"Knocking these animals out of the food chain will, in time, affect species relevant to fisheries."
Gotta love that. "Hey, turns out we've devastated the local environment!" "Why should I care?" "But whole species could die, or be pushed to the brink of extinction!" "Meh." "Well... fishermen could lose their jobs!" "Oh, that is a big deal! They'd better get right on that." "Hm, how can I put this... You'll have to pay more for fish, and Your Tax Dollars* will have to be used to solve the problem!" "TO ACTION!"
Engineers are geniuses at engineering. Marketers are geniuses at marketing, a skill which, being social and aesthetic, engineers generally fail at.
Just because I don't box and don't like Mike Tyson doesn't mean Mike Tyson wasn't an amazing boxer.
Tyson was a pioneer. Traditionalists always insist that boxing is a sport in which people are supposed to bludgeon each other with their fists... Tyson broadened our horizons, showed us how the time-honored sport could be enhanced through the use of teeth-based attacks.
I mean, I liked PalmOS quite a bit back in the day - and I still use a PalmOS Treo...
But what aspects of Palm phones did Apple ever copy? PalmOS pretty much just used the touch-screen as a mouse, expected you to operate it with a stylus. It wasn't until after iPhone that Palm started in with WebOS and made phones with a touchscreen UI meant to be operated without a stylus...
True. However, when Jobs goes, whether that be in two weeks or two decades, he will rise again in three days, so let's not be worried.
I hope it's not gonna be one of those deals where he rises from the dead, just to say, "See, I'm totally not dead." and then departs the mortal plane forever... That just seems like showing off.
Really, though, if he comes back from the dead, I expect the first thing he's gonna say is, "Oh, one more thing..."
Everything isn't art.. If i took a sh*t on the sidewalk of some major city street because it was different, socially odd and not logical could I call that pile of poo art? N
Sure, why not? Take whatever you like, call it art. There aren't any strict rules about what you can call "art". So go ahead, create a body of work, write an elaborate load of bullshit to accompany it ("artist's statement") and see if you have any success showing and selling it, if that's what you want.
Will it be well-received? Who knows? Maybe people will see the work in the spirit in which you apparently intend it - a harsh criticism of the art world in general. "I can do this and it's art and you'll love me for it and buy it - that's what's wrong with art." Some may buy it because they feel the art world richly deserves that kind of treatment. Some may enjoy the fact that you're pissing people off, and support the work so they can piss people off, too. Some may think your work is popular, or that it could one day be valuable, and buy it because of that. You can game the system that you don't respect. Some people have been rather successful at this.
And some may just say, "Oh, this again," point to a dozen artists who did the same thing, devise rationalizations for why their version was better than yours, etc. In reality it's possible the novelty of the idea has just worn off.
The point is, "art" doesn't imply "good art" or "worthwhile art" or "interesting art" or "popular art". Really, all those subsets of "art" are largely independent of one another. You can create whatever you want and call it "art". You may find this personally rewarding or you may hope to profit from it... The term "art" doesn't actually convey any special status.
"Yes. Everything that isn't directly and solely related to the practical actions necessary for survival is art."
So me pissing on someones head from a bridge must be pure art then?
Could be, actually. Why not?
Whether anybody wants to come see your performances, or the gallery opening where you exhibit photos of yourself doing this is another matter entirely.
>>>On trains you can sleep, watch movies, play video games, whatever.
I already do some of that in my car (read books via audio, listen to movies, listen to music, or hear college lectures/podcasts). The 30-45 minute drive to work is not a waste when you plan ahead..... and it's my own personal world, that is not being interrupted by smelly, rude people (the type riding on trains).
If I were talking about a 30-45 minute drive, it wouldn't even be worth the trouble of getting to the train station to avoid it...
I'm talking about a trip that takes 6-12 hours (or more!) by car. Boston to Rochester, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, DC, Chicago, etc.
I have gotten through trips like that with audio books and music - it's enjoyable, and it's a pretty good way to carve out an hour or two of the trip. But it can be tiresome listening to the narrator for that long.
As for the people on trains - obviously this is going to vary, and I have ridden with some people I would have preferred not to - but most of the time I've found the people riding trains to be pretty nice. But, again, I'm talking about Amtrak interstate travel here, not subways... Subways are less pleasant.:)
"Compare the experience of a delay or layover on a train to the experience of being stuck in traffic - in either case you may stress out about whether you'll reach your destination on time, but in the case of train travel you can relax and count on the train crew to work it out. You aren't operating a vehicle as it creeps forward in a hundred miles of stop-and-go traffic, you are in a comfortable seat with easy access to your luggage, there is a toilet available and probably a snack car."
Geez...where and when do you drive where you have a hundred miles of creep along, stand still traffic??
Jersey turnpike on a bad day.:)
Of course, on a 600 mile drive, it's pretty easy to accumulate 100 miles of horrible traffic over various points in the trip. Just drive through Connecticut, NY, and Jersey and you're most of the way there...
"Compare the experience of a delay or layover on a train to the experience of being stuck in traffic"
High speed trains are almost stuck-free. They go over they own rails, each way. I used to take it almost weekly and I got only one problem in 6/7 years.
Even better.
But my experience with train travel is just the present Amtrak (not even Acela) - going just about anywhere from here (Boston area) means a couple hours sitting around in New York.
But it's much more pleasant to spend those hours on a train rather than, say, driving in Hartford, New York, or on the Jersey pike when there's traffic there. A long drive without much traffic is taxing and monotonous. Add traffic and the trip can become borderline hellish pretty quick. If I were on the train experiencing that kind of delay it'd be a lot less frustrating because I wouldn't have to deal with it on a minute-to-minute basis. Instead I could relax.
Meanwhile, you can't even take AmTrak from Los Angeles to San Francisco. You have to get off and ride the bus. It's been like this for months. Do the politicians seriously think they need to invest in high speed trains when they can't even maintain the normal ones?
Maybe they think they need to invest in high speed trains because the normal ones aren't sufficient?
I mean, they could invest the same money in the regular rail system, but one of the basic problems with passenger rail at present is that it runs freight rails. To make the system work better you need more rail, so the passenger rail isn't constantly at the mercy of freight rail schedules.
If you thought making air travel "secure" was fun, wait until you try to make hundreds of miles of train tracks secure.
Suppose you don't make tracks secure, though. What's going to happen?
I mean, you bomb the train or you bomb the tracks, what you've accomplished is damaging some rail, wrecking a train, killing the people on the train and doing some damage to anything the train hits when it derails. A horrific scene to be sure. But it doesn't measure up to the level of damage done in the WTC incident (thousands dead, the whole incident broadcast live to the whole country as it dragged out over hours, toxic building debris scattered through the surrounding air, etc.) - it's not as destructive and it's not as potent in its "terror". So while it'd be a relatively easy target, I don't see it as being a particularly worthwhile target for terrorism.
This isn't a troll, I would really like someone to explain the situations where a high speed train is better than an airplane or a car.
If I travel by car, I need to drive it. If the destination is hundreds of miles away this can be very wearying. If there's traffic involved it can be agonizing.
If I travel by air, the actual travel time is usually quite nice, but I spend far too much time dealing with airports. If I'm at the airport for a few hours at a stretch, I have some time to relax - but getting to the airport an hour before departure, going through security, sitting around waiting to get on a plane, getting on a plane, waiting for the plane to take off, and then repeating the process anywhere I have to change planes - it's all kind of a drag. It is possible, as you say, that high-speed rail will have all the same problems.
What I enjoy about rail travel presently is that it's very low-stress and generally quite enjoyable. I can get to the station five minutes before my train leaves and walk on when it's time. The travel itself takes a long time, but there's not a lot of switching trains. Mostly I can just stay put in my seat, sleep continuously through the whole trip if I need the sleep, or use the computer or whatever.
Somebody else pointed out that it's very difficult to crash a train into a skyscraper - obviously if the train were to be used as a vector for a terrorist attack they'd figure something else out - but offhand I couldn't say what could be done with a train to make it as dangerous as a hijacked plane... Put a nuclear weapon or bioweapon on it? Assuming you've got such a thing in the country in the first place, it seems you'd be better served just driving it yourself...
Why would we want to imitate two countries that have spent the last 15+ years in economic decline (called "the lost decade" in Japan)? That would be akin to saying, "Let's model our system on the fallen empire of Rome." Um. No thanks.
Cars offer more flexibility than trains do (you can hop in your car in the middle of the night - can't do that with a train). Cars also offer more options (can drive to the beach tomorrow - can't do that with a train).
Yeah, but trains offer you the ability to spend your travel time doing something other than driving. You can sleep, watch movies, play video games, whatever.
Compare the experience of a delay or layover on a train to the experience of being stuck in traffic - in either case you may stress out about whether you'll reach your destination on time, but in the case of train travel you can relax and count on the train crew to work it out. You aren't operating a vehicle as it creeps forward in a hundred miles of stop-and-go traffic, you are in a comfortable seat with easy access to your luggage, there is a toilet available and probably a snack car.
Train travel is relatively expensive and I'm not fond of that aspect of it, obviously - but what I love about it is that it's so relaxed compared to flying or driving. I don't have to deal with the elaborate security that airports have, and I don't have to be driving for ten hours straight. I do have to be sitting in a train for a long period of time (hours, overnight, whatever) to get to my destination - but most of the time I have access to a power outlet and the freedom to use my computer. It's an enjoyable way to travel.
It's true that with trains, as with flying, you wind up at the destination station with no means of travel to your real destination. One could rent a car or get a cab or whatever - I agree it's a problem, a fundamental limitation of traveling that way. Still, in some cases this limitation is perfectly OK - I can travel to DC and have my in-laws pick me up at the station, or travel to Baltimore or Pittsburgh and walk to the con center, things like that.
None of the trains I've ever been on have run (close to) empty. They're usually (in my experience) filled to capacity for most of the trip.
I just wish people would quit treating it like there's only two options.
It's not that there's only two options: but if you find the DRM objectionable, you should either be willing to act on that, or STFU and accept it. The third option, whining about it and doing nothing, is viable but not really worthwhile.
Avoiding any kind of monetary support toward the DRMing publisher is just one way you can act on your objection. But if your objection isn't strong enough that you're willing to do something about that, it's good to recognize that and move on.
I happen to like some of their games, thanks. More than enough to ignore this particular incident.
What's that comment about them coming for the communists, but I wasn't a communist, then they came for my XBox but I had a PS3 and then they came for me and there was no one left to fight for me?
As I recall it goes something like this: "First they came for the communists, but I wasn't a communist, then they came for my XBox but I had a PS3, and then they came for me and there was no one left to fight for me."
Even corporations. Let's boycott Capcom's games, Capcom's gadgets, and Capcom's websites.
-1 over-rated??? More like: +1 insightful.
I am with you 100%. Boycott them.
Sorry, it is overrated. Boycotting content companies doesn't work. They blame piracy instead of noticing that people aren't handing them money.
Even if it doesn't accomplish something, I think it's important that people recognize the limits of their resolve.
"Capcom's new games have horrible anti-piracy measures" "I hate that! Fuck Capcom!" "Yeah, let's not buy any more Capcom stuff..." "Sure! Except for that new Street Fighter game."
See, if you're not willing to go at least as far as avoiding products you find objectionable, your outrage is meaningless. Testing that resolve, instead of merely talking about it, is necessary in order to resolve the issue to your own satisfaction. (i.e. either accept the DRM, or accept that you won't own those games that use it...)
Slashdot Mirror
"Knocking these animals out of the food chain will, in time, affect species relevant to fisheries."
Gotta love that.
"Hey, turns out we've devastated the local environment!"
"Why should I care?"
"But whole species could die, or be pushed to the brink of extinction!"
"Meh."
"Well... fishermen could lose their jobs!"
"Oh, that is a big deal! They'd better get right on that."
"Hm, how can I put this... You'll have to pay more for fish, and Your Tax Dollars* will have to be used to solve the problem!"
"TO ACTION!"
(* Your Tax Dollars are not actually yours.)
Just because I don't have and don't like cancer doesn't mean cancer isn't amazingly effective.
And people say cancer isn't funny...
Damn you, Bruce McCulloch!
Engineers are geniuses at engineering. Marketers are geniuses at marketing, a skill which, being social and aesthetic, engineers generally fail at.
Just because I don't box and don't like Mike Tyson doesn't mean Mike Tyson wasn't an amazing boxer.
Tyson was a pioneer. Traditionalists always insist that boxing is a sport in which people are supposed to bludgeon each other with their fists... Tyson broadened our horizons, showed us how the time-honored sport could be enhanced through the use of teeth-based attacks.
For Act IV, he copied Palm's touch phones.
OK, what?
I mean, I liked PalmOS quite a bit back in the day - and I still use a PalmOS Treo...
But what aspects of Palm phones did Apple ever copy? PalmOS pretty much just used the touch-screen as a mouse, expected you to operate it with a stylus. It wasn't until after iPhone that Palm started in with WebOS and made phones with a touchscreen UI meant to be operated without a stylus...
True. However, when Jobs goes, whether that be in two weeks or two decades, he will rise again in three days, so let's not be worried.
I hope it's not gonna be one of those deals where he rises from the dead, just to say, "See, I'm totally not dead." and then departs the mortal plane forever... That just seems like showing off.
Really, though, if he comes back from the dead, I expect the first thing he's gonna say is, "Oh, one more thing..."
...everybody dies. Seriously.
But not everybody truly lives!
Sorry, joke fault. I meant, of course, that they blessed the rains down in Africa...
To extend the metaphor a little, your homework assignment is to figure out who Toto is.
I don't know who Toto is, but I have it on good authority that they, at some point, saw the rain down in Africa.
I sorta see people who call someone else a "hater" and think that's an argument the same way.
Yeah, calling someone a "hater" basically means you're negating someone because they happen to have a strong opinion about something...
Everything isn't art.. If i took a sh*t on the sidewalk of some major city street because it was different, socially odd and not logical could I call that pile of poo art?
N
Sure, why not? Take whatever you like, call it art. There aren't any strict rules about what you can call "art". So go ahead, create a body of work, write an elaborate load of bullshit to accompany it ("artist's statement") and see if you have any success showing and selling it, if that's what you want.
Will it be well-received? Who knows? Maybe people will see the work in the spirit in which you apparently intend it - a harsh criticism of the art world in general. "I can do this and it's art and you'll love me for it and buy it - that's what's wrong with art." Some may buy it because they feel the art world richly deserves that kind of treatment. Some may enjoy the fact that you're pissing people off, and support the work so they can piss people off, too. Some may think your work is popular, or that it could one day be valuable, and buy it because of that. You can game the system that you don't respect. Some people have been rather successful at this.
And some may just say, "Oh, this again," point to a dozen artists who did the same thing, devise rationalizations for why their version was better than yours, etc. In reality it's possible the novelty of the idea has just worn off.
The point is, "art" doesn't imply "good art" or "worthwhile art" or "interesting art" or "popular art". Really, all those subsets of "art" are largely independent of one another. You can create whatever you want and call it "art". You may find this personally rewarding or you may hope to profit from it... The term "art" doesn't actually convey any special status.
it looks like his idea didn't... *glasses*... develop well.
Huh? I don't get it...
That wouldn't have been creepy enough. Unless by strap-on you mean that other kind...
Surely the porn industry must, by now, have created a strap-on with a camera in it...
"Yes. Everything that isn't directly and solely related to the practical actions necessary for survival is art."
So me pissing on someones head from a bridge must be pure art then?
Could be, actually. Why not?
Whether anybody wants to come see your performances, or the gallery opening where you exhibit photos of yourself doing this is another matter entirely.
>>>On trains you can sleep, watch movies, play video games, whatever.
I already do some of that in my car (read books via audio, listen to movies, listen to music, or hear college lectures/podcasts). The 30-45 minute drive to work is not a waste when you plan ahead..... and it's my own personal world, that is not being interrupted by smelly, rude people (the type riding on trains).
If I were talking about a 30-45 minute drive, it wouldn't even be worth the trouble of getting to the train station to avoid it...
I'm talking about a trip that takes 6-12 hours (or more!) by car. Boston to Rochester, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, DC, Chicago, etc.
I have gotten through trips like that with audio books and music - it's enjoyable, and it's a pretty good way to carve out an hour or two of the trip. But it can be tiresome listening to the narrator for that long.
As for the people on trains - obviously this is going to vary, and I have ridden with some people I would have preferred not to - but most of the time I've found the people riding trains to be pretty nice. But, again, I'm talking about Amtrak interstate travel here, not subways... Subways are less pleasant. :)
Geez...where and when do you drive where you have a hundred miles of creep along, stand still traffic??
Jersey turnpike on a bad day. :)
Of course, on a 600 mile drive, it's pretty easy to accumulate 100 miles of horrible traffic over various points in the trip. Just drive through Connecticut, NY, and Jersey and you're most of the way there...
"Compare the experience of a delay or layover on a train to the experience of being stuck in traffic"
High speed trains are almost stuck-free. They go over they own rails, each way. I used to take it almost weekly and I got only one problem in 6/7 years.
Even better.
But my experience with train travel is just the present Amtrak (not even Acela) - going just about anywhere from here (Boston area) means a couple hours sitting around in New York.
But it's much more pleasant to spend those hours on a train rather than, say, driving in Hartford, New York, or on the Jersey pike when there's traffic there. A long drive without much traffic is taxing and monotonous. Add traffic and the trip can become borderline hellish pretty quick. If I were on the train experiencing that kind of delay it'd be a lot less frustrating because I wouldn't have to deal with it on a minute-to-minute basis. Instead I could relax.
Then they forced them too with guns.
I think you're missing a comma in there...
Meanwhile, you can't even take AmTrak from Los Angeles to San Francisco. You have to get off and ride the bus. It's been like this for months. Do the politicians seriously think they need to invest in high speed trains when they can't even maintain the normal ones?
Maybe they think they need to invest in high speed trains because the normal ones aren't sufficient?
I mean, they could invest the same money in the regular rail system, but one of the basic problems with passenger rail at present is that it runs freight rails. To make the system work better you need more rail, so the passenger rail isn't constantly at the mercy of freight rail schedules.
If you thought making air travel "secure" was fun, wait until you try to make hundreds of miles of train tracks secure.
Suppose you don't make tracks secure, though. What's going to happen?
I mean, you bomb the train or you bomb the tracks, what you've accomplished is damaging some rail, wrecking a train, killing the people on the train and doing some damage to anything the train hits when it derails. A horrific scene to be sure. But it doesn't measure up to the level of damage done in the WTC incident (thousands dead, the whole incident broadcast live to the whole country as it dragged out over hours, toxic building debris scattered through the surrounding air, etc.) - it's not as destructive and it's not as potent in its "terror". So while it'd be a relatively easy target, I don't see it as being a particularly worthwhile target for terrorism.
This isn't a troll, I would really like someone to explain the situations where a high speed train is better than an airplane or a car.
If I travel by car, I need to drive it. If the destination is hundreds of miles away this can be very wearying. If there's traffic involved it can be agonizing.
If I travel by air, the actual travel time is usually quite nice, but I spend far too much time dealing with airports. If I'm at the airport for a few hours at a stretch, I have some time to relax - but getting to the airport an hour before departure, going through security, sitting around waiting to get on a plane, getting on a plane, waiting for the plane to take off, and then repeating the process anywhere I have to change planes - it's all kind of a drag. It is possible, as you say, that high-speed rail will have all the same problems.
What I enjoy about rail travel presently is that it's very low-stress and generally quite enjoyable. I can get to the station five minutes before my train leaves and walk on when it's time. The travel itself takes a long time, but there's not a lot of switching trains. Mostly I can just stay put in my seat, sleep continuously through the whole trip if I need the sleep, or use the computer or whatever.
Somebody else pointed out that it's very difficult to crash a train into a skyscraper - obviously if the train were to be used as a vector for a terrorist attack they'd figure something else out - but offhand I couldn't say what could be done with a train to make it as dangerous as a hijacked plane... Put a nuclear weapon or bioweapon on it? Assuming you've got such a thing in the country in the first place, it seems you'd be better served just driving it yourself...
Where the fuck was your bitting sarcasm 3-10 years ago, smartass?
I'm pretty sure we had political pundits back then, too.
>>>like they do in France or Japan
Why would we want to imitate two countries that have spent the last 15+ years in economic decline (called "the lost decade" in Japan)? That would be akin to saying, "Let's model our system on the fallen empire of Rome." Um. No thanks.
Cars offer more flexibility than trains do (you can hop in your car in the middle of the night - can't do that with a train). Cars also offer more options (can drive to the beach tomorrow - can't do that with a train).
Yeah, but trains offer you the ability to spend your travel time doing something other than driving. You can sleep, watch movies, play video games, whatever.
Compare the experience of a delay or layover on a train to the experience of being stuck in traffic - in either case you may stress out about whether you'll reach your destination on time, but in the case of train travel you can relax and count on the train crew to work it out. You aren't operating a vehicle as it creeps forward in a hundred miles of stop-and-go traffic, you are in a comfortable seat with easy access to your luggage, there is a toilet available and probably a snack car.
Train travel is relatively expensive and I'm not fond of that aspect of it, obviously - but what I love about it is that it's so relaxed compared to flying or driving. I don't have to deal with the elaborate security that airports have, and I don't have to be driving for ten hours straight. I do have to be sitting in a train for a long period of time (hours, overnight, whatever) to get to my destination - but most of the time I have access to a power outlet and the freedom to use my computer. It's an enjoyable way to travel.
It's true that with trains, as with flying, you wind up at the destination station with no means of travel to your real destination. One could rent a car or get a cab or whatever - I agree it's a problem, a fundamental limitation of traveling that way. Still, in some cases this limitation is perfectly OK - I can travel to DC and have my in-laws pick me up at the station, or travel to Baltimore or Pittsburgh and walk to the con center, things like that.
None of the trains I've ever been on have run (close to) empty. They're usually (in my experience) filled to capacity for most of the trip.
I just wish people would quit treating it like there's only two options.
It's not that there's only two options: but if you find the DRM objectionable, you should either be willing to act on that, or STFU and accept it. The third option, whining about it and doing nothing, is viable but not really worthwhile.
Avoiding any kind of monetary support toward the DRMing publisher is just one way you can act on your objection. But if your objection isn't strong enough that you're willing to do something about that, it's good to recognize that and move on.
What's that comment about them coming for the communists, but I wasn't a communist, then they came for my XBox but I had a PS3 and then they came for me and there was no one left to fight for me?
As I recall it goes something like this:
"First they came for the communists, but I wasn't a communist, then they came for my XBox but I had a PS3, and then they came for me and there was no one left to fight for me."
Even corporations. Let's boycott Capcom's games, Capcom's gadgets, and Capcom's websites.
-1 over-rated??? More like: +1 insightful.
I am with you 100%. Boycott them.
Sorry, it is overrated. Boycotting content companies doesn't work. They blame piracy instead of noticing that people aren't handing them money.
Even if it doesn't accomplish something, I think it's important that people recognize the limits of their resolve.
"Capcom's new games have horrible anti-piracy measures"
"I hate that! Fuck Capcom!"
"Yeah, let's not buy any more Capcom stuff..."
"Sure! Except for that new Street Fighter game."
See, if you're not willing to go at least as far as avoiding products you find objectionable, your outrage is meaningless. Testing that resolve, instead of merely talking about it, is necessary in order to resolve the issue to your own satisfaction. (i.e. either accept the DRM, or accept that you won't own those games that use it...)