is a good place to start.
"That is technological improvement, so there's no really any reason why technologically made or improved food would be more riskier."
Of course, the welfare and quality of life of the animals that make up our food is of no concern to you? Or the effect on the environment? Just that the food is not "risky" to your health?
I'm not a vegetarian, but frankly, the shit that we're doing to our animals to mass produce meat cheaply is disgusting.
And define "risky", because from here I'm sitting, there are a large number of direct and indirect risks we suffer thanks to mechanisation and industrialisation of our food supply. Environmental destruction, such as poisoning our water supply, the earth, and the air. Increased risks of diseases, too. IMO, things like swine flu are direct results of the mechanisation and industrialisation of our food process.
It is no coincidence that La Gloria (which is suspected of being ground zero for Swine Flu) just happened to have a huge hog farm operated by Granjas Carroll (50% owned by Smithfield Foods). Their hog operations generate lagoons of waste stuffed with antibiotics, ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, cyanide, phosphorous, nitrates, heavy metals - all sorts of shit that isn't shit.
Slashdot won't let me C&P the URL properly, so combine it together: http://www.rollingstone.com/ /politics/story/12840743 /porks_dirty_secret_
the_nations_top_
hog_producer_is_
also_one_of_
americas_worst_polluters
It's not just our meat, either. Chlorine being used to wash "ready to eat" foods? Growth hormones, antibiotics and all sorts of shit in milk? What about pesticides? Just recently saw a report that suggests the cocktail of pesticides could be behind Colony Collapse Disorder. Carcinogenic ingredients being added to food?
Again, IMO, the incidents of cancer that we're seeing these days are directly linked with what we're doing to our food supply.
Technology's a great thing, except when it gets in the hands of greedy, unethical bastards who couldn't give a shit except to their bottom line.
Even though there are obviously parallels with Apartheid, I think there are much closer parallels to the recent and growing xenophobia against immigrants (illegal or not) in South Africa. Incidentally, there's a good interview with Blomkamp here where he notes that both of these played crucial roles in the film. He also mentions that in the first week of filming, the recent xenophobic riots took place where people were murdered and burnt alive etc. Alive in Jo'Burg was also clearly influenced by xenophobia.
Weather man: The sky is lovely and blue today ...
Us: ZOMG! Blue skyz of deathz!
Essentially, the main complaint he has is that the creative industry is going to be governed by a handful of companies (an oligopoly) or a single company (a monopoly), and that this has great risks for the creative industries because said company/companies will be able to impose their will on the creative artists e.g. what books they'll stock/sell, what price they'll pay for it, and sell it at, etc.
The only way to combat this is to ensure that there are no "gatekeepers", and that there is healthy competition.
However, he's saying that the cost to enter the market for these competitors is becoming too high because of deals involving copyright issues that place Google and Amazon at the forefront since they can afford to pay the high sums being asked for.
So, he's saying that RIAA, the MPAA, the Author's Guild and the like should make it much cheaper and easier for people to get into the market to sell stuff. FTA:
Dunno, it seems to me that he's just describing basic economics, and the dangers of monopolies and oligopolies.
Other major points in the report (from this BBC article):
That's pretty optimistic. If you RTFA, they're estimating 20-30 years.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7248/full/nature08096.html
Full story requires payment or subscription (which I don't have), but the blurb reads:
Krou's law: There is, on average, only one tweet per twit.
Unbiased? Maybe it's different in the States, but when I left school in South Africa and did some "real world" reading, I quickly realised just how biased my state education actually was. From what I can tell, the same is true here in the UK, albeit a bit more subtle. My history education, just for starters, was a pile of garbage, maintaining the State view of "black people were completely useless until the white men came", while even learning a language like Zulu was skewed: the only things we learnt was crap like "Clean the windows", and "Make me tea", emphasising the attitude of master-servant.
... who find is very suspicious that a robot from the future that pretended to be our friend is now pushing through legislation to increase our dependence on machines and technology?
It's a trap!
Sounds more like some sort of sick, subtle branding exercise. Is nothing sacred?
Sure, and I totally agree; I want things to go further, but I favour the Dutch model because it's the one most likely to be accepted and/or implemented initially. Once that's done, hopefully it can be improved.
Actually, I think you completely misunderstand why many people want drugs like marijuana legalised.
It's not just so you can light a joint any time that you want without risk of being caught. There are a lot more important issues here.
It's because the current system is harmful, wastes money, and doesn't work. It's got sweet FA to do about taking the drugs themselves to solve society's problems. It's about legalising drugs in order to solve problems the Drug War and prohibition creates. It's about solving the issues of: wasting public money in a drugs war that has had no tangible effect; treating drug users as criminals and overburdening the prison population (not to mention the cost of incarceration, the cost to the economy, and the social costs as well); it's about focusing on the real issue, which is addiction and rehabilitation.
Sit down and read through this website and hopefully you'll understand why the War on Drugs is bogus, and why marijuana (at the very least) should be legalised. I, myself, take the view that the Dutch model is the way to go (so I go further than just legalisation of marijuana).
Incidentally, in my opinion it's not that the voting public don't want it, it's that it's not an issue on the agenda in the media itself, which shapes the opinions of the voting public (never mind that the US government and certain banks have and continue to make extremely large profits as a result of drugs). The "War on Drugs" has been and is extremely lucrative for big business, and for the government, in terms of profits and control, and that's one of the underlying reasons why the myths of the dangers of legalising drugs like marijuana continue to dominate discourse.